Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto

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Our Manifesto is a brief for the second path. What makes an anti-capitalist feminism thinkable today is the political dimension of the present crisis: the erosion of elite credibility throughout the world, affecting not only the centrist neoliberal parties but also their Sandberg-style corporate-feminist allies. This was the feminism that foundered in the us presidential election of 2016, when the ‘historic’ candidacy of Hillary Clinton failed to elicit the enthusiasm of women voters. For good reason: Clinton personified the disconnect between elite women’s ascension to high office and improvements in the lives of the vast majority. This manifesto is not about outlining detailed courses of action towards an idealized goal. This manifesto is about putting forth the questions and ideas necessary to try to work towards something different that can only be realized by trying. This manifesto should be read and talked about and reread and re-talked about because it is only the beginning. We can decide to change how we consider and participate in this world. We have the ability to look at this system, the damage it has caused, is causing, and will continue to cause, and decide to move in a new direction. It is only through participation in this struggle that we may hope to learn more about the possibilities of one another and ourselves. And as we set out, Feminism for the 99% is the map we need. In Feminism for the 99%, Arruzza, Bhattacharya, and Fraser set out to present a working-class women’s alternative to Sandberg’s corporate feminism and “equal opportunity domination” for a select few women in power. The authors write, “We aim to explain why feminists should choose the road of feminist strikes, why we must unite with other anticapitalist and antisystemic movements, and why our movement must become a feminism for the 99%.” Woven throughout the book, the authors outline their vision for a movement based on the understanding that true equality for a visionary, relatable and all-encompassing resource valuable both to the collective committed to achieving a feminist informed anti-capitalist society and to those who are yet to be haunted by the spectre Felicity Adams, Feminist Legal Studies

Tithi Bhattacharya, another key signatory of the feminism for the 99% manifesto, has expanded on social reproduction theory within the context of gender, providing a marxist analysis of gender disparate divisions of labor as an integral part of the capitalist mode of production. [7] Specifically, Bhattacharya suggests that the unpaid acts of childbirth, child-rearing, and domestic duties are themselves acts of productive labor, acted within an as exploitative context consistent with marxist labor theory. [7] A key point, is that these acts are disparately the role of women. [7] This manifesto describes the myriad of ways that neoliberal capitalism invades our everyday lives: through gender, sexuality, healthcare, and even the environment, to scratch the surface. At the same time, it highlights capitalism’s insistence on a regulatory divide for the sake of the ‘health’ of the economy, which is always prioritized over the health of the people who participate and generate that economy. Their book Feminism for the 99% is intended to be an international manifesto, following the model of the Manifesto of the Communist Party By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, for a feminist that is anti-capitalist and truly at the benefit of the majority and not a privileged elite. Nancy Fraser is one of the most creative social philosophers and critical theorists of her generation. Cornel WestThe title of the book refers to the slogan “We are the 99%” from the 2011 “Occupy Wall Street” protests against capitalist, that highlighted the strong inequalities between the elite (the 1%) and the rest of the population (the 99%). The 1% stands for the richest women who benefit from liberal feminism, at the expense of the majority of women, the 99%, for whom the authors’ feminism is fighting. They show particular solidarity with women are also oppressed by other power systems apart from the gender one: racialized women, poor women, lesbian women, transgender women, Indigenous women, disabled women, migrant women, etc. Therefore, the manifesto clearly calls for the convergence of struggles. But this is no surprise. Capitalism’s existence and propagation is due to its historical and continual subjection of others. There is no longer any point in asking whether capitalism can be tenable without the oppression of an other; capitalism has proven, time and time again, that it is not. Its dependency on imperialism keeps it from coexisting with other systems, which is why historically countries that try to move in directions that are outside the economic interests of US companies are threatened with economic sanctions, imposed with economic sanctions, and more often than not intervened with in a coup: think of Guatemala in 1954 or Chile in 1973 for starters. It’s never been a better time to reject the “global pyramid scheme.” For more than a decade, Nancy Fraser's thought has helped to reframe the agenda of critical theory. Etienne Balibar

a b Cooper, Brittney (1 February 2016). Disch, Lisa; Hawkesworth, Mary (eds.). Intersectionality. Vol.1. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199328581.001.0001. ISBN 9780199328581. Archived from the original on 3 September 2018 . Retrieved 24 October 2018. {{ cite book}}: |journal= ignored ( help)

