Why we’re striking with women worldwide March 8

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Staff offices of Jewish Voice for Peace will be closed tomorrow, March 8th in honor of the International Women’s Strike, planned and organized by women in 30 countries in the Global North and South.

We are proud to join tens of thousands who will be in the streets tomorrow in solidarity with the call for women’s freedom and dignity, and an end to gender-based violence for all women around the world. Strikes have long been part of social justice traditions and are all the more urgent and necessary in this political moment where we are seeing an unprecedented assault on the freedoms so hard won by generations of women before us.

As an organization founded by women, we are deeply committed to a feminist framework and have long approached our work from that perspective. We know a more just world demands the liberation of all women from all forms of oppression and violence for ourselves and our communities. As an organization with deep ties to women’s leadership in the Israeli and Palestinian movements for justice, we strike in honor of the women freedom fighters in Palestine who are models of how to face oppression with resilience, steadfastness and love. These women are the faithful stewards  of Palestinian culture, fearless frontline demonstrators against Israel’s military occupation of their lands and homes, and the greatest contradiction and antidote to the militarized society that plagues Israel/Palestine.

Striking on March 8th is just a part of our broader commitment to rise up with women around the world to oppose all forms of political, cultural and economic attacks on women of color, Muslim and migrant women, working and unemployed women, on lesbian, gender non-conforming and trans women here in the US. We are united with women the world over in demanding reproductive freedom, an end to violence against women, economic exploitation, mass incarceration, and racist immigration policies, from the U.S. to Palestine and around the world.

The Women’s March on January 21st, immediately following the inauguration, was an important moment of mass resistance to Trump, one that we have seen continue at airports, town halls, and streets across the country. Withdrawing our cooperation, through strikes, boycotts and divestments, are the tools that we have to exercise our power for justice, not just today but ongoing throughout the Trump administration’s tenure. We strike for the rights of all women, everywhere, regardless of identity or access to power and privilege.

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