Generative AI Tools Are Perpetuating Harmful Gender Stereotypes


These new systems reflect the inequitable, racist and sexist biases of their source material.

Marie Lamensch
June 14, 2023

Photo illustration by Jonathan Raa. (NurPhoto via REUTERS)


Over the past few months, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has undergone a boom, with the arrival and widespread availability of tools such as Midjourney, DALL-E 2 and, most impressively, ChatGPT. As big companies such as OpenAI, Google and Microsoft rush to develop machine intelligence tools, governments, businesses and artists are taking stock and frantically debating how AI will impact their work and environment.

Alongside the hype, however, there is also a pervasive current of doom, much of it coming from AI pioneers and technologists themselves. Last March, a group of prominent experts, including Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, Twitter CEO Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, signed an open letter calling for a pause in the development of AI systems more powerful than ChatGPT-4. And in April, the “godfather of AI,” Geoffrey Hinton, quit Google, citing concerns about the “existential” risk posed by AI.

In an interview with The Guardian, Hinton argued that AI will not only create “so much fake news that people won’t have any grip on what the truth is” but also eventually surpass the human brain. He further suggested that humanity is at a crossroads, which we may not survive as a species. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, wrote in February: “A misaligned superintelligent AGI [artificial general intelligence] could cause grievous harm to the world; an autocratic regime with a decisive superintelligence lead could do that too.”

Are these apocalyptic scenarios credible? It’s certainly important to think early and hard about the coming impact of generative AI — something we failed to do with social media. When Facebook and Twitter launched, technologists and policy makers did not imagine the platforms would eventually be used as tools for online disinformation, hate and foreign interference.

That said, Hinton’s hypothetical scenarios also miss the point, by ignoring the present. AI, including generative AI, is already causing harms, particularly to historically marginalized and underrepresented groups. The failure to acknowledge this was apparent in Altman’s testimony before the US Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law on May 16.

While Altman and members of the committee discussed ethical and national security concerns, they made little mention of the impacts some experts have been warning about for years: the particular effects of the technology on women. Indeed, the word women was mentioned only once during the three-hour hearing. When asked about this by Politico’s Women Rule, Senator Richard Blumenthal said the committee would eventually hear witnesses focus on the “harassment of women.” Such omissions reflect a continuing lack of understanding of continuing gendered risks.

Replicating and Perpetuating Gender Inequity and Stereotypes

Generative AI creates images, text, audio and video based on word prompts. OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, for example, claims to “create realistic images and art from a description in natural language.”

But the assumption that generative AI can provide a realistic image is highly dubious. Most text-to-image models are trained on LAION-5B, a large open-source data set compiled by scraping content, including images, from the internet. But the internet lacks gender-representative data sets and is littered with mis- and disinformation and xenophobic and sexist content. This means that, without the necessary filters and mitigation in place, generative AI tools are being trained on and shaped by flawed, sometimes unethical, data. The new tools exhibit the same inequitable, racist and sexist biases as their source material.

As I have written in several previous articles, the digital gender divide is real: women have less access to technology than men and are online less than men. They are widely underrepresented in the tech sector and in the data found on the internet. And women are the principal victims of online hate, disinformation and algorithmic biases. Indeed, the online experiences of women, especially women of colour, mirror historical and existing inequalities. There has been a consistent reluctance by tech companies to build systems that will not harm women.

In her 2023 Pulitzer Prize–winning research, New York University professor Hilke Schellmann showed how the algorithmic biases of social media arbitrarily suppress certain content about women. On Instagram, for example, a photo of a woman wearing yoga pants and showing a little bit of skin may be “shadowbanned” — not removed, but restricted in its reach or sharability due to an algorithm ranking it as “too racy.” Yet an image of a shirtless man will not be scored in the same way.

That the internet is filled with images of barely dressed or naked women means that AI image generators not only replicate these stereotypes, but also create hypersexualized images of women.

Replicating and Exacerbating Gender Stereotypes

Consider some further examples. In an ongoing research experiment, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Accelerator Lab tested two AI image generators’ view of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields with respect to the representation of women. When the researchers asked DALL-E and Stable Diffusion, a product of Stability.AI, for visual representations of an engineer, a scientist and an IT expert, between 75 and 100 percent of the generated results portrayed men.

Perhaps surprisingly, OpenAI acknowledges that DALL-E replicates stereotypes. For example, the prompt lawyer results disproportionately in images of people who look like older Caucasian men and wear Western dress. The prompt nurse tends to result in images of people who look female. Similarly, the term flight attendant tends to generate images of Asian women. As Gabriela Ramos, assistant director-general for the social and human sciences at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, wrote for the World Economic Forum, “these systems replicate patterns of gender bias in ways that can exacerbate the current gender divide.” As visual AI becomes part of our lives, there’s a real risk that the technologies will exacerbate gender stereotypes.

Hypersexualized Content

That the internet is filled with images of barely dressed or naked women means that AI image generators not only replicate these stereotypes, but also create hypersexualized images of women.

In 2022, Melissa Heikkilä, a senior reporter covering AI at the MIT Technology Review, tested an avatar-generating app called Lensa, which turns selfies into avatars using Stable Diffusion. Heikkilä reported on the results of the experiment. When she tried to create an avatar of herself, she was met with a collection of predominantly nude or skimpily dressed and “cartoonishly pornified” avatars that looked nothing like her.

By contrast, the avatars of Heikkilä’s male colleagues were fully dressed and “got to be astronauts, explorers, and inventors.” Worse, Heikkilä, who is Asian American, received fetishistic avatars of “generic Asian women” modelled on anime or video-game characters, whereas her white female colleague “got significantly fewer sexualized images, with only a couple of nudes and hints of cleavage.” Heikkilä’s experience displays both the sexist and the racist biases of some generative AI tools.

Deepfakes and Porn

One of the biggest concerns about generative AI is its capacity to generate disinformation — which is particularly worrying when it comes to visual content, because it can so easily fool us. Deepfakes are not new, but their widespread availability and increasing realism should be cause for concern.

In January, Twitter user @mileszim shared a tweet featuring young women at a party — an image that, at first sight, seemed quite ordinary. The catch: these women do not exist but were entirely generated using Midjourney. While the account holder’s intentions were not nefarious, the capacity of deepfake technology to create such images can cause great harm if used by bad actors. Earlier this year, for example, several Reddit users were tricked into buying realistic nude images of an AI-generated figure named “Claudia,” thinking the image was of a real person. While the culprits were quickly found, one can imagine such a scam on a larger scale, including through the use of exploitative conversational video chatbots that masquerade as real women.

A 2019 report published by Deeptrace Labs reported that of 15,000 deepfake videos it found online, an astonishing 96 percent were non-consensual pornographic content featuring the swapped-in faces of women. Since AI is built on surveillance, anyone can become a victim. But women are the main targets. Pornographic deepfakes are already being used against women, in particular, celebrities. They have also been used against politicians and journalists such as Rana Ayyub in order to silence, humiliate or blackmail them.

In May of 2023, Bloomberg reported that child predators have exploited generative AI to generate images of child abuse. As these technologies become widely available, we can only expect these forms of abuse and criminality to worsen.

Continuous Tech Industry Failures

Advocates for ethical technology, such as Meredith Whittaker and Timnit Gebru, observe the present AI scare with some irony; they’ve been raising alarms about AI harms against women and racial groups for years. In an interview with Slate, Whittaker, co-founder of the AI Now Institute at New York University and president of the US-based Signal Foundation, identifies what has changed in the past year: technologists such as Hinton are envisioning a future in which AI tools may not impact “simply” women, Black people and low-wage workers, but also the privileged.

As long as the industry doesn’t involve all those impacted by AI to help shape the product, this problem will worsen. As with previous waves of technology, the gender biases in generative AI are caused by the exclusion of women “at every stage of the AI life cycle,” as Gabriela Ramos argued in her article for the World Economic Forum. The problem, at its most basic level, is that this field remains male-dominated. The founders of OpenAI, for example, are men, among them Sam Altman and Elon Musk; the current eight-person executive team includes just one female member, Mira Murati. It’s an industry-wide problem: globally, only 22 percent of AI professionals are women, making them virtually invisible.

This raises key questions. Can these technologies be designed with the female experience in mind? How can data be more equitably curated? Who should decide on source content? And how can harms against certain groups, including women, be mitigated using filters or gender-affirmative practices? It’s not encouraging that key tech leaders appear to be aware of these harms yet have deployed the tools regardless. OpenAI, for example, claims: “We develop risk mitigation tools, best practices for responsible use, and monitor our platforms for misuse.” But shouldn’t this have been worked out before DALL-E 2 was made available to the public?

