Why Conservative Women Won't Strike
On March 8, in offices, shops, and boardrooms all over the country, women won’t be at their desks or workstations. The roles women fill throughout society - the startup CEO, the emergency-room doctor, the stay-at-home mom, the Starbucks barista - will be curiously empty. It will be a stark reminder of just how fundamental women are to every workplace, a day that shines a light on the economic injustices women continue to face in 2017.
At least that’s what the organizers of the Women’s March are hoping will happen on “A Day Without a Woman,” their initiative that calls for a daylong “general strike” from paid or unpaid work. “When millions of us stood together in January, we saw clearly that our army of love greatly outnumbers that of fear, greed, and hatred,” they write on their website. “Let’s raise our voices together again, to say women’s rights are human rights, regardless of a woman’s race, ethnicity, religion, immigration status, sexual identity, gender expression, economic status, age or disability.”
But despite that seemingly inclusive mission, not every woman is on board with this plan. Not only are there women who can’t afford to forfeit a day of wages or who would get fired if they didn’t show up at work, some conservative women say they are either against the idea itself or can’t support an effort organized by women who aren’t as welcoming as they’d like you to believe.
“I have a job to do,” says Katie Pavlich, an editor at conservative news site Townhall and author of Assault and Flattery: The Truth About the Left and Their War on Women. “And my philosophy on getting people to appreciate and respect your work is not to not show up for work.”
For conservative women, walking out of work - or not coming in at all - isn’t the way to prove their inherent equality. To them, the way to advance gender equality is to take a seat at the table, not to leave an empty chair.
The entire concept of the strike is “counterproductive,” says Karin Agness Lips, the founder and president of the Network of Enlightened Women, a conservative group for college women. Instead, she thinks that a day to advance women’s equality in the workplace could “encourage women to ask to meet with their boss to talk about their pay. Or polish their resume. Or be a mentor and mentor a younger woman in the office, and give her career advice.
“There's a lot more productive things they could be doing,” she adds, “rather than not showing up.”
Jill Bader, a conservative woman in Nashville, Tennessee, says she’s too busy to strike. She’ll be traveling to New Mexico and Colorado, meeting with potential clients for the Republican advertising firm where she works.
Rather than striking, she says, women should channel that energy into helping Trump succeed. In the run-up to the election, assuming (along with pretty much everyone else) that Hillary Clinton would win, “I was fully planning on giving her a shot,” Bader says. “Even though I disagree with her on most every issue, I fully recognize that if she would have been a successful president, that would have helped our country.”
This view cuts to a deeper issue than the seemingly straightforward act of striking for women’s equality. The architects of the Women’s March don’t have a good track record of welcoming conservative women: In January, they briefly included a pro-life feminist group as one of the Women’s March sponsors, until a thundering backlash forced them to reverse course, calling the move an “error.” To conservative women, the message was unequivocal: You’re not welcome in this movement.
“That's not inclusive,” Pavlich tells me. “There’s a lot of women who believe in pro-life values. And that should be respected. If we're going to take the title and claim that we're doing a women's march - well, no. You're doing a liberal women's march. And that's fine. But don't claim the title of being representative of all women, because it's dishonest.”
Antonia Okafor, a Second Amendment rights activist in Dallas, says this is the main reason she isn’t participating in the strike. “I would absolutely love to” join in, she says. But the way the organizers handled pro-life women’s involvement turned her off.
Okafor also notes that not coming to work is a luxury reserved for privileged, mostly white-collar - and just plain white - women. “A lot of minority women aren’t going to be able to take off of work without penalties,” she says. “Or even just women who are in a low-income status. Even for something that's for a good cause.”
In response to those criticisms, the organizers of the Day Without A Woman have said that women can also wear red to show solidarity with other women, even if it’s just a red pin on your shirt if you have to wear a uniform. They’re also encouraging participants to only shop at small, women- and minority-owned businesses.
Sarah Sophie Flicker, an organizer of the Women’s March who’s helping plan the Day Without A Woman, says she understands that conservative women wouldn’t necessarily be supportive of the cause. But regardless of your political affiliation, she says, “these conversations include all of us. If the most engaged a conservative woman is in the strike is just to stop and think about the gendered ways in which she is expected to participate in our economy, then I think that’s great. I think what we're asking forces everyone to stop and think about all the issues that we've been discussing and we've laid out. In a lot of ways, that's a victory.”
It’s a diplomatic way of addressing the issue, but it’s certainly not one that will convince Pavlich of the value of the strike.
“Show up and do a better job than everyone in the room, including the men, and earn your respect and recognition for your work that way,” Pavlich says. You “don't earn respect and recognition by leaving for the day, essentially throwing a tantrum.”
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