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 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.

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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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Recent & upcoming events >>>

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…

Mothers Manifesto outside Parliament today!

By Global Women's Strike | 13th December 2023

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.

By Global Women's Strike | 7th November 2023

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.

By Global Women's Strike | 9th October 2023

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.

By Global Women's Strike | 28th September 2023

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…

Event: London Socialist Film Co-Op presents: Walter Rodney: What they don’t want you to know.

By Global Women's Strike | 14th September 2023

Join us for a screening of Walter Rodney: What they don’t Want you to Know (2022), a documentary exploring the life of Guyanese academic and activist Dr Walter Rodney. The event will be accompanied by a panel and Q&A with: Arlen Harris, director Dr. Patricia Rodney, academic and widow of Walter Rodney Selma James, writer and activist…

Event: Climate change – learning from women farmers in Andhra Pradesh, India.

By Global Women's Strike | 13th July 2023

A Global Women’s Strike event for South India Heritage Month. Thursday 20 July 2023, 6-8pm, Swiss Cottage Library, 88 Avenue Rd, London NW3 3HA. ALL WELCOME. What we saw when we visited the women’s self-help groups transforming their communities with natural farming. We in the city must know more about how our food is grown…

Press conference and action outside Philadelphia Family Court: Take away our poverty, not our children – Implement recommendations on child separation

By Global Women's Strike | 12th June 2023

For Children’s Week for the Child Tax Credit, mothers, grandmothers and supporters from Philadelphia will be joined by others from Baltimore, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, England and Scotland who are suffering from the same abusive child welfare system. We are demanding the implementation of the Recommendations of the Philadelphia City Council Special Committee on Child Separation, starting with: Poverty is not neglect and must not be used as a reason for child removal; Get resources to mothers/caregivers – support, not separation; Open the family court

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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 >>>

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,…

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…

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!

Press release from Queer Strike: “When women are paid for all we do, there’ll be a lot of wages due . . .”

By Global Women's Strike | 2nd July 2024

Singer-song writer Gemma Rogers has re-imagined the song, “Wages Due”, written and originally sung by Boo Watson in 1975. Released on Bandcamp, people are asked to pay what they can when they download the song. We’re delighted that all proceeds will go to Crossroads Women. Boo Watson was a founding member of Wages Due Lesbians in Toronto, Canada, and a talented musician. She composed and wrote the “Wages…

Final report: What Mothers and Other Caregivers Want

By Global Women's Strike | 6th June 2024

In a survey of 1065 respondents from 50 countries, an overwhelming 84% said that caring deserves a care income. They wanted more time with their family, and to work outside the home part-time rather than full-time. While the responses summarized in the report reflect only the views of those who took part, they provide illustrative testimonials on crucial topics. Read the report…

Natural Growing in India – our article in Allotment Gardener newsletter

By Global Women's Strike | 24th May 2024

Dear Friends, Please see article below by food growers in the Global Women’s Strike network, inspired by the movement of women farmers in Andhra Pradesh spreading natural farming through their Self-Help Groups. More information on this growing movement here. Natural Growing in India We are allotmentgrowers/gardeners in London and Suffolk,growing food withoutchemicals for some time.We have been inspired bythe grassroots women’sself-help farmingmovement in AndhraPradesh, India.Since 2016, Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming has been spearheaded by women groups that…

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

By Global Women's Strike | 7th May 2024

Webinar: Compensating Care: How U.S. Policy Can Support Unpaid Family Caregivers

By Global Women's Strike | 2nd May 2024

TODAY, May 2 – join us for this pathbreaking one hour webinar on Compensating Care: How U.S. Policy Can Support Unpaid Family Caregivers, Thursday, May 2, 2-3pm Eastern Time, 11am-12noon Pacific Time – It is a joint event by the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP), Global Women’s Strike & Women of Color/GWS.…

Happy Birthday Mumia Abu-Jamal!

By Global Women's Strike | 24th April 2024

Dearest Mumia, Thinking of you especially on your landmark 70th birthday and sending arm-loads of love and every good wish. We can’t say enough how precious you are to us and many around the world. You’ve made and continue to make a remarkable life under the most challenging circumstances – inspiring, thoughtful and compassionate. What…