👉Exciting new volume: Feminism and the early Frankfurt School.
Αn original collection of scholarship bringing together scholars of the Frankfurt School and feminist scholars. Essays included in the volume explore ideas from the early Frankfurt School that were explicitly focused on sex, gender, and sexuality, and bring ideas from the early Frankfurt School into productive dialogue with historical and contemporary feminist theory.
Reclaiming Our Space How Black Feminists Are Changing the World from the Tweets to the Streets
In Reclaiming Our Space, social worker, activist, and cultural commentator Feminista Jones explores how Black women are changing culture, society, and the landscape of feminism by building digital communities and using social media as powerful platforms.
Burn It Down!: Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution
A comprehensive collection of feminist manifestos, chronicling rage and dreams from the nineteenth century to the present day
A landmark collection spanning two centuries and four waves of feminist activism and writing, Burn It Down! is a testament to what is possible when women are driven to the edge.
Today in Labor History November 20, 1896: Rose Pesotta, anarchist labor activist and the only woman on the General Executive Board of the International Ladies' Garment Workers (ILGWU), from 1933-1944, was born on this date, in Ukraine, to a Jewish family. She learned about anarchism by reading books by Bakunin in her father’s library. Her parents set up an arranged marriage for her, which she did not approve. So, she emigrated to the U.S. in 1913, joining the ILGWU the next year. Her local, #25, was filled with militant women veterans of the 1909 Shirtwaist Strike. She wrote regularly for the New York Anarchist press, in both English and in Yiddish. She was friends with Italian-American anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In 1933, she organized immigrant Mexican garment workers, leading to the Los Angeles Garment Workers Strike. She also organized workers in Canada and Puerto Rico. Later in life, she worked briefly for the B’nai B’rith. She also wrote two memoirs, Bread Upon the Waters (1944),[6] and Days of Our Lives (1958).
In 'Feminist alliances against precarity or capitalism? A continuation of the Butler–Fraser debate,' Evelina Johansson Wilén delves into an enduring discussion on the intersection of oppressive structures in feminism.
Today in Labor History November 3, 1793: French playwright, journalist and feminist Olympe de Gouges was guillotined during the Reign of Terror (1793–1794) for attacking the regime of the Revolutionary government and for her association with the Girondists. Her writings on women's rights and abolitionism reached a large audience in many different countries. She was also an outspoken advocate against the slave trade in the French colonies. In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen (1791), she challenged the practice of male authority and the notion of male-female inequality.
Wow, just wow, Bazarov. And I thought I couldn't like you less.
"‘Why don’t you want to allow the idea of freedom of thought among women?’ he asked under his breath.
‘Because, mate, in my view, the only ones among women who think freely are bloody freaks.’"
Today in Labor History October 26, 1892: Ida B. Wells published “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases,” which led to threats against her life, and the burning down of her newspaper’s headquarters in Memphis. Wells, who was born into slavery, was a journalist, educator, feminist, and early Civil Rights leader who helped found the NAACP.
The Golden Notebook, by Doris Lessing. You are a mid 20th century writer with one successful novel, but also and communist and mother who struggles with all these things, but in particular with men; you keep separate notebooks trying to sort the parts of your real and fictional lives, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. 5 of 5 library cats 🐈 🐈 🐈 🐈 🐈
Today in Labor History October 4, 1884: Japanese writer Jun Tsuji was born. He was a Dadaist, nihilist, Epicurean and shakuhachi musician. Early in his life, he was influenced by the works of Tolstoy, Kōtoku Shūsui's socialist anarchism, and the literature of Oscar Wilde and Voltaire. Later, he became a follower of Stirner’s individualist anarchism. His works were censored by the authorities and he was harassed by the police. His former wife, anarcho-feminist Itō Noe, was murdered by the military police in the Amakasu Incident in 1923, when the military police murdered her and lover, Ōsugi Sakae, an informal leader of the Japanese anarchist movement, along with Ōsugi's six-year-old nephew. During the weeks that followed the great Kantō earthquake, authorities and vigilantes arrested, beat, tortured thousands of dissidents, and murdered an estimated 6,000.
