Petrol Girls have released a new track for International Women's Day, 'Fight For Our Lives' ft. Janey Starling

Petrol Girls have released a new track, 'Fight For Our Lives'.

Dropped on International Women's Day, the song is in honour of the global fight back against the systemic murder of women and marginalised genders.

Only available via Bandcamp, the track features Janey Starling on guest vocals, raising money for Level Up, a feminist campaigning group which Janey co-directs, who are developing a trans-inclusive virtual femicide database.

A press statement explains that International Women's Day's origins are from a garment worker's strike in New York. "In recent years this idea of strike has developed beyond just wage labour, and erupted into the global women’s strike movement," it explains. "‘WE WANT TO LIVE’ is this year’s slogan from Women’s Strike UK, echoing the slogan VIVAS NOS QUEREMOS - NI UNA MENOS from Latin America, where the women’s strike movement began in order to fight back against relentless femicides and gender based violence, by withdrawing women’s labour - unwaged, waged, domestic, care work, etc. - because when we stop, the world stops with us!"

In a statement alongside the release, vocalist Ren Aldridge elaborates: “The feminist group I’m part of here in Austria is based on this principle, and this song was written because of the regular femicide demos that we’ve been running here in Graz since June 2020, to make sure not a single femicide in Austria goes unanswered. NEHMT IHR UNS EINE - ANTWORTEN WIR ALLE! The intro lyrics describe these demos. We have painted the deaths of so many women and even young girls onto bed sheets to carry through the streets. This IWD, we will spread out all of the bed-sheet banners that mark each murder since last IWD in the main square, to make visible the scale of this violence. Austria is one of the European countries with the highest rate of femicide for the size of its population. We now hold our demos once a month because we know that unless there is systemic change, there will continue to be femicides every month. Some of our demands are in the lyrics to this track. We need safe housing for all, unconditional universal basic income, more domestic violence shelters and specialist services. We need better sex and relationship education in schools and the same rolled out across every workplace. We need responsible media reporting - and since these demos began we have seen a tangible shift in the way femicide is reported in Austria!