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.
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 decades, contributed 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.
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.
Book Launch: Wages for Housework – The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise.
A fascinating new book by Emily Callaci about the history of the International Wages for Housework Campaign is being launched in the UK next week (US launch to follow). Wages for Housework The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise features WFH founder Selma James (who turns 95 this year), co-ordinates the Global Women’s…
Save the date: 24 October: International Women’s Strike Actions
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
‘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
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
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
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…
Mothers Manifesto outside Parliament today!
Dear friends The Global Women’s Strike will be supporting the Mother’s Manifesto on Wednesday 13 December, 9.30-2pm, on their stall outside Parliament while some of them meet MPs inside. We hope you will join us there for all or some of the time. Mother’s Manifesto are a group of mothers who have been campaigning for 18 months to raise awareness of family food poverty and…
Press release: Wages for Housework film All Work and No Pay at Tate Exhibition Women in Revolt.
The Wages for Housework film All Work and No Pay is part of the major Tate Britain exhibition Women in Revolt which opens tomorrow 8 November 2022 and runs until April 2024. The film was made by the Wages for Housework Campaign (WFH) with the BBC community access unit Open Door in 1975. It provided…
Protest: Stand with the people of Haiti! NOT another invasion.
The Global Women’s Strike UK (GWS), Women of Colour GWS and Caribbean Labour Solidarity join with Haiti Action Committee US in defence of the people of Haiti. Join us to demonstrate: Tuesday 10 October 2023, 4.30-6pm at Kenya High Commission, 45 Portland Place, London W1B 1AS. Haiti Action Committee condemns in the strongest possible terms…
Event: Workshop on Autonomy – women, race & immigration, at the Anarchist Bookfair.
Join us at the Anarchist Bookfair in London next week. Workshop: Autonomy – women, race and immigration. Saturday 7 October 1pm – 2:30pm Zilkha Auditorium, Whitechapel Gallery. In 1982, the Wages for Housework Campaign organised the first conference in the UK on women, race and immigration. Insisting on our right to be here is even…
Current campaigns >>>

Mothers & children of Palestine, we are with you: Learn more

International survey: What Mothers and other caregivers want and need: Learn more

Caring for the land: Learn more

Surviving the Military Dictatorship in Myanmar: Learn more
Our recent news >>>
Book Launch: Wages for Housework – The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise.
A fascinating new book by Emily Callaci about the history of the International Wages for Housework Campaign is being launched in the UK next week (US launch to follow). Wages for Housework The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise features WFH founder Selma James (who turns 95 this year), co-ordinates the Global Women’s…
Read MoreAnn Snitow Prize Ceremony honoring Margaret Prescod, Tuesday 10 December
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.
Read MoreEvent: London Mining Network on Just Transition
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.
Read MoreThailand letter – Urgent Observation Request: Protection of WHRDs and Children at P-Move Peaceful Assembly
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…
Read MoreSave the date: 24 October: International Women’s Strike Actions
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 MoreWages for Housework Campaign in major exhibition – Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights
‘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.…
Read MoreWhy we support Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Farming: a grassroots rebuttal by Nina López and Selma James
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…
Read MoreAndhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming, India, wins the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity!
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,…
Read MoreJuly 20 Philadelphia: Black Women’s Lives Count
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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