More than 5 million workers have taken part in Spain’s first nationwide “feminist strike”, according to trade unions. The action, held to mark International Women’s Day, is intended to highlight sexual discrimination, domestic violence and the wage gap.
On Thursday afternoon, the Workers’ Commissions and the Workers’ General Union said that 5.3 million people had participated in two-hour walkouts, describing the action as “an unprecedented strike in our country’s trade union movement”. The strike, which is being supported by some of Spain’s best-known female politicians – including Madrid’s mayor, Manuela Carmena, and the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau – has drawn huge crowds on to streets and squares across the country to call for change and equality. Under the slogan “If we stop, the world stops”, protesters congregated in cities including Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Seville and Pamplona. “They say sexist things as jokes – especially when it comes to domestic work – even though we say that you shouldn’t say things like that even as a joke,” one of the students said. “Yesterday, some boys said they’d come down to the protest with us, but look: it’s just us four.”
Last year in Spain 49 women were killed by their partners or ex-partners, compared with 44 in 2016. Government statistics a show reports of violent abuse are on the rise: there were 129,193 reports in 2015 and 142,893 in 2016. The strike is also intended to show how much domestic and care work women do on a daily basis – by leaving the tasks to men. A poll for El País this week found that 82% of Spaniards thought there were valid motives for the strike.