We should also carefully parse the calls for government regulation. In an op-ed for The Guardian, author Stephen Marche argues that “Silicon Valley uses apocalypse for marketing purposes: they tell you their tech is going to end the world to show you how important they are” and how their product might change the world. This draws attention to the product while also giving policy makers and the general public the impression that tech companies are concerned with values over profit. But as Gebru, the executive director of DAIR, the Distributed AI Research Institute, told The Guardian late in May, “It is a gold rush. And a lot of the people who are making money are not the people actually in the midst of it. But it’s humans who decide whether all this should be done or not. We should remember that we have the agency to do that.”

Citizens everywhere should welcome that governments and regional organizations such as the European Union seek to develop clear AI regulations, which they failed to do with so many earlier technologies, including spyware and social media. At the same time, we should remember that “slowing down” or “pausing” AI innovation for a few months will not reverse societal inequalities. While generative AI has the capacity to replicate the ills of gender, racial, religious and ethnic bias, we must address the sources of the problem, not simply its transmission.

Generative AI can work for women. For example, an Indian artist, Sk Md Abu Sahid, reimagined the world’s richest men as women using Midjourney, asking us to imagine a world in which the corporate, political and tech sectors were led by more women. Similarly, the UNDP’s “Digital Imaginings: Women’s CampAIgn for equality” employed AI-generated art to portray a world in which women have more opportunities and power. That world is one technologists can and should aim for.


The opinions expressed in this article/multimedia are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of CIGI or its Board of Directors.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marie Lamensch is the project coordinator at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University.

Women fighters of the 1871 Paris Commune

08/03/2024

Barricades erected by the Commune in April 1871. 

Photo: Pierre-Ambroise Richebourg/CC (uploaded 31/03/2021)

In the Paris Commune in 1871, for a brief but heroic few weeks, the working class took power for the first time in history. In the immortal words of Karl Marx, the masses ‘stormed heaven’. In extremely hazardous circumstances, Parisian workers attempted to re-organise society, to abolish exploitation and poverty, before falling beneath a vicious counter-revolution. Cecile Rimboud, Gauche Révolutionnaire (CWI France) outlines the key role that working-class women played in this historic struggle.

If the development of a society can be judged by the extent to which women are involved in it, that is certainly the case with a revolution. In 1871, women – especially women workers – played a huge role in the Paris Commune, despite significant hindrances. These heroic women workers swept aside forever the idea that their emancipation could happen outside of the class struggle.

Women’s labour had already played a very important role in industrial production in the 1860s in France and it had developed very rapidly. In 1871, 62,000 jobs out of 114,000 industrial jobs were held by women. Many thousands of female workers worked outside of industry – as home-based workers, laundresses, day labourers (cleaners). Women, as well as child labourers, were very poorly paid, earning a lot less than men, and this was used by the bosses to drive all wages down.

Women workers had to suffer horrendous sexual harassment from the bosses, and from some of their male co-workers, in the factories and workshops; sexual blackmail over employment was common. The wages were so low that many women had to prostitute themselves. In her Mémoires, one of the Commune’s most famous figures, Louise Michel, wrote: “The proletarian is a slave and the most enslaved of all is the wife of the proletarian. And what about women’s wages? Let us talk a little about that: it is no more than a decoy”. Women workers’ conditions were truly atrocious.

Victorine Brocher, a boot-stitching worker who was very active in the defence of Paris later, wrote in her Memoirs of a Living-Dead Woman: “I saw poor women working twelve and fourteen hours a day for a derisory salary, having old parents and children whom they had to leave behind, locking themselves up for long hours in unhealthy workshops where neither air nor light nor sun ever penetrates, for they are lit with gas; in factories where they are shoved in like herds of cattle, to earn the modest sum of two francs a day, earning nothing on Sundays and holidays”.

“Often, they spend half the night repairing the family’s clothes; they would also have to go to the wash-house to wash their clothes on Sunday mornings. What is the reward for these women? Often anxious, she waits for her husband who has been lingering in the neighbouring drinking den and only comes home when three quarters of his money has been spent… The result: abject poverty or prostitution”.

During the final years of the Empire, some women workers had been agitating against these terrible conditions. The most politically advanced of them, who would later rally to the International Working Men’s Association (IWMA – the first international), started to be active in trade unions. Nathalie Le Mel, a Breton binder and leader in the binders’ union, joined the IWMA after the 1865 strike that won equal pay, regardless of sex, for Parisian binders.

Reactionary views

These activists had many opponents, and they were not only bosses. The majority of the workers’ movement then, including the politically heterogeneous IWMA, did not support women workers. Amongst others, Jean-Baptiste Proudhon, a self-declared anarchist and member of parliament after the 1848 revolutionary upheavals, had a very reactionary position. Proudhon theorised that women were inferior to men.

In Justice in the Revolution and the Church (1860), Proudhon scandalously wrote: “In itself, the woman has no reason to exist; she is an instrument of reproduction… The woman remains… inferior to the man, a sort of medium between him and the rest of the animal kingdom… The man will be the master and the woman will obey”.

The common position that “women should stay at home” was defended by the majority of the French delegation at the IWMA Congress of 1866, although some leaders, like Eugène Varlin and Antoine Bourdon, opposed this. They moved a resolution at the Congress stating that: “Women need to work to live honourably, therefore, we must seek to improve their work instead of abolishing it”. The resolution was defeated. The French workers’ movement then was not defending better conditions for women workers but the abstract call for the ‘abolition’ of women’s labour. In this regard, Varlin and Bourdon’s resolution was progressive. Such figures in the French workers’ movement, not least Marxists, played a key role in the struggle for women’s rights.

Léodile Champaix, who took the alias André Léo, was a member of the IWMA at that time, and a writer. She commented: “On this question, revolutionaries become conservative”. She pointed out how ironical it was for those who pretend to struggle for freedom to defend “a small kingdom for their personal use, each in their own homes”.

This reactionary view remained the dominant position in the workers’ movement, as well as amongst the majority of the working class of France, at the time. Hypocritically, the dominant ideology condemned women’s labour and demanded of women to be mere housewives deprived of all rights. At the same time, society rendered this role impossible for working-class women: they were already drawn into heavy industry and suffered terribly from exploitation and poverty.

Opposing bourgeois views

In the second part of the 1860s, strikes over pay took place throughout the country. Here and there, papers and journals were published to discuss women’s rights. One example was the bi-monthly Women’s Rights. It aimed at discussing “the moral, intellectual and civil emancipation of women – as daughters, as wives and as mothers” but not financial emancipation, and not women as workers!

These journals were mostly produced by bourgeois men and women, who did not encourage women, in general, to organise or take political action. On the contrary; in July 1869, the Women’s Rights newspaper commented: “We do not tell them [women] that the time has come for them to claim their share of those political rights … because their education has not prepared them for the special virtues required for political action”. How wrong were they proven to be by the heroic action of the Parisian women workers not two years after this outrageous declaration.

On the other hand, Karl Marx and scientific socialists had always supported the rights of women and women workers. And although they were in a minority in France at the time, they did everything they could to aid women workers to organise and fight. This was not only for emancipation and equality but for the workers’ movement to change their position and defend the women of the working class.

A young collaborator of Marx was Elisabeth Dmitrieff. She was an activist in Russia before immigrating to Switzerland where she helped found the Russian section of the IWMA. She was only 21 years-old when she went to Paris to build support for the ideas of scientific socialism, particularly among women. The emancipation of women, she maintained, would happen through the emancipation of the whole proletariat. One of the tasks was thus to stir up the class consciousness of Parisian women workers to draw them into the revolutionary fight.

Female socialists were not concerned only by matters regarding the condition of women workers. The activists, members of the IWMA, and others were also among those who were most serious about the success of the Commune itself.

André Léo, for instance, was relentless in her attempts at convincing the people of Paris and members of the Commune that the isolation of the struggle in Paris and the alienation of the peasantry would be fatal. On 9 April 1871, she wrote: “In the provinces, there is danger, there is a disaster. Paris at this moment hates and curses the provinces and the provinces hate and curse Paris. A mountain of lies and calumnies has been raised between them”.

Together with Auguste Serrailler, a member of the IWMA and the Commune, Léo worked, alas unsuccessfully, to get a decree passed on the abolition of mortgage debts, which would have raised great support among the peasantry: the mortgage debts of small landowners had skyrocketed to a total of 14 billion francs.

Women in military defence of Paris

In his famous narrative, History of the 1871 Commune, Pierre-Olivier Lissagaray wrote that on 18 March, the beginning of the insurrection, when the new capitalist government of Adolphe Thiers had abandoned Paris after France had been defeated in war by Prussia: “Women were the first to act, as in the days of the [1789] revolution… Those of the 18 March, hardened by the siege, did not wait for the men – they had had a double ration of misery”. Women started organising quickly. A battle was waged for women to be officially incorporated into the military defence of Paris.

