A Day Without A Woman: My First Strike

…and how men almost ruined it the very next day.

International Women’s Strike NYC: Rally, Washington Square Park. March 8, 2017

Yesterday, March 8, 2017 was International Women’s Day, and this year, organizers of The Women’s March called for a general strike, which they named A Day Without A Woman. Women were asked to withhold from going to work, not to spend money at businesses that were not women or minority owned, and asked to red, a color that has historically been tied to labor movements. This was going to be my first strike, which seemed fitting since my first march was the Women’s March in DC back in January. That experience was such an overwhelmingly positive one that I had high hopes that this would be too.

A few weeks ago, I emailed the leadership team at my job to inform them that I was planning on taking March 8th off, explaining to them why and included links if they wanted to read more about the strike. I asked them to consider supporting the women in my studio to participate and highlighted that, as a studio, this would be something meaningful and tangible we could do to show our support to the women we work with. You see, I work in a very male-dominated environment, with less than 25% of the staff being women. It’s openly acknowledged that we have a lot of work to do with respect to diversity and moreover, inclusion, but, as many companies find, there is not one single solution, issues run deep, and are complex, and making progress is often slow. By encouraging the 13 women in the studio to take the day off to strike was a powerful message to send to us, and we were grateful to work for a company that was putting it’s money where it’s mouth is.

Before taking the day off, I made sure to over-communicate to everyone that we would all be out. For two weeks in a row, I mentioned it at our all-hands Friday afternoon meeting, even providing historical context for the last time women went on strike, explaining that, on a high level, the issues women were calling attention to then are not very different from the ones women still face today. Aside from mentioning it in two different meetings, several Slack messages were sent to everyone reminding them that we would be out, and jokingly asking them not to burn the place down in our absence. I even wrote it on our Events Board in the most common space of the studio.

Now, the whole point of a strike is to have a sudden absence and interruption to the every day. We did not have to attempt to give everyone the heads up that we would be out. We did so because we were being conscientious of the fact that, for example, our entire Ops team (save for IT), is comprised of women, and not to let the phone ring off the hook all day long. We were being respectful of our co-workers, not wanting them to be thrown off guard while we were out.

On the day of the strike, we chose to meet for lunch at a women-owned restaurant, and we dined surrounded by other women wearing red. Our waitress, unable to take the day off (women and minority owned businesses were asked to stay open), was wearing red lipstick as a nod to the strike. We received a picture of some of our male co-workers, decked out in various shades of red, symbolizing their support of us. We were all flattered and excited by the gesture.

Over our meals, the conversations turned to the rarity of such an occasion. It’s not often that we all get together as women, to talk about the things that are bothering us, scaring us, or even upsetting us. When you are in the minority group of any kind, it’s easy to feel forgotten, less important, misunderstood, and unheard, We didn’t feel that way yesterday, and that alone was uplifting in and of itself. We all agreed we need to make sure we create more space for ourselves to lean more on one another, and to make a concerted effort to bond like that more often.

These warm, positive feelings of support and solidarity were dampened a bit when the conversation turned to some comments male co workers made that morning about how they had no idea we were going to be out of the studio. After reading the comments that were made, the impression I got was one of that we failed to communicate to them properly, and therefore, their not knowing was our fault. One can hopefully understand that this concept was baffling to us, because as I said, it had been communicated over and over again. We all chose to ignore it, let it slide, roll off our backs, so as not to cloud our day together.

We made our way over to Washington Square Park for the rally and stood together admiring the crowd size, pointing out all of the witty and artistic signs, and craning our ears trying to hear the speeches that were being given. I left feeling like we did the right thing, we showed up to stand up for our rights, we got to know each other more, and we had the support of our co-workers to fall back on when we went back to work the next day.

