Contributions for Thinking About a Feminist International and the International Dimension of Our Feminist Struggles

By Victoria Furtado | Uruguay

In southern Latin America (Argentina, Uruguay and, more recently, Chile), the feminist struggle has shown an extraordinary force and an enormous capacity to expand. For the last three years, March 8, in addition to a day of struggle, has also meant a day of strike, a moment to stop and recover our time for ourselves.

What Does a Feminist International Look Like?

By Ndèye Fatou Kane | Senegal

To talk about transnational or international feminist solidarity, the most important prerequisite for me is to contextualize. Before I try to understand the feminist perspectives of other countries, I must try and comprehend that of my own. In some countries, women have achieved high levels of freedom and the word is free, but in my country everything just falls in line. In line with Victoria Furtado’s argument about different temporal arrangements (p.9), we must allow ourselves time to reclaim these feminist issues, to reclaim freedom before we can fully consider feminism and think about international solidarity.

United in Diversity – The International Feminist Movement

By Kerstin Wolter | Germany

Practices of feminist resistance – from #MeToo to the feminist strike to the performance Un violador en tu camino (A Rapist in Your Path) – are now increasingly spreading at the transnational level. These actions are directed against the consequences of neoliberal policies for the reproductive sector, against gender-based violence and feminicides, and against right-wing or fascist rulers, or demanding the right of self-determination over one‘s own body. They are part of a global increase in class struggle. The reasons for their transnationalization lie, as Cinzia Arruzza also indicates (p.25), in the rapid spread of videos, images, and stories via social media and in the growing awareness of shared experiences, needs, and desires. This common ground gives the feeling of belonging to a worldwide movement, even if the structures in one’s own country are still weak. Feminist resistance movements worldwide send impulses and inspiration. But the current mobilizing power of the protests is the result of a self-reinforcing interplay of contextual factors and an increasingly dense global network of feminist movements.

Across Borders, Against Borders: Why We Need a Transnational Feminist Movement

By Cinzia Arruzza | USA

Originating in Poland and Argentina in October 2016, the feminist strike movement has continued to mobilize millions of people around the globe for the past three and a half years, organizing three consecutive feminist strikes on International Women’s Day, as well as transnational days of mobilization against gender-based violence and international festivals and gatherings. This transnational dimension has been a constitutive feature of the movement and is key to understanding the conditions that made its growth and mass appeal possible.

Shrinking Democratic Spaces in India and the Need for International Feminist Solidarity

By Radhika Menon | India

It is diffcult to situate the women’s movement and the struggle for rights in India, without understanding its deep connection with the condition of democracy in the country. Democracy is in a state of ill health and facing an unprecedented challenge today, following the electoral foisting to power of a government, whose commitment to democracy is far less than its commitment to the establishment of a political-religious Hindutava state. Right wing populism and authoritarianism were the chosen horses for riding to power, but following achievement of power, political hegemony has been established through fascist mob justice as well as electoral maneuvering. The result has been a steady erosion of democratic structures and processes within the country. It must, however, be emphasized that India has reached this stage after nearly three decades of neoliberalism. Since 2011, following the global crisis of capital the descent has been steady. Policies of globalization, liberalization, and privatization washed away the social safety net elements of the Indian state, leaving people and mostly women extremely vulnerable to shocks. Growing unemployment, agrarian crisis, and low growth rates have limited the opportunities for large masses of people and the malaise has taken the form of farmer suicides and the targeting of vulnerable communities in resource fghts. Politically, the centrist and regional ruling class parties have been discredited as they have not been able to offer any credible alternatives to the distress. On the other hand, the uncertainties and anxieties have been mobilized by right wing organizations to widen the historical inequalities based on caste, prejudice, and religious communal divides. In 2014, the capture of national political space was complete with the formation of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Prime Minister Narender Modi.

Read the Complete Publication
https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/sonst_publikationen/200511_RLS_Broschu%CC%88re_Deconstruct_Internationalism_Online_Version.pdf

Alex Wischnewski
Victoria Furtado
Ndèye Fatou Kane
Kerstin Wolter
Cinzia Arruzza
Radhika Menon

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