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…

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…

embassy bw

MOTHERS and CHILDREN of PALESTINE WE ARE WITH YOU.  Stop this genocide! Ceasefire now! Invest in caring, not killing.

Like millions of people around the world we are horrified and outraged at Israel's bombing and siege of Gaza, cutting off water, food, electricity, fuel and medical supplies, the destruction of homes, schools and hospitals, and the forced evacuation of over a million people.

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bw survey square

International survey: What Mothers and other caregivers want and need: In 2021, the Global Women's Strike brought together a working group to design a survey to find out what mothers and other caregivers actually think, want and need.

Findings of international survey contradict widespread assumptions as mothers/caregivers say they need and want more time and a care income. 

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Caring for the land: A natural farming movement in Andhra Pradesh in India, spearheaded by women’s self-help groups is regenerating the soil, and if widely practised, can help stop global warming and even be key to reversing it.

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human rights

Surviving the Military Dictatorship in Myanmar: a crowdfunder launched after the powerful testimony we heard at our recent Trade Unions Under Military Rule in Myanmar conference at Friends House.

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Our recent news >>>

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.…

Read More

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!

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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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