The Trump/Cuomo economy during COVID-19 has forced women out of work. 2.2 million women have lost their jobs or left the workforce since the pandemic—and it’s only getting worse. This is not the result of the COVID-19 disease but of a failed system that doesn’t protect the powerless in America; it’s a consequence of shutting down the service industries with no stimulus or economic support, and the sexism that forces women to work a second shift raising children, feeding families, and maintaining shelter. These choices by our elected officials are a form of gendered violence that is playing out on working class women and BIPOC families in particular.
But this crisis will not disappear with the inauguration of a new administration. While these are national problems, we need local and federal governments to realign their policy priorities away from the 1% and toward the needs of the poor, the incarcerated, and the working class.
The Geneva city councilors have allowed their sexism and racism to guide not only their interactions with each other, but also their decisions regarding how to govern our city, particularly the city’s COVID response and their deliberations over the city’s 2021 budget. For example, councilors were narrowly prevented from cutting food programs from the budget—that’s right: in the middle of a pandemic when we are seeing families experience considerable precarity, including food insecurity, our city council wanted to cut the already insufficient funding from our city’s food programs!
Our city council’s sexism isn’t incidental, and their racism isn’t harmless. Instead of prioritizing profits over people, we need people-centered policies which put the tools of power in the hands of the people.
While we continue to push our elected officials, we know the government will never give the people what the people can give themselves. Mutual aid builds on people power, not sexist, capitalist, and racist systems. Mutual aid helps create a world where people have opportunities according to their abilities and that we work together to provide for our collective needs.
Organizations like Mothers and Others, Blueprint Geneva, and so many others have long been engaged in mutual-aid work in Geneva. The Geneva Women’s Assembly organizes The People’s Free Pop-Up—the store that is built by all of us, for all of us. It is a free clothing store which is currently operating online during the last weekend of every month at genevawomensassembly.org.
Visitors can browse images and descriptions of the available clothing and select items for their order. Once an order has been received, the clothes will be delivered through our contactless system anywhere in Geneva. The entire shop is free—both for the items and for the delivery.
The motto of The People’s Free Pop-Up is “sharing is the new shopping.” We hope that this serves to remind the people of Geneva that although we have to stay apart, we stand together as a community.