Of course, women had not waited for any official orders to defend Paris and the revolution; thousands had already participated in its defence during the siege by the Prussian army. Several female defence organisations were established. Louise Michel, André Léo, and others organised ‘ambulances’ (paramedic services), and the distribution of food and clothes.

On 8 May, Léo, in a quite pessimistic article entitled The Revolution Without the Woman, protests against the hostility of the National Guard commander General Dombrowski and others to integrating the women paramedics of Montmartre in the army and on the outposts: “Do you know, General Dombrowski, how the revolution of March 18 was made? By women. At early dawn, troops had been sent to Montmartre. The small numbers of National Guard who guarded the cannons of the Saint-Pierre square were taken aback, and the cannons were being removed”. Louise Michel related: “Women covered the cannons with their bodies”.

Lissagaray writes: “The attitude of the women during the Commune was admired by foreigners and infuriated the Versaillais”, those in Versailles where the Thiers government had withdrawn to. Ten thousand women workers fought during the ‘Week of Blood’. The Twelfth Legion of the Commune even had a female contingent.

The Women’s Association

Several women’s organisations were created in the heroic days of the Paris Commune. Most notably on 11 April the Union des Femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blessés (Women’s Association for the defence of Paris and care of the wounded), was created. Its members had put themselves at the disposal of the Commune and were ready to “fight and conquer, or die”.

On the founding of the Union des Femmes, a manifesto was published in the form of an address to the Executive Commission of the Commune, published in the Official Journal of the Commune on 13 April. The address stated: “The Commune represents great principle in proclaiming the annihilation of all privilege, of all inequality, and by the same (principle) is thus committed to taking into account the just claims of the entire population, without distinction of sex – a distinction created and maintained by the need for antagonism on which the privileges of the dominant classes are based”.

It demanded the necessary means of organisation for women to be able to be truly involved in the revolution, such as rooms in each district where they could meet and organise their political activity.

This was agreed to by the Commune. Louise Michel is one of the most well-known figures of the Commune. But it is worth noting that even if she demonstrated great bravery, her political views were not socialist and she, therefore, did not play any role in the attempts to form trade unions or women workers’ organisations like the Union des Femmes. This was very active and well organised and was mainly led by women workers who displayed tremendous courage.

On 18 May, the Association’s executive commission was still convening an assembly of women with its famous Call to Women Workers. The aim was to constitute trade union branches, whose elected delegates would, in turn, form the Federal Chamber of Women Workers. The Association, with its headquarters in the beautiful town hall of Paris’s Tenth Arrondissement (an administrative district), held daily meetings in all arrondissements and organised about 300 members.

Elisabeth Dmitrieff, in particular, was aiming at using the Women’s Association to encourage the political organisation of women in the IWMA to fight for socialism. Despite the absence of women in the Commune itself, in some arrondissements women had been integrated into the administration; in the Ninth Arrondissement, a woman named Murgès sat on the council.

The Women’s Association waged a ferocious struggle against bourgeois women who, through posters and papers, espoused defeatist and demoralising propaganda. On 3 May, a poster stated: “Women of Paris, in the name of the fatherland, in the name of honour, finally in the name of humanity, demand an armistice!” – in other words, accept the rule of the capitalist government in Versailles.

The Women’s Association responded on 6 May with a poster: “It is not peace, but war at all costs that the workers of Paris come to demand… The women of Paris will prove to France and to the world that they too will know… how to give their blood and their lives, like their brothers, for the defence and triumph of the Commune!… Then, victorious, able to unite and agree on their common interests, men and women workers, all in solidarity, by the last effort, will destroy forever all vestiges of exploitation and exploiters!”.

Huge inspiration

Many very progressive measures for women, albeit short-lived, were gained during this two-month long revolution. The closure of brothels was won. The Commune banned prostitution, considered as “a form of commercial exploitation of human creatures by other human creatures”. Common-law partnerships were officially recognised. Widows of National Guardsmen killed in action were granted the payment of a pension, whether officially married to them or not, and their children, whether legitimate or ‘natural’, were recognised on the basis of a simple declaration.

Women pleading for separation from partners could also be granted the payment of a pension. Education and childcare were revolutionised. The church and the state were separated, hospitals and schools were also made secular. Male and female teachers won equal pay.

The most important concern was the shortage of work. All the women’s associations demanded work from the head of the Commune’s Labour and Trade Commission, Léo Frankel. He endorsed the proposals of the Women’s Association, including the requisitioning of abandoned workshops and the organisation by the Women’s Association of cooperative workshops for women to work in. Dmitrieff, in particular, was afraid that if the Commune failed to take bold measures to employ and provide living wages for women, they would “go back to a passive and more or less reactionary state that the previous social order had created – fatal and dangerous for revolutionary interests”.

Tragically, all the progressive measures were cut across by the bloody onslaught on Paris from Versailles starting on 21 May.

Women fought heroically during the Paris Commune and its ‘Week of Blood’ at the end of May. As Karl Marx put it: “The real women of Paris showed [themselves] again – heroic, noble and devoted… joyfully giving their lives on the barricades and on the place of execution”. The editor of the newspaper, Le Vengeur, commented: “I’ve seen three revolutions, and, for the first time, I’ve seen women getting resolutely involved, women and children. It seems that this revolution is precisely theirs and that by defending it, they are defending their own future”.

Thousands had died during the ‘Week of Blood’, but the heroism persisted. “Defeated but not vanquished”, were the words of Nathalie Le Mel, deported to New Caledonia along with Louise Michel and thousands of others. How impressed we can be, seeing such determination! The fight of the scientific socialists like Dmitrieff and others to form women workers’ organisations in the face of such adversity is truly an example and a treasured jewel in the armoury of the world workers’ movement.

What a tremendous source of inspiration the Paris Commune and these women can provide for all those today who seek to end discrimination and exploitation of women and all the oppressed! The women of the Commune began to show the way. The emancipation of women can be achieved only through a common, united struggle of the working-class – men and women alike – aiming at freeing labour from capital and in this way ending all forms of exploitation.

 

A woman’s place is her union – but women must be made to feel welcome there

Revisiting the work of Bolshevik revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai HELEN O’CONNOR finds that when genuine efforts are made to involve working-class women into the labour movement, this advances the interests of the entire working class

Alexandra Kollontai

WORKERS are under attack on every level but especially women. Women are more likely to be in part-time, low-paid work because the burden of caring still falls primarily onto our shoulders.

The impact of cuts and privatisation has negatively affected working-class women in terms of employment, where privatisation has cut pay, terms and conditions.

Women are forced to provide the services, particularly caring, that have been deemed unnecessary or unprofitable. As a result too many women are firmly relegated to the ranks of “the working poor” for the entire duration of their lives.

In spite of the fact that rising numbers of trade union members are women, there is still a struggle to consistently engage women in activity in workplaces or within the unions themselves, and we need to honestly reflect on the reasons behind this.

There is tokenism in the trade union movement which is often presented as “progressive.”

Of course we need policies, information and awareness on a whole range of “women’s health, social and domestic issues” but the danger is that this can be seen to be separate and even removed from the need to organise women to agitate and fight for the type of change that challenges the status quo.

Self-organising is a vital and necessary aspect of bringing attention to the struggles of marginalised groups, establishing demands and leading struggles that can be recognised by all workers to build working-class solidarity.

The pay gap between men and women is as bad as it has ever been and it will not be resolved just by requesting that employers publish their data or legal methods, but through the type of co-ordinated and militant struggle organised working-class women took against Glasgow Council.

During this and many other struggles throughout history women have shown themselves to be capable leaders and fighters.

There is no better time to look back on the the work of Alexandra Kollontai, one of the greatest revolutionary organisers, which can provide the modern-day labour movement with guidance, clarity and inspiration.

The work of Kollontai recognises the double and triple oppression of women but it is also uncompromising in defining what is the root cause of all this — class.

Kollontai observed that the pace of events in pre-revolutionary Russia changed consciousness quickly and this led the poorest and the most oppressed women into the vanguard of the class struggle.

She said: “At a time of unrest and strike action the proletarian woman, downtrodden, timid and without rights, suddenly grows and learns to stand tall and straight. The self-centred narrow-minded and backward female becomes an equal, a fighter and a comrade.”

In spite of all of the scientific and technological advantages that the march of time has offered human beings, it remains the case that the social class a women is born into still defines her life and the lives of her children.

Kollontai recognised that women’s oppression is not born out of antagonism between women and men but is firmly rooted in class society.

