There are countless people who have risked their lives and livelihoods throughout history in the name of a greater good. Many of those people with families. Sorry, I misread your “many of us” sentence.

On the contrary... I’m not making your point at all. First, I made sure not to include myself in those who couldn’t afford to strike. Second, there is no convincing someone to not feed their kids or to risk eviction. Not possible, not going to happen. That’s not a small sacrifice, regardless of potential gains.…

That’s a great argument for someone who can simply miss a night out or make coffee at home for a month to make up the lost pay. Many of us who don’t live paycheck to paycheck, sometimes forget that it literally isn’t possible for some people to miss work. They are barely holding on, and missing a day of work is all it…

Except Bokbunzajoo1 makes a good point: Some people literally cannot afford to strike. For them working is the difference between eating, or making rent, or not. Making a statement is great, but even if the strike has some success it aint gonna replace that missing rent money...

Striking as a non-union unskilled laborer is abysmally stupid.

That’s very nice. Now tell it to someone who needs to eat with that paycheck they’re losing.

They hurt his feelings, and that’s enough for me.

Rachel Maddow sumerizes it here much better than I can:

And strike for women who can’t strike. I bet you have a friend who is afraid they could lose their job and therefore can’t strike. Somehow make it about them if you can.

And what about those of us who work at organizations that do good? For example, I work at a non-profit that primarily serves Latina and African-American women, in career and business development. We also do a lot of community advocacy. My data job directly supports our advocacy work and our fundraising — which has a…

In a perfect system that would be true but employers can and do find ways to punish low wage workers. Reduction of hours, transfers to locations outside of their range of travel. And your average low wage worker isn’t usually super knowledgeable about their rights.

I’m assuming that if this is a women’s strike, men are not asked to strike. So you contribute by donating pay to the women who lose it, and by not doing a single stroke of the work the women would have done.

Awesome, and thanks. So far everyone has been polite, even people who thought it was obvious that men should be striking as well (which I’ve found compelling). Your reasons make a lot of sense to me, and I should have thought this through a little more clearly before asking. Sympathy strikes are an important tool.

I don’t know though....

Oh yeah. I spend less and less time there, my main focus is twitter for the most part.

Completely agreed on that front. I hate nothing more than when someone thinks I’m being over sensitive for unfriending people over political disagreements. Literally 100% of the time i do it it’s because I found out the hard way that the offender is a horrible person.

Legitimate.

Unless I get a clear signal that men should not take part, my default is that Ill be taking part in support of women’s rights.

I had the same question though. Like, does it or does it not make the whole thing more impactful when I, as a male, still go to work and am swamped (I work at a small library with two coworkers, both women). Even as an ally? I honestly don’t know the answer to that question and it probably makes me seem like a real…

Cool. Are there suggestions for how male allies can support the strike? Other than not being scabs?