STUDENTS JOIN THE GLOBAL WOMEN'S STRIKE

THE GLOBAL WOMEN’S STRIKE IS EVERY STUDENT’S STRIKE!

Women are striking against low pay, no pay and overwork; for a millennium which values all women's work and all women's lives, and to demand a total change of priorities.

Students are striking because in addition to course work – which is UNWAGED WORK:

• you are forced to work to pay tuition fees imposed on you
• you are forced to work to cover living expenses not covered by meager government loans
• you are forced to work to minimize debt imposed by these loans, despite the fact that your studies are tailored to making you a person whose skills will ultimately benefit employers and the economy
• mothers work even harder because, in addition to studying, you are doing all the unwaged work of mothers everywhere, and you have to support your child(ren) in addition to yourself.
• cuts in services and resources for students means that, for example, there is inadequate advice and welfare for students who are also seeking asylum, who suffer domestic violence, who need help with housing, benefits, childcare, etc

Women make the world go round, but at least 2/3 of the work we do is unwaged and unvalued - even though it's worth at least $11 trillion a year (UN figures). This drags down what wages we’re offered.

In countries with the least resources the burden of women’s and girls’ work is most crushing. We suffer most from the grotesque discrepancy between global military spending -- £800 billions -- and global spending on the essentials of life-- clean accessible water, health care, basic education -- $20 billions.

Wherever we come from we have a right to be here, and to claim resources, including higher education, because we have already paid for the resources we now demand. As for so-called Third World debt, those of us from the South owe nothing – we are the ones who are owed billions for centuries of exploited work, waged and unwaged.

Jackie (Clapham North College) says:
"I’m discriminated against as a mother, because I’m a Black woman, because I’m gay, because I’m a student. It’s time for us to have equal pay, and our rights. The Strike is a chance for women like me to be heard, for all women’s voices to be heard, and to have some time off.

"What’s my day like? It starts at 6am – I get up, get breakfast, get the kids up, ready, take the kids to school by 9am, then I get to college by 9.30am. I study until 3pm, then I have to get the bus at 3.10pm to get the kids from school. Everything has to be timed precisely. When I get home I cook; my daughter helps a lot. I don’t want to burden her, but I do depend on her. It’s added pressure if you’re a mother and a student. One difference between me and other students is that I can’t go out to work to make extra money; I have to look after my kids and fit my studies around that. Students at my college who are asylum seekers face a lot of difficulty, some have to go out to work because they can’t claim anything. The "New Deal" is forcing students out of college and into low paid jobs, or into courses they don’t really want to do. It’s very hard for single mothers like me, we are under pressure all the time to take a job whether we want it or not. Before I went to college, I was working a low-paid job, and realized I was actually £10 better off on benefit . . ."

Andrea (student at the Creative and Suportive Trust:
I am supporting the 8th March strike as a women 2000, taking into consideration changes from the past and to make a statement for the future. This is an important event in women’s history. A day to celebrate our grandmothers and pass onto our daughters. Make a change, why not now?

HOME      CONTACT US