She saw how employers threatened working-class women with unemployment when they started to get organised and make the most simple demands to have enough food for themselves and their families.

Identity politics without a class analysis, however well-intentioned, can create divisions among working-class people.

Kollontai observed that when women’s organisations were set up with the false claim that they were “above class” they ended up adopting the limited demands of bourgeois women and as a result alienated the working-class women who quickly recognised that their own demands for better living conditions would never be taken up.

Kollontai recognised that working-class women’s demands were first and foremost practical and around work, wages, conditions and childcare.

Kollontai noted that while bourgeois women and working women shared some commonalities, the upper-class women’s demands for equality with men always sat within a framework that supported a political and economic status quo that exploited working-class Russians.

She reached the conclusion that a women’s movement could not indiscriminately embrace all women because that world of women is also divided along class lines.

Advances have been made through self-organising, but not all women have benefited from them. Women are more visible in the leadership teams of large companies and in politics and have a greater chance of accessing traditionally male roles but this has made little material difference to most working-class women.

In spite of all of the gains and the technological and scientific advances made over the last century, increasing numbers of working-class women still have the same need for fair pay, flexible working and affordable childcare as the women of revolutionary Russia.

Working-class women, like cleaners, nurses, care home workers and many others, are being plunged into poverty and they are denied the type of financial and practical support that would enable them to offer their children the best start in life.

If history teaches us anything, it is that women like Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel represent their own class interests and not the interests of working-class women.

The neoliberal cuts and privatisation agenda that strips working-class women of public services and social security is enthusiastically embraced by women occupying seats in the power structures.

In stark contrast with the successful drive to organise working-class women in revolutionary Russia, a modern-day woman’s reproductive function, combined with the necessity for her to work, leads to many experiencing insurmountable barriers to becoming actively involved in a trade union or in political life.

This in turn hampers the overall ability of working-class women to fight for the social and political changes that would enhance their life chances and those of their children.

Kollontai was guided by the principle that working-class women should be able to have children and also participate fully in the class struggle and she went to where the women were, listened carefully to their needs and then both inspired and enabled them to become involved.

Kollontai saw how quickly working-class women moved to the vanguard of the class struggle and she worked tirelessly to build mass solidarity and support for the strikes of women workers in the textile factories and the laundries.

The political conclusions Kollontai drew guided her organisational work and enabled her to bring large numbers of the poorest and most oppressed women into political life.

By 1921 more than three million Russian women, some of whom started out without education or literacy skills, took up the opportunities to develop themselves and they became involved in Russian politics.

They elected their own representatives from the women of the factories, the laundries and the peasantry who would then go onto the committees to push their own demands forward through the Bolshevik party.

The politics of revolutionary Russia was directly relevant to the day-to-day lives of working-class people, nothing was abstract and Bolshevik party policy was formed around women’s needs which included getting control over their fertility and ending their super-exploitation.

Revisiting Kollontai’s work shows that when genuine efforts are made to involve working-class women into the labour movement this advances the interests of the entire working class.

It is important that the labour and the trade union movement redouble our efforts to hear the voices of working-class women and respond to concerns in a respectful and serious way.

Abuse, hostility and the failure to listen risks driving good women out of the movement and towards organisations that are fundamentally opposed to the interests of the working class.

The level of misogyny that still exists in the labour and trade union movement must be opposed by both men and women alike in order to end it for good.

Women are 50 per cent of the population and it remains the case that the majority of working-class women will be found in the lowest-paid jobs while still shouldering the burden of childcare and domestic tasks.

Even in 2022 the lion’s share of the care, support and wellbeing of the next generation still rests with women.

As we enter 2022 and a deepening cost of living crisis, working-class men, women and children will be crushed by capitalism unless we co-ordinate effective resistance.

Even greater numbers of children will grow up in poverty and have their life chances utterly destroyed by the deliberate destruction of the welfare state, the abolition of social housing and the bottomless greed of exploitative employers.

Liberating working-class women will not be achieved by latching onto the latest trends in post-modern ideology that have no material basis.

Liberation for any marginalised group starts with tackling the real material causes of oppression which are always rooted in class antagonisms in spite of false claims that the ideas of Marx and Engels are “outdated” or “irrelevant” in the modern world.

The fight for our own liberation is part of the wider struggle of the entire working class — something recognised not only by Kollontai but by Eleanor Marx and Sylvia Pankhurst too.

In order to advance the interests of our class, it is crucial for women to get more active than ever before in the largest democratic organisations of the working class and to fully utilise our trade unions as a vehicle to fight for society to be changed.

Helen O’Connor is Southern Region organiser for GMB.

International Women's Conference to kick off in Berlin at the weekend

Songül Karabulut, Preparatory Committee Member of the 2nd International Women's Conference, said that they would not just deal with a system analysis, but also discuss ways and means to get rid of the current predicament.

MUHAMMED KAYA
BERLIN
Friday, 4 Nov 2022

The ‘Women Are Shaping the Future Network’ will hold the 2nd International Women's Conference under the motto "Our Revolution: Liberating Life" at Berlin Technical University on November 5-6. Almost 800 women from 41 countries are expected to attend the conference.

Preparatory Committee Member Songül Karabulut spoke to ANF about the conference and pointed out that the women's revolution would pave the way for a more free, fair, ecological, and democratic life against the capitalist modernity system.

How are the preparations going on?

Our preparations are already completed. We are starting the registration process as of Friday (Nov. 4). The establishment of language cabins at the university will also be completed today because there will be simultaneous translation in 8 languages. Technical equipment will be installed. From 06:00 on Saturday, we will be present at the university. We'll start the conference at 09:00.

Why was the motto “Our Revolution: Liberating Life” chosen?

We are manifesting our philosophical approach. Women's liberation or women's revolution is to liberate life in general. When we were thinking about it, there were no mass protests or women-led uprising in Iran. The iconic motto 'Jin, Jiyan, Azadi' (Woman, Life, Freedom) of the protests in Iran has made the motto of our conference visible to the world once again. We think that the women's revolution will pave the way for a more free, fair, ecological and democratic life against the capitalist modernity system. We argue that the women's revolution will offer solutions to all the problems of capitalist modernity. We have consciously chosen this motto because women's liberation will naturally lead to liberation of life against the existing system of exploitation.

As you know, as the Kurdish Women's Movement, we declared the 21st century as the century of women in line with our leader's vision. Apart from theoretical-philosophical insights, the recent developments also confirm that our motto is relevant and in line with the Zeitgeist.

Compared to 2018, when the first conference was held, how do you evaluate the current situation?

In 2018, there were very serious women-led uprisings around the world. They were mainly about greater women's rights. For example, in Latin America, millions of women took to the streets against anti-abortion. Violence against women was a serious topic. In the Middle East, the Rojava Women's Revolution, led by the Kurdish Women's Movement, and women's self-defence exerted a serious influence across the world. Later, the global epidemic emerged, and women's struggles were also negatively affected by it. The Third World War has recently reached the borders of Europe. Following the Russia-Ukraine war, the contradictions are getting deeper and deeper. Governments are cracking down on citizens. That is, the pressures of capitalist modernity and nation-states towards the people are much more intense.

Afghanistan is very important to us. Afghanistan was handed over to the Taliban by the United States. The first thing they did was to oppress women again, to push them out of all areas of life, to suppress them. Afghan women continue to resist despite all the pressures. Afghan women announced that they were inspired by the Kurdish Women's Movement.

Now, there is a similar situation in Iran. Under the leadership of women, the motto 'Jin, Jiyan, Azadi' has emerged very clearly again. The struggle of women is gradually turning into a social struggle. Now, various segments of society, religious and ethnic groups, sexual differences are all chanting this slogan to express that they see their own freedom within the freedom of women. In this sense, the women's revolution has become more evident in 2022 than in 2018. Therefore, we will not just deal with system analysis during the conference, we will also discuss ways to get rid of the current predicament. We will pose questions like how we can fulfil our responsibility better and how we can generate the needed organization and struggle tools. We will discuss how to reach a common mentality and a common point of view. The conference aims to provide a response to the current situation.

How can those who cannot attend the conference follow it?

TV channels Jin TV and Stêrk TV will broadcast our conference live. Apart from that, we will also broadcast it live via the Internet. We want everyone to follow this conference. We live in the age of the Internet; distances don't matter anymore.

International Women's Conference in Berlin: “It is time to take responsibility for the future"

The ‘Women Are Shaping the Future Network’ holds the 2nd International Women's Conference under the motto "Our Revolution: Liberating Life" at Berlin Technical University on November 5-6.

