Statements that dont need to disagree with one another, and will help provide a well rounded feminism;

1. Women should be allowed to do anything men do. If you look into it, women have been involved in all sorts of things we think of as ‘mens work’, like fighting, and ruling, and thinking, and religion, for as long as these tasks have existed. Women are often very capable, and can excel at these tasks. They can also find joy in them.

2. The tasks we see as “womens work” are valuable, and always have been. Women often enjoy doing them. They are important, and a lot of them are more important than a some of the “mens work”. There is a beauty to this way of life; parenting, making domestic crafts, doing care work, passing on stories, holding social relationships together, cooking, cleaning, making and repairing garments, etc. A woman doesn’t need to do ‘men’s work’ for her work to have value, and it is okay to do ‘women’s work” for your whole life.

3. The division of labor on the lines of gender is unhelpful, and unnecessary, and should be abolished. Work isnt important because of who does it. It is important because of what it is. Often, the most important work in a society is done by those who are not in power. Often, the work of those in power serves no purpose other than the maintenance of that power. The most important work is often the work that the powerful dont want to do, and frankly, do not understand. Men and women aren’t categorically better suited to one task or another, and society doesnt benefit from siloing them. Society doesnt benefit from having more women do “mens work” if the labor they are taking on is just the labor of holding and maintaining power. It is better for people and societies to choose their own clusters of labor based on ability, interest, what is just, and what is needed.

Last night, all the dockworkers of the East and Gulf Coasts stopped working, and declared that they won’t go back until they are promised a fair wage and stable employment.

I admire the courage, community building, and dedication that strikes like these require, and have the utmost respect for the organizers. If they win their demands, it will help raise the standards for workers across the board, make shipping safer, ensure easier transfer of products, and higher safety standards for workers and consumers alike.

As these companies fleece us of our wages and rob us in the stores, as poor and working class people do all the work while a few rich folks take all the gains, it is lovely to see some folks fighting back, and doing it at scale.

News outlets and fear mongers will say that this strike will raise prices. They say it will make your medication scarce, and formula hard to find. There is some truth to that. But it is also a narrative designed to make you spineless, selfish, and traitorous. The people telling you this do not care if you live or die. They don’t care about your medication. They only care that they don’t have to raise the pay of their employees. They only care that this might cost them money, keep them from buying a private island or a yacht.

Remember, it is not the dockworkers who are forcing this scarcity. The dockworkers know that if things go on as they are, scarcity will only grow. Wages will fall, no one will be able to afford the things that you are so scared of losing. Standards in shipping will fall, causing delays, improper storage of goods, and lost cargo. What they are doing is, in part, to prevent that.

Domestic supply of most necessities is high enough to withstand many months of strikes. Even if it runs out in stores, someone in the community probably has what you need. In times like these, using mutual aid efforts to meet our own needs and needs in our communities is a way we can stand in solidarity. Making baby food, sharing formula, distributing breast milk, converting school labs to medicine production, sharing stockpiles, these could save lives and ease the burden of the strike, letting the workers stand strong and without contention from our communities.

If you want this strike to end soon, the best thing you can do is show support to the dockworkers, lower demand on these goods, and put pressure on the bosses to accept their demands.

We can live in a better world. We just have to remember to be on each others team. The team of human liberation - not the team of corporate profit.

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Solidarity forever : IWW | Wikipedia article on railway abandonment | All used up : Utah Phillips | The commonwealth of toil : Joe glazer | We have fed you all for a thousand years : IWW | John Henry | I don’t want your millions mister: The Almanac Singers | The big steel rail : Gordon Lightfoot | Chattanooga choo choo | Paradise : John Prine | We have fed you all for a thousand years | I’ve been working on the railroad | We have fed you all for a thousand years | ballad of a Wobbly: David rovics | Ralph Chaplin Speaks | The MTA | Freight Train : Elizabeth Cotton | Freight train blues : Bob Dylan | The city of New Orleans : Arlo Guthrie |Hobos lullaby : Woody Guthrie | Night trian: James brown