A response to the Feminist Political Education Project

by Grace Kwinjeh, 17 April 2008

I was just sent a copy of this statement by the Feminist Political Education Project [pasted in below] and must admit to being more than a little bewildered and shocked by what is suggested in light of recent events in Zimbabwe, by sisters whom I know very well – who are part of the Feminist Political Education Project.

Here is my own offer for ending the conflict (originally written almost 3 months ago, right after shmanapolis):

Fellow Leftists...

Pollutants Change 'He' Frogs into 'She' Frogs

Marlowe Hood

PARIS (AFP) — Frogs that started life as male tadpoles were changed in an experiment into females by estrogen-like pollutants similar to those found in the environment, according to a new study.

The results may shed light on at least one reason that up to a third of frog species around the world are threatened with extinction, suggests the study, set to appear in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in May.

In a laboratory at Uppsala University in Sweden, two species of frogs were exposed to levels of estrogen similar to those detected in natural bodies of water in Europe, the United States and Canada.

The results were startling: whereas the percentage of females in two control groups was under 50 percent — not unusual among frogs — the sex ratio in three pairs of groups maturing in water dosed with different levels of estrogen were significantly skewed.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Caliban and the Witch:
Women, The Body and Primitive Accumulation

Silvia Federici

6 Session Class Begins

Tuesday, October 10

5:30–7:30 PM

The class will read and discuss Silvia Federici's latest book,Caliban and the Witch:
Women, The Body and Primitive Accumulation, a history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages to the witch-hunts and the rise of mechanical philosophy, Federici shows that the birth of the proletariat required a war against women, inaugurating a new sexual pact and a new patriarchal era: the patriarchy of the wage. Firmly rooted in the history of the persecution of the witches and the disciplining of the body, her arguments explain why the subjugation of women was as crucial for the formation of the world proletariat as the enclosures of the land, the conquest and colonization of the ‘New World,’ and the slave trade.

Silvia Federici, a long-time feminist activist and teacher, is co-founder of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa and the RPA (Radical Philosophy Association) Anti-Death Penalty Project.

Federici’s published work includes: Enduring Western Civilization: The Construction of the Concept of Western Civilization and its ‘Others (editor) and A Thousand Flowers: Social Struggles Against Structural Adjustment in African Universities (co-editor).

Sliding scale: $65/$85

The Brecht Forum

451 West St. (Betw Bank & Bethune)

New York, NY 10014

(212) 242- 4201

A Caring Strike – Precarias a la Deriva

Tuesday, August 22 – 7pm – Bluestockings Books, Café, and Activism Center

172 Allen Street, NYC – $5 to 10 donation

Precarias a la Deriva is a Madrid based activist research project which has worked for the last few years to map and to explore the changing life and work situations of its participants, seeking those fragile moments and places of aggregation which allow us to break the solitude and the impotence of our individual—and very different—lives and imagine relevant forms of organization and collective resistance. Recently we have focused on the notion of care, both as a common ground of universal necessity and as a specifically feminized and unregulated sector of work: What would it mean to organize care? What would a care strike look like? How might care be structured differently? Maggie Schmidt will speak briefly about the history and methodology of Precarias a la Deriva as a collective research-action project and within the emerging European discussions on precarious work, present some of the debates around care, and introduce the current project which has arisen out of Precarias: the ‘Agency of Precarious Affairs,’ a center for resources, organizing and mutual aid. She looks forward to getting in touch with similar projects and processes in the US.

Women's Liberation Birth Control Project Meeting
New York City, May 8, 2006

Women's Liberation Birth Control Project Meeting*

Monday May 8th from 6:30-8:30 PM

Join us to plan local and national initiatives to force the FDA to put the Morning-After Pill over-the-counter, like it is in 38 other countries around the world.

