International Socialist Organization

Why we're taking action on March 8

Women’s March on Washington—Crowd of demonstrators in D.C.March 8 is International Women's Day, but this year, it will also be an international day of action in more than 30 countries. Organizers of the massive Women's March on Washington on January 21 are among the supporters of a call by prominent scholars and activists for a women's strike that will organize resistance "not just against Trump and his misogynist policies, but also against the conditions that produced Trump, namely the decades-long economic inequality, racial and sexual violence, and imperial wars abroad."

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation and a member of the National Planning Committee for the International Women's Strike USA, talked to Socialist Worker about what March 8 could bring to the new resistance.

Why the call for a women's strike on March 8?

Taylor: There are many reasons. The first and perhaps most important reason is that the election of Donald Trump as president has unearthed a tremendous outpouring among women in opposition to his regime and agenda.

This was most palpably demonstrated on January 21, when an unprecedented outpouring of protest overwhelmed cities across the country. Where thousands were expected to demonstrate, millions of men and women clogged the streets around the country to show the deep revulsion and opposition to Trump.

The outpouring was surprising, but the sentiment of opposition and resistance was not.

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Trump's victory and the necessity of solidarity

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Haymarket Books, 2016), and assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. The widely-acclaimed book surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality, arguing that this struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation. Activist and scholar Cornel West called her book “the best analysis we have of the #BlackLivesMatter moment.” The movement, which emerged under the first African-American president, faces a new situation with the election of an openly racist and xenophobic president, Donald Trump. Ashley Smith interviewed her in late November to discuss the legacy of the Obama era and the prospects for struggle under these new unexpected circumstances.Read more