What is the climate strike?
Between the 20th and 27th of September, people across the world are going on a climate strike. We are following the example of millions of young people who have brought hope to this movement.
The climate crisis shows another limit to our system of production that exploits vulnerable and oppressed peoples and the whole natural world. We know that this is not just a climate crisis, but a crisis of an old, tired and exploitative system.
On the 20th of September women and people from across the UK will join the climate strike. We stand against this exploitative system that must come to its end.
This is a call to action for all women — including queer and trans women, and all people who face gendered oppression — to join the international climate strike. We can no longer separate ecological issues from the conditions in which we work and live.
Why are we calling for action?
Women’s work makes life possible. Our work keeps children fed and vulnerable people cared for. Across the world, women’s work — work that can be exploitative and rarely recognised as crucial — keeps everyday life going. We are often required to work two shifts: one at paid employment, and another one — cooking, cleaning and caring — at home.
This work, both at the workplace and in the home, keeps factories going. Across the world, women are forced into supporting a system which ruins our lives and our environments: a system which will not benefit anyone beyond the few who have made themselves wealthy and powerful.
The climate strike must be a feminist strike. Because it is indigenous communities, communities of colour and people in the Global South who will be hit by the climate crisis the hardest. Because when communities become vulnerable — during conflict, during austerity and during environmental crisis — it is a fact that women will suffer the most.
That is why #WeStrike.
We strike because the climate and ecological crises are an extension of the racist, colonial projects employed by the West to this day.
From the felling of American forests that many indigenous peoples call home, to the chemicals blindly allowed to pollute rivers like that in Norilsk needed for a clean ecosystem and healthy life. From the food shortages contributing to conflicts in Syria, South Sudan and Yemen, to the families in the UK suffering from flooding in their homes because austerity has cut flood defence funding.
We join the global climate strike because capitalists and militaries from the West are responsible for the destruction of climate, ecosystems and homes worldwide.
We strike because for decades women in the Global South have been defending their land against privatisation and corporate exploitation with little support.
We strike because black, brown and working-class communities will continue to suffer the most from flooding, fracking, air pollution, water contamination and radiation poisoning.
We strike because some people will become victims of the Western systems twice: first by land becoming uninhabitable, and then because of violent border control.
We will strike because the same system that undervalues women’s work and exploits us for profit continues to exploit our planet and its resources.
We join the climate strike because not only is this a fight for our future, it is also a fight for global justice in the present.
We will refuse to work. We will be on the streets. We will shut things down and disrupt business as usual.
We refuse to support this unjust, destructive system any longer.
How can you join the strike?
There are many ways in which we can strike. We will strike from paid work where possible, calling in sick, extending our breaks or not showing up at all. We will strike from care work and housework. We will strike from school. And we will meet you in the streets.
Keep in contact with your local WSA to find out about events and bloc’s, or set up your own!
Women are told that our suffering is inevitable — even “natural”. We strike to reject that lie. We strike for an end to a global system that benefits a small group of people and violently destroys the lives, communities and environments of everyone else.
Our work keeps the world turning. What happens when we stop?
#westrike #womenstrikeforclimate