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That’s what we both hate about fiction, or at least crappy fiction — it purports to provide occasions for thinking through complex issues, but really it has predetermined the positions, stuffed a narrative full of false choices, and hooked you on them, rendering you less able to see out, to get out. It is also a weapon for women to challenge the bureaucratized leaderships of the unions, demanding that leaders offer concrete support for the demands of an increasingly large part of their rank and file. Often women workers have to mobilize outside the unions to make their demands heard, and sometimes do not even have the right to participate in these organizations. For an analysis of the feminist movement in the decades of neoliberalism, see Andrea D’Atri and Laura Liff, “Women’s Emancipation in Times of Global Crisis,” Left Voice, August 15, 2016. Clinton’s defeat is our wake-up call. Exposing the bankruptcy of liberal feminism, it represents a historic opening for a challenge from the left. In the current vacuum of liberal hegemony, we have the chance to build another feminism and to re-define what counts as a feminist issue, developing a different class orientation and a radical-transformative ethos. We write not to sketch an imagined utopia, but to clarify the road that must be travelled to reach a just society. We aim to explain why feminists should choose the road of the feminist strikes, unite with other anti-capitalist and anti-systemic movements and become a ‘feminism for the 99 per cent’ . What gives us hope for this project now are the stirrings of a new global wave, with the international feminist strikes of 2017–18 and the increasingly coordinated movements that are developing around them. As a first step, we set out eleven theses on the present conjuncture and the bases for a radical, new, anti-capitalist feminist movement.

Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser ... have collaborated and written what is effectively a prospective programme for the global women's movement, a feminist manifesto for the 99%. Socialism Today Feminism needs to go further than the assumption that passing laws will genuinely give people the freedom of rights they deserve. “By itself,” the writers dryly point out, “legal abortion does little for poor and working-class women who have neither the means to pay for it nor access to clinics that provide it.” Similarly, by itself, changing legal definitions of gender does little to provide feasible options for those seeking surgeries. For example, laws against gender violence do little if there are no service programs to give people the ability to leave abusive relationships in the first place. Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto By Cinzia Arruzza, Nancy Fraser, and Tithi Bhattacharya Published by Verso, 2019 Reviewed by Laura Fitzgerald Unlike in mathematics, an addition in politics can sometimes result in subtraction. This can be seen not only in Sanders’ campaign but also in Argentina, where, under the auspices of the Vatican, a large part of the progressive, center-left and center-right opposition has united in a “Front for All” against President Macri’s right-wing government. In both cases, as in many other countries, this is an attempt to subordinate the feminist movement to petty bourgeois or bourgeois political parties (including even imperialist parties or religious ones!), parties that will strive to maintain the capitalist system, against and despite the interests of women. [4] The authors of the manifesto, in Thesis 11, say about industrial wage labor: “To insist on its primacy is not to foster, but rather to weaken, class solidarity.”

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The metaphor of the “99%” is based on the atomization and fragmentation of the exploited classes and the oppressed sectors during the decades of the neoliberal offensive. It is, however, also important to mention that the capitalist restoration not only changed the physiognomy of the class of wage earners, but also vastly expanded wage labor across the globe. In our opinion, the “reinvention of the strike” mentioned in the manifesto does not mean that all feminist actions, whatever they may be, can be called strikes. Nor does it mean calling for a withdrawal of labor while “broadening the very idea of what counts as ‘labor,’” where the authors confusingly mix the withdrawal of housework with that of “sex and smiles.” As Lorna Finlayson points out regarding the limitations of this type of strike, At one point the authors briefly reference male workers taking solidarity strike action as part of this. It is a pity that this was not more clearly advocated for. In fact, the idea that only women should strike has been a common theme of debate within such movements, with many liberal feminists only wanting a symbolic strike to illustrate women’s role in society, rather than a more concerted confronting of the political and business establishment. In the Spanish state, male workers striking in solidarity as part of the International Women’s Day general strike meant much more of the economy was shut down, massively increasing the impact of the movement.