Feminist associations and unions will march this Wednesday in 12 Portuguese cities for women’s rights, as part of the International Feminist Strike, which has been taking place in Portugal since 2019.
“In addition to celebrating our lives, we also want to give visibility to violence, oppression, inequalities that women are subject to in an unequal society, whether cis women [cisgénero]whether trans women [transexuais]”, told Lusa Cheila Collaço Rodrigues, activist from the Lisbon branch of Rede 8 de Março.
The strike, which takes place on International Women’s Day, is in its fifth edition and will take place this Wednesday in the cities of Aveiro, Barcelos, Braga, Bragança, Coimbra, Évora, Faro, Guimarães, Leiria, Lisbon, Porto and Vila Real , and, on Saturday, in Chaves.
“This strike is based on a very specific wave of feminism and on three main pillars: the labor strike, the student strike, but also the care strike — which is, basically, the work that women do in society and that without which society collapses,” he said.
Cheila Rodrigues added that “capitalism collapses without women’s domestic work”.
According to the activist, in the initiative that will take place in Lisbon, all victims of femicide during the past year in Portugal will be honored. “Every year we have access to numbers, which are shameful, and we are only talking about cases of femicide. We are not even talking about cases of rape. There is greater visibility, but there is still a lot of work to do”, he stressed.
Planning to “scream” today for the rights that women have been lacking in recent years, the activist promised to criticize the Government a lot for not presenting solutions. “It is time to unite. We, feminists, women of the left and all allies”, she underlined, noting that women must “face the national and international situation, which is currently quite difficult”.
Rede 8 de Março will also have the support of the Union of Call Center Workers (STCC), the National Union of Higher Education (SNESup), the Union of Health, Solidarity and Social Security Workers (STSSSS) and the Union of All Education Professionals (STOP), which had also already scheduled a strike for the same day.
The movement, according to Cheila Rodrigues, intends to “pass the message that feminism is not what separates”, but rather capitalism, patriarchy and oppression.
Pointing to a “historic struggle”, the activist recalled that the years of the pandemic were very complicated, despite the fact that Rede 8 de Março never left the streets. “We always made a point of ensuring that some comrades would always be on the streets, although there were assemblies online“, he indicated, adding that from Thursday, the day after the march, preparations for the 2024 initiative will begin.