The so-called “Day Without A Woman” strike scheduled for March 8 was first conceived by a group of extremists under the banner of the International Women’s Strike, through a call to action posted in The Guardian newspaper, Women of America: we’re going on strike. Join us so Trump will see our power:
As a first step, we propose to help build an international strike against male violence and in defense of reproductive rights on 8 March. In this, we join with feminist groups from around 30 countries who have called for such a strike….The women’s marches of 21 January have shown that in the United States, too, a new feminist movement may be in the making. It is important not to lose momentum.Let us join together on 8 March to strike, walk out, march and demonstrate. Let us use the occasion of this international day of action to be done with lean-in feminism and to build in its place a feminism for the 99%, a grassroots, anti-capitalist feminism – a feminism in solidarity with working women, their families and their allies throughout the world.
One of the women issuing the call was the virulently anti-Israel activist Angela Davis, former leader of the Communist Party USA and Black Panther.
Another was convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who served 10 years in Israeli prison for the 1969 SuperSol supermarket bombing that killed Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner. See the background on Rasmea in the post On March 8, remember victims of #DayWithoutAWoman co-organizer Rasmea Odeh (#DayWithoutEdwardandLeon).
Rasmea’s involvement has stirred controversy in the U.S.
The International Women’s Strike has affiliated marches and strikes around the world in many countries. In the U.S., the strike is marketed by the same group that arranged the Women’s March on Washington.
A press statement from the International Women’s Strike notes the connection (pdf.)(emphasis added)
At this moment there are plans in place to have rallies and demonstrations in NYC, Chicago, LA, and several university campuses.We have received several endorsements from grass root organizations and labor unions and the list of endorsements is steadily growing (see here:womenstrikeus.org/endorsements). We are also cooperating with the Women’s March, which has decided to call for A Day Without A Woman in solidarity with the International Women’s Strike.
This article in the left-wing Truthout with one of the women issuing the international strike call explains how that international call developed, in the U.S., into the Day Without A Woman movement:
Sarah Jaffe: You were one of the original people who called for a women’s strike on March 8. Can you tell us a little bit about that?Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: The idea for the women’s strike actually didn’t originate in the United States, but it is a call in solidarity with women’s organizations from 30 different countries who put out a call for a strike on International Women’s Day, March 8. This is our effort at trying to explain why it was important that American feminists sign onto this call … in this country, part of our intention is to bring politics back to International Women’s Day by turning it into a political event, by highlighting the ways that women continue to suffer from misogyny and sexism in the United States and to give concrete descriptions of that….Talk about the organizing that is going on to make the strike happen and the connection with the Women’s March organizers.The organizing has been fast and furious because we have a limited amount of time before March 8. There is some local organizing happening. I know there have been on-the-ground meetings in Philly and New York and Chicago and Berkeley and Pittsburgh, and other places that have called organizing meetings, but on a national level I think it was an important development that … there is one person who was part of [the January 21 Women’s March] organizing team who has been an active participant in the Women’s Strike organizing. There was an agreement that we would work together.The Women’s Strike National Coordinating Committee has been working with the Women’s March, the January 21 organizers, in terms of trying to put out some joint statements in trying to bring attention to the Women’s Strike, but also, they are planning what they refer to as “A Day Without a Woman” also for March 8, which has a different set of politics and a different platform than the Women’s Strike, but there is a sense that it is better to work together and try to combine our forces than to call a bunch of separate days of action. That is how we have proceeded.
The Day Without A Woman website also notes the connection to the International Women’s Strike:
The Women’s March stands in solidarity with the International Women’s Strike organizers, feminists of color and grassroots groups in planning global actions for equity, justice and human rights.
The platform for the March 8 International Women’s Strike – USA provides in part that the “decolonization of Palestine” is part of the “beating heart” of the movement (emphasis added):
For an Antiracist and Anti-imperialist FeminismAgainst the open white supremacists in the current government and the far right and anti-Semites they have given confidence to, we stand for an uncompromising anti-racist and anti-colonial feminism. This means that movements such as Black Lives Matter, the struggle against police brutality and mass incarceration, the demand for open borders and for immigrant rights and for the decolonization of Palestine are for us the beating heart of this new feminist movement. We want to dismantle all walls, from prison walls to border walls, from Mexico to Palestine.
The “decolonization of Palestine” is nothing more than a euphemism for the destruction of Israel, which anti-Israel activists refer to as a “settler colonial state.”
The call to destroy Israel is not included, as far as I can tell, in the official “Day Without A Woman” website, but the International Women’s Strike platform is being promoted on Facebook, such as at this event page for a protest at Syracuse University, in connection with the “Day Without A Woman” protest:
The International Women’s Strike is a subterfuge to normalize an anti-Israel platform, much like happened with the Movement for Black Lives platform. It is part of a concerted effort to turn unrelated protest movements against Israel, If you are surprised #BlackLivesMatter joined war on Israel, you haven’t been paying attention:
For years we have been documenting the efforts by anti-Israel activists to stoke racial hatred of Israel through the concept of “intersectionality” – the notion that all revolutionary struggles, particularly against racism, are connected.The almost exclusive focus, however, is Israel. Hence, Israel is falsely blamed for local police shootings of blacks in the U.S. based upon false and misleading claims I debunked in my post, Exposed: Years-long effort to blame Israel for U.S. police shootings of blacks….No other country except Israel is used as pervasively as the connector for intersectionality. It’s a seedy tactic meant to exploit domestic U.S. racial tensions having nothing to do with Israel, and to turn those tensions into racial hatred of the supposedly “white” Israel.
Most of the people participating in the March 8 movement probably don’t realize how they are being used to advance an anti-Israel agenda.
But the women who issued the call for the international strike, including Angela Davis and Rasmea Odeh, almost certainly know exactly what they are doing.
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