International Women’s Day Event – a great success!
On Saturday, 7 March, 80 people, the majority women, came together from all over Dorset to celebrate International Women’s Day with speakers, poetry, music and Palestinian snacks. The event was hosted by Dorset Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Sam Strudwick one of the organisers, introduced the event:
“The women of Palestine have seen their sons, husbands, fathers, brothers killed, abducted and tortured. They care for their families regardless of their own suffering. Children in Gaza have the highest rate of amputations of any war. There is a lack of basic medicine; mothers are too malnourished to breastfeed; milk formula supplies are subject to blockade. The genocide has not stopped.”
Sam also spoke on the US-Israel attacks on Iran. “No woman has ever been freed by American and Israeli bombs whether in Iran, Afghanistan, or Lebanon. Women and men of their own countries must determine their own future.”
Speakers spoke about how they saw sexism, racism and misogyny running through our institutions, epitomised by Epstein and his friends in high places.
Jameela Musleh, a woman of Palestinian heritage and officer of Dorset PSC, said:
“We witnessed tens of thousands of girls killed in Gaza. In Iran, 150 girls were buried under the rubble of their school by American bombs. Here, as Reform UK rises, they are announcing policies reminiscent of 1935 laws from Nazi Germany. Our rights were hard-fought for and we need to fight to keep them. We must stand with women everywhere.”
Carrie Hartridge, chair and women’s officer for the local Dorset Health Branch of the trade union UNISON said:
“The likes of home office minister Shabana Mahmoud don’t care about working-class women. We shouldn’t look to her and think, ‘Look, she has gone through the glass ceiling. In fact, she is double-glazing it behind her back against the rest of us. We should never apologise for taking up space, we should take more space and bring more women with us!”
School student, Evelyn Holt, said:
“I want to acknowledge the women of Sudan, Syria, Gaza, and Afghanistan; the children of Ukraine; and women across the world. We must not let the far-right racist leaders of Reform divide us from our migrant sisters or tear apart our unity as women.”
Evelyn quoted feminist writer Audre Lorde, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own”.
The gathering was addressed by video link by Virginia Rodino from the United States. Rodino, executive director of the Coalition of Labor Women, sent a message from the US:
“Solidarity greetings from the country ruled by a rogue Trump administration – an administration that has struck down abortion rights; that is terrorising communities with immigrant families, which means all our communities, and that is waging another illegal war in middle east.
“But we are also seeing uprisings and resistance. In Minneapolis and across America, women are a cornerstone of resistance against the horrors of ICE and deportations—women who come from all walks of life – immigrant women, teachers, healers, black and brown women, queer and trans women, and women of faith. We will continue to organise, strike and resist. Solidarity.”
A minute’s silence was held for women killed in Britain and abroad: Renee Nicole Good, killed by ICE in Minneapolis; Hind Rajab, the Palestinian child, killed at close range from an Israeli tank; and Sarah Everard, raped and murdered by an acting police officer in 2021, and in memory of all women killed due to domestic violence, war and other crimes.
