Global Women’s Strike is an international multiracial network campaigning for recognition and payment for all caring work for people and planet - a Care Income.

Co-ordinated by the International Wages for Housework Campaign which was launched by Selma James in 1972 >>>

Selma James

Selma James is an antisexist, antiracist campaigner. In 1972 she put forward Wages for Housework (WFH) as a demand and a political perspective that redefined the working class. The International WFH Campaign she founded coordinates the Global Women’s Strike. She coined the word “unwaged,” which incorporates all workers without wages. She co-authored the classic The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community and is the author of Sex, Race and Class and other pathbreaking writing.

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Global Women's Strike

The Global Women’s Strike and Women of Colour GWS, which have campaigned for financial recognition for unwaged caring work for decadescontributed to the Green New Deal for Europe and jointly called on governments everywhere to provide a Care Income, starting now. As mothers, carers, farmers/farm workers, land and human rights’ defenders, women do most of the work of feeding (starting with breastfeeding) and protecting families and communities, the soil and the environment.

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Wages for Housework

Wages for Housework begins with those of us with least power internationally – unwaged workers in the home (mothers, housewives, domestic workers denied pay), and unwaged workers on the land and in the community.

Wages for Housework is a demand, it is also a perspective, a way of organising from the bottom up, of autonomous sectors working together to end the power relations among us.

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Save the date: 24 October: International Women’s Strike Actions

By Global Women's Strike | 30th September 2024

Spread the word – Women are rising A Week of Actions When women stop, everything stops. On 24 October 2024, women and allies from around the world will participate in the Global Women’s Strike, commemorating the historic 1975 Icelandic women’s strike, where women halted their unwaged and waged work in the home and outside, in…

Wages for Housework Campaign in major exhibition – Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights

By Global Women's Strike | 12th September 2024

‘Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights’ at the Wellcome Collection (London) explores “the profound impact of physical work on health and the body. It delves into the stories of underrepresented workers and their rights within precarious and unsafe labour environments. From protests to healing practices, the exhibition unveils hidden histories of resistance and collective action.…

Event: London Land Justice Fair, 21 July, 12-6pm

By Global Women's Strike | 3rd July 2024

We’ll be running a stall, and a workshop on land use in the women-led natural farming movement in Andhra Pradesh, India. All welcome!

Webinar : What Mothers and Other Caregivers Want – findings from international survey, May 11

By Global Women's Strike | 7th May 2024

From March 2022 to May 2023, this survey asked 1065 mothers and other caregivers from different generations and in different countries what they want and need.  Assumptions are always being made about this, but in fact caregivers are rarely directly asked about how we spend our time, the resources we have or don’t have, or…

Watch our workshop with our sisters from Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming

By Global Women's Strike | 25th January 2024

Speakers: Meerabi Chunduru, Swati Renduchintala, Vijay Kumar, Selma James. Chair: Jyoti Fernandes In the last 20 years, in Andhra Pradesh, India, grassroots women in a secular movement of self-help groups are collectively transforming the food they grow, their families’ health, and increasing their income. They are the largest transition to agroecology in the world, simultaneously…

About the Global Women's Strike >>>

no noise

About us: We are an international grassroots network campaigning for recognition and payment for all caring work, in the home and on the land...

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Our international community: There are Global Women's Strike groups in India, Ireland, Peru, Thailand, UK, US (Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco) and we work with people in many other countries.

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Our collective power: We are part of a global collective of a number of autonomous organisations within the Global Women’s Strike.  Each has its own constituency and campaigns, each can count on the collective power of all.

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books

Resources and ways to join with us: Antiracism, anti-discrimination and the justice work we do for ourselves and with others are at the heart of our campaigning.

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Our recent news >>>

Ann Snitow Prize Ceremony honoring Margaret Prescod, Tuesday 10 December

By Global Women's Strike | 4th December 2024

Margaret Prescod, Women of Color/Global Women’s Strike and co-coordinator of Global Women’s Strike in the US, is being honored with the Ann Snitow Prize next Tuesday, December 10. Please join us in celebrating this important acknowledgement and hear more from Margaret, by registering for the award ceremony starting at 3pm US Pacific / 4pm Mountain / 5pm Central / 6pm Eastern / 11pm UK.

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Event: London Mining Network on Just Transition

By Global Women's Strike | 28th November 2024

We are speaking at this conference, Saturday 30 November 2.45pm, Bernie Grant Centre, Tottenham N15 4RX. Women are central to a Just Transition,  resisting mining, corporate greed, and the state/military interests that back them.  GWS will talk about what we’ve learned working with women in farming and mining communities in Thailand, and in India.

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Thailand letter – Urgent Observation Request: Protection of WHRDs and Children at P-Move Peaceful Assembly

By Global Women's Strike | 21st October 2024

Dear Excellency, I hope this email finds you well. On October 14th, 2024, Protection International and P-Move organized a seminar at the P-Move protest site titled “From Global Forums to the Hearts of the Poor: Thailand’s Role in Human Rights and Justice,” following Thailand’s recent election to the UN Human Rights Council. The seminar aimed…

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Save the date: 24 October: International Women’s Strike Actions

By Global Women's Strike | 30th September 2024

Spread the word – Women are rising A Week of Actions When women stop, everything stops. On 24 October 2024, women and allies from around the world will participate in the Global Women’s Strike, commemorating the historic 1975 Icelandic women’s strike, where women halted their unwaged and waged work in the home and outside, in…

Read More

Wages for Housework Campaign in major exhibition – Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights

By Global Women's Strike | 12th September 2024

‘Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights’ at the Wellcome Collection (London) explores “the profound impact of physical work on health and the body. It delves into the stories of underrepresented workers and their rights within precarious and unsafe labour environments. From protests to healing practices, the exhibition unveils hidden histories of resistance and collective action.…

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Why we support Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Farming: a grassroots rebuttal by Nina López and Selma James

By Global Women's Strike | 5th September 2024

In June 2024, the Global Women’s Strike was invited to speak at two sessions on A Care Income to Protect the Land, the People and the Natural World at the International Degrowth Conference in Pontevedra. At the second session, Swati Renduchintala presented via zoom on Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) and the women’s Self-Help…

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Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming, India, wins the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity!

By Global Women's Strike | 19th July 2024

This Natural Farming movement spearheaded by women’s Self-Help Groups, is regenerating the soil, feeding plentiful nutritious food to families and communities, and at the same time demonstrating how to stop and reverse global warming if widely practised.  See extracts of the Prize ceremony with a short film highlighting APCNF’s achievements, and speeches by Vijay Kumar,…

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July 20 Philadelphia: Black Women’s Lives Count

By Global Women's Strike | 10th July 2024

BLACK WOMEN’S LIVES COUNT RECLAIMING OUR SISTERS EVERYWHERE (ROSE) Community Conversation · Archives Display · Film clipsMusic · Refreshments · Childcare (call ahead) Saturday July 20 3-5pmCrossroads Women’s Center5011 Wayne Ave Phila PA 19144 Since the early 1980s, at least 200 Black women and girls were killed or disappeared and presumed dead in South Los…

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Event: London Land Justice Fair, 21 July, 12-6pm

By Global Women's Strike | 3rd July 2024

We’ll be running a stall, and a workshop on land use in the women-led natural farming movement in Andhra Pradesh, India. All welcome!

Read More