https://socialistaction.org/2017/03/21/feminists-are-currently-leading-the-way/
‘Feminists are currently leading the way’
/ 20 hours ago
Womens Day New York
After March 8, International Women’s Day, which had bigger and more
widespread mobilizations around an internationally coordinated call than
have been seen for many years, Penelope Duggan from International
Viewpoint spoke to Cinzia Arruzza, one of the organizers of the U.S.
Women’s Strike and a well-known Marxist feminist writer and activist,
about the broader significance of these mobilizations.
After January 21 I wrote an article “Women’s Marches: from protest to
movement?”. What do you think, can we call what we are seeing a
movement? In the United States? Worldwide?
When I was asked the same question last summer, I answered negatively.
I’m very happy to be able to change my answer now: yes, I do think that
we are likely witnessing the birth of a new feminist movement on an
international level. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we have a
feminist movement everywhere.
The International Women’s Strike was joined by 50 countries, but
participation in the strike was uneven among the various countries:
Poland, Argentina, Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Turkey had among the
largest demonstrations. In other countries the strike had great media
visibility and we may be witnessing the first steps in the
reconstruction of a strong and large anti-capitalist feminist current
and mobilization
This is the case of the United States, for example, where the 7000
people NYC march had one of the biggest turnouts in years for a
demonstration called on an explicitly radical platform. But what is
particularly relevant is the fact that this was an internationally
planned and coordinated mobilization. We haven’t seen anything
comparable to this level of international coordination since the early
2000s and the global justice movement.
A comrade in Mexico was happy to reply in the affirmative already before
March 8: “Tomar la Palabra”. What do you think, was he going too fast?
There was already the basis for an answer in the affirmative before 8
March, given the impressive women’s strikes in Poland and Argentina in
October, and the mass demonstration in Italy in November. The signals
were already present before International Women’s Day, and the
participation in the strike confirmed them.
We spoke of a “wave” of the women’s movement in the late 1960s/early
1970s because it was a force that put women and women’s demands on the
political map in countries worldwide and forced a response at
governmental level. Do you think we could be seeing the same force
today, despite the more overall defensive situation?
I would say that on a discursive level, this mobilization is already
having a powerful effect in terms of redefinition of political
priorities and has already won some important victories in some
countries, for example in Poland. Of course, the situation is defensive,
but precisely for this reason this new feminist movement is so
important. It could act as a trigger for wider social movements, while
at the same time making sure that women’s demands and voices remain at
the center of them. This would be a great achievement.
In the intervening 40 years there has of course been feminist activity.
But it has been more fragmented, in many cases through relatively
institutionalized channels (governments, NGOs) or with quite individual
forms of protest, despite efforts such as the World March of Women. Of
course all this has to be taken in a general political context starting
with postmodernism in the 1990s. Have we overcome this to return to a
more collective form of action? Is that what would make it possible to
speak of a new wave?
I think that these mobilizations are showing a new increasing awareness
of the necessity to rebuild solidarity and collective action as the only
ways we can defend ourselves from the continuous attacks against our
bodies, freedom, and self-determination as well as against imperialist
and neoliberal policies. Moreover, they are acting as an antidote to the
liberal declination of feminist discourse and practice.
At the same time, overcoming “postmodernism,” individualism, or a
certain kind of identity politics cannot mean simply going back to the
Sixties. Going back is never an option, as Marx taught us. In recent
decades we have acquired a greater awareness of the stratification of
the social condition of cis and trans women, according to class,
ethnicity, race, age, ability, and sexual orientation.
The challenge that the new feminist movement must face is that of
articulating forms of action, organization, and demands that do not make
these differences invisible, but on the contrary take them into serious
account. This diversity must become our weapon, rather than an obstacle
or something that divides us. But in order to be able to do so, we need
to give visibility, voice, and protagonism especially to the most
oppressed sectors of cis and trans women.
In other words, the only way to give birth to a truly universalistic
politics is not by making abstraction from differences, but by combining
them together in a more encompassing critique of capitalist and
hetero-patriarchal social relations. Each political subjectivation based
on a specific oppression can provide us with new insights on the various
ways in which capitalism, racism and sexism affect our lives.
