women
Articles about women and women's struggles against patriarchy and capital.
1985: Victoria nurses' strike
The history of the first state-wide strike of nurses in Victoria, Australia over wages and staff/patient ratios.
It ended in a partial victory, despite the unions' lack of militancy and more importantly layed the groundwork of rank-and-file organisation which was to play a key role in the 1986 nurses' strike.
1981: Kortex sweatshop strike
The history of a victorious strike of 300 mostly female immigrant workers in an ultra-exploitative textile sweatshop in Australia.
Sweatshop rebels
How quickly people can change. The December 1981 Kortex strike illustrates how women’s oppression and their exploitation as workers combine and interact. A struggle in the workplace can spill over into the home and family life, with remarkable consequences.
The door to the garden: feminism and Operaismo - Mariarosa Dalla Costa
A paper on the history of Italian Marxist feminism given at a seminar on Operaismo ('workerism') held in Rome, June 2002 (3,000 words).
In the 1970’s Italian feminism had two sides: one was self-awareness, the other was the operaista feminism of Lotta Femminista (Feminist struggle) that eventually turned into groups and committees for wages for housework campaigns.
6. The Intimately Oppressed
It is possible, reading standard histories, to forget half the population of the country. The explorers
were men, the landholders and merchants men, the political leaders men, the military figures men.
The very invisibility of women, the overlooking of women, is a sign of their submerged status.
Nikiforova, Marussia, 1885-1919
A short biography of Russian anarchist guerrilla and orator Marussia Nikiforova, who fought in the Russian Civil War following the 1917 Revolution.
Born at Alexandrovsk, (now Zaphorozhye)in 1885 Maria Grigorevna Nikiforova was a worker, who had jobs as a baby sitter, sales clerk, and finally as a bottle washer in a vodka distillery.As a member of a local anarchist-communist group she was condemned to death for armed attacks on the Czarist authorities in 1905, commuted to twenty years hard labour.imprisonment.
Sharpley, Kate, 1891-1978
Brief biographical information about London resident, anarchist and World War I-widow, Kate Sharpley who once attacked Queen Mary.
Albert Meltzer first met Kate Sharpley on the day of the Lewisham anti-National Front riot in 1977 when he got into an altercation with some racists on the train home. One of the passengers was a frail lady in her eighties, going up to Guy's & St.
Thalmann, Clara, 1910-1987
A biography of Swiss anarchist Clara Thalmann, who travelled to Spain to fight in the Durruti Column in the Civil War.
Clara Thalmann
Born Clara Ensner, 1910 - Basel, Switzerland, died 27 January 1987 - France
“I am going to make the revolution in the the sky” - Clara Thalmann, 1953.
Noe, Ito, 1895-1923
A short biography of Ito Noe, a courageous Japanese woman who broke with her social conditioning and became a champion of both women’s liberation and anarchism.
Ito Noe
Born 1895 - Kyushu, Japan, died 1923 - Tokyo, Japan
Ito was born in 1895, to a family of landed aristocracy, on the southern island of Kyushu. After graduating from Ueno Girls High School, she was forced against her will into an arranged marriage in her native village. She soon ran away to Tokyo.
Parsons, Lucy, 1853-1942
A biography of anarchist labour organiser and wife of Haymarket Martyr Albert Parsons, Lucy Parsons.
Little is known about the early life of Lucy Parsons. She claimed to have been born the daughter of a Mexican women, Marie del Gather and John Waller, a Creek Indian, and orphaned at age three. From there she said she was raised on a ranch in Texas by her maternal uncle. However, later research has pointed to the possibility that she was a slave in Texas.
Marriage and Love
THE popular notion about marriage and love is that they are synonymous, that they spring from the same motives, and cover the same human needs. Like most popular notions this also rests not on actual facts, but on superstition.