Anarchafeminist Manifesto

8 March, International Women's Day, is a specially relevant day to remember the Anarchafeminist Manifesto.

The origin of the Anarchafeminist Manifesto is in Norway. The Anarchafeminist Manifesto is the summary of the feminist political program unanimously agreed upon by the third congress of the Anarchist Federation of Norway, 1–7 of June 1982. The manifesto was first published in Norwegian in Folkebladet (IJA) no 1 1983 pp. 4–5. Soon after the "Manifesto" was published in CRIFA-Bulletin no 44 mars–avril 1983 in French (p. 12) and English (p. 13). Later on the French version was used as the basis for a translation to English that was published on the Internet. The "Manifesto" is also translated to other languages.

Anarchafeminst greetings from Anna Quist, co-writer of the "Anarchafeminst Manifesto." Translated from French (Bulletin C.R.I.F.A. No 44 mars–avril 1983 p. 12).

All over the world most women have no rights whatsoever to decide upon important matters which concern their lives. Women suffer from oppressions of two kinds: 1) the general social oppression of the people, and 2) secondly sexism — oppression and discrimination because of their sex.

There are five main forms of oppression:

— Ideological oppression, brainwash by certain cultural traditions, religion, advertising and propaganda. Manipulation with concepts and play upon women's feelings and susceptibilities. Widespread patriarchal and authoritarian attitudes and capitalistic mentality in all areas.

— State oppression, hierarchical forms of organization with command lines downwards from the top in most interpersonal relations, also in the so-called private life.

— Economic exploitation and repression, as a consumer and a worker in the home and in low-salary women's jobs.

— Violence, under the auspices of the society as well as in the private sphere — indirectly when there is coercion because of lack of alternatives and direct physical violence.

— Lack of organization, tyranny of the structurelessness which pulverizes responsibility and creates weakness and inactivity.

These factors work together and contribute simultaneously to sustain each other in a vicious circle. There is no panacea to break the circle, but it isn't unbreakable.

Anarcha-feminism is a matter of consciousness. The consciousness which puts guardians off work. The principles of a liberating society thus stand perfectly clear to us.

Anarcha-feminism means women's independence and freedom on an equal footing with men. A social organization and a social life where no-one is superior or inferior to anyone and everybody is coordinate, women as well as men. This goes for all levels of social life, also the private sphere.

Anarcha-feminism implies that women themselves decide and take care of their own matters, individually in personal matters, and together with other women in matters which concern several women. In matters which concern both sexes essentially and concretely women and men shall decide on an equal footing.

Women must have self-decision over their own bodies, and all matters concerning contraception and childbirth are to be decided upon by women themselves.

It must be fought both individually and collectively against male domination, attitudes of ownership and control over women, against repressive laws and for women's economic and social autonomy and independence.

Crisis centers, day care centers, study and discussion groups, women's culture activities etc. must be established, and be run under womens's own direction.

The traditional patriarchal nuclear family should be replaced by free associations between men and women based on equal right to decide for both parts and with respect for the individual person's autonomy and integrity.

Sex-stereotyping in education, media and at the place of work must be abolished. Radical sharing of the work by the sexes in ordinary jobs, domestic life and education is a suitable mean.

The structure of working life must be radically changed, with more part-time work and flat organized cooperation at home as well as in society. The difference between men's work and women's work must be abolished. Nursing and taking care of the children must concern men just as much as women.

Female power and female prime ministers will neither lead the majority of women to their ends nor abolish oppression. Marxist and bourgeoisie feminists are misleading the fight for women's liberation. For most women it is not going to be any feminism without anarchism. In other words, anarcha-feminism does not stand for female power or female prime ministers, it stands for organization without power and without prime ministers.

The double oppression of women demands a double fight and double organizing: on the one hand in feminist federations, on the other hand in the organizations of anarchists. The anarcha-feminists form a junction in this double organizing.

A serious anarchism must also be feminist otherwise it is a question of patriarchal half-anarchism and not real anarchism. It is the task of the anarcha-feminists to secure the feminist feature in anarchism. There will be no anarchism without feminism.

An essential point in anarcha-feminism is that the changes must begin today, not tomorrow or after the revolution. The revolution shall be permanent. We must start today by seeing through the oppression in the daily life and do something to break the pattern here and now.