Good grief. In the light of #LaurenceFox's comments on #GBNews, #Sky#News decided to do a piece on the #GenderPayGap. They had a man and woman on to argue about it.
It came out, live on air, that he was being paid and she wasn't. Sky apologised and offered her £75, the standard fee for such an appearance. Then they offered to increase it to £200, the same as they'd paid him.
📖 @pedrourbano e Joana Dias Pereira contribuíram com capítulos para a obra "Trabalho (no) Feminino - Histórias de Mulheres", sobre as damas camaristas ao serviço da Casas das Rainhas durante a monarquia constitucional portuguesa e sobre as mulheres trabalhadoras, movimentos operário e feminista em Portugal, respectivamente.
You don't have to be focused on any of the above topics, just have something interesting to say, and a decent webcam to record with (unless you live near #Portland and want to record an interview in person!) Bonus points if you're willing to appear nonsexually topless on screen with me, but definitely not required. I'm also happy to blur your face out or whatever else you need, if you want to keep your identity anonymous.
And if you'd like to check out previous interviews I've done, you can see them here: https://www.toplesstopics.org/interviews/ (please keep in mind some of these are really old when I was a lot worse at conducting interviews, I think they're better now 😅 )
Today in Labor History September 14, 1843: Lola Rodríguez de Tió, Puerto Rican poet, abolitionist, and women's rights activist was born. She and her husband became active in the movement against Spanish colonialism on the island. In 1889, the Spanish authorities banished them for their political activities. In exile in New York, she worked with Cuban revolutionary, Jose Marti, for Cuban independence from Spain. She wrote the lyrics for the anthem, La Boriquena. Many believe that the Puerto Rican flag came from her idea of having the same colors as the Cuban flag, but reversed.
Today in Writing History September 10, 1960: Alison Bechdel, American author and illustrator was born. She is most famous for her “Dykes to Watch Out For,” comic strip. And for her “Bechdel Test,” originally intended as a joke in one of her comics, but which has since become a routine metric used by critics as an indicator for the active presence of women in a film.
Today in Labor History September 3, 1838: Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland to freedom in the north, where he became a leader of the abolitionist movement. During his lifetime, he wrote 3 autobiographies and became a best-selling author. He also fought for women’s suffrage and was the first black man nominated to run for vice president. Douglass opposed colonialism and segregated schools. He was the most photographed American of the 19th century, never smiling once for the camera so as to not play into the racist myth of the happy slave.
Today in History August 30, 1797: Mary Shelley, English novelist and playwright was born. She is most famous for her novel, “Frankenstein.” However, she wrote several other novels, including the historical novels Valperga (1823) and Perkin Warbeck (1830), the apocalyptic novel The Last Man (1826). She married the romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelly. Her father was the early anarchist philosopher, William Godwin. And her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was a writer and a feminist activist. Mary Shelley was a political radical throughout her life, influenced by the anarchism of her father.
Women must stop having babies. Normalize vasectomy.
We need women. We need women to lead the way. We need women to take charge of their energy, that bleeds out of them in unpaid work. We need women to direct that heartfelt, deeply rooted, wholesome unconditional care and love towards the survival of humankind. And we need them to lead.
In a normal woman's life. All her energy drains into a work that is never done, a work that can never be finished, a work,that's increasingly becoming a form of torture as the system is snatching your children right from your arms, destroying their future, confronting them with the violence of this world.
We don't need more children. We cannot transfer this weight onto another generations shoulders.
We need to focus all our energy onto this task of finding a way forward from a near hopeless situation. It is no longer in the interest of humankind, that women would bear children. Instead they must bear goddesses that save us. They mus become those warrioresses that they are in everyday life, for their children. They must become that for life itself, Life needs us.
I had a talk with my kid. As a neurodivergent single mum of a neurodivergent child I have seen life from the underside. Raising a child in this marginalized situation: It's a life for a life. We need one woman to keep one such child alive and whole. It sucks up all of her energy and shortens her lifespan.It crushes her dreams. We all know that.
