What excitement for Diosa, it's 15 minutes before March 8th begins and we're like children on Christmas Eve, we can't stop writing to each other, the Whatsapp and Telegram groups are smoking, exchanging photos showing touch-ups, beautiful last-minute banners, videos with the works of the artisans with magical hands who with cardboard and colors are capable of changing the world, a rich collection of posters of all kinds encouraging the strike and announcing the thousand and one spaces where in a few hours there will be rallies and demonstrations. From outside too, messages arriving from Paris where they tell us that there is great expectation with our strike, from Berlin, and now, they have just told us that in Madrid they have already started!
Wow, the feminist comrades in Madrid, as impatient as we are, have chosen not to wait and take to the streets, the first video arrives to the rhythm of cymbals and pot-banging! 8M starts!
Meanwhile, those of us in the Canary Islands take advantage of that hour less, which tomorrow will be more, to continue sharing ideas, slogans, mottos and songs, we know that a great day awaits us, more than great. We know that we are making history, that we are facing the first feminist strike in this country, a timid stoppage of barely half an hour preceded us last year, enough to break the ice, to light the fuse that is already burning. We also know that it will not be a total strike, that there is still a way to go, walls that resist and that will not be easy to tear down, but we do not care, we are calm because we know that this is a long-distance race and that there is no turning back. Every step we take, no matter how small, is a great advance, because we are not alone on the road, we are adding up and we are more and more.
Butterflies in my stomach, some comrades were telling me a while ago that they felt, it's the nerves, it's the emotion and the illusion of what awaits us tomorrow.
And I feel immense pride in being able to live this great moment, because we perceive that this is serious, that the ground is shaking to the rhythm of the women's step, and this movement is going further, it is a volcano in eruption ready to dynamite the structures of patriarchy, with all that this may mean in the advances towards the real equality that we need so much.
While I was writing it has struck 12, it is already March 8, we start in a few hours the activities, in the morning bike rides, meetings, multiple rallies, recreational days, picnic, etc...and in the afternoon demonstrations and rallies throughout the islands.
Those of us who are on strike all day will have the opportunity to share various spaces and moments, accompany the comrades who can only stop for two hours in the morning, the students who are also on strike, those who come in the afternoon stoppage, and all those who attend the mobilizations, rallies and demonstrations of the last hour.
We can all participate in some way and in many ways, because there is a strike for everyone, labor, care, student and consumer.
Tomorrow, in a few hours, we hang up our aprons and all those of us who can, in the time we can, stop and go out to the street.
We stop, yes, even if some do not understand it, even if some do not want it.
We stop yes, because if women stop, the world stops?
Happy day and happy strike!
María del Río, Deputy and Secretary of Feminisms and Equality of Podemos Canarias
