International Women's Day 2017: We Stand With You, Including You Who Can't Or Won't Strike

Happy International Women's Day!

In support of women identifying humans everywhere, Ravishly goes dark today.

You'll see some new content published last night but you won't see it promoted or discussed until tomorrow. That means our tireless social media manager also gets today off. Other than a select few male or non-binary writers, we are a 100% women identifying comprised staff. We are mothers, advocates, lovers, fighters. We are white women and women of color, women of size and women who are straight sized, women with mental illness. We are Buddhist, Jewish, former-Mormon, atheist, Christian, agnostic women who have struggled and celebrated, both as women, and as humans. 

Today we stand with all women. 

This includes women who can't, don't, or won't take today in protest. The teachers who put their students above their politics. The child care workers who work so other women can. The people whose jobs would be threatened by their absence. The single moms whose kids wouldn't eat if they didn't engage in unpaid work. The women who have to wash some laundry today, so folks have clean underwear tomorrow. Thank you for doing what is necessary to care for those who depend on you.

We are fortunate to be able to ignore our work today and mindful of those who cannot.

The work of women is constant. It's historically always been harder to be a woman. We scrub the toilets when no one else will. We do the emotional labor. We manage the household, manage the doctors appointments, manage the kids bickering, manage the shopping and the diapers and the feeding and care of people. If we are lucky (or alternatively, insistent) we have a partner who shares those responsibilities, many of us are not lucky.

When you need something done, something important, something that moves mountains and changes the world, you can count on a woman.