WASHINGTON – Several weeks after “Day Without Immigrants” shuttered businesses across the country, women are walking off jobs as part of the “Day Without a Woman” protest, the Washington Post reports. The “Day Without a Woman” protest was scheduled to happen on International Women’s Day.

Organizers of the Women’s March on Washington promoted today’s protest as a way to highlight the role of women in the workforce and to urge equal pay and better family leave policies. Hundreds were expected to attend a “Women Workers Rising” rally at the U.S. Department of Labor building.

“The idea of the strike—it’s another strategy,” Linda Sarsour, who co-chaired the Women’s March on Washington, said. “It was not going to be comfortable for everyone.”

In a separate Washington Post story, concerns have been raised about how such a protest will impact the poor. As of press time, at least two school districts, including Alexandria, Va., and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools in North Carolina, shut down because of high rates of absenteeism from teachers joining the protest. For example, with those closures, working parents scrambled to find—and pay for—alternative childcare or stay home from work.

Organizers have tried to mitigate that by only encouraging women to not work if they felt they could. Alternative protests can be wearing red in solidarity of striking women and only shopping at female-owned businesses today. “This is for people who can afford to do it and people who are not afraid of losing their jobs,” Mercy Morganfield, regional leader of the Women’s March on Washington in the District, said.

If the “Day Without a Woman” protest is affecting your convenience or fuel retailing business, we’d like to hear from you. Reach out to us at news@convenience.org, and use the subject line “Women.”