International Women's Day 2017

This year International Women's Day is different.

It began in 1909 in Russia as a day to mark women's fight for equal rights, especially equal wages--enough to buy both "Bread and Roses."  It has been observed more by socialist and communist nations than by North American women, though in 1975 the UN adopted IWD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women's_Day

But this year US women and their sisters around the world have an additional problem to deal with: the Groper in Chief, who bragged of sexual assault and cut off US funding for any UN or NGO work that provides women's health care, if that care includes mention of where women can get an abortion.

Thus the day is a bigger event this year in the US, and a strike has been called to show the economic clout of women--no work, no shopping.  A Day Without Women.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/a-day-without-a-woman/518943/

Here are two resources to enjoy to mark this day:

1)  Photos from around the world of women's demonstrations and parades:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/world/international-womens-day.html?_r=0

2)  Amy Goodman's IWD special on Democracy Now with great interviews and music:
a. "Eve Ensler & Christine Schuler Deschryver on the Predatory Mindset of President Trump":
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/3/8/eve_ensler_christine_schuler_deschryver_on

b.  "'Hurray for the Riff Raff' on Feminism, Gentrification, Gender Violence, and Art in the Era of Trump" with Alynda Segarra:
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/3/8/hurray_for_the_riff_raff_on

I'm celebrating by not cooking or washing the dishes.  As a retiree, I can't stay home from paid work, and as a 68-year-old, I no longer have unpaid labor from which I can't take a day off (such as caring for my children), but I can join in by not buying anything today or going out to lunch or dinner.

Because I take a four-hour writing class on Wednesdays, followed by a two-hour Hebrew class, I can't go to City Hall or the Federal Building and demonstrate.

So I'm just taking a vacation in honor of women's rights to rest.