|
SchNEWS,
February 2002 On March 2nd hundreds of women kicked off in the streets of London’s West End. Armed with stones and hammers they smashed windows in Regent Street, Piccadilly, the Strand and Oxford Street, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage. Three women leapt out of a car in Downing Street and threw stones at the Prime Minister’s house and the home office. Altogether about 120 women were arrested, 80 years ago, in 1912. March 2nd marks 80 years since this mass suffragette demo. Protests took over the streets for nine months before women realised they would have to step up their militancy to get their voices heard. Women started burning the turf of golf courses with acid spelling ‘VOTES FOR WOMEN’, breaking street lamps, torching letterboxes, chaining themselves to Buckingham Palace gates and attacking politicians on their way to work. Women planted bombs in empty houses and unused railway stations. They started massive fires. In February 1913 women blew up part of David Lloyd George’s house - probably Britain’s most famous politician at that time. Their first suffragette martyr was Emily Davison, killed when she threw herself under the Kings horse in June of 1913. A year later over 1,000 suffragettes had been sent to prison for destroying public property. The jailbirds went on hunger strikes, and after the policy of force-feeding started looking too hard-line, the government watered down their response with the Cat and Mouse Act. This stopped the force-feeding, allowing the women to go on hunger strikes, and to get weaker and weaker. When they were very weak they were kicked out of prison so any deaths would not embarrass the government. Forty years of peaceful protesting failed to win any changes for women. Women’s suffrage only became a national issue when the suffragettes turned to violence. The first windows were smashed in 1908 and direct action continued until World War I. Once British women had gained the vote - a token gesture in any democracy - the struggle continued. The First International Women’s Day took place in 1908. Nine years later, after months of struggles and strikes, thousands of Russian women took to the streets to protest food shortages, high prices, the world war, and general impoverishment. Their defiance led to the last push of the revolution, and within a week Czar Nicholas II had gone. This day, March the 8th, 1917, was then adopted as the official date for International Women’s Day. In the early days International Women’s Day was celebrated as a socialist holiday honouring working women. The third annual International Global Women’s Strike has upped the profile of protests across the world on the same day. Next Friday thousands of women will take to the streets and continue the centuries old traditions of disobedience twenty-first century style. LASS IS MORE This year’s protests are being called as a reaction against the US government’s militarist response to September 11. Women’s groups are pointing out that amongst the hysteria nothing was said of the 35,000 children who died of hunger that same day, and every day, as a consequence of the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. More than $800 billion is squandered globally in military budgets that destroy life and guarantee the submission of Third World countries to globalization. The US government has already invested $40 billion in this new war. Demonstrations are planned in over 60 countries to highlight these global injustices as well as calling for recognition of women’s unpaid, underpaid and undervalued work in and out of the home. In previous years’ demonstrations, men have been forced to stay indoors for the night in the Colombian capital of Bogota and those that snuck out were pelted with eggs and flour. Meanwhile women in Uganda held a co-ordinated sit-down across the country, which led to the awarding of free hospital services. Masked-up sex workers marched through Soho to protest against the council’s attempts to evict them from their homes, and against trafficking being used as an excuse for deportations. This year’s planned demos range from one woman in Bolivia who has announced that she’s planning to go on the game to support her family to huge high profile marches expected to attract thousands of protestors. In India groups are organizing a meeting in Pithora where village women will put their demands to officials. They are calling for equal pay for equal work, land rights, safe drinking water, health and medical facilities, removing ‘untouchability’ against Dalit people, and a bonus for Tendu leaf (smoke stick business that Tribal women particularly work in). “We are also raising our voice against globalisation, the World Trade Organisation, and the IMF which is affecting our people adversely.” In Argentina The Sindicato de Amas de Casa (Housewives Union) in Santa Fe which has co-ordinated the Strike since 2000, is holding daily women’s assemblies in the poorest neighbourhoods as part of the popular uprising. Women in London will be bringing pots, pans, and brooms into the town centre for an Argentinian-styled ‘cacerolazos’ - pots and pans protest - in solidarity with their South American sisters. These noisy protests have become a feature of Argentinian life since last year’s economic collapse. The first massive cacerolazos protest against IMF/World Bank policies brought down the government last December. Banging on pots and pans - the ‘tools of the trade’ of those who do the vital but unrecognised work of feeding and caring, has become the symbol of the Argentinian uprising. The pots are now empty in most Argentinian households, but they are loud. The London Strike Committee have organised a Whistle Stop Tour to Sweep Out the Global Killers: taking in Shell, Ministry of Defence, Institute of Directors and finishing at the World Bank. Lesbian/bisexual women are invited to march with the Dykes on Strike contingent. Rhythms of Resistance will be round for drum & dance Samba! Women mental health system survivors will protest outside a psychiatric hospital based near Shell. Contact: International Wages for Housework Campaign, Crossroads Women’s Centre, 230a Kentish Town Rd. NW5 2AB 020 7482 2496 * The Transfiguring Sword: The Just War of the Women’s Social and Political Union. Cheryl R. Jorgensen-Earp, University of Alabama, 1997. * The Disinherited Family. Eleanor Rathbone, Falling Wall Press 1986. Women Speak Out International Women’s Day Anarchist-Feminist Weekend: 8-10 March. Meeting to organise actions, discussions, films, performance, music. Vegan food for lunch and dinner. ‘The Dairy’ 47 Kynaston Rd Stoke Newington. Info: 020-8809 1352 or 07985 365 992. |