On March 9th, women around the world should stop their paid and unpaid work, the group founded in Germany is calling for this Initiative Enough! Genug! on. On Monday the initiators presented their plans in Berlin. The aim of the women’s general strike is to create “a sharper instrument in threatening times,” said the initiator, psychologist and politician Adrienne Goehler.
March 9th is supposed to be a day of action to mark International Women’s Day March 8th extend. On this day – also known as Women’s Fight Day or Feminist Fight Day – people traditionally demonstrate worldwide for equal rights and against discrimination. “Women* still do not have the same life chances like men,” said Marie-Florence Mahwera, managing director of the Berlin State Women’s Council, when presenting the initiative. Especially in the current global political situation, women’s rights that have already been fought for are being lost, and the initiative wants to prevent that. The strike is also directed against “systematic devaluation, unpaid care work, femicides, wars and the denial of the climate crisis”.
The initiative calls the day of action a strike, but does not mean a strike in the sense of collective bargaining. The planned work stoppage is “not a labor dispute,” says the Enough! website. Enough!, but a political and social form of protest. Therefore, individuals are not protected by the right to strike and must decide for themselves whether they want to “apply for time off, submit vacation” or just extend their lunch break.
Women* still do not have the same life chances as men
Marie-Florence Mahwera, Managing Director of the Berlin State Women’s Council
This means that the protest is compatible with many, said Goehler. In addition, on March 9th they wanted to “picnic, lie down, scream, dance, but not march”. For example, people want to lie down in public places; a “lazy demonstration” is planned. One goal is also to “overcome the division between the various women’s movements”. By women*, the initiative means a “diversity of genders” who should be part of the campaign.
Iceland as a model
Enough! That’s it! According to its own information, it has 1,100 members and consists of over 50 organizations and 42 regional groups. In Germany these include Fridays for Future, Grandmas Against the Right and the state women’s councils of the federal states. The taz Panter Foundation also supports the women’s strike.
There are groups around the world in Lisbon, Buenos Aires and Lima, among others. However, not all countries in the world are involved. They also want to demonstrate for those women* who cannot take to the streets themselves, said Goehler.
The model for the initiative is Women’s Friday, which took place in Iceland in 1975. At that time, around 90 percent of Icelandic women stopped working to demonstrate against unfair wages and division of labor. Officially in Iceland we speak of a “women’s day of rest” because a strike against discrimination would not have been possible under labor law and in order not to scare off conservative women.
Iceland has consistently been in first place since 2009 World Economic Forum Gender Gap Indexwhich measures gender differences between men and women in the areas of economic participation, educational opportunities, health and political participation. Germany slipped from seventh to ninth place in 2025. According to the World Economic Forum, the reasons are varied: economic equality has been stagnating for years, women’s political participation is deteriorating, and women’s healthy life expectancy is falling.