Women in Switzerland Staged a Nationwide Scream to Protest Domestic Violence & Gender Inequality

I cannot think of anything more cathartic—if not necessarily productive—as a mass scream, with the United States embroiled in both an endless virus pandemic and an endless police brutality and systemic racism pandemic. Perhaps we can take a leaf from Switzerland’s book, where women staged a nationwide scream as part of a protest over domestic violence and the gender pay gap.

Reuters reports that thousands of marchers turned out on Sunday for Switzerland’s annual Women’s Strike. In Switzerland, women earn about a fifth less than men do; the country also reportedly has a much higher rate of domestic violence deaths than in European counterparts like Italy, Spain, Greece, and the United Kingdom. To mark both these injustices, women screamed together at exactly 3.24 p.m., the time at which women start working for free in comparison to their man counterparts.

Per Reuters:

“For me it is emotional. Because I scream for me, but I also scream for my sisters and brothers, I scream for all the other children who lost a mother or a father, and I also scream for my mother, who would have screamed if she was still here,” said Roxanne Errico, a 19-year-old student who said her mother was killed by her violent boyfriend.

Another Geneva resident, Rose-Angela Gramoni, said she had joined all the women’s strikes since 1991.

“Now I can die in peace, the next generation is here to take over. But for a while, I was very sad. I thought we fought for many things, but we did not finish the job and nobody was here to finish it,” said Gramoni, who is in her 70s.

Sky News has some footage:

I don’t hate it (or this).