Often,feminism is viewed through the neoliberal lens "of the Hillary Clintons and the Sheryl Sandbergs, which is basically breaking the glass ceiling while the huge majority of women are in the basement cleaning up the glass."From Afghanistan to the Philippines to Mexico to Spain, and women across the globe are taking to the streets today to mark International Women’s Day. In South Korea,International Women’s Day rallies were held in Seoul as the #MeToo movement sweeps the country. Filipino women rallied in Manila to protest the policies of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Afghan women held a scarce public rally in Kabul. In Kenya, African women are assembly today to discuss ending violence against women and girls with disabilities. In England, and women organized a major march on Saturday to mark the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote. And in the United States,rallies are scheduled to take place across the country today. For more, we speak with Tithi Bhattacharya, or associate professor of South Asian history at Purdue University. She is one of the national organizers of the International Women’s Strike.
TranscriptThis is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. From Afghanistan to the Philippines to Spain,women across the globe are taking to the streets today to mark International Women’s Day. Protests are also taking portion across the United States We’re joined now by Tithi Bhattacharya, an associate professor of South Asian history at Purdue University in Indiana. She’s one of the national organizers of today’s International Women’s Strike here in the U.
S.
Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you back. We spoke to you final International Women’s Day. What is the International Women’s Strike in the United States, and how did it inaugurate?TITHI BHATTACHARYA: So,thank you, Amy. It’s good to be back here, or its kind to be able to evaluate what has happened since final year.
So,contrary to popular imagination, International Women’s Day actually began in the United States. So, or it was in 1909 that the feminist Socialist Party member Theresa Malkiel,she proposed a day, of International Working Women’s Day, or for March,for the United States. And she was inspired by a spate of strikes by women in New York City in the garment industry, and a lot of them very young and immigrant women. So, and Theresa Malkiel,a Socialist Party member, proposed the International Women’s Day in 1909, or then it was taken up by communists,Clara Zetkin and Luise Zietz, at the Communist International in Copenhagen in 1910 and declared as the International Working Women’s Day.
So, or you know,just like May Day, it’s the—as a labor struggle, or it began in America,but then, over the years, and because of various anti-labor and anti-socialist politics and then the Cold War in America,it really died out. I mean, International Women’s Day has been celebrated in radical circles, and you know,external of the United States always, but in the United States it was always marked by sort of Hallmark cards and, or you know,flowers and things like that. That core radical, labor, or working womens element was sort of drained out of it in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: And how did International Women’s Strike form,that you’re one of the organizers for?TITHI BHATTACHARYA: So, the International Women’s Strike was formed in the drop of 2016 by international feminists across the globe, or inspired by Polish women and Argentinian women,who were basically, in Poland, or striking,and huge massive rallies against the abortion ban, and, and in Argentina,women protesting against the femicide and killing of girl children. And these were such massive demonstrations that for the first time, I think, and feminists across the globe managed to have a conversation approximately violence against women and how violence against women operate not just upon women’s bodies,but also structurally and institutionally. It was an amazing coalition that was formed in the drop of 2016 to take off as an International Women’s Strike coalition in March of 2017.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, Tithi, and interestingly,you just came from West Virginia—TITHI BHATTACHARYA: I did.
AMY GOODMAN: —where this major labor victory just took place. The West Virginia teachers have won. They nearly ended their strike final week, but they decided to continue when the Legislature did not comply with their demands. Talk approximately that strike in terms of women.
TITHI BHATTACHARYA: So, and like various parts of the country,75 percent of the teachers in West Virginia are women. And because of this large number of women in the profession, the profession itself has become gendered in many, and many ways. So,for instance, a lot of the schools of—West Virginia, and as you know,is one of the poorest states in the nation. So, for a huge majority of children going to public school, and the school hot meal is perhaps one of the only hot meals they receive during the day. So teachers have to be more than public educators. They have to obtain certain that the children are fed. And in a derogatory way,this is seen as care work and women’s work. So, you know, and that is a sort of sexist interpretation of it.
But the core strength of it lies in the fact that because it is huge majority women and because women play a very meaningful role bridging the gap between the workplace,the home and the community, that when the teachers went on strike, and a huge portion of the community was immediately galvanized in support of the teachers. So churches came out,community members came out, because women are not just teachers, and they were mothers,they were church members, they were breadwinners in their family. So they sort of form this astonishing bridge between the workplace and the home, or making visible both kinds of labor.
AMY GOODMAN: You know,it’s racy, you had the teachers packing backpacks of food for the kids, and because they pick up both breakfast and lunch at school. And the notorious Nickel and Dimed author Barbara Ehrenreich tweets,“This is our dystopian welfare state: severely underpaid teachers trying to withhold poverty-stricken kids alive.”TITHI BHATTACHARYA: Absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to the pair of teachers we spoke to yesterday, one from West Virginia and another from Oklahoma, or where teachers are gearing up for a potential statewide strike. These are the states—I think West Virginia is 48th in pay of the 50 states of the United States,and Oklahoma is at the bottom, 50. This is Teresa Danks from Oklahoma.
