U.S. organizers of 2017’s Day Without a Woman encouraged participants to wear red.
The protest was held on March 8, 2017, coinciding with International Women’s Day. Organizers asked women to demonstrate the importance of their labor by refraining from paid and unpaid work where possible, limiting spending, and supporting small businesses or businesses owned by women and minorities. Wearing red was an additional sign of solidarity.
Red had a longer symbolic history in labor activism. The color has traditionally been associated with workers’ movements and strikes in many countries, so it connected the protest to economic justice as well as gender equality. Participants who could not safely stop working could still signal support by wearing the color.
Day Without a Woman was promoted by organizers connected with the 2017 Women’s March, alongside the broader International Women’s Strike movement. It was not simply a dress-up observance: the action addressed workplace inequality, unpaid care work, racism, immigration, and economic power. A common mix-up is to confuse its red clothing with the white clothing associated with some other women’s rights campaigns or with the colors of unrelated political movements.