Identity

A World Without Women: A Dumpster Fire

Some may know a dumpster fire as a fire that’s in a dumpster. Others may know a dumpster fire as a disastrously mishandled situation, for example: the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act, or the most recent iteration of the Muslim ban, or the stripping away of protections and rights for trans students, or let’s just say the increasingly-uphill struggle for equality—particularly among women and marginalized communities—in 2017.

Today is International Women’s Day, and we thought a dumpster fire would be an appropriate, if not extremely subtle, visual metaphor for the continuously horrible conditions women face in contemporary society. It also represents what the world would look like without women and our countless contributions to the betterment of society.

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In solidarity with women around the world who are engaging in one day of protest against economic inequality, Broadly staff will be on strike today. However, we also understand that not everyone has the ability to take a day off from paid or unpaid labor, and that the fight for full economic and social equality is ongoing, which is why we have prepared stories that we will be publishing today to highlight the continued injustice that disproportionately affects working class and poor women, trans and gender-nonconforming women, immigrants, as well as women from ethnic and religious minorities. We also will be publishing stories that highlight politicians and activists fighting for “feminism for the 99 percent” by making the women’s rights movement one that is inclusive of all gender-oppressed people and standing upfor all those who face ongoing discrimination and political injustice.

Finally, I’ll leave you with the classic post radical third wave feminist proverb on surviving crushing social pressures amidst a crumbling political landscape: “When life gives you garbage, make a dumpster fire.”

For more stories around International Women’s Day and the women’s strike, go here.