Women’s right to choose and against violence seem to be the centralizing
themes, more for example than women’s rights as workers. There are trade
unions that maintain activity on women’s rights, and unions that called
for strikes on 8 March, like in France, where the CGT and SUD unions
called for strikes from 3:40 p.m. to make the point of wage gap between
women and men. Do you think it is easier to mobilize women on a local or
community basis than in the workplace?
On the contrary, I would say that what characterizes this new feminist
movement is precisely that it is making women’s labor visible and
addressing women not simply as women, but as workers. It was not by
chance that we appropriated the term “strike” for March 8. A number of
countries had specific national platforms that emphasized the fact that
violence against women is not just interpersonal or domestic violence,
but also the slow violence of the capitalist market, as well as the
violence of racism, Islamophobia, and of immigration policies and wars.
We are mobilizing women as women and workers: this was one of the most
powerful messages of March 8.
There is no need to choose here. This is also why in the United States
we adopted the slogan of the feminism for the 99%: we want a class-based
feminist movement, for we are perfectly aware that women, and
particularly racialized women, are the most exploited sector of the
working class and also the sector that works the most, at home and
outside the home.
There has been a debate in the U.S. that calling for women to strike is
a call to privileged women. You have combated this, and I don’t believe
it occurred elsewhere. Is it just Hillary Clinton, Democratic Party
supporters?
The claim that striking is for privileged people is obviously absurd,
terribly patronizing, and moreover anti-historical. But what is
interesting in it is the appropriation of typical liberal discourse
about privilege and white guilt in the service of an anti-labor and
anti-union attack. To say that striking is for privileged people is also
a way to suggest that unionized workers or workers who have strike
rights are somewhat “privileged.” It makes invisible the fact that if
workers have unions or labor rights it is because they faced risks and
fought hard to have them.
Moreover, this claim also makes invisible the fact that migrant women
and women of color have historically faced serious risks in order to
struggle for their rights, and have no need of patronizing lectures
about what they can do or cannot do. As far as HRC feminist supporters
are concerned, Maureen Shaw, in her piece attacking the women’s
strike,basically suggested that a better form of action for these women
would be to call their Democratic representatives. [1] This says it all
about what the concerns behind this ‘strike for privileged women’
discourse really are.
What are your ideas about what to do next?
In the United States we will continue working together with our national
social coalition and we will work to build a strong feminist
participation and presence in the immigrants’ mobilization for May Day.
More in general, I think that the feminist movement should try to reach
out to wide social sectors and to act as a leading force toward a
rebirth of broad social movements. Of course, this will also depend on
the capacity of the left to overcome sexist prejudices that still
remain. If the left, on an international level, will not understand that
feminists are currently leading the way and will not valorize this fact
and transform itself accordingly, it will do a serious disservice to
itself and to the working class as a whole.
Footnotes
[1] See Maureen Shaw “The ‘Day Without a Woman’ strike is going to be
mostly a day without privileged women.” See also the reply by Tithi
Bhattacharya and Cinzia Arruzza in The Nation, March 7, 2017, “When Did
Solidarity Among Working Women Become a ‘Privilege’?” On the same topic
of privilege Elle, Feb. 15, 2017, Winnie Wong “Go Ahead and Strike, but
Know That Many of Your Sisters Can’t” and another response in The
Nation, Feb. 24, 2017 by Magally A. Miranda Alcazar and Kate D.
Griffiths, “Striking on International Women’s Day Is Not a Privilege.”
From: http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article4896 – forum
Penelope Duggan is a member of the bureau of the Fourth International
and editor of International Viewpoint. A militant of the NPA in France,
she is regularly a candidate in local and national elections. She is
also a Fellow of the IIRE in Amsterdam with particular responsibility
for women’s and youth programmes.
Cinzia Arruzza was a leading member of Sinistra Critica in Italy. Today
she is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social
Research in New York and a feminist and socialist activist. She is the
author of the author of “Dangerous Liaisons: The Marriages and Divorces
of Marxism and Feminism.”
Photo: March 8 rally in New York’s Washington Square. Kathy Willens / AP
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March 21, 2017 in Women's Liberation.
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Women strike around the world
Women on strike around the world
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