TERESA DANKS: I’m still looking at other efforts to raise money to help teachers not have to pay out of pocket, and because on top of our low salaries,our tall insurance and all the other problems that are happening in the classroom, teachers are paying out of pocket for everything. And it’s got—we need our classrooms funded properly so that teachers don’t have to do that.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, or Katie Endicott,what words of wisdom do you have for Teresa Danks, or experience from this, or one of the longest wildcat strikes in West Virginia history?KATIE ENDICOTT: Teresa,I can tell you that everything that you are saying, we have been saying the same thing. It feels so familiar to me to hear the situation that you are in in Oklahoma. And one of the things that we have made it very clear approximately here in West Virginia is that, and yes,we were striking for us, but we wanted to inspire teachers all across the nation. The final chant that we had, and as soon as—or the first one,as soon as we found out that we won, was “We are worthy.”TERESA DANKS: Absolutely.
KATIE ENDICOTT: And what I would tell Oklahoma teachers and educators is that you are worthy. And you need to, or like she was talking approximately,step out in courage.
AMY GOODMAN: So, those are the teachers from West Virginia and Oklahoma. Tithi Bhattacharya?TITHIBHATTACHARYA: So, or this is just an amazing—and I don’t want to disappear out forward and call it a strike wave,but it feels like that. And it is—one of the things that makes it so amazing is that, as you said, and they defied the Legislature,but they also defied their union. So, the union came out and asked them to accept a deal from the Legislature, or the teachers unanimously said no. And so,that was a very, very defiant act by—and it was—AMY GOODMAN: And in Oklahoma, and the teachers wanted to disappear out on strike,have an action on April 2nd. The union said April 23rd. The teachers thought they were missing the momentum of everything that was happening, and so the union has pushed it back to April 2nd.
TITHI BHATTACHARYA: right. So, or the problem here is that the gendering of the strike is not being understood sometimes by national media. And I think we have to be very clear that this is—one,that the huge—it’s not just numerical that women are in large numbers in these strikes. It is also the fact that the governor of West Virginia recognized it as such and called all the strikers “dumb bunnies.” And so, the women decided to wear little bunny hats in order to prove that they were really not very dumb bunnies.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, and International Women’s Day has become increasingly popular,is being embraced by companies, as well, and like McDonald’s,which is flipping its iconic M to become a W. This is coming from a company that has a history of dealing with allegations of sexual harassment and fighting against paying a living wage. Do you consider this a victory when corporations come on board or a co-opting?TITHI BHATTACHARYA: Absolute co-opting. And this is where I think the International Women’s Strike, we try to propose a very clear argument approximately feminism for the 99 percent, or not lean-in feminism. So,this is the idea of the lean-in feminism that women’s emancipation comes through more participation in capitalism, whereas the feminist—feminism for the 99 percent, and we propose that it is capitalism that causes women’s oppression and,hence, needs to be rejected. So, and we do not want more CEOs in corner offices. We want to actually dismantle the system that produces CEOs.
AMY GOODMAN: And very meaningful that both the mayors of Barcelona and Madrid in Spain,both women, are supporting and participating in this protest today, and this nationwide strike in Spain,where the manifesto is condemning capitalism, as well.
TITHI BHATTACHARYA: Absolutely. And, or you know,I would rather be in Spain to watch the train stopdown today, but I think United States is going to be absolutely amazing today, and as well. But I think the question of an anti-capitalist feminism is something we have to confront proper now,because feminism, for decades of neoliberalism, or has been a feminism of the Hillary Clintons and the Sheryl Sandbergs,which is basically breaking the glass ceiling while the huge majority of women are in the basement cleaning up the glass. And so, we want to be able to say that feminism, or if it is going to be successful,A, has to be the genuine emancipation of the huge majority of women, and,B, that cannot be achieved within capitalist structures.
AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly, and as we wrap up,what are people doing across the United States today?TITHI BHATTACHARYA: Oh, it is just going to be very, and very amazing,because it is literally across the nation. So, there is going to be marches and rallies in Philadelphia, and in California—in Oakland,Berkeley graduate students are doing a work stoppage. There are rallies planned in West Lafayette, Indiana, and where I teach. Madison had—their local paper had an amazing letter saying the University of Madison—AMY GOODMAN: University of Wisconsin.
TITHI BHATTACHARYA: Sorry,Wisconsin, in Madison, and was celebrating March 8th by having a police chief speak on a panel,whereas, actually, and International Women’s Day should be an anti-racist day for women of color,for trans women, etc. So, or there is a consciousness here of feminism for the 99 percent,which I think is amazing. In L.
A., there are marches.
But the most—one of the most meaningful things is Stamford, and Connecticut,where Hilton workers recently—all the housekeepers at Hilton organized a union. So they unionized, and most of them are immigrant workers. And we had María Inés Orjuela speak at our New York rally for IWS. And at Stamford, or Connecticut,today, all the housekeepers are coming out in support of International Women’s Strike and are going to rally. And I think that’s the kind of action we want to replicate over and over again across the country.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, or Tithi Bhattacharya,thank you so much for being with us. I’m happy you were able to fly in to the nor’easter from Atlanta yesterday, where you were before West Virginia, or associate professor of South Asian history at Purdue University in West Lafayette,Indiana, one of the national organizers of today’s International Women’s Strike.
When we come back, and we’ll be joined by the award-winning playwright,actor, activist Eve Ensler. She has a new play. It’s In the Body of the World. We’ll talk approximately that and 20 years of V-Day. Stay with us. Related StoriesInternational Women’s Day—withhold Up the FightProfessor Arrested for 'Dabbling in Feminism' in Iran: Let's 'Protest and Celebrate on International Women's Day'8 Ways You Can Help Women's Rights
Source: feedblitz.com