February 4, 2004
5th GLOBAL WOMEN'S STRIKE - March 8, 2004
Calling all men to join with women to
STOP THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT!
INVEST IN CARING NOT KILLING!
The GLOBAL WOMEN'S STRIKE was born in 1999, when women in Ireland decided to welcome the new millennium with a national general strike. They asked the International Wages for Housework Campaign to support their call, and we called on women all over the world to make the Strike global on 8 March 2000.
The Strike came out of a long grassroots history, starting in 1952 with a little pamphlet called A Woman's Place and continuing with Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community, now a classic, in 1972, and Sex, Race and Class in 1973.* All three made the case that the work women do for wages is a second job, that the work we do in the home and in the community without wages, producing all the workers of the world, and our struggle to change the world, were invisible but central.
Since then, we have been campaigning to get RECOGNITION and WAGES for all the unwaged work women do, as well as for PAY EQUITY -- these are JOINT LEVERS against women's poverty, exploitation and discrimination of every kind. According to the UN, women do 2/3 of the world's work: from breastfeeding and raising children to caring for those who are sick, older or disabled, to growing, preparing and cooking the food that feeds families, communities and continents (80% of food consumed in Africa is grown by women), to volunteer work and to work in the informal economy as cleaners, seamstresses, street sellers, sex workers, as well as work in the formal economy. Here again women's work is often caring for people, in hospitals and schools, as domestic workers, childminders, personal assistants . . . or in sweatshops - jobs where men who do comparable work also get low pay. But women get the lowest, and often face sexual and racial harassment.
Although in every country all this work is basic to the welfare and even survival of humanity, it is devalued and ignored by the Market, and women get only 5% of the world's assets in return.
In Beijing in 1995, the International Women Count Network which we co-ordinate, supported by more than 1,500 organisations, won a major UN decision. National accounts were to include how much of their lifetime women spend doing unwaged work and how much value this work creates. Trinidad & Tobago and Spain have put this into law; other countries are carrying out time-use surveys and increasingly consider unwaged work in court decisions and government policies.
*Until then, it was assumed that only those who did waged work, mainly men in industrial countries, were 'real' workers, and that only they could change the world. The Wages for Housework Campaign broke with this sexism and racism, establishing autonomy as a new basis for organising and unifying.
Women in over 60 countries
Since 2000 the Strike has been a great success. It has brought together women in over 60 COUNTRIES, including grassroots organisations with impressive track records, who also demand a world that values all women's work and every life, and who have achieved much. They are now part of an international network of Strike co-ordinators.
In Venezuela, we are working with the women who are building a caring economy and won Article 88 of the Constitution, which recognises housework as an economic activity that creates added value and produces social welfare and wealth, entitling housewives to social security. The Strike has been spreading news of such momentous victories, supporting the revolutionary process there in which women from the grassroots are the most active participants.
The Strike is part of the movement against war and occupation not only in Iraq but in Palestine, Chechnya, Colombia, Congo, Kashmir . . . Our priority has been to highlight the struggle that women make and the direction this gives, from which the whole movement benefits but which is often as ignored as the unwaged survival work we do. With the theme INVEST IN CARING NOT KILLING, we demand that the $900+ billion now spent on military budgets is used instead for basic survival needs -- clean accessible water, food security, healthcare, housing, education, safety from rape and other violence, protection of our planet -- and therefore for women who are the first carers and the first fighters for the survival of loved ones. We claim for a start the US military budget -- over half the world's military spending --with which "Corporate America" imposes its economic and political interests on the whole world (including on people in the US).
The contribution of those sectors most discriminated against
Those sectors of women who are most discriminated against -- all women of colour, including women of Indigenous, African and Asian descent, single mothers, women with disabilities, immigrant women, sex workers, lesbian women -- use the Strike to spell out their contribution to every economy, society and struggle. The Strike insists that more powerful sectors acknowledge this contribution.
We also demand recognition for the contribution of men who actively support our struggle because they agree that INVEST IN CARING NOT KILLING is the priority of all workers and all humanity. Not only do men owe women their daily survival&emdash;from breastfeeding to cooked meals, clean clothes and emotional support&emdash;but they also depend on women prioritising survival to oppose the values of the Market, values which now threaten the survival of the world. The web page of Payday, a network of men, <http://www.refusingtokill.net/>, is an important contribution to the movement against war, and to the recognition of all those who risk their own life and liberty in defence of everyone's life and liberty.
A framework for unity
We are often told that in order to win we must unite, but we don't hear much about how to do that (except from political parties that want to lead us). We use the Strike as a framework for unity -- among sectors of women, between women and men, within and among countries -- because it is based on each sector accepting and enriching the independent struggle of every other. The Strike is not party political, nor is it separatist. It is ambitious for the movement for change but it stands against personal ambition that undermines mutual accountability.
The Global Women's Strike has extended from taking joint action every 8 March. It is now a global network that strengthens the ongoing daily struggle of grassroots women (and men). We attach what Strike coordinators in some countries say about what they have achieved with it.
The Strike establishes that as carers, waged or unwaged, we are always WORKERS, and that we have the power to bring the whole economy to a halt. That's what women did in Iceland on 24 October 1975. They said: WHEN WOMEN STOP, EVERYTHING STOPS.
We add: STOP THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT.
Strike demands
- Payment for all caring work &endash; in wages, pensions, land & other resources. What is more valuable than raising children & caring for others? Invest in life & welfare, not military budgets & prisons.
- Pay equity for all, women and men, in the global market.
- Food security for all, starting with breastfeeding mothers. Paid maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks & other benefits &endash; stop penalising us for being women.
- Don't pay 'Third World debt'. We owe nothing, they owe us.
- Accessible clean water, healthcare, housing, transport, literacy.
- Non-polluting energy & technology which shortens the hours we work. We all need cookers, fridges, washing machines, computers, & time off!
- Protection & asylum from all violence & persecution, including by family members & people in positions of authority.
- Freedom of movement. Capital travels freely, why not people
Selma James and Nina López, 17 January 2004
<mailto:womenstrike8m@server101.com> <http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/>
Philadelphia Crossroads Women's Centre
PO Box 11795, Philadelphia, PA 19101
Tel: 001-215-848 1120 Fax: 001-215-848 1130
<mailto:philly@crossroadswomen.net>philly@crossroadswomen.net
San Francisco Crossroads Women's Centre
PO Box 14512, SF, CA 94114
Tel/Fax: 001-415-626 4114
<mailto:sf@crossroadswomen.net>sf@crossroadswomen.net