We must act autonomously, without delegating to any leaders the right to decide what we wish and what we shall do: we must make decisions all by ourselves in personal matters, together with other women in pure female matters, and together with the male fellows in common matters.

petra writes:

Take Back the Mic!

International Women's Day

Monday March 6 through Sunday March 12, 2006

CKLN 88.1FM to Focus on the Achievements and Struggles of Women in Week-Long SPECIAL PROGRAMMING, streaming here. Check out the schedule (hit "click here" in second sentence for the week's schedule)

CKLN 81.1 FM, the campus-community radio station based at Ryerson University, is hosting special programming to commemorate and celebrate International Women’s Day.

Our programming features a Live Broadcast of the International Women’s Day Rally, March and Fair beginning Saturday March 11 at 10am. The IWD Fair will be held on the main floor of the Student Campus Centre of Ryerson University at 55 Gould Street, the new facility that is also home to CKLN. We look forward to an energizing day with many guests dropping their two cents on the past, present and future of the feminist movement.

“One thing that’s new this year is blocks of programs focused on particular themes,” says CKLN IWD co-ordinator Sharmeen Khan. “Monday March 6 features the voices of First Nations women from 5–10pm.

On Wednesday morning we get up early for discussion on women and labour at home and abroad, from 6am to 11am. Wednesday afternoon and evening we focus on women’s bodies as sites of celebration and struggle, with a diverse line-up of guests talking about menstruation, environmental toxins, the impacts of poverty on health, transsexual and transgender identities, sex workers and their partners, and women’s boxing.”

Program director Tim May adds “International Women’s Day special programming creates space for women artists to showcase their work on our popular and unique music shows.

Look forward to female indie-rockers on Tuesday afternoon, 2:30-5pm; “String Sisters” featuring women bluegrass artists on Wednesday’s Radio Boogie, 10pm to midnight; and a look at women and jazz with a special feature on Etta James on Tien Providence’s “The Jazz Zone” on Friday between 7and 11am.”

On Thursday March 9, CKLN teams up with sex shop “Come as You Are” to present an art show with the work of former CKLN programmer Wendy Maxwell, known as Queen Nzinga. A refugee from Costa Rica, she was arrested on an immigration warrant at last year’s International Women’s Day Fair after seven years in Canada.

Her subsequent deportation focused attention on the precarious life of non-status people. The show runs all month. The opening, which includes a film screening of d’bi young’s “Blood”, is scheduled for 7–10pm. That’s at 701 Queen Street West in Toronto.

Plan your listening schedule NOW....visit www.ckln.fm and hit 'click here' to get to the schedule

For more information, please contact

Sharmeen Khan, IWD Co-ordinator (416) 979-5251 Email: iwd@ckln.fm

altar_magazine writes:

"Body, The Value of Women" Screening
New York City, Dec. 11, 2005

Altar Magazine presents... FREE NYC

December 11th 6pm

Stain (766 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211)

Altar Magazine is organizing it's first Free NYC event on December 11th at 6pm at Stain by screening the film BODY: The Value of Women, a
documentary by Shereen Noon that addresses the issues of body image and self-esteem in the United States, exposing the levels of self-hatred imposed by our culture and the media. It reveals the specific creative machinations of artificial images that reinforce negative body image and low self-esteem, and shows what women can do to feel whole and accepting of themselves.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"The Post (Liberal) Feminist Condition"

Anonymous Comrade

“They’ll throw the book at you in court. She’s the mother-the female. She’s got the tits. They’ll crush you.” — Sandor Himmelstein in Herzog by Saul Bellow.

The narrative of Bellow’s novel depicts a middle-aged philosophy professor, Moses Herzog, unluckily in love and on the edge descending into mental illness. Two broken marriages and estranged children; he feels the latter estrangement as death. Escaping from the pain into the arms of women he uses for sex, objectified he then begins to despise them. Though he remains conflicted on whether or not to remarry to a new lover, he withdraws yet again on a holiday. Catching a train from New York to the sea side, or rather lakeside, he reminisces upon his married life and the break up with Madeleine.