Tipsheet

Women's March Organizers Announce A "General Strike" of Women

After coming out in impressive numbers to march on Washington and throughout the world, the Women's March has their next activism idea: women go on strike for a day.

The group tweeted the flyer from its official Twitter account, saying that the date is to be determined. The tagline for the "event" is "A day without a woman."

Ooooh-kay.

I mean, I get the point of the original march--even though I don't agree with many of its aims. As someone who attended the March for Life for three years in college, going to an event and being with thousands of like-minded people is both incredibly fun and extremely motivating. This I understand completely. But a strike? Just...how? What's that supposed to accomplish? Trump will be president, regardless of who shows up at work, or cooks meals, or cleans the house, or whatever going "on strike" entails.

Strikes generally have an end goal that's attainable--be it higher wages, better policies in the workplace, etc.--and they also generally last longer than one day to actually have an impact. Having "A day without a woman" won't accomplish anything, and will likely result in nothing but eye rolls and annoyances.

Further, when it comes to rights, American women are extremely privileged compared to our sisters abroad. We're permitted to drive and do things without a chaperone. We don't have a national dress code. We're free to have as many children as we'd like. We're at a significantly lower chance of being forced into a marriage without our consent. We're free to go to college and to pursue careers of our choice. Not every woman is allowed these basic rights, and it just seems kind of...silly? to launch this kind of direct action.

I'll let my colleague Katie have the final word on this absurdity:

Yep.