Women across Switzerland have been burning their bras and walking out of work to demand fairer pay, equality and an end to sexual harassment.
The strike, grounded in workplace inequality and sexism, marks the first such protests in the country for nearly three decades.
Hundreds of protesters rallied at the cathedral in Lausanne, a town on Lake Geneva, at around midnight on Thursday, before marching downtown.
They then started a bonfire into which hurled bras, ties and other items, while a number of women scaled the cathedral to shout out the hour, a tradition that is usually reserved for men.
Demonstrators have been demanding higher pay specifically for domestic workers, teachers and caregivers – jobs typically held by women in the country.
As part of the action, which will continue throughout the day on Friday, participants are encouraged to avoid store purchases or trips to restaurants, to ratchet up the economic impact.
Women are also being encouraged to leave their workplaces at 3:24 p.m, since organisers have calculated this is the time women should finish work to earn as much as men proportionately by average hourly wage.
Some companies have shown their support for the movement: the highest skyscraper in the northwestern city of Basel was lit up with the purple “women’s strike” logo on Thursday evening.
The events honour protests that were held on June 14, 1991, for which more than 500,000 Swiss women left their jobs to condemn discrimination.
This landmark demonstration took place 20 years after Swiss women won the right to vote and a decade after sexual equality became law.
The strike's organiser Mariane Mure-Pache said she was "exasperated" by the response of local media at the time.
"They would ask a woman why she was striking, and immediately turn to her husband to ask what he thought of it all," she told France Info,
Today, she laments that the progress she'd hoped for 28 years ago has still not been made.
"I was very young and I felt sure that male and female equality would happen within the next year or so," she told the French broadcaster.
"Now I realise that the demands we had in 1991 are very similar to the ones we have today."