ANF
BERLIN
Saturday, 5 Nov 2022

The 2nd International World Conference on Women began in Berlin today. Around 700 women and other oppressed genders from all over the world have travelled to Berlin to participate in this powerful and revolutionary coming together.

In terms of content, the conference started with a deep examination of the Third World War as well as the resistance against it. Specifically, it was about the struggle against the highly armed capitalist patriarchy. Meghan Bodette of the Kurdish Peace Institute moderated and posed the following questions to the first session: What can the revolutionary liberation struggle of women and other oppressed genders do in this age of pandemics, wars, violent land grabs and ecological crises? The oppressive capitalist patriarchy continues its war against women and all other oppressed genders, developing ever new methods and strategies to break women's resistance and trying to hide all the contradictions of the system. How are women and other oppressed genders around the world currently resisting this capitalist patriarchy and what does it take for this movement to gain strength?

In the first part of the panel discussion, Nilüfer Koç, member of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK), and Mariam Rawi from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) spoke about state violence against society as well as women and the means of oppression - dominant masculinity.

"Now is the right time to shape the future"

Koç stressed that now is exactly the right time to talk about how we as women should shape the future. “After all, what is happening around us right now is nothing less than World War III - even the US, NATO, etc. agree on this. But as women, we should not make the mistake of thinking of war only in military terms. There is a war that is not named as such: since the beginning of patriarchy, feminicide has been a war and an inherent part of capitalism. Military wars are only masks to disguise the relations and origins of the problems. That is why it is so necessary to find alternatives in this century. We as women need our own ideology - that of women's liberation,” said Koç and called for engagement with women's movements that are actively fighting for peace. She said that equal principles are needed to work together and create a global connection between women.

Koç went on to discuss the current crises, the hegemonic claims of the states and the resulting wars and competition. She mentioned collaboration at this point to destroy alternatives, such as in the fight against the Kurdish freedom movement and the attacks on Kurdistan. “At this moment, the oppressed have the chance to contradict and resist. In Iran, this is currently visible again. Behind the slogan "Jin, Jiyan, Azadî" (Woman, Life, Freedom) is a decades-long struggle that shows: if we are organised, we can win battles. In Kurdistan, we show that this is possible. It is time that we as sisters take responsibility for the future. Woman, Life, Freedom! That's how we will win."

"Women are proving that they are writing the history of the revolution”

Mariam Rawi then spoke of Afghanistan as a place where the most brutal religious fascists are currently ruling. She impressively described the tragedy that is taking place under this Islamist fundamentalist mentality. This is a force directed against women. Atrocities and women's suffering are the order of the day under this regime. Women are not recognised as human beings, but are reduced to child-bearing machines, she said.

However, Rawi also stressed that the Taliban were not alone, but linked to the institutions of capitalist states, such as the CIA. She gave a brief outline of the history of this cooperation. For example, she said, "women's rights" were used to legitimise the intervention after 2001, but even if today there is talk of its failure, in fact everything went according to the imperialist plan. Today, the country is on the verge of collapse, yet Western governments maintain relations with the Taliban: strategic interests are far more important than the fate of Afghan women and men, she noted.

But, she continued, people have also learned: values can only be fought for by the oppressed themselves - and then they will no longer be taken away. She went into detail about the work of RAWA: for more than 40 years they have been raising awareness of injustices and clandestinely organising women. For their work, the organisation was recently awarded the Sakine Cansiz Prize. "We were very happy about that."

Rawi concluded by saying, "We hope that the network of solidarity will become stronger and stronger. We swear by the blood of the struggling women to continue their journey. Women are proving that they are writing the history of the revolution."

Ecocide: overcoming domination, dispossession, oppression

The second part of the morning was dedicated to the destruction of nature and was entitled "Ecocide: overcoming domination, dispossession, oppression: the subordination and colonisation of nature and the ruthless appropriation and exploitation of resources". Here, Lolita Chavez from Feministas Abya Yala from Guatemala and Ariel Salleh, a sociologist and ecofeminist from Australia spoke.

From Abya Yala to Kurdistan

Chavez started her speech by lighting a fire and spoke words of gratitude for the earth, the cosmos: "This is our fire, our feminist fire, from Abya Yala to Kurdistan." She positioned herself against the war in Kurdistan and the use of chemical weapons, saying they were defenders of life.

She told of the occupation of indigenous territories, the exploitation and violence of criminal networks and terrorising structures. She stressed that these were also financed by Europe and its institutions: "We are here, telling you in your eyes: you are part of it." She spoke of the war that the extractivist companies were waging against them because they were holding their worlds against them, alternatives that were possible in their territories.

"Stop transnational corporations where they are born"

Chavez also denounced feminicide and called for justice. As feminists from Abya Yala, she said, they would work together, weaving autonomy and self-determination, but also sharing their wisdom. "We are not ashamed when they say we are witches. We stand by our spirituality. We are against ideologism because in our territories we decide."

Chavez ended her speech with two appeals. One, she said, was that there was now no time to delay the important project any longer: "Let's form these feminist networks and weave feminism from below!" Secondly, she called for, "Stop transnational corporations where they are born! Extractivist corporations are the wrong answer to global warming. And we will stop them!"

Overcoming dualist thinking

Ariel Salleh began her presentation by addressing the Rojava revolution, describing it as ecofeminist. She stressed that feminism and ecology denote a common struggle and are intertwined. She called for a struggle to be waged against the perpetuation of constructed dualisms and associated dissociative linkages. “The created dualistic thinking, for example between human beings and nature and linked to that of man and woman, not only limits our possibilities, but also leads to negative consequences, e.g. by portraying one side as inferior or opening the doors to colonialism. Humanity, reason, production are diametrically opposed to nature, chaos, reproduction and dominate them. This hierarchy is institutionalised in patriarchy. A lot of energy is needed to maintain male domination, which means alienation from life itself. Ecofeminists know about this connection with violence against women, and Abdullah Öcalan is also aware of this,” she said, and concluded by talking about successful ecofeminist struggles and emphasising her solidarity.

"Making Invisible Work Visible”

Concluding the first session, the third part focused on "Making Invisible Work Visible: The survival of the system is based on women's bad and unpaid work." This addressed the question: how can we base our class struggle on the principle of women's liberation to fight the foundations of capitalist exploitation? Women in class struggles have developed a view that the class hierarchy and the state are built on the exploitation of women's bodies and services. Under current capitalist conditions, women's labour is even more exploited and made even more invisible.

Abolish the system, not the human being

Genevieve Vaughan, an Italian American peace activist, feminist and philanthropist, made it clear in her lecture that the capitalist economy of the last centuries must be fundamentally abolished. “In order to push for a radical change of the economic system, we would have to understand unpaid labour as the standard of the system and paid labour as its deviation. Only then would we be able to see how women's bodies are exploited in capitalist patriarchy. Humans are the only species that cannot sustain themselves, but only stay alive by caring for each other. The maternal gift, she said, is invisible in the capitalist economy. This gift includes the creation of life and care, she noted.

Misogyny has historically kept women out of science and this has laid the groundwork for always developing models that would have voids in their analysis. We have to realise that we don't want the system to survive, we want our human species to survive. And our species consists of humans, who are neither Homo Economicus, i.e. profit-oriented, nor Homo Sapiens, i.e. knowledgeable, because we do not know who we are. The human being is a homo Donando, a giving human being.

Real security does not come from capitalist patriarchy

"Azadi means freedom in many languages" - with these words Kavita Krishnan, feminist activist of the All India Progressive Women's Association, began her contribution. She made it clear that in patriarchy the word security is used as a code for control and exploitation of women. To illustrate this situation in the system, Krishnan gave various examples from India and China to illustrate this shift in terms as a strategy to oppress women. In one example, she discussed the situation of young women who are recruited to work in factories of multinational companies. The managers promise the families that their daughters will work in safety, while their wages are only paid after three years. Even their mobile phones are partly taken away from them. Krishnan asked what kind of security is actually at stake. The security that should be at stake, she said, is one that should give protection from employers. The employer, however, becomes an ally of the family by de facto restricting women's freedom and preventing them from forming relationships with men outside their caste, from organising themselves, etc.

Krishnan stressed how important it is for feminist solidarity to be critical of supposedly anti-imperialist regimes. We must not close our eyes just because regimes claim to be anti-US. The same regimes, she said, understand LGBT struggles and feminism as Western values to be fought against.

The first session ended with an engaging Q&A session and many powerful expressions. There were repeated slogans and applause from the audience.

Women's Conference in Berlin: The desired life will not come through miracles but a revolution

The second day of the international women's conference in Berlin is dedicated to the political prisoners who are imprisoned because of their struggle for freedom and who cannot participate in the exciting debates.

