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href="https://viewpointmag.com/2017/02/03/beyond-lean-in-for-a-feminism-of-the-99-and-a-militant-international-strike-on-march-8/">https://viewpointmag.com/2017/02/03/beyond-lean-in-for-a-feminism-of-the-99-and-a-militant-international-strike-on-march-8/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Beyond Lean-In: For a Feminism of the 99%
and a Militant International Strike on March 8</h1>
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<div style="[object Object]"><a
href="https://viewpointmag.com/author/linda-martin-alcoff/"
title="Posts by Linda Martín Alcoff" class="author url fn"
rel="author">Linda Martín Alcoff</a>, <a
href="https://viewpointmag.com/author/cinzia-arruzza/"
title="Posts by Cinzia Arruzza" class="author url fn"
rel="author">Cinzia Arruzza</a>, <a
href="https://viewpointmag.com/author/tithi-bhattacharya/"
title="Posts by Tithi Bhattacharya" class="author url fn"
rel="author">Tithi Bhattacharya</a>, <a
href="https://viewpointmag.com/author/nancy-fraser/"
title="Posts by Nancy Fraser" class="author url fn"
rel="author">Nancy Fraser</a>, <a
href="https://viewpointmag.com/author/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor/"
title="Posts by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor" class="author url
fn" rel="author">Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor</a>, <a
href="https://viewpointmag.com/author/rasmea-yousef-odeh/"
title="Posts by Rasmea Yousef Odeh" class="author url fn"
rel="author">Rasmea Yousef Odeh</a>, <a
href="https://viewpointmag.com/author/angela-davis/"
title="Posts by Angela Davis" class="author url fn"
rel="author">Angela Davis</a> and <a
href="https://viewpointmag.com/author/barbara-ransby/"
title="Posts by Barbara Ransby" class="author url fn"
rel="author">Barbara Ransby</a> <time class="published"
datetime="2017-02-03T03:35:49-08:00" title="Friday,
February 3rd, 2017, 3:35 am"><br>
February 3, 2017</time></div>
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<p><span><br>
The massive women’s marches of January 21</span><span>st</span><span>
may mark the beginning of a new wave of militant
feminist struggle. But what exactly will be its
focus? In our view, it is not enough to oppose Trump
and his aggressively misogynistic, homophobic,
transphobic and racist policies; we also need to
target the ongoing neoliberal attack on social
provision and labor rights. <br>
</span></p>
<p><span>While Trump’s blatant misogyny was the
immediate trigger for the massive response on
January 21</span><span>st</span><span>, the attack
on women (and all working people) long predates his
administration. Women’s conditions of life,
especially those of women of color and of working,
unemployed and migrant women, have steadily
deteriorated over the last 30 years, thanks to
financialization and corporate globalization.
<br>
</span></p>
<p><span>Lean-in feminism and other variants of
corporate feminism have failed the overwhelming
majority of us, who do not have access to
individual self-promotion and advancement and
whose conditions of life can be improved only
through policies that defend social reproduction,
secure reproductive justice, and guarantee labor
rights. As we see it, the new wave of women’s
mobilization must address </span><i><span>all</span></i><span>
these concerns in a frontal way. It must be a
feminism for the 99%.</span></p>
<p><span>The kind of feminism we seek is already
emerging internationally, in struggles across the
globe: from the women’s strike in Poland against the
abortion ban to the women’s strikes and marches in
Latin America against male violence; from the
massive women’s demonstration of the last November
in Italy to the protests and the women’s strike in
defense of reproductive rights in South Korea and
Ireland. What is striking about these
mobilizations is that several of them combined
struggles against male violence with opposition to
the casualization of labor and wage inequality,
while also opposing homophobia, transphobia and
xenophobic immigration policies. Together, they
herald a new international feminist movement
with an expanded agenda–at once anti-racist,
anti-imperialist, anti-heterosexist, and
anti-neoliberal. </span></p>
<p><span>We want to contribute to the development of
this new, more expansive feminist movement. </span></p>
<p><span>As a first step, we propose to help build an
international strike against male violence and in
defense of reproductive rights on March 8</span><span>th</span><span>.
In this, we join with feminist groups from around
thirty countries who have called for such a strike. <br>
</span></p>
<p><span>The idea is to mobilize women, including
trans-women, and all who support them in an
international day of struggle–a day of striking,
marching, blocking roads, bridges, and squares,
abstaining from domestic, care and sex work,
boycotting, calling out misogynistic politicians
and companies, striking in educational
institutions. These actions are aimed at making
visible the needs and aspirations of those whom
lean-in feminism ignored: women in the formal labor
market, women working in the sphere of social
reproduction and care, and unemployed and
precarious working women.</span></p>
<p><span>In embracing a feminism for the 99%, we take
inspiration from the Argentinian coalition </span><i><span>Ni
Una Menos</span></i><span>. Violence against women,
as they define it, has many facets: it is domestic
violence, but also the violence of the market, of
debt, of capitalist property relations, and of
the state; the violence of discriminatory
policies against lesbian, trans and queer women, the
violence of state criminalization of migratory
movements, the violence of mass incarceration,
and the institutional violence against women’s
bodies through abortion bans and lack of access to
free healthcare and free abortion. <br>
</span></p>
<p><span>Their perspective informs our determination
to oppose the institutional, political, cultural,
and economic attacks on Muslim and migrant women, on
women of color and working and unemployed women, on
lesbian, gender nonconforming, and trans-women.<br>
</span><br>
<span>The women’s marches of January 21</span><span>st</span><span>
have shown that in the United States too a new
feminist movement may be in the making. It is
important not to lose momentum. Let us join together
on March 8 to strike, walk out, march and
demonstrate. Let us use the occasion of this
international day of action to be done with
lean-feminism and to build in its place a feminism
for the 99%, a grass-roots, anti-capitalist
feminism–a feminism in solidarity with working
women, their families, and their allies throughout
the world. </span></p>
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