Again, the country is supposed to stand still

8. March, international women's day, 7 o'clock in the morning. Eberhard blows mean by the Baden-Baden train Station underpass. Or was it Cornelius? Bennet? The last three Storm were male. "Wife on strike! 14. June!" – a woman's voice, the commuters tears from their In-Gekehrtheit, clear and loud. "So you listen to it in spite of earplugs," says Gianna Ferrari and laughs. The 24-year-old student has encounter with other women the Aargauer strike collective. Today, a few weeks later, distribute dozens in the whole of the Canton Flyer.

Ferrari is driving the violence on the street, the violence against women. "Since I started to see, I see, more and more," says the 24-Year-old. To see her begins when she realizes that all have a story to tell her Friends stories of harassment, that you will be advised not to wear short skirts, that you can visit yourself-defense courses, feel powerless, when they fall at night in a men's group. "I understood, suddenly, what is normal, not normal at all."

"wife on strike! 14. June!", Ferrari reaches out to a young woman in the Flyer, these smiles, thanks, goes, look in the Go on a clenched woman's fist, with red painted thumb nail in the middle of a Venus symbol.

No Central control

set The fist with the painted thumb nail in the Venus symbol has in the last few weeks as a sign of the second woman strikes in the history of Switzerland. It came from the Romandie. In January of 2018, a feminist called there inside a new woman's strike, in the autumn, the Swiss Federation of trade unions (SGB) with drew. Then the dynamics became independent. Everywhere in Switzerland the strike formed a collective. In Geneva, Yverdon, in the Canton of Valais, Bern, Basel, Aargau, Lucerne, Zurich, and even in Uri and Schwyz women are currently planning the first women's strike in 1991. At the time, half a Million women in Switzerland, put down the work, led by the trade unions. Even today, the trade unions. The VPOD mobilized women in female-dominated professions such as nursing, childcare, education. The SGB has opened a strike by the Secretariat.

But this strike is different. "In contrast to the first strike, he is not led by the trade unions, but by the regional strike of the collective," says Salome Schaerer. She has called the right to strike, collective Zürich-Oberland. Last Saturday, demonstrated women in Winterthur, Basel and Zurich: "If woman wants, everything stops!", they repeated, as in 1991. Artists like Sophie Hunger-call on Social Media to Join in. The students of the Zurich Canton schools organized a feminist week of action, calling for "education without sexism". At the University of Zurich to be occupied by women and queer people in a lecture hall and listened to the advice of feminists of the first hour: "Let's perform all of the women of the strike as you fancy," said the long-standing Zurich-based women's representative Zita Küng to around 30 students.

On Sunday, the strike momentum builds up for the first time be centrally located in Biel. The votes are already in front of the big hall of the Maison du Peuple audible: "strike! Strike! Feminist Strike!", call up to 500 women from the Romandie, Ticino and the German part of Switzerland, clench our fists in the air, forms with your hands is a Vulva sign, stomp, and clap. "We were not heard! Now we need to do something Big!", turn up the heat in the speaker, the crowd goes wild.

Trump as a strike-driver

The national strike coordinating your appeal adopted at this Meeting. The women are demanding equal pay for work of equal value, the appreciation of female employment, and fair social insurance. "Without our unpaid work, the economy would not work", criticising the strike on the inside. You may want to split a longer maternity leave, Parental leave and adequate childcare places, a General reduction of working time to paid and unpaid work better. And you are calling for the end of sexism, discrimination and violence.

The dynamics came not from the Nothing. Since U.S. President Donald Trump , his wife despise the Manifestations. On the first of the Zurich Women's March after his election, 15000, women, and men were at least against discrimination, on the road, last autumn, demonstrated in Bern 20000 for wage equality. Since #MeToo, a Social Media Hashtag was reported among the women around the globe about their experiences with sexual harassment. There's a persistent wage difference of almost 20 percent. And as the recent study by the world economic forum, Switzerland is ranked in terms of gender equality, to 20. Place behind South Africa and Bulgaria.

change of scene. In Geneva, the warm February sun shines through the window in the drawing room of a city apartment. Christiane Brunner leans back in her chair, takes a SIP of white wine, lights up a cigarette. The now 71-year-old icon of the first wife strikes like what you see: "Younger," she says, smiling. #MeToo I have played a large role in the resurgence of the women's movement, she says. And #MeToo distinguishes the first from the second wife, strike: "would not our time have been conceivable," says the former President of the SGB. "Such things are not said, and we could not break all the taboos at once." Whether frustration mitkochte about the harassment, the anger of the women at that time? "Quite sure," says Brunner. "We just had no words for."

FDP-women skeptical to find as before

Brunner traveled before the first strike in 1991, a year through the whole of Switzerland in order to associate inside. The Union Secretary called on the unionists to take their wives to the Meeting in order to reach you. "Between then and now are worlds apart," says Brunner. Not only achievements, such as the legalization of termination of pregnancy or of maternity protection, but also in the possibilities of mobilization: Social Media, mobile phones, Videos. "If we would have had these opportunities!", she calls.

Brunner's only concern: "today's call for a strike came originally from the far-left corner. Now the women have to create it, all the women bring," she says. "There is no left-to-right may be a Problem.

The FDP women have already decided. For Neutrality. "We have overcome the divine order, a strike seems to us appropriate," says Doris Fiala, President of the FDP women. This leave it up to your members whether they want to participate in the strike or not: "I am committed to the year-intensive for the women, this strike is connoted with the unions," she says.

Wait is not enough

Also the women's umbrella organisation Alliance F hesitated initially. In 1991, the women's Federation, expressed himself publicly against the strike. Today, Co-President Maya Graf (Green party) says: "We support the day ideally. The actions should come from the base, the strike should be as decentralized and diverse as possible." Also, The CVP and the Church women have joined the strike. "We see the woman strike as an opportunity," says Kathrin Winzeler from Swiss Catholic women's Federation (SKF). "Women today can be all of the consecrated Offices, they remain excluded."

"If you want to achieve something, you have to knock hard on the table," says Christiane Brunner, the non-choice of led, thanks to the Protest of the women of the first left a woman in the Bundesrat. "The movement that arose at that time, was massive. The women have noticed that it is sufficient, if you wait for equality." Brunner remembers the night before the first women's strike. She had spent the night in Bern, a good night's sleep. As they entered early in the Morning on the road, she saw already a lot of women in pink T-Shirts. "You know me, we greeted us. Then the tears came to me."

Today, the 24-year-old Gianna Ferrari at the train station, tears in the eyes, to Baden, if the Name of Christiane Brunner: "What do you think of us?" she asks curious. Brunner's judgment counts. Even 28 years later.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 11.03.2019, 21:34 PM