Gender violence is grounded in hierarchical power structures which fuse gender, race and class. It has existed in various forms in all previous class societies but capitalism has its own modern forms of sexism underpinned by new institutional structures. Capitalism, they rightly say, did not invent the subordination of women. The authors of the manifesto also clearly locate gender oppression in the structures of capitalist society. Feminism for the 99%, they state, must be anti-racist, anti-imperialist, anti-war, eco-socialist and, above all, anti-capitalist and internationalist. This crisis of “epochal proportions” is causing plummeting living standards, looming ecological disaster, rampaging wars, mass migration, racism, xenophobia and a reversal of hard-won social and political rights. The current crisis is not just economic but systemic, a simultaneous crisis of the economy, ecology, politics and social reproduction. Capitalism, they argue, is driven by a relentless pursuit of profit and sustains itself by exploiting labour and free-riding on nature, public goods and unwaged work. The authors clearly place themselves on the anti-capitalist wing of the movement. While there are some things in this manifesto with which we would agree, it also contains political and theoretical weaknesses that are permeating the women’s movements internationally and even influencing some Marxists. In it they claim that the movement is reinventing and changing the definition of everything: the strike, the working class, and the class struggle. Three of these feminists, authors 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%. They proposed the organising of “transnational meetings and assemblies of the movements” to become “the emergency brake capable of stopping the capitalist train running at full speed, and hurtling all humanity and the planet we live in, toward barbarism”. Just prior to 8 March, 24 prominent women writers and activists from nine countries signed a joint declaration calling for a new stage in the feminist struggle. In a small number of countries the ‘feminist’ strike was also a feature of this day of struggle. On International Women’s Day this year millions of women and men once again took to the streets in global protests against gender oppression. What force is needed to end the discrimination and division rooted in the capitalist system? Can the global women’s movements become the main agency for change? Is the organised working class now redundant? Christine Thomas reviews a new publication claiming to have the answers.
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