International Women’s Day 2017

” I really feel we have to do much, much more to connect the issue of women’s rights, women’s needs and women’s oppression and war.”  Medea Benjamin, Code Pink.

Wednesday March 8th is International Women’s Day and around the world women are participating in a  Day Without a Woman Strike. In Denver there are several activities happenings, starting at noon with a silent march at the capitol. In Boulder, the march begins at the Glen Huntington Band-shell in Boulder’s Central Park at 5 p.m., and marchers will walk to Shine Restaurant and Gathering Place at 2027 13th St.

At 6 p.m. at Shine, Boulder Mayor Suzanne Jones, University of Colorado gender studies professor Lorraine Bayard de Volo and Boulder Valley Women’s Health Center development director Lindsay Christopher will speak.

Organizers are encouraging people to support Shine during the rally because it is owned and operated by women and has offered the event space for free.

Rhiannon Duryea, Political Director with the Denver Labor Federation says that events like today’s Day Without a Woman strike need to be fully representative of all women, particularly those are fearful of taking a day off in case they’re fired, or who can’t afford to miss even an hour of work.  “That’s definitely a real challenge that a lot of women face…the best way to protect yourself when wanting to participate in this Day Without a Woman, is to take a personal day, take a sick day, take a vacation day, but obviously those are not available to all women, especially low income women who work those hourly wage jobs, and then it’s just a question for each individual woman, is this an action that they can personally afford to participate in, can they afford to call in sick, or do they need to find a way to  participate in the action that does fit their lives. There’s not a one size fits all recipe to this…it’s not only about paid work that you do, but also domestic unpaid work, because still in this day and age, women do the majority of domestic unpaid household labor, despite the fact that women are typically sole breadwinners. ”

Rhiannon Duryea, Political Director with the Denver Labor Federation

Medea Benjamin, founder and leader of the women-led peace group Code Pink, said that she tried unsuccessfully to include an anti-war message in the Women’s March on Inauguration Day. She tells KGNU’s Roz Brown of the crucial need to have women’s voices heard in the peace movement and to have the peace movement a central part of the women’s movement.

” I really feel we have to do much, much more to connect the issue of women’s rights, women’s needs and women’s oppression and war.”

Medea Benjamin, founder and leader of Code Pink

The goal of the Day Without A Woman strike is to lift up the economic power that women have both in the workforce and in domestic unpaid labor but also the economy. One key component of today’s events is not spending money, except in women owned businesses.

Women are disproportionately represented among the ranks of the working poor. Linda Torado knows all about that. She wrote about her experiences in Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America and she’s known by some as ‘the woman who accidentally explained poverty to the nation.

She told KGNU’s Claudia Cragg about the new reality for women under a Trump administration.

“What we’re seeing under Trump is just a massive amount of activity and a lot of people are getting activated where they weren’t before. Under Obama we were pushing for progress and under Trump we’re fighting to keep what we had, so the nature of the work is changing. But I also think that we have a pretty big opportunity because if anything is true about the election of Donald Trump it’s that we absolutely need to have a huge discussion about what America is and what it’s meant to be and I think if we can lead those discussions to productive places we might wind up better off than we were four years ago when Trump was on the horizon. ”

Linda Torado author of Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal was elected last year to represent Washington’s 7th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. She is the first and currently the only Indian-American woman to serve in Congress. She moved to the U.S. from India by herself when she was 16 to attend school, and has been an activist and organizer in Seattle for many years. She spoke with KGNU’s Julia Caulfield about the importance of representation in Congress and the Women’s Movement.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal

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