Today, once again, the enthusiastic feelings I had slowly disappeared throughout the day. It came up in conversation that while we were out, some guys in the studio made jokes about us being gone, and said things to the effect of “What if it’s actually better without them here?”, or “I didn't notice you all weren't here.” Some guys failed to understand why we felt the need to strike, some openly discussed the limited, if any, socio-economic impact strikes have, debating the whole point of the thing in the first place. When trying to confront male colleague #1 who owned up to making some jokes or comments in our absence, I was told by male colleague #2 that talking about such things was “absurd” and “a waste of company time”, then he suggested we just talk it out “over a beer”. When I pointed out to him that what he was doing was a version of mansplaining, and that it was not correct of him to belittle me by suggesting such a topic of conversation was ridiculous, I caused him offense. The irony was and still is palpable.

The last time I felt this deflated, defeated and unsupported was the morning after the election. On November 9, 2016, it was incredibly hard for me to not feel like half the country was personally against me, as a woman, by electing a man who has openly bragged about sexually assaulting women and getting away with it (among other things). Today, I felt exactly the same, if not worse, because I felt like some of the people I spend 40+ hours a week with, week in and week out, were incredibly insensitive, downright offensive, and overtly tone-deaf. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the tone-deafness is what is most upsetting. Joking about our workplace being better without the other 25% of us could never and will never be funny. Thinking that it could have ever been funny is probably the most offensive thing of all.

Dissent can be a powerful thing. It can spark conversations you might not otherwise have with one another about your values, view points, life experiences, politics, preferences, and religious beliefs. Disagreements are a healthy part of any functioning society, not everyone needs to think and feel the same to come together for the common good. The baseline, though, should always be respect. If we cannot start these difficult and often tense or uncomfortable conversations about our differences with an understanding of respect for one another as fellow human beings, these sorts of conversations will never lead to anything productive. We will never get any closer to walking in one another’s shoes if we cannot calmly and rationally converse with one another.

This is why I’m choosing to write about how today made me feel. I know that I reacted in a bit of a knee-jerked way, and it doesn’t make me proud to have done so. Instead, I want to try to explain why some women felt the need to strike yesterday with the hopes that it will shed some light on the issues at hand and ideally spark meaningful, intellectual conversations.

#WhyIStrike

Here are 9 examples of how women are still not on equal footing as men, direct from news stories that have come out in the last few weeks alone:

