On International Women’s Day this Wednesday, a strike was held by women, referred to as “A Day Without a Woman,” channeling a similar purpose as the earlier strike from February that was known as the Day Without Immigrants. Seen as another act of defiance against the Trump administration, this particular act of social resistance was marked by women skipping work, boycotting any purchases unless from women or minority owned businesses, and wearing red in solidarity with the movement.
While the resistance wasn’t as visible as the millions who had marched on Washington following Trump’s inauguration, it follows the momentum of the Women’s March and is part of a larger dialogue to bring a renewed spotlight to injustices that still plague women and minorities not only in the U.S. but across the globe. In fact, despite press coverage in the U.S. suggesting a minimal impact of the strike, other coverage reported greater enthusiasm, particularly in its potential global impact:
"Women closed schools, occupied farms, descended on parliaments and went on strike in countries across the globe in one of the most highly charged and political International Women’s Days in living memory." (Topping, 2017, para 1)
Part of the purpose of the strike was to bring attention to the significant—and often undervalued—role working women play in the larger economy. The Center for American Progress has identified through research that "It would cost the U.S. gross domestic product $21 billion if all American women who work outside the home for pay took the day off” (Lam, 2017, para 2). This does not even include the unpaid labor that women contribute daily, often in support working males, from child care to caring for elderly parents to house work, etc.
Despite these facts, a significant pay gap exists between the sexes—and in fact has remained relatively stagnant since the 1990s—in which women earn on average about 77 cents for every dollar males earn (these figures get even worse when minority women are compared to males). Indeed, as reported by "The Upshot" in The New York Times, “The gender composition of jobs matters for reasons of equality—fields with a majority of men pay 21 percent more than those with mostly women” (Miller, 2017, para 5). In addition to the fact that male-dominated fields are valued more than female-dominated ones, even when women have comparable positions to males, they are still underpaid in comparison.
This does not include the additional hurdle of the well-documented glass ceiling—the invisible barrier that women and other minorities experience when trying to move up the hierarchy of their industry to higher-paid managerial positions. The glass ceiling represents a systemic inequality that is difficult to overcome and that impacts women as a group, despite individual women who may be able to breach its barriers.
In reflecting on the pervasive psychological facets to the persistence of the glass ceiling, one writer notes that it reveals “a deeply held discomfort on the part of a significant part of our society with women who hold power” (Gifford, 2017, para 1). She continues, "While barriers are certainly diminishing, the myriad women who’ve slammed into that impact-resistant glass know that society’s wishful thinking about its own progress has outpaced reality” (Gifford, 2017, para 2). It is the spirit of shedding a harsh spotlight on this reality that has propelled advocacy for women by women in particular since Trump's election.
In a culture where a man can boast about “grabbing women by the pussy” and still be elected to the nation's highest office, it has become imperative for women and their allies to safeguard their rights and resist the cultural forces that continue to impede progress and full recognition of equality.
Copyright 2017 Azadeh Aalai