ANF
BERLIN
Sunday, 6 Nov 2022, 18:51

At the Technical University in Berlin, the international women's conference "Our Revolution: Liberating Life" of the network "Women Weaving Future" continued on the second day. The first day of the conference concluded with a concert by the Kurdish musician Yalda Abbasi.

The second day of the conference was dedicated to political prisoners. "We want to remember all political prisoners. There are many women who cannot be with us today because they are imprisoned for their struggle for freedom. The price they pay is their own freedom," the welcome address said.

KJAR: The women will not leave the streets

At the beginning of the programme, a video of the Community of Free Women of Eastern Kurdistan (KJAR) was shown in which a KJAR representative expressed her conviction that the revolution in Rojhilat (Eastern Kurdistan) and Iran would be successful: "A dictatorial regime has been in power for 43 years, that is enough. The women in Iran and Rojhilat had to live like slaves in society." The fascist regime could only be overthrown by women's hands, she said. The KJAR representative pointed out that women had been deprived of their freedom and systematically disenfranchised, among other things, by being forced to wear headscarves. “There are hundreds of women who have been raped, imprisoned or attacked with acid, but they hold their heads high. The women went to the barricades and would not leave the streets. Especially the Kurdish population continue the uprising so that the Kurdish woman, Jina Mahsa Amini, who was murdered by the Iranian morality police, is not forgotten. The slogan "Jin, Jiyan, Azadî" (Woman, Life, Freedom) is based on the legacy of decades of resistance in Kurdistan and destroys the ideology of the Iranian state. Men have also joined the protest and stood up together with women to fight against the state in which they see no hope,” said the KJAR representative who greeted the participants of the conference on behalf of the women of Rojhilat and wished them all success.

"From the balconies to the barricades"

The first session on the second day of the conference was moderated by Rahila Gupta, a freelance journalist and Southall Black Sisters activist from the UK. Rahila began by explaining that she had looked at Abdullah Öcalan's reading list, which included many feminist writers such as Judith Butler.

"How can the fragmentation of class, nationalism, religion caused by patriarchal mentality be overcome and how can we become independent of the thought structures of the male-dominated system?" the moderator asked, explaining that women's struggles would risk being reincorporated into the system unless a real alternative paradigm was developed - one based on intellectual and theoretical critique and capable of truly overcoming the limitations of the system.

The title of the session was "The life we dream of will not come through miracles, but through revolution" and was a quote from Abdullah Öcalan. The question of the session was "How do we get the women from the balconies to the barricades?" Part of the success of the Kurdish movement, she said, was based on the fact that activists went door to door to talk to everyone about what society should look like. The civil war in Syria created the right conditions for a "revolution within the revolution" in Rojava and it is important to reflect that the second wave of feminism was a significant foundation for Öcalan's work.

Women's revolution in Sudan

The first speaker was Shahida Abdulmunim from the Gender Centre for Research and Training in Sudan. The revolution in her country is also being made by women, said Shahida, explaining that for 80 years, since the beginning of the dictatorship in Sudan, women have been in the forefront of the resistance. In 1990-1999, almost only women were on the streets, fighting against the Bashir regime and celebrating great successes. During the 2018 uprising too, she said, women were prepared and led the struggles. They fought against toxic masculinity and patriarchy, the speaker explained. Abdulmunim noted that she herself was on the streets and was one of the participants in the revolution; 70 per cent of the people on the streets were women. These women came from 50 different groups and had to unite.

The patriarchal resistance and the state tried to weaken this movement, among other things, by appointing a woman to represent the movement. Three women became part of the government congress, but they were not representatives of the movement. Many laws were changed to the disadvantage of women. Shahida compared these laws to those of Iran. She said that 5000 women were in prison in Sudan for political reasons. “The regime even finances itself from the fines that women have to pay. The aim of the regime is to exclude half of the people in Sudan from political life. In my opinion, the hijab is not only a scarf, but prohibits women from participating and living in society.”

Shahida concluded: "What we wear, what we want, where we go, whether we wear a hijab or not, is not a religious issue, it is a political issue. We have to fight the regimes in our countries. We are fighting against neoliberalism and patriarchy, and we want to liberate our countries, to liberate ourselves!"

The Kurdish movement is one of the strongest democratic movements in Europe

The second speaker was Kurdish sociologist and author Dr Dilar Dirik, who began her speech by commemorating the journalist and Jineolojî researcher Nagihan Akarsel, who was murdered in Sulaymaniyah, Southern Kurdistan by the Turkish secret service MIT.

Dirik said that one has to talk about fragmentation on the global level. At the last conference, she said, there was talk about women's organising increasing, but at the same time there was also an increase in racist, fascist movements. “The Trumps, Erdoğans, Bolsonaros are the result of fascist movements, they represent the naked face of capitalist patriarchy. Liberalism is being imposed on the emerging women's struggles and "pinkwashing" is taking place in the face of NATO violence. Even their own movements are being appropriated by neoliberalism and made a product of capitalism. The capitalist system itself uses the image of women in struggle and tries to take over feminist movements.” Dirik asked, "What kind of resistance is allowed and which is criminalised? The Kurdish movement is a good example of this.”

“How, for example, did Daesh, the so-called "Islamic State", grow stronger and develop? This is an important question for the women's movement, so that something like this does not happen again.” With regards to the World Cup in Qatar, the speaker asked why no one was talking about the fact that the Islamist Al-Nusra Front was being co-financed by Qatar. Qatar, she said, is also at the forefront of supporting the Taliban.

Dilar Dirik went on to say that it is necessary to get out of the discourse that Turkey is a rogue state and should be excluded from NATO. “Rather, Turkey is an integral part of NATO. Knowledge production should not be left to the states. The German Foreign Minister, who adorns herself with the slogan "Jin Jiyan Azadî", actively supports those forces that attack women. The propaganda of the Western states is so powerful that many people do not even know how many crimes NATO commits, which wars it finances and which are waged in its name. Of course, it is always easier to criticise countries that are not in NATO and to declare them the enemy.”

Dirik explained that the Kurdish movement is also one of the strongest democratic movements in Europe. Despite massive criminalisation, it is able to organise protests across Europe in a very short time, she added. “It is not possible to understand the fragmentation of the protests if fascist movements are only analysed locally. Women's movements worldwide should not only deal with the cultural problems of their own nations. Rather, it is necessary to ask how the government of one's own country is involved in the creation, financing and building of Islamist, fascist organisations worldwide.”

The conference, she said, is a good example that women can organise without the state - freely and autonomously. In conclusion, Dirik demanded that the movement must radicalise itself and overcome liberalism. Likewise, it must fight to ensure that its own slogans are not stolen by the system.

Feminism as the rebellion of the oldest colony

The second part of the session was titled "Feminism - the rebellion of the oldest colony and what lies behind it". Rahila Gupta posed the question: "What has been the role and contribution of feminism to the struggle of women in the past and present? What are the causes of the obstacles that feminism faces? How can feminism adopt an anti-system stance?"

The situation of women in Yemen

Dr Anjila al-Maamari from the Centre for Strategic Studies in Support of Women and Children from Yemen explained that Yemen is located in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, on the border with Saudi Arabia, which makes Yemen a geostrategically important place. Anjila thanked all the women for coming together at the conference and explained how difficult it was to get in and out of Yemen. The women's revolution will always continue, she said. “Yemen has been at war for eight years, so the human rights situation is very difficult. 20 million people are threatened by the war. There are four million refugees, most of them children and women. The issue of sexism is very entrenched and it is difficult to be a woman in Yemen. Every fifth woman has psychological problems. Women have been fighting a long social battle to be able to participate in political and social life. It is clear that there are a lot of restrictions for them.”

“Half of Yemen's population of 25 million people are women, but there is only one woman in parliament. There are 30 male representatives in the ministries and only one female. The UN is not doing enough, although women are very involved. Women are also underrepresented at peace conferences like the one in Geneva. There is no political will in the system to bring women into the political arena. Among other things, women are not allowed to go out on the streets without male accompaniment. There were also no women present at the discussions on a political solution in Stockholm. However, women must be present when laws are developed to assist women. The current government was formed in April 2021. There is not a single woman in the government. It is completely male. To make this invisible, only a few women have been appointed to committees. In contrast to the 1962 revolution, in which most of the activists were men, women were in the front row in the 2011 revolution, which was a big change.”

Argentina: Ni Una Menos

Next to speak was author and activist Marta Dillon from the "Ni Una Menos" movement in Argentina. At the beginning of her talk, loud chants rang out in the hall to show solidarity with the movement: "Ni una menos - vivas nos queremos!". Marta Dillon prefaced her talk by saying that she had brought with her the love of various women fighters from Abya Yala who defend their land every day against neoliberal-capitalist extractivism while facing the terrorist violence of the state. In doing so, Marta made visible that from Abya Yala to Kurdistan, there is struggle everywhere and all revolutionary women's struggles against capitalist patriarchy are interconnected worldwide.

