How Some Publishers and Platforms Are Participating in 'A Day Without a Woman'

Many popular publishers and platforms will be supporting their female employees on March 8, International Women's Day. Organizers of the Women's March, which took place the day after President Trump's inauguration, also helped put together a plan for people to find ways to participate in a women's strike. A Day Without a Woman was designed to support women, and all gender-oppressed people, through demonstrations, strikes and other acts of economic solidarity. The website suggests three ways to mark the occasion and support women: women taking the day off from work; avoiding shopping anywhere but small, and women- and minority-owned businesses; and wearing red. Publishers like Bustle, a website focused on news and topics for millennial women, and its sister site, Romper, have taken those recommendations to heart. The two sites will not publish any content on Wednesday, and their social media accounts will go dark in solidarity with the women staying home from work. In a post Bustle will publish tonight, editor in chief Kate Ward writes: "Without our editorial team, which is 97 percent female, we would be unable to produce a site that aims to provide support and a megaphone for women to express how they're feeling about the world." The staff of Jezebel, part of Gizmodo Media Group, will be standing with other women striking across the country. Jezebel's two current male reporters, along with male staffers from GMG's other sites, will create content for Jezebel on Wednesday, and the site's female writers will then report on the strike on Thursday. MTV will change its online and on-air logo in the U.S and U.K., flipping the M to make a red W, and MTV News will broadcast lower-third messaging, special articles, podcasts and other reports on A Day With A Woman throughout the day. [kickout id="1"] Most of MTV's social media accounts are run by women, according to the company, and will therefore also go on strike and state that "any posts today have been automated in solidarity with women on strike." Female employees who do choose to go to work at MTV on Wednesday will have the opportunity to attend meetups to learn about volunteer opportunities and to write postcards urging local, state and federal officials to support women's issues. Employees at Spotify get one "Impact Day" per year thanks to the company's social impact team. The day is to help employees give back to their communities and volunteer as they see fit, and many of Spotify's New York employees are choosing to use their "Impact Day" on Wednesday. Some female employees at Tumblr have decided to "strike for women less fortunate than us," as multiple staffers wrote in a blog post. Fellow employees will be joining together at a rally in New York's Washington Square Park. "We call for the male-dominated tech industry to hold themselves accountable for advocating for these policies," they wrote. "We urge all involved to use the power they have to pressure the current administration to advance equal rights for all women." Tumblr is also hosting a breakfast Wednesday morning at its New York headquarters in partnership with United Talent Agency with two panels, "Taking Action" and "Equality in the Workplace," that will feature speakers like Yasmeen Hassan from Equality Now, Katie Danziger, Planned Parenthood's New York City board chair, and Rebecca Jarvis of ABC News. On Tumblr's website, look for a red logo and a takeover of the Explore tab for Women's History Month. New York magazine's The Cut will be running old articles on Wednesday but has also published an article that lays out some of the potential outcomes of striking when done properly. Popsugar, another female-focused publisher, is hosting a hygiene drive in each office to collect feminine hygiene and other women's health supplies for local women's shelters. From a content perspective, Popsugar is launching We Rise, an "all-video, women-breaking-barriers Facebook channel" that will highlight "compelling political, celebrity and human interest reporting on women around the world." “Celebrating women is a no-brainer for us, it’s something we do every day," Lisa Sugar, Popsugar's president and founder, wrote in a statement. "We’ve always been dedicated to creating great content for women. But now, it’s more important than ever to shed light on the women who are making a difference and to illuminate the stories that affect us all. We have devoted teams of reporters to make these stories come to life to our global audience of 100 million."