Last Saturday was International Women’s Day, and in cities around the world, women and allies took to the streets, striking and marching against patriarchal and capitalist regimes that oppress the economic, cultural and political power of half the world’s population, and refuse to recognise and properly reward the contribution that women make to society.
In London, the afternoon began in Regent’s Park with a focus on striking care workers. We heard stories from various speakers about the exploitation or even abuse of nannies, care workers and domestic servants. Last year, the Voice Of Domestic Workers union rescued more than 50 women from abuse situations in the UK. And campaigners complained about the Bubbles app – a kind of Uber for childcare which exploits female workers in much the same way Deliveroo treats its riders.
Meanwhile, support services are being cut by the new Labour government despite a promise to cut domestic abuse by half. Solace Women’s Aid in Tower Hamlets have been told a third of their staff will lose jobs (in an area with among the highest number of cases). Fortunately, they are members of the United Voices Of The World union, and are now in talks with their employer after threatening to strike over the cuts.
Before the march set off, a young non-binary person gave a confident and powerful take-down of government and media coverage of gender identity. Throughout the afternoon, connections were made between women’s struggles and others, with strong support for racialised communities, trans and queer people, climate activists, and of course Palestine.
As the march headed down Portland Place, with some of the hundreds of participants holding Palestinian flags, several vans of TSG police suddenly turned up to form a defence line in front of the BBC. (Although none appeared to be deployed outside the nearby Synagogue, which was recently given as the reason for a ban on a Palestinian Solidarity Campaign assembly outside the BBC recently.)
At Oxford Circus, the march paused to hear speeches from representatives of Congolese, Tigrayan, Kurdish and other communities, with horrific stories of rape being used as a weapon of war, and women facing oppression and violence. Eight ‘reasons to strike’ (see below) were read out, before continuing the march down Regents Street to Piccadilly Circus.
There, the focus moved to the sex workers’ strike, with representatives of the Sex Workers Union, English Collection of Prostitutes and others taking to the microphone. They spoke about how some women are driven to prostitution by government policies which cause poverty, while the same government criminalises aspects of sex work in ways which make it less safe, and which punish self-help solutions. For instance, while it is legal to provide sex in exchange for money, if two or more people do it from the same address it becomes illegal, meaning workers are isolated and more open to abuse. The main call was for decriminalisation.
Among the speakers in Piccadilly Circus was Sara Calloway from Women of Colour in the Global Women’s Strike. Her speech was notable in connecting so many of the themes of the afternoon.
The event was supported by these groups and more:
All African Women’s Group, Anti-Imperialist Front, Argentina Solidarity Campaign, Congolese Action Youth Platform, DECRIM NOW, Empty Chair Collective, ESEA Sisters, Espresión INCA, Feminist Assembly of Latin Americans, Feminist Fightback, Women*Rising, Housing Action Southwark & Lambeth, Hackney Anarchists, Jiyan Kurdish Women’s Assembly in Britain, London for Sudan, London Trans+ Pride, Migrants in Culture, Mekete UK, Nanny Solidarity Network, Orchestrated Discontent, PLAN C, Pride of Arabia, Queers for Palestine, Reclaim Croydon, Sex Workers Union, Sisters Uncut, SWARM, Socialist Women’s Union, Tigray Youth Network, Tower Hamlets Transpride, Trans Strike Back, United 4 Mahsa, United Voices of the World, Warmis UK, Women’s Strike Assembly, Young Struggle.
Eight ‘reasons to strike’:
- We strike to grieve all our lost siblings and territories, taken by state fascism, capitalism, and its war-for-profit machine, knowing that this disproportionately targets our trans, migrant, Global Majority siblings, and those with disabilities.
- We strike because the UK state has not silenced us with the criminalisation of our resistance and the persecution of our movements. Maintaining our community spaces is a constant struggle, and the police do not keep us safe. We keep each other safe!
- We strike in solidarity with revolutionary feminists and land defenders, and all those resisting colonial violence in Palestine, Kurdistan, Abya Yala, Congo, Sudan and around the world.
- We strike against the global disregard for climate crisis driven by capitalism, which threatens our lives and collective well-being here in the UK and especially in the Global South, Indigenous and rural communities, and those on low income or with disabilities.
- We strike against all forms of sexual violence, and against a cis hetero patriarchal economic system that exploits our reproductive labour, that refuses to value care work, and seeks to impose control over those with child-bearing capacity.
- We strike because we believe that a system that truly recognises the value of care work is possible. We do not believe in a patriarchal economic system that exploits our reproductive labour and refuses to value care.
- We strike because we believe that all forms of oppression are inter-connected, and as anti-colonial Global Majority feminists we take to the streets to unite our struggles for racial justice, queer liberation, climate, migrant and disablity justice.
- We strike because we believe taking the streets is a way of transforming collective grief into hope and liberation. When we stop – the world stops, a better life is possible for all of us on the other end of this strike!