Ni Una Menos was formed in 2015 to take to the streets as an intersectional feminist movement against feminicide and to make visible patriarchal violence linked to capitalism and colonialism. Only in this way, said Marta Dillon, can patriarchal violence and its most definitive form, feminicide, be properly addressed. The "Ni Una Menos" movement places itself in the tradition of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and all the struggling women during the dictatorship in Argentina and thus sees itself as part of a feminist struggle that also opposes state terror, which is partly responsible for the exploitation and oppression of women. The movement is an amalgamation of different groups and identities that take to the streets for the life and memory of women and transpersons who have been victims of feminicide. They make visible that feminicides are never private, but always a political issue that affects everyone in society. After this movement grew bigger and bigger in Argentina, but also in many other countries that joined this impulse, a political strike was called by Ni Una Menos in 2016. The strike serves as a tool to make visible the exploitation of women and their work, bodies and care. The strike made clear that women are robbed of their life-time by capitalist patriarchy. Marta Dillon said that women were reclaiming this lifetime through autonomous feminist organising with each other. The international women's conference, she said, is an example of this. The strike was a means of further tightening the net between the struggles, which the Kurdish women's movement had invited at the conference. In conclusion, Marta Dillon summarised her demands in a trend-setting way: We need a feminism that distinguishes itself from conservative and liberal feminism. Only with an intersectional understanding of capitalist patriarchy can women liberate themselves. The patriarchal state owes women and colonised people the life in freedom to which they are entitled.

Sociology of Freedom and Jineolojî

The first speaker in the third part of the session entitled "Sociology of Freedom and Jineolojî" was Elif Kaya from the Jineolojî Centre Europe. She explained the role that Jineolojî will play in transforming the values, experiences and knowledge that emerge from the women's revolution and enter social culture. "An intellectual search based on an alternative paradigm can make the values of the women's resistance the basis of the revolution," Elif said, also remembering Nagihan Arkasel, who worked at the Jineolojî Centre in Sulaymaniyah until her assassination. Elif greeted the women from Abya Yala and the political prisoners and introduced the question: "What is the difference between Jineoloji and other feminisms? What paradigm guides us?"

“Scientific approaches cannot answer this question. The basis is the sociology of freedom. The revolution focuses on the change of the social. Every revolution is connected with freedom. After revolutions, more conservative paths could also emerge, as for example in Iran at the time. This revolution did not have freedom as its basis and therefore also led to the murder of Jina Amini. Sociology was founded in the 18th century to understand society after industrialisation, but it took a positivist direction. These sciences are not suitable for understanding the social. Metaphysical aspects have been left out. The sociology of freedom offers a way out and opens up a holistic horizon. Multiplurality is the basis for this. A connection between sociology and history is being re-established.”

Elif explained that in 2017, scientific work began in Rojava to explain the ideological basis of the revolution. “This is how the Jineolojî works, for example through the publication of books. Positivist science hides women's knowledge, while Jineoloji places this knowledge at the centre and establishes the role of women and their visibility. Jineoloji rejects patriarchal knowledge production. The slogan "Jin Jiyan Azadî" establishes the connection between knowledge and women's lives. Knowing who we are and where we want to go means developing practice. Science must develop solutions to existing problems. Jineolojî is a young science that makes it possible to present women's perspectives, but also passion and hope. The concept of Xwebûn ("being oneself") means to stand against one's own alienation with the roots of knowledge.

Liberating people from the grip of patriarchy

The next speaker was feminist activist and philosophy professor Jules Falquet from France, who addressed the question: "What do we mean by liberating people from the grip of patriarchy? What does liberation from gendered forms of power relations and the definition of women and men by overcoming gender mean? What are the building blocks of a philosophy of life that will change and transform social relations?"

Jules recalled Bertha Cacerés, Rosa Luxemburg and all the other murdered revolutionaries, and said of her own life story that she was rather privileged, as a woman-born, white French woman, from a country that was the third largest exporter of arms in the world. “Politically, I try to fight against colonialism, sexism and capitalism. I see myself as a feminist and lesbian in the sense of Monique Vitti and try not to be a "woman" anymore, that is, to escape oppression. I lived in Abya Yala in Ecuador from 1992-94 with ex-guerrillas when the Zapatista movement was rising. I also lived with a Kurdish fighter and participated in the 1st Zapatista Congress, and co-founded a feminist lesbian network. I am an activist, but very interested in scientific methodology.”

The activist said it was interesting that young and enthusiastic women were present as well as experienced militants, including many racialised women. “This is different from the past and says a lot about the knowledge that is being generated. The power of the new demands also lies in this. The struggles under the slogan "Jin Jiyan Azadî" also include looking at the dimension of social reproduction. Women, and especially migrants from southern countries, are in key positions for this.”

YPJ International: Rojava is a model for the entire Middle East

Comrade Dilan from YPJ International said that all components in Rojava participated in the revolution and the construction of a democratic society, and that the Rojava Revolution model could offer a solution for the entire Middle East.

MUSTAFA ÇOBAN
HESEKÊ
Monday, 20 Jun 2022, 09:23

Comrade Dilan from YPJ International said that YPJ International is the place for women who seek freedom and who want to work to understand, develop and defend the women's revolution.

Women who come to Rojava voluntarily from all over the world continue to play a role in the construction of a free life.

Comrade Dilan from YPJ International talked to ANF about the work and aims of the organisation.

What is YPJ International and what are its aims?

YPJ International is an internationalist organizational structure within the Women’s Defense Units of Rojava. It organizes and educates internationalist volunteers in line with the framework of Democratic Confederalism, enabling their active participation in the women’s revolution and building global alliances. Since the battle of Kobane in 2015, there has been a worldwide interest in the YPJ and more and more women have reached out to us, asking how they can join. It was then that we saw the need to organize an internationalist battalion within the YPJ, and since then YPJ International has become a place in which women receive ideological and military training, learn the Kurdish language and become ready to work in the different areas of work within the YPJ.

Why is it important to organize for self-defense as women and why do internationalists join the defense forces of Rojava?

Every living organism has its own system of defense, like a rose has thorns to protect its beauty. From the dawn of human life, self defense was a task naturally organized by society. With the institutionalization of patriarchy, the accumulation of capital and the emergence of the class system, the capacity for self defense was seized by the ruling class and men and women were stripped of their means of self defense. Armies were established, and rather than being used to protect society they are used as murderous war machines that exploit peoples around the world.

When we take up arms, we do so in opposition to patriarchal militarism, with the aim of defending women and our people, not the interests of capital or nation-states. The YPJ sees itself as part of a historical legacy of women defending their land against fascism and occupation or protecting revolutions like the Mujeres Libres in the Spanish Civil War, the female partisans fighting Nazism during the Second World War and the Vietnamese women defending their land against occupation.

The Rojava Revolution built up a grassroots democracy that organizes society through local communes and councils. Women are building autonomous women’s structures at all levels of society. The co-chair system guarantees women’s participation in any political body, education for women is organized extensively through academies, and women’s cooperatives give women the chance to gain economic independence. Jineoloji - the science of women – provides a scientific basis for the women’s revolution without reproducing positivist doctrines, women’s justice councils aim to create justice, and with the YPJ women created their own self-defense forces. Those achievements are made for the women across the entire world, and seek to benefit the development of true democracies.

Turkish fascism and Islamist groups like ISIS are attacking the liberated areas of North and East Syria. They try to occupy our liberated land and seek to implement their misogynist, oppressive system. Additionally, hegemonic powers try to misrepresent the Rojava Revolution and make it out to be a project of Kurdish separatism, presenting the war they force on us as an inter-ethnic conflict. But the Rojava Revolution is not a Kurdish revolution. It is based on Abdullah Öcalan’s paradigm of Democratic Nation which includes every religious, cultural or ethnic group within the region. It aims to create unity between the different peoples of the region. People from all of the ethnic communities of Rojava are involved in the revolution and the building up of a democratic society. Because the Rojava Revolution offers a political model for religious, cultural and ethnic cooperation, it can offer a solution for the whole Middle East. The hegemonic powers have turned the Middle East into a playground in which they turn different ethnic groups against each other, and the Rojava Revolution undermines this plan, so it is dangerous to them.

