A Finger Lakes Women’s Strike is planned for downtown Geneva today. This is the second time the Geneva Women’s Assembly has organized a strike for International Women’s Day. Hannah Dickinson is an organizer with the Geneva Women’s Assembly. She says that this year, they hope to make all of the work that women do visible. In particular, they hope to draw attention to the inequities faced by workers in the hospitality and farm industries which are often hidden from view. But, in a larger sense they help to highlight all of the invisible work that women do each day.
“Household work, the work of caring for children, the work of filling out welfare applications or healthcare application. And, of course, also the work of organizing. We want to highlight this year the exciting work people all over the region have been doing to unite and fight back.”
The organizer don’t just want people to leave work and attend the rally. They want people to contribute to a community art piece. Clotheslines will be strung around the space for participants to hang personal items that reflect their own work that may usually be hidden from view.
“The idea is for that day, that space, that time, right? In some ways it’s the fleeting quality or the impermanence of the recognition for women’s work that we’re trying to highlight. We’re hoping on that day that work is open, and vibrant, and celebrated and people are forced to stop and acknowledge it. But, we also hope that people will be able to take their pictures and their artifacts home with them at the end of the day and say, we’re going back to the work we with a new spirit of unification and a new spirit of resistance.”
The Finger Lakes Women’s Strike happens Thursday, March 8 from Noon to 1:00 p.m. in Bicentennial Park in downtown Geneva. Everyone is invited.
