On the occasion of the international day of struggle for women’s rights, around fifty organizations, associations and unions are calling for a work and domestic strike on Friday. Franceinfo collected testimonies from three women who say “stop”.
“When women stop, everything stops.” This is the slogan of the feminist strike on Friday March 8. Feminist associations and unions are calling for measures in favor of gender equality. Strike notices are given in several professional sectors and women are also called to stop working in the domestic sphere.
In France, “80% of women spend at least one hour a day cooking or cleaning compared to only 36% of men, recall the associations. 63% of people who informally care for children, the elderly or disabled people every day are women. “All this time that a woman devotes to her home means less time for her and her career. It has an impact on her personal and economic emancipation”, underlines Youlie, from the Les Rosies collective. Before being a feminist activist, she is a woman. Franceinfo collected her words and those of two other women on domestic strike on March 8.
“It’s freed up time”
Anne, 67, has been retired for six years and lives with a couple. A feminist activist for many years, she wants to mark the occasion this March 8 by not taking care of anything at home and only going to demonstrate in Paris. “After the event, we meet up with our friends to go have a drink and then eat together”rejoices Anne, who lists what she is not going to do: “Take care of the laundry, go to the market, cook dinner…” She admits that her partner shares the tasks, but “its important to me to also show solidarity with all women who combine work and domestic tasks.”
“Frankly, I don’t think there’s any real fulfillment in these tasks.”
“These tasks are not necessarily tasks that give pleasurecontinues the retiree. So there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be shared, because it frees up time to do other things. To read, go to the cinema and take a walk… Because honestly, who likes to do the cleaning, the laundry every day or take care of the shopping, take care of the meals, vacuum the vacuum? “, Anne asks.
“It’s not just for yourself and your family”
Huayra, 46, a mother who works full time, also knows domestic tasks too well. His objective in going on domestic strike is to make this work visible to society. For this feminist activist, there is a “social gaze” focused on how the home functions. And, go on strike, “it’s not only for yourself, for your family but also for society”.
“The challenge is to be able to really make collective progress on the sharing of domestic tasks, which has consequences on inequalities in employment, all of this is linked, believes Huayra. The question of the family sphere, of the private sphere, these are also collective questions. I think that we carry the possibility of another model of society in our operations”. And for Huayra, it is important to show it on March 8 and the following days.
“The idea is to make visible a social phenomenon that is ignored”
In Youlie’s home, “we practice task sharing in a very, very rigorous way”, underlines this 39-year-old activist, spokesperson for Attac and co-founder of the Les Rosies collective. But she will still go on a symbolic domestic strike. For her, March 8, “this is the moment when, when women stop working at home, we realize that the machine has not been dried, the meal has not been prepared, the child has not been brought at the leisure center… These are all these consequences”, lists Youlie. Before specifying: “Women are at the same time managing the home, sanitation, household chores, but it is also taking care of children, care, that is to say managing conviviality, the local and family life of the home. In addition, they have the mental load: they think, they design the care of those around them. When they stop, it’s clearly visible.” she emphasizes.
“The woman makes her social usefulness visible.”
But, Youlie admits, “This is not enough. The idea is to make visible a social phenomenon that is ignored; it will not actually revolutionize things, in the sense that, the next day, ordinary life will resume its course. And as we are in a patriarchal society which is used to operating with the exploitation of women’s free labor, that is not going to change right away.”, recognizes Youlie. Hence the notion of a feminist strike renewed every year, “to show in the imagination and in the thinking of society, that there is a real contempt, a problem of consideration of this utility.” The feminist strike is not “not at all a new concept, the fact remains that the feminist strike with the possibility of giving notice has only been recognized in France since 2018”, recalls the activist.