International Women’s Day - Spain

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International Women’s Day - Spain (March 2018, Spain) Women workers in Spain are marking International Women’s Day with an unprecedented strike targeting gender inequality and sexual discrimination.Work was being halted as part of a 24-hour strike organised by the 8 March Commission and backed by 10 unions and some of Spain’s top women politicians.

Hundreds of marches with the slogan “if we stop, the world stops” are planned.Women taking part are stopping work and have been urged by organisers to spend no money and ditch any domestic chores for the day. Its manifesto calls for “a society free of sexist oppression, exploitation and violence“.

Feminist groups only want women to strike, to show how important their absence is, but Spanish law does not allow for single-gender strikes and men were welcome to support it. Some have opposed the strike. The ruling centre-right party, the Partido Popular (PP), said the action was “for feminist elites and not real women with everyday problems”.

However, two of the five female ministers in Spain’s conservative government, Agriculture Minister Isabel García Tejerina and the president of the Madrid region Cristina Cifuentes, have said they will be observing a day of work-to-rule. The mayors of Madrid and Barcelona – Manuela Carmena and Ada Colau – are also backing the strike.