The women’s movement after the world health crisis
In early 2020, the exciting rise of the women’s movement began to feel the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and its attending lockdown and economic and social changes. At the same time, the right wing has continued to mobilize against women’s rights all over the globe, and has made some gains. But women continue to fight to defend their rights and gain new ones in the face of all this adversity.
We see young people, both women and men, and union and popular organizations rise up for women’s demands: this is the case of the mass demonstrations in Iran after the police murder of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa (Jina) Amini in September 2022. This year on March 8, thousands of women demonstrated to demand their rights in Pakistan, where demos were banned, and in Turkey, where women vowed to “rebuild life” after the disastrous earthquake took 50,000 lives. In the United States, as one writer put it, the right to abortion is “at the center of American politics.” And throughout Latin America, struggles around the recognition of women’s role in care work and the right to health, plus stopping violence against women and support for migrants have come to the fore despite –and because of— the pandemic.
These struggles on the ground have been accompanied by renewed efforts to arrive at a common class-based understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of oppression and liberation. This is reflected in activities by Marxists and socialists of different stripes to develop an analysis of women’s conditions, the political fights over demands, and the way forward for women’s struggles and those of our allies.
We also recognize that sexism continues to exist inside our own organizations, and we need to continue to examine how to deal with it.
Like everyone else, the Fourth International adapted to the lockdown conditions by holding online meetings and continuing to develop our analyses of the fights and efforts worldwide. We did hold a women’s seminar online in 2021. But we know that, while electronic communications can and should be used to facilitate our understanding and coordination, they cannot replace face-to-face meetings, with the wealth of exchanges they offer.
We need to bring together women who have participated in these experiences to arrive at a common understanding of the way forward, and particularly, to include this perspective in the Fourth International documents in preparation for our upcoming World Congress.
These are the goals of the women's seminar organized by the women’s commission of the Fourth International this July in our Institute in Amsterdam.
Of course, organizing this seminar is costly. The main item is travel expenses. We need your help in order to pay for the tickets of comrades from the Global South whose contribution is essential to understanding the new world movement.
You can contribute to the success of this seminar by transferring money to the following bank account mentioning: “women’s seminar 2023”
SOWS
Address: Postbus 1962, 1000 BZ, Amsterdam
IBAN : NL55INGB0001039161
BIC: INGBNL2A
Bank: ING (Postbus 1800, 1102 BW, Amsterdam)
Or through PayPal using this link (mentioning “women's seminar 2020”: https://iire.org/node/4