1. The Intercept, 2/13/17. Imagine waking up, every day, knowing that your country’s president is a man who openly admitted to grabbing women’s bodies and getting away with it. Then, imagine that you live in Oklahoma, a state where Representative Justin Humphrey has drafted a bill being considered that would require women to obtain written permission from their sexual partner before they could obtain an abortion. Putting pro-life or pro-choice identities aside for a moment, the fact that women across our country have to listen to lawmakers, who are almost always men, debate if they have the rights to make their own decisions about what to do with their bodies is maddening.
2. Susan Fowler, 2/19/17. Susan, on her personal blog, outlines the many disturbing instances of sexual harassment while working at Uber. Susan claims to have incurred many disturbing instances of sexual harassment, only to have her HR department lie to her face about the manager in question’s track record and insist he was a first time offender, and went on to be told she was the one who needed to leave that team. Well, women tend to talk to one another, and it eventually becomes clear Susan was not alone in her experiences. Her account is really much too detailed to be given the TL:DR treatment, and I encourage everyone to read her full story. As an HR professional, it sickens me that an employee asked for help over and over only to be victim blamed, shamed, and humiliated time and time again.
3. Mashable, 2/22/17. Uber uses Susan Fowler’s story as press opportunity in a message to users deleting their accounts.
4. Mashable, 3/2/17. Fowler alleges Uber is directly blaming her for users deleting their accounts, hires a law firm to investigate her and create a “smear campaign” against her. These two stories highlight the consequences women that are brave enough to speak up against sexual harassment often face. This sort of retaliation is the exact reason why more women do not report their instances of sexual harassment or abuse. It’s all too common that women are ignored or not taken seriously enough by police officers, managers, or HR people. Then after fighting to be heard, women can face backlash, victim blaming, and encounter skewed rationale in an attempt to justify why she “asked for it” or deserved to be treated in such a way.
5. Washington Post, 3/5/17. Women risking their lives to protect our country are not even safe from sexual harassment. The Marine Corps is currently investigating an incredibly infuriating instance of naked photos of female soldiers being shared, without their consent, with a Facebook group with 30,000 members. As if sharing these pictures were not victimizing enough, the names and ranks of the women subjects were included in the photos, (along with often derogatory and harassing remarks) removing any iota of hope these women might have ever had of remaining anonymous and saving themselves horrific public shame and embarrassment.
6. NY Times, 3/6/17. A gender discrimination lawsuit being brought up against Sterling Jewelers is shining a light on common policies some companies have in place that hurt women. TL:DR version: 69,000 current and former employees have a class action lawsuit against Sterling Jewelers for pay discrimination based on gender. Other disturbing allegations in the case include stories of women being fired for reporting the rape of her female colleague at a company retreat, a boss telling a women that if she “does not put out, you’ll be out”, and other flippant remarks that add up to, at least, a hostile work environment and at most, sexual harassment.
7. NY Times, 3/6/17. These problems are not unique to the U.S. TL:DR version: Women in Britain are fighting against sexist dress codes that often require them to wear high heels to work, sometimes despite the fact that their feet bled. Britain, like the U.S, has anti-discrimination laws in place meant to protect people from discrimination based on gender, age or sexual orientation. Members of Parliament are researching double standards in the workplace as a result. I cant say for sure, but I can venture a guess that many of these dress codes were put in place by men who have never had to suffer through wearing high heels a day in their lives.
8. CNN, 3/6/17. In America today, women’s rights are constantly up for debate. Texas that is being debated, that could potentially make it legal for doctors to lie to pregnant women about the health of their fetuses if they fear the woman might consider getting an abortion based on that information.
9. Salon.com, 3/8/17. Women of child-bearing age, especially those in lower income brackets, are particularly marginalized when it comes to the current GOP-proposed health care reforms. By taking steps such as rolling back Medicaid, (a program that covers about half the births in the U.S.), and defunding Planned Parenthood, (often the only option for women without insurance to obtain affordable, necessary and sometimes life saving medical services such as pap smears), it certainly feels like the GOP is aiming to make it all but impossible for women to prevent or terminate unwanted pregnancy and afford the care they require as human beings.

Some more food for thought, according to a UN Women report from 2016:

1. Roughly 35% of women experience physical or sexual violence against them, most often at the hands of someone close to them. This number could be as high as 70% according to some national reports.
2. Women that have suffered abuse are more likely to develop depression.
3. Of all the women homicide victims globally in 2012, 50% of them died at the hands of men they knew, whereas the same can be said of 6% of the male homicide victims.
4. Adult women account for 50% of the human trafficking globally. Add young girls in and that number rises to 70%.

…just to point out a few horrifying and startling statistics.

It’s because of all of these things I read in the news on a daily basis that I feel the weight of these off-hand, flippant jokes and comments drag me down. It’s salt in a wound that reopens every time yet another story comes out about the abuses, discriminations, sexist circumstances women face every single day of our lives. If I feel this weighing on me, as a middle class white woman, I cannot even imagine how heavy it feels for women of color.

Women need more allies in both the world and the workplace. It starts by pointing out to our colleagues, friends, family members, etc that those seemingly harmless jokes about all the sandwiches that didn't get made while women were striking yesterday, are actually quite hurtful, and do absolutely nothing to solve actual problems or move the conversation forward.

Sure, the office may have been a tad quieter without us there, but if you joke that it’s better when 25% of us are not there, what makes you think that we would ever feel like we should come back to work alongside you? I for one fought the urge to walk out of work all day today, and am having a hard time facing the idea of going back tomorrow morning.

The only thing that is encouraging me to go back to work tomorrow is the amazing women I work with, knowing that they all share my frustrations, disappointment and sadness. I am hopeful that we can have conversations that help us better understand one another, even if we do not agree.

Let’s get back to that baseline of respect and go from there, shall we?