Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto

Description

The organizers of the International Women’s Strike “cut through the corporate feminist ‘Lean In’ noise to offer a feminism rooted not just in intersectionality . . . but also in economic justice”—for readers of Roxane Gay and Rebecca Solnit (Vogue). Feminism shouldn’t start—or stop—with seeing women represented at the top of society. It should start with the 99%. Unaffordable housing, poverty wages, inadequate healthcare, border policing, climate change—these are not what you ordinarily hear feminists talking about. But aren’t they the biggest issues for the vast majority of women around the globe? Taking as its inspiration the new wave of feminist militancy that has erupted globally, this manifesto makes a simple but powerful case: feminism shouldn’t start—or stop—with the drive to have women represented at the top of their professions. It must focus on those at the bottom, and fight for the world they deserve. And that means targeting capitalism. Feminism must be anticapitalist, eco-socialist and antiracist. Contents A fork in the road Thesis 1: A new feminist wave is reinventing the strike. Thesis 2: Liberal feminism is bankrupt. It's time to get over it. Thesis 3: We need an anticapitalist feminism-a feminism for the 99 percent. Thesis 4: What we are living throughis a crisis of society as a whole and its root cause is capitalism. Thesis 5: Gender oppression in capitalist societies is rooted in the subordination of social reproduction to production for profit. We want to tum things right side up. Thesis 6: Gender violence takes many forms, all of them entangled with capitalist social relations. We vow to fight them all. Thesis 7: Capitalism tries to regulate sexuality. We want to liberate it. Thesis 8: Capitalism was born from racist and colonial violence. Feminism for the 99 percent is anti-racist and anti-imperialist. Thesis 9: Fighting to reverse capital's destruction of the earth, feminism for the 99 percent is eco-socialist. Thesis 10: Capitalism is incompatible with real democracy and peace. Our answer is feminist internationalism. Thesis 11: Feminism for the 99 percent calls on all radical movements to join together in a common anticapitalist insurgency. Postface Beginning in the middle Reconceptualizing capitalism and its crisis What is social reproduction? Crisis of social reproduction The politics of feminism for the 99 percent