Lights out. Lady Liberty goes dark to mark the start of A Day Without A Women.
In the early hours of the morning, the lights on Liberty Island went out and the Statue of Liberty was plunged into darkness. So began A Day Without A Women, coinciding with International Women's Day and orchestrated by the Women's March, which drew millions of people to the streets in January. Organizers are calling on women to; take the day off, from paid and unpaid labor; avoid shopping for one day (with exceptions for small, women- and minority-owned businesses); and wear RED in solidarity with A Day Without A Woman.
Dozens of schools will be closed and marches, shut-downs, and takeovers are planned in many cities. Strike organizers wrote:
“The idea is to mobilize women, including trans women, and all who support them in an international day of struggle – a day of striking, marching, blocking roads, bridges, and squares, abstaining from domestic, care and sex work, boycotting, calling out misogynistic politicians and companies, striking in educational institutions. These actions are aimed at making visible the needs and aspirations of those whom lean-in feminism ignored: women in the formal labor market, women working in the sphere of social reproduction and care, and unemployed and precarious working women.”
Central to the day of action are International Women’s Strike, with more than 50 countries taking part. The U.S. coordinating group writes:
In the spirit of solidarity and internationalism, in the United States March 8th will be a day of action organized by and for women who have been marginalized and silenced by decades of neoliberalism directed towards working women, women of color, Native women, disabled women, immigrant women, Muslim women, lesbian, queer and trans women.
March 8th will be the beginning of a new international feminist movement that organizes resistance not just against Trump and his misogynist policies, but also against the conditions that produced Trump, namely the decades long economic inequality, racial and sexual violence, and imperial wars abroad.
On the eve of International Women's Day a statue of a defiant girl appeared in front of the infamous bull on Wall Street in New York. Drawing crowds and applause, it sadly turned out that this wonderful piece of art was put in place by State Street Global Advisors, a $2.4 trillion asset management firm, to encourage companies to appoint more women to their boards. Thankfully A Day Without A Women and Strike organizers recognize and make plain the structural inequalities that Wall Street are part of, so rather than merely calling for more women in boardrooms they stand for "a feminism for the 99%".
You can follow the events of today as they unfold here: