Women's organisations, feminist groups and women's alliances around the world are preparing for March 8, International Women's Day. Women organising strikes, marches and actions around the world to defend gender equality, an end to male violence, equal pay for equal work and their rights will be on the streets on March 8 and on strike on March 9. Saying "If we stop, the world stops", women are challenging the patriarchal system by halting production and life.  

 

As March 8 falls on a Sunday this year, numerous women's organisations across Europe have decided to strike on March 9. Women are protesting against sexism by not going to work or shopping and by cutting off domestic care services, depending on the conditions in their countries. They are organising a collective protest against increasing militarism and social cuts, drawing attention to the invisibility of women's labour.  One of the organisations organising the 9 March Women's Strike in Germany is the young women's organisation ZORA. The organisation will be on strike this year demanding an end to violence against women, war, and sexual violence in prisons, and a life that is affordable for everyone. 

 

ZORA spokesperson Anna Liedtke spoke to the Mezopotamya Agency (MA) about women's struggles and the strike. 

 

PATRIARCHY IS A GLOBAL PROBLEM

 

Anna Liedtke stated that patriarchy is a global problem and that they are therefore in solidarity with women not only in Europe but all over the world, especially Palestinian and Kurdish women. Anna Liedtke said that solidarity with Palestinian women in Germany is criminalised, and that as a result, their buildings were raided and their homes searched about two years ago. Anna Liedtke said, "It's nothing isolated; we see the whole violence against protesters every day on the streets, but I think as young women especially, we play a role in that movement."  

 

‘WE WANT TO SELF-DETERMINE HOW WE WANT TO LIVE’

 

Anna Liedtke, emphasising the importance of taking to the streets on International Women’s Day on March 8, said that because March 8 falls on a Sunday this year, they have decided to go on strike on Monday March 9. Anna Liedtke said: “We strike essentially against violence, against war, so we have some demands. In Germany, it's this 500 billion that was spent on the military; in other countries in Europe, it's not quite 500 billion, but it's still a huge amount of money that is spent on the military. And that is just missing when it comes to protecting women from violence, for example, women's houses, or anywhere—looking at the education sector, looking at social institutions where homeless people can get help, where refugees can get help. There are cuts in the budgets, while at the same time the government is spending so much money on the military, and they're still discussing if they want women also to go to the front and die for their profit interests, or if we as women are more useful when we're staying at home, cooking dinner, and hoping that our husband returns from the front anytime soon. So this has nothing to do with self-determination, and that's why we're striking. Because we want to self-determine how we want to live, and we don't want to be dependent on anything.”

 

UNSEEN LABOUR 

 

Anna Liedtke added, referring to unpaid labour: "All the work we do in the house, all that labour that is done, is not paid. People think, ‘okay, it's nothing, it's just a little cleaning,’ but in reality, you can compare it to another full-time job next to your actual full-time job that you have to do when you get home, and all that kind of expectations. So by showing what is missing when we as women put down the work in the house for a day, we will make that reproductive work visible and show what we actually do in one day." 

 

OBSTACLES TO WOMEN'S STRUGGLE 

 

Anna Liedtke emphasised that women are exploited both at home and at work, and she pointed out that women's strikes are more important than ever in this day and age. She also touched upon the obstacles facing women's struggle and organisation, stating, "There are different reasons, I think COVID-19 being one of the biggest. Because it came with not only us being isolated and us having to stay inside the house, but also with lots of repression. During COVID-19, anyone who went to the street faced a huge amount of repression, and it still continues. Of course they also used COVID-19 to kind of test and try out what kind of repression is possible. But ideologically, on the women's movement, that had a huge impact—to be more bound to the house, to be more just inside, isolated in the end from society and life—that did have a huge impact. Looking at the women's movement in a broader context, what we see is that there's a lack of leadership, there's a lack of ‘okay, where do we go,’ there's a lack of organization, so that comes hand in hand with the ideological question of, ‘is it legitimate to take to the streets’."

 

Although the right to strike is constitutionally guaranteed in Germany, Anna Liedtke points out that within the legal framework, it only covers trade union strikes relating to collective agreements and working conditions. "We also have to see that the women's strike is not very established in Germany, and there's also the ban on political strikes, which will make it hard. The unions are striking over this whole period now, in different areas, in different sectors, so we are kind of able to combine it. But in general, women taking to the streets on their own is not something new, but it's something that is also highly discussed within the women's movement. For example, on the 8th of March and the 25th of November, are we taking to the streets as women alone, or are we going with men, that's the thing that has been discussed for the last decade. So there are different points; in the women's movement in general, we could see that with October 7th, there was a huge split in groups who were in solidarity with Palestine and those who were no. We also experienced that with being kicked out of alliances or us not wanting to work with other groups anymore because they are Zionists, or close to Zionism. So I think that there are just split-up groups, and not really one joint movement. We think that this 8th of March can be one step closer to uniting the women's movement a little bit with those who have the same ideas.”

 

'WHY IS EUROPE CAUSING WARS?'

 

Anna Lidtke pointed out that despite cuts in social budgets, the excessive spending on the military directly affects Europe and European women through wars in the Middle East and other regions. She said: “There's a huge financial interest in keeping those wars going, not taking care or into consideration at all what happens to the people there. And when there are refugees coming to Europe because of the wars that are caused by Europe, then of course there's this huge racist debate on.”

 

'WE CANNOT SEE OURSELVES AS SEPARATE FROM ONE ANOTHER'

 

Anna Lidtke stated that there are different forms of pressure against the women's struggle in every country, but that the demand for women's right to determine their own destiny is a unifying force despite the different conditions. 

 

She concluded: "If we look at Iran and Rojhilat, we see that the women are rising up because they don't want to wear their hijab anymore, looking especially at the protests after Jina Amini was murdered. But in Germany, we're also fighting for self-determination, and that can look like struggling for the right to a safe abortion, for example. I think you don't have to look at it very specifically, but looking at it in a broader sense, we can see that what unites us is the will and the belief that we will be free, and that we want to be free, and that we can liberate ourselves. That gives us the power and the legitimacy to fight for it, and seeing that if they attack our sisters in Kurdistan, that's also an attack on us, because we cannot see each other isolated from one another. I want to invite and call everyone to the streets, and I hope that we will be many women not working that day, showing that if we want, the world will stand still, and showing what we actually do in the day. Also, of course, calling everyone to March 8th for the demonstrations. We will see you there.”

 

MA / Hivda Çelebi