The Unforeseen Subject of the Feminist Strike

This essay explores the significance of the women’s strike that took place in Italy on March 8, 2017. Analysis of the discussions surrounding the planning process for the strike makes possible a full account of the current state of the feminist movements in Italy and the most important theoretical issues that have animated (and continue to animate) the feminist discussions and assemblies. These theoretical issues also informed the preliminary composition of the “Feminist plan against male violence against women and gender violence.” The essay thus focuses on questions of social reproduction and the so-called feminization of work, on the nexus between the current processes of capitalist restructuring and gender violence, on the ways the events of March 8 gave the very notion of “strike” a new meaning, and on the materialist, intersectional, and transnational approaches of this movement.