Toady is International Women's Day, and some of the activists behind the Women's March on Washington are looking to recapture that day's momentum in "A Day Without a Woman."
The main idea behind the strike is for women nationwide to to take the day off from work – for both paid and unpaid jobs. The strike also calls for women to avoid shopping for one day, except for at "small, women- and minority owned businesses." Of course, not everyone can afford to take the day off from work and stay away from a store all day – those women are encouraged to wear red in solidarity with the strike.
Tamkia Mallory, one of the lead organizers behind the Women's March on Washington in January, appeared in a minute-and-a-half online ad from MoveOn.Org to explaining the rationale behind the day's demonstration, and lay out the strikers' agenda.
"If I see that white folks are concerned, then people of color need to be terrified," Mallory explains in the video. "And what we're seeing right now, particularly in the Women's March, is that there are a lot of white women and white people who are saying what is happening with our country is very dangerous and we know that the most marginalized communities will, in fact, be impacted first."
In the early planning stages of January's Women's March, some of the groups involved received quite a bit of flak for not designing the march in a way that embraced diversity. Eventually the activists behind the march brought in more organizers of color to help remedy that – though some conservative groups still scoffed at the fact that pro-life women's groups were largely barred from helping organize the event. That mostly all fell by the wayside after an estimated 4 million people participated in the Women's March across the globe.
Today's strike won't reach those blockbuster numbers, but it will definitely help keep a major resistance movement against Trump in the national conversation.
The main idea behind the strike is for women nationwide to to take the day off from work – for both paid and unpaid jobs. The strike also calls for women to avoid shopping for one day, except for at "small, women- and minority owned businesses." Of course, not everyone can afford to take the day off from work and stay away from a store all day – those women are encouraged to wear red in solidarity with the strike.
Tamkia Mallory, one of the lead organizers behind the Women's March on Washington in January, appeared in a minute-and-a-half online ad from MoveOn.Org to explaining the rationale behind the day's demonstration, and lay out the strikers' agenda.
"If I see that white folks are concerned, then people of color need to be terrified," Mallory explains in the video. "And what we're seeing right now, particularly in the Women's March, is that there are a lot of white women and white people who are saying what is happening with our country is very dangerous and we know that the most marginalized communities will, in fact, be impacted first."
In the early planning stages of January's Women's March, some of the groups involved received quite a bit of flak for not designing the march in a way that embraced diversity. Eventually the activists behind the march brought in more organizers of color to help remedy that – though some conservative groups still scoffed at the fact that pro-life women's groups were largely barred from helping organize the event. That mostly all fell by the wayside after an estimated 4 million people participated in the Women's March across the globe.
Today's strike won't reach those blockbuster numbers, but it will definitely help keep a major resistance movement against Trump in the national conversation.