Men from 18 countries write statements in support of the 
Global Women’s Strike

The first Global Women’s Strike in history

On 8 March 2000, women in 65 countries demanding a total change in priorities and « an end to no pay, low pay and too much work » took action for the first Global Women’s Strike in history. The Strike created great enthusiasm not only among women, but also among many men who saw that this response from women to globalisation was also speaking to our own needs. Not only was it a ‘global’ attack on globalisation, but the demands of the Strike pointed a way forward for women and men alike. 

Individual men and groups of men, from five continents, support the Strike it in various ways. Some attended Strike events, some assisted by undertaking computer and other technical work, childcare and food preparation, transport, art performances, publicity and other practical work.

Payday, a network of men working with the International Wages for Housework Campaign which co-ordinates the Strike, invited men to say WHY and HOW they individually support their mother, sister, friend, daughter or colleague joining the Strike.  For the second Strike on 8 March 2001, we asked men what they had learned from the first Strike. Its success definitely had an impact on many men who saw the possibilities created “by an international, serious, determined movement,” as one man puts it.  

Men’s statements of support

The men who wrote these statements were of different races and from 18 countries*. Some had paid jobs, others lived on benefits, one man was in prison. They were Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim or of no religion. In spite of these and other differences, they all agreed with the Strike. It was in itself an indication of the capacity of the Strike to unite across divides between women and men, but also among men.

What do men say in their statements? First and above all, they acknowledge how much they and the whole community are dependent on women’s caring work. 

Many men focus on the work their mothers did: “I support what women are doing on this day because I came from a woman,” writes an inmate from a British jail. Others write: “Every mother I’ve ever known, starting with my own, has worked her ass off raising her kids.”  “From childhood, back in Ghana, I saw my mother and the other women overworked to keep things going in the community and families”, “Mum worked for the next 33 years - loved, cared and provided for us until far after we could fend for ourselves.”

One man speaks about “the work my mother did in raising three children, the amount of unpaid overtime she puts in these days, and the time and energy she spends in caring for her mother who lives in a city hours away.” Another man writes about his sister who “has also been a nurse in the home looking after my parents and elderly relatives' health, as a result I did not have to do it . . .”

Many men also describe the work women do in their community. A man working in social services says about his colleagues: “I need women like them to be making the big decisions about how our organisations respond to the community.”

Many statements stress the lack of financial recognition for women’s work. A man from Chiapas writes: “on top of working the whole day long, women have to care for their children and also put up with their husbands and, if this were not enough, take care of the elderly and the sick in the house. (. . .) nothing of this work is paid for. . . ” “If my mother had been paid for all the work she did unpaid, (. . .) she could have spent more time with us instead of running off to her next part-time job,” writes a man in Britain.

Some men also talk about the caring work they also have to do. One husband has this to say when his wife was away: “If I come back for another life, it better not be as a single mother - I don't know how they do it day in day out”. A gay man who was caring for a friend and then ailing parents writes that “not as sister but ‘sissy’, gay men are classed with women, and therefore as suited for ‘women’s work’.” 

Several men also recognise how women’s poverty was preventing them from getting out of their own poverty. A man who asked for a wage increase was told that women would be ready to do the job for 65% of his wages. 

So what do men think they can gain by supporting the Global Women’s Strike?  “However much the women are able to win -- and with men’s support that may be greater -- will be that much public money and resources NOT going to bombs or prisons or directly to corporations bent on lengthening hours and lowering wages for everyone,” a man concludes. 

Speaking from individual experience

At first some men, especially from the Left and in trade-unions, did not understand why we asked men to speak from their individual experience. Isn’t organising about the general truths ?

Personal statements have in fact proved to be an effective way to connect the experiences of men in different countries and situations, to make visible what men have in common with each other  and with women, as well as what differentiates our lives from those of women.  In recognising the caring work going on for us and all around us, and expressing pain that this work remains unrecognised and unpaid, another side of men emerged, not just for women but for all of us. 

On the other hand, these statements were not an exercise in guilt tripping which “feminist” men used to propose to get the sexism out of themselves and out of society as a whole. The Global Women’s Strike demonstrated once again that when women’s power increases, sexism decreases.   In supporting the Global Women’s Strike and writing statements which in essence attack the distribution of work and wealth in the global market, we re-educate ourselves by striking at the underpinnings that sexism hides. 

Military globalisation

With the so-called “war on terrorism”, globalisation is now clearly enforced by US military might. The US government added over $40 billions into the killing budget at the expense of caring, reducing social services on a grand scale at the very moment that waged workers are losing their jobs in numbers unseen in a generation.  Of course those hardest hit have been in the lowest paying jobs, the majority of them women and people of colour. The undermining of caring affects everyone in the community. As the military industrial-complex bids to take over the world, the Global Women’s Strike is demanding that military budgets go to caring work, and to women who do this work. It has become even more urgent that men join in and support the women’s demands.

In making these statements available in English, Spanish, French and other languages, Payday hopes to encourage more men to support the Global Women’s Strike. We invite the reader to circulate these statements, to write one and send it to us, and to take action with and in support of the Strike. 

Payday
18 February 2002

* Australia, Brittany, Canada, Chiapas, Ghana, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Québec, Spain, Sri Lanka, Trinidad, Uganda, UK, Uruguay, US.

Statements from 2000      2001       2002

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