Rosita Sweetman: Maybe it’s time for one of those all-women strikes?

International Women's Day: From billionaires to politics and porn, the 'damn patriarchy has never been more powerful'. Is it time for a global women’s strike, asks Rosita Sweetman 

United States vice-president JD Vance, who believes liberal women are 'childless cat ladies'. Picture: AP

I’m on an intense Edna O‘Brien buzz at the moment, re-reading her autobiography, Country Girl and off for a second viewing of Sinead O’Shea’s documentary about her life, The Blue Road.

My current favourite quote from the Edna oeuvre is from her wonderful creation Baba, in Girls in Their Married Bliss: "The vote I thought means nothing to women. We should be armed." At the time (late 1960s), I scoffed. Women? Armed? Are you joking?