Feminist, grassroots, and socialist organizations around the world have called for an International Women’s Strike on March 8 in defense of reproductive rights and against violence, understood as economic, institutional, and interpersonal violence.

The strike will take place in at least forty countries — the first internationally coordinated day of protest on such a large scale in years: in terms of size and diversity of organizations and countries involved, it will be comparable to the international demonstrations against the imperialist attack on Iraq in 2003 and to the international protests coordinated under the banner of the World Social Forum and the global justice movement in the early 2000s.

While Occupy, the indignados, and Black Lives Matter did manage to have international echo and to trigger demonstrations, occupations, and protests in a number of country, there was little conscious international coordination among the various organizations and groups involved. The Arab revolutions were an extraordinary and historic event, but social and political organizations in other countries failed to give birth to a powerful internationally coordinated mobilization in their support.