Life within and against work: affective labor, feminist critique, and post-Fordist politics - Kathi Weeks
Kathi Weeks examines immaterial and affective labour from a feminist perspective, drawing on the work of both Arlie Hochschild and C.W. Mills.
Feminist theorists have long been interested in immaterial and affective labor, even if the terms themselves are a more recent invention. Their early explorations of immaterial laboring practices and relations were part and parcel of the struggle to expand the category of labor to include more of its gendered forms.
Insurrections at the intersections: feminism, intersectionality and anarchism - Abbey Volcano and J Rogue
A critique of liberal conceptions of 'intersectionality' and an outline of an anarchist, class struggle approach.
We need to understand the body not as bound to the private or to the self—the western idea of the autonomous individual—but as being linked integrally to material expressions of community and public space.
On rape, cages, and the Steubenville verdict - Mia McKenzie
Submitted by Steven. on Mar 18 2013 14:39
Mia McKenzie from Black Girl Dangerous on the Steubenville rape verdict, and CNN news lamenting the "ruined lives" of the rapists, with no mention of the survivor at all. Trigger warning for discussion of sexual violence.
Quote:
Today, the two 16-year-old football players who were accused of raping a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio were found guilty. The boys' emotional reactions to the verdict, including crying in court, led several different CNN personalities to lament that their young lives have been ruined. That's right.
Domestic violence, International Women's Day, and the RMT
Submitted by libcom on Mar 11 2013 13:49
We reproduce below the statement made by RMT member Caroline Leneghan on her personal blog, in solidarity with her and other women speaking out about gender violence. [trigger warning: descriptions of domestic violence, pictures of injuries sustained]
Today I would like to show my solidarity with women all over the world on International Women’s day and to raise the issue of domestic violence against women. The RMT have released a model domestic violence policy for the transport industry which I hope gets rolled out to every employer.
Moving towards solidarity - Laurie Penny
Transphobic feminism makes no sense, argues Laurie Penny.
For decades, the feminist movement has been split over the status of trans people, and of trans women in particular. High-profile feminists such as Germaine Greer, Jan Raymond and Julie Bindel have spoken out against what Greer terms "people who think they are women, have women's names, and feminine clothes and lots of eyeshadow, who seem to us to be some kind of ghastly parody".
Challenging patriarchy in political organizing
Examples of sexism in political organizing:
· Most political organizations and meetings are still dominated by men, and even more dominated by male speakers
· Women have to struggle a lot harder to prove their capabilities as political activists, their intelligence on political issues, and to be taken seriously as committed organizers
Why I joined the Party: An Africana womanist reflection
Submitted by wojtek on Jan 9 2013 01:42
Regina Jennings' personal account on why she joined the Black Panther Party, her personal development and the sexism that she faced within the organisation.
TRIGGER WARNING: sexual harassment
As seen in Chapter Eleven of Charles E. Jones' book The Black Panther Party Reconsidered, pages 257 - 265.
Women's work and capital's use of childhood
An account of working at a daycare center. How privatized childcare both changed and preserved gender roles, how childhood makes alienation normal- and what was the real structural function of all the damn creepy propaganda in the halls?
This past summer, I was a cook at a daycare center in the northeast US. Ultimately, it wasn't viable to stay, and I became homeless, quit, and relocated south, where I found a better housing situation. But for several months, I had the chance to observe the industry of reproductive and caring labor.
Grassroots political militants: Banlieusards and politics
French cities burst back into flames after President Sarkozy’s election on a ‘clean the scum off the streets with a high-pressure hose’ ticket. It won't be the last time, as long as the factors necessitating the mass revolt of November 2005 remain in place, in France and elsewhere. This text, based on Emilio Quadrelli's interviews in the Paris banlieues during and after the 2005 events, overthrows the whole spectrum of slurs against the racialised, pathologised racaille. The myth of an all-boy riot is trashed by female combatant leaders, and leftist commonplaces incur special scorn, above all those about the inarticulate cry for help of the ‘socially excluded’.
Go home, white boy, we don’t need you[/i] – Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer, Voice of Freedom
Incipit. things and words*
Happy hookers: sex workers and their would-be saviors
Melissa Gira Grant on the framework in which sex work is discussed.
The following books were not published in 1972: The Happy Secretary, The Happy Nurse, The Happy Napalm Manufacturer, The Happy President, The Happy Yippie, The Happy Feminist. The memoir of a Manhattan madam was. The Happy Hooker climbed best-seller lists that year, selling over sixteen million copies.
Can comment on articles and discussions