The volunteers of YPJ International understand the potential of this revolution and see it as their own, not as perspective restricted to Kurdish people. The three international revolutionaries Ivana Hoffman from Germany, Anna Campbell from England and Alina Sanchez from Argentina became martyrs within the ranks of the YPJ. Their commitment is proof to us that women who came to Rojava found what they were looking for: a concrete way of liberating themselves from 5000 years of women’s oppression. Women from around the world find freedom here and therefore are willing to defend it.

Based on the experiences you have had with internationalist, what do you think are the main attacks on women in capitalist modernity and what are your strategies to counter them?

Although our members come from different regions of the world we have a common enemy. Imperialism, colonialism, war and fascism are existential threats to women around the world. Capitalism oppresses women twice; they need to sell their labor-power for less money than men do and at the same time are forced to be unpaid workers responsible for reproductive labor in their homes. We know that it is those economic conditions that push women into dependence on men, which makes them more vulnerable to violence.

Capitalism is turning everything into a commodity. One of the largest industries in the world, the sex industry, uses women as commodities, making profit from their sexual exploitation. Reducing everything to simply its material value is denying intangible and ethical values. But we believe that ethical values are vital to keeping communities strong. We need to understand that this system has even degraded the meaning of love to the extent that “love” has become a legitimate excuse for the killing of women. This system is an attack on life itself and we are not willing to let this murderous machine keep going.

On an ideological level, we see liberalism as a major attack on women and their struggle. It tries to placate us by integrating women in the exploitative system. By using female bosses and leaders as supposed proof of women’s emancipation, it aims to make our demands for liberation seem unnecessary. The influence of liberalism on feminism is preventing radical struggle and change. Any choice made by a woman is presented as a “feminist” choice, and women are convinced that oppression is not oppression as long as they are free to choose it. We need to understand that this completely denies the material and historical conditions under which women make choices. It cuts women off from their history, pretending that just the individual and the moment is important. It breaks everything down to individual choices, distracting us from the real cause of our problems, which is the exploitative patriarchal system. We can see that this approach prevents any critical debate because individual autonomy is used as something that can never be questioned or challenged. We see individualism as something that prevents building up strong communities and have noticed that women are getting more and more isolated from each other. If women are separated from each other, they are easier to control. And what is even more dangerous is that it makes women less willing to stand up for each other.

In the discussion we had within YPJ International, we could see how these strategies are affecting the psychology of women. Not seeing the system as the source of their oppression makes women believe that it is their own fault if they face exploitation and violence. We can see that shame and guilt are common patterns in our biographies. This is why we see liberalism as an ideological attack on women. We see that all around the world women are waking up, not accepting patriarchy any longer. But we also see with great concern that liberalism is offering itself as a solution, preventing women from engaging in revolutionary politics. This is why we see an urgent need to offer education about the dangers of liberalism and spread a revolutionary narrative instead. A narrative that analyses the system of oppression and enables women to struggle for liberation.

YPJ International is a space in which women can educate themselves in a revolutionary context, free from the control and repression of nation-states and bureaucracy. Against the oppressive system’s strategy of isolation, we aim to build unity and love among women. We create education about the history of women’s oppression but also about the history of women’s freedom. We teach the Women’s Liberation Ideology, a concept rooted in the Kurdistan Women’s Movement, which offers core principles to guide how women can liberate themselves. We believe in the strength of education and know that the system is afraid of educated, revolutionary women. This is why we see the need to build up women who can inspire others and spread the revolution to the world.

What are the requirements for joining YPJ International and how can women contact you?

YPJ International is a place for women who are searching for freedom and are willing to give energy and effort to understanding, developing and defending the women’s revolution. We don’t expect anyone to have read a lot of theory but rather we ask people to be open to learning and living values like collective care, compassion and selflessness in daily life. Anyone who is open to educating and developing herself is welcome to join us. To be part of a revolution means to make the revolution take place inside yourself as well. In our daily life, we use the method of criticism and self criticism to analyze, learn and grow together.

But of course this process needs time and so patience is needed when coming to Rojava. Although the women in Rojava have made a lot of achievements, there is still a long way to go. People shouldn’t expect a perfect revolution in which all problems or contradictions are solved. In order to have time to learn the language, get to know the culture, receive military training and understand the philosophy of the revolution, volunteers should stay one year minimum. Previous military experience is not needed.

People can reach us via email (womensrevolution@protonmail.com) and find us on twitter @YPJ_volunteers. We want to emphasize that we are especially interested in strengthening our alliances with women in Latin America, Asia and Africa and we invite them to contact us. From the heart of the women’s revolution, we send greetings to all our sisters who are resisting the capitalist- patriarchal system and we give you our word that we will do everything to defend and spread the women’s revolution.

First results from new study examining the impact of COVID-19 on working-class women

 in the UK published today

by Sheila Kiggins, University of Warwick


Working class women have borne the brunt of the cuts to working hours as employers struggle to ride out the pandemic, according to new findings published today by social inequality researchers.


Almost half of working class women (43 percent) did no hours of work in April compared to just 20 percent of women in professional or managerial roles. By June fewer than half of all women in work (48 percent) were still working full-time hours.

Professor Tracey Warren (University of Nottingham) and Professor Clare Lyonette (University of Warwick) are working with the Women's Budget Group to understand how working-class women are responding in real-time to the pressures imposed by the virus.

Today's briefing paper—"Carrying the work burden of the COVID-19 pandemic: working class women in the UK: Employment and Mental Health"—focuses on patterns of employment and mental health in the first three months of lockdown, as revealed by data from the monthly Understanding Society COVID-19 UK survey, and explores to what extent the experience of working class women differs from middle class women and from men.
The first wave of results reveals that many more working class women than men or women in middle class jobs saw their hours cut to zero in the first months of lockdown, with potentially severe financial consequences.
Those working class women still at work are far less likely to be working from the relative safety of home than women in managerial or professional roles—80 percent of working class women said they were "never" working from home in June.
Working class women are also the most likely to be keyworkers in roles with close contact with customers, clients and patients—such as undertaking personal care in care homes and looking after children—with greater potential to be exposed to the virus.

Professor Tracey Warren said, "Our research shows that working-class women are disproportionately furloughed compared to men and other women—and if they are working, there is a greater potential for women to be exposed to health risks due to the nature of their roles as key workers.

"We know these women also care for children and relatives, so with the added stress of worrying about if they were to contract coronavirus or how their household will cope with the loss of 20% of their salary due to furlough, it is no wonder their mental health is suffering."


Professor Lyonette added, "Although the very high levels of psychological distress among working class women in particular have dropped slightly since lockdown restrictions were lifted, they are still much higher than before the pandemic.

"The government announced yesterday a 3-tier system of local restrictions for England, with many working class areas included in the higher tier groups. The effects of a Tier 3 lockdown, could be far-reaching and extremely damaging for working class women who provide vital work, both paid and unpaid."

Dr. Mary-Ann Stephenson, director of the UK Women's Budget Group, said, "Working class women have been more likely to be furloughed and are at high risk of redundancy as the furlough scheme is rolled back.

"The Government's national replacement scheme creates little incentives for employers to keep these women on. Low paid women in areas where lock down is being re-imposed will be entitled to additional help if they are in a closed down sector, but for workers on the minimum wage or just above, two thirds of current earnings is likely to mean poverty.

"At the same time the increase in universal credit introduced at the start of lockdown is due to end in March so low paid workers and those who lose their jobs will be worse off. If the Government is serious about building back better, it needs to take urgent action to protect the employment and incomes of working class women."

Key findings:

Keyworkers

60% of women in semi-routine and routine jobs are keyworkers, in roles that have a high level of social contact.
Keyworking is highest among working class women—60% of women in semi-routine and routine jobs are keyworkers
Women keyworkers are concentrated in face-to-face roles such as health and social care, child care and education. These are roles with high levels of social interaction and possible virus exposure.

Working from Home

Working class women are very unlikely to be working from home:
Only 9% of working class women said they were "always" working from home in June, compared to the average for all women of 30%. 80% were working outside of the home.
44% of women in professional or managerial roles said they "always" worked from home in June.

Furlough and working hours

Working class women were more likely to be furloughed than women in middle class jobs and men.
Almost half of working class women (43%) did no hours of work in April compared to just 20% of women in professional or managerial roles.
In April less than half of all women in work (43%) were working full-time hours. 58% of men were still in full time work.

Mental heath

Across all classes, more women than men reported feeling psychological distress.
Levels of distress for men and women dropped between April and June
In April 41% of working class women were experiencing distress, the highest proportion across classes. This fell in June to 30%.

Future Briefing Notes will explore housework and childcare, and changes in employment and financial impacts.


Explore further COVID-19 has hit women hard, especially working mothers
More information: warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pr … _note_1_13-10-20.pdf
Provided by University of Warwick