Like many women, I wrestled—a teeny bit—with whether to report for work today. On the one hand: Rebellion! Solidarity! Activism! Sticking it to the man! All fun things.
On the other, I could afford it. Easily. Not just because I make enough money to go a day without pay, but because I actually work for an enterprise in which the head honcho (hi, Markos!) said the women could strike without fear of either retribution or missing dollars from a paycheck.
If only all women could be so lucky. So very few are.
Truth is, the ability to go without a day’s pay is a luxury for most women. Think of single moms making minimum wage working at McDonald’s or cleaning hotel rooms. Think they can easily miss a day of work?
For those of us who have the luxury of a great boss or decent pay or who can make our own schedules, there is, it seems to me, an obligation to do more than either work/not work, strike/not strike on this International Women’s Day.
If there were a mechanism to donate to a strike fund for strapped women who can’t strike today—but would in the future, for such civilized basics as better wages, paid sick leave, predictable schedules—I’d be all for donating to that. Since we don’t have that, here’s what I’m going to do, and I invite all women so inclined to join me:
Find a cause for women and donate your day’s pay to it. God knows, many organizations are fighting for women and could use the money, from groups fighting for reproductive rights to pay equality to finding and funding women candidates for office. I’m not going to tell you where to give—half the point of it is for us to take 10 minutes and learn about organizations that are doing something great to help women in some sphere, locally or nationally.
For our sisters who don’t have the power or voice or time or means to fight, we need to help them along.
After all, back in 2016 someone said quite a few times we are stronger together. Let’s prove that slogan is truly still worth fighting for.
