Recent years have seen an exciting and motivating new rise of the women's movement starting in Argentina and including major mobilisations against violence in India, the anti-Trump mobilisations in the US and elsewhere in January 2017, the #metoo movement world wide, #Ele Nao! in Brazil, the mass women's strike in the Spanish state in 2018 and 2019…
We want to bring together women who have participated in all these experiences, and many more, to arrive at a common understanding of the roots, the forms and the preoccupations of this new women's movement that is putting the fight for women's rights and liberation onto the political agenda worldwide for the first time since the women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s emerged with the world wide youth radicalisation of that period.
Such new experiences are of course a boost to renewed thinking about how and why women's oppression exists. Essentially among English-speaking feminists in North America, a body of work known as "social reproduction theory” has developed while "ecofeminism" as an approach has developed in the Castilian Spanish-speaking world. Understanding, learning from and integrating these two valuable insights is essential in developing our thinking as revolutionary Marxists open to learning from the real social movements that surround us.
At the same time we must also recognise that sexism continues to exist even within organisations committed to fighting for women's liberation and socialism. Sharing our experiences, what preventive measures to take, how to sanction such acts, is an ongoing learning process for all of us and an essential part of all our women's meetings.
These are the goals of the women's seminar organised by the women’s commission of the Fourth International this July in our Institute in Amsterdam.
Of course, organizing this seminar is costly. The main item is travel expenses. We need your help in order to pay for the tickets of comrades from the Global South whose contribution is essential to understanding this new world wide phenomenon.
You can contribute to the success of this seminar by transferring money to the following bank account:
SOWS
Address: Postbus 1962, 1000 BZ, Amsterdam
IBAN : NL55INGB0001039161
BIC: INGBNL2A
Bank:ING (Postbus 1800, 1102 BW, Amsterdam)
Alternatively, you can make a donation through PayPal here.
Mention: women’s seminar 2019