I talked to my female friends.
Not one of them that did not experience trauma. Systemic patriarchal violence. It begins with medical violence during childbirth (or lack of any medical assistance at all) and it does not end. Not ever.
And we bottle this up because we cannot burden our children with it. We need to be loving mums. My friends are all over 50. the hormones have changed. The pink glasses came off. We are finally old enough to admit the exhaustion and able to take some space to evaluate. And we have this to say:
If you are a young woman: Don't get pregnant. Be pregnant with the future. We could do a lot , if we focused all our unconditional love onto having this flawed species survive. Into stopping the intrinsic violence we are submersed in. And we'd finally be able to realize our self- love. Because we would be able to pace ourselves. We'd have some measure of agency over our own lifeblood and energy.
It's a life for a life. And the cost is rising with the mounting pressure of poverty and fascism.
It's a life for a life. It's not romantic. It's hard. And increasingly irresponsible. We need that energy. It's the true lifeblood of change. The most precious thing you will ever give.
Men -women relationships are not romantic. They only appear to be. The statistics say otherwise. Your partner does not have to raise a finger in order to be exploiting you. He needs an incredible amount of determination, undying love and an advanced consciousness in order to not be doing that. Very few of them pass that test. On a lifetime basis. Even after they stopped being in love with you. And now want to make more babies with someone else.
Let's face it: The responsibility is with you. In most cases, that checks out. In the long term. The statistics give testimony to that. Most mothers acquire a chronic illness over the time of their motherhood.
So I've read all of these books. I've had my experience, I've talked to my friends. This is my conclusion.
I love motherhood. It's so glorious. It could save us all.
We need to honor ourselves more than we do. We need to realize that we can actually do great things. That we are here to save all children and ourselves in the process.
Don't get pregnant.
And if you don't want to listen to an older woman: found that fucking community first. It needs at lest 10 supportive people for a mother to have half a chance at a decent life. The only sustainable way to raise a child is within a circle of support. And no one has that nowadays. We are being atomized. And the grind of raising a child isolates you even further.
Don't fall into that trap.
Mother that woman that you can become, instead.
I think this can be a really positive, life affirming choice. ( and it's no coincidence the christofascists don't want you to have that agency)
Change my mind. Just throwing this out there. It's been boiling in me for a long time. I had to reckon with all my own scars. My body, my health my hormones, my feelings towards my kid, who is a wonderful person and whom I love dearly. I am in full agreement with him over this. He sees this world. he will not father any children.
The default pattern for a woman and mum is codependency. Even if you're free of that in individually-psychological terms ( no woman is). The way the system is set up pressures you into it. On the male side, it's the opposite pattern. Narcissism. And you have to actively resist that systemic suction. It's a battle.
That love is unconditional. It will tear you apart, trying to lay the world at your child's feet. A world that does not exist. Because the world is burning.
Stop having children. Give birth to the world instead. And be realistic. The chance that you will have it in you, to do both at the same time are nil right now.
I'm sorry. My hair is grey. I can confidently say that.
I believe that we need to come together as human beings and expand this love. So that we can all experience it. And not inside the confines of patriarchal, binary families. But as communities. It's the only way we will be healing fascism. And this is what we need to pour ourselves into.
And if we weren't brainwashed by barbie we'd have realized this a long time ago. Our human community is sick. It must be nursed back to health. We can't do this individually. We must break up the patriarchal family compartments. The core family is core hell. No woman my age will contest that. Individual romance notwithstanding. The concept of it brought us were we are. We must take a different route now. Give birth to the future. @actuallyautistic
At a time when people increasingly feel disempowered and without outlook, the "mill girls of Lowell" offer an inspiring story of human triumph in face of withering conditions.
@iwashyna@bookstodon Finally my public library had After Sappho on the shelf! #AmReading these smart and beautifully written, challenging, and inter-related 'cascading vignettes' of #women's lives. 'Tho things have changed on the surface, we all need to pay attention to the genitive. The masculine continues as "the patron and the possessor and the proprietor and the patriarch" in too many women's lives.