This is in part a tactical question, to be decided on a case-by-case basis in the light of local specifics. We need to build cross-border alliances committed to fighting for social rights, not just nationally, but globally.īut I also want to address the second part of your question, about how feminists should relate to anti-capitalist parties and left-wing political currents.

The fight against austerity can only succeed if we link state-level struggles to broader transnational struggles aimed at transforming the international financial order. So, exclusively state-based approaches cannot be the answer - rather, we need a global counterpower. And even those who do have one are caught in a race to the bottom, orchestrated by investors and banks. Many people don’t have a functioning state - they live in failed states or refugee camps or kleptocracies. But that isn’t