An Open Letter to the Women’s Movement from the Global Women’s Strike 

As women all over the world say: 
'No War – Invest in Caring Not Killing!',
 and women in London march to the US Embassy, 
some feminists attack lap dancing. 

What ARE our priorities for International Women’s Day?

As the US and UK governments defy the majority of people in the world and get ready to kill and displace millions in Iraq, mainly women and children, where are feminists on 8 March, International Women’s Day?  According to every poll, we women are even more opposed to war than men. We are the backbone of every anti-war movement.  Yet we have heard little against the war from those who identify as feminists.

Instead, on IWD Justice for Women, Women's Aid, Eaves Housing for Women, POLLY and Lilith will be picketing Spearmint Rhino, a lap-dancing club.  How obscene.  When most women, children and men are desperately trying to prevent this war and save the lives of millions, some of those who claim to speak against violence against women prefer to attack a sex industry establishment.  Machismo begins with the military, not with lap dancing.

And where is Clare Short, the darling of anti-porn feminists who rose to fame attacking Page 3?  In the Cabinet getting ready to perpetrate a truly obscene war, ignoring the women who will be at the receiving end of the bombs, as well as her constituents and the many MPs, women and men, who voted against war in an unprecedented backbench rebellion.

Women and our children pay most for war and weapons.  We are 70% of victims of armed conflict, 80% of refugees and displaced people.  More than 50% of refugee and asylum-seeking women have escaped from rape and are threatened with deportation back to rape.  At least 500,000 children have died in Iraq as a result of sanctions and many more will die if bombing starts.  Are their mothers worried about lap dancing?  Are such feminists worried about anything serious?  Why, and on whose behalf, are they ignoring this crisis for humankind?

And what of the claim that rape and sexual assault in Camden have increased since the arrival of Spearmint Rhino and other strip clubs?  Where is the evidence?  Is there a dossier like Blair’s claiming that Saddam Hussein poses an immediate threat?  Women in the anti-rape movement have long established that we are vulnerable to violence because we have less social power than men and the police and courts refuse to value our lives and protect us.  True of every woman, including sex workers. Sex workers in Soho and elsewhere are facing massive raids, arrests, detention, eviction, deportation, and are being forced out of flats onto the street where it is 10 times more dangerous to work.  Three women who were driven from Soho premises by eviction have been tragically murdered in recent years, one of them in late 2002.

No reference is made to the women workers in these clubs -- once again some feminists think they know better what’s good for other women.  How sexist and arrogant!  Most women in the sex industry are supporting families.  Many are single mothers, many are immigrants or asylum seekers denied benefits and other resources after fleeing Western-backed wars or dictatorships.  To picket lap dancing clubs is to invite more raids and deportations everywhere, and therefore more rape and murders of women who end up on the streets.

One sex worker from Albania told a press conference in Soho organized by the English Collective of Prostitutes to stop evictions: “We are freelances, working for ourselves. Apart from what I need to live on, I send all my money back home . . . I just want to be left alone.” 

And where are these feminists when women who have been trafficked need help?  Last time Women Against Rape approached refuges on behalf of two young immigrant women who had escaped from a trafficker, no one would take them in.  Only the church would provide safe housing.

Military budgets deprive women and children everywhere of water, food, healthcare, literacy, decent wages, pensions . . . thus causing death and devastation well before any bombs hit the ground.  Those of us who have been speaking out against spending on weapons of mass destruction and their use in war are outraged that any woman can prioritise protesting against lap dancing over anti-war protest at this time.

We invite all women whose priority for International Women’s Day is to prevent war, to join the women in over 70 countries who will take part in the Global Women’s Strike to demand NO WAR – INVEST IN CARING NOT KILLING!  In London we will march from Parliament Square (11.30am) to the US Embassy for a Speakout in Grosvenor Square (2pm).  Men’s support and participation welcome.

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