Women go on strike in U.S. to show their economic clout
Some American women stayed home from work, joined rallies or wore red to demonstrate their economic clout Wednesday as part of a multitude of International Women’s Day events held around the globe.
The Day Without a Woman protest in the U.S. was put together by organizers of the vast women’s marches that drew more than one million Americans into the streets the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The turnout this time appeared in many places to be far smaller. And there were no immediate estimates of how many women heeded the call to skip work.
A crowd of about 1,000 people, the vast majority of them women, gathered on Fifth Avenue in the shadow of Trump Tower to demonstrate. Women dressed in red and waved signs.
“Trump is terrifying. His entire administration, they have no respect for women or our rights,” said 49-year-old Adina Ferber, who took a vacation day from her job at an art gallery to attend the demonstration. “They need to deal with us as an economic force.”
Rallies were also held in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Washington and Berkeley, Calif.
The U.S. event – inspired in part by the Day Without an Immigrant protest held last month – was part of the UN-designated International Women’s Day.
In Rome, hundreds of women set off on a march from the Colosseum to demand equal rights. Germany’s Lufthansa airline had six all-female crews flying from several cities in the country to Berlin.
Sweden’s women’s soccer team replaced the names on the backs of their jerseys with tweets from Swedish women. Finland announced a new $160,000 International Gender Equality Prize. Women also held rallies in Tokyo and Madrid.