International Activists WGRAC Presentation

Kat Namon ’22
News Editor

On Friday, Feb. 8, Lucia Cavallero and Julia Camara, two of the leaders of the International Women’s Strike, came to the Vernon Social stage to discuss with Trinity students their global movement that has been networked as the International Women’s Strike. On Mar. 8, 2018, in Spain, 5 million marched in their unprecedented “feminist strike.” Cavallero serves as the Argentinian organizer for the movement. Camara serves as the Spanish organizer and is a PhD student at the Complutense University. She is a member of the coordination of the Spanish feminist movement. 

Cavallero started off the event by speaking on how the strikes began in Argentina, the first of which occurred in 2017. The first strike was intended to address problems of femicide and how it relates to capitalism and labor exploitation. Women in Spain then saw the women’s strike that was organized in Argentina, and as a result decided they wanted to create a similar event in their own country. 

In 2018, the group expanded their goal and created the International Women’s Strike, which was intended to reach as many women as possible. International Women’s Day was chosen for the date of the strike. The group focused on relating feminism to the issues that women in more remote countries face every day. 

India Rhodes ’22, who attended the discussion on Friday stated, “I thought the discussion was really interesting, especially hearing about the effort to involve women in the strike who usually aren’t considered active participants in the labor market. I think that it was a good reminder of the importance that women have as care-givers, and that female empowerment doesn’t necessarily mean that a woman has to enter the job market or attend a college like Trinity.”