When New York’s women went on strike

In what turned out to be one of the largest protests of its kind in the United States, some 20,000 women took to the streets of New York in August 1970, to strike for equality.

Motivated by a desire to draw attention to inequalities in the workplace, marriage and education, the women took over Fifth Avenue in the city and attracted huge media attention.

Carole de Saram, then 31, was working in the New York Stock Exchange but decided to join the march and ultimately became a leading figure in the US feminist movement.

Witness is a World Service programme of the stories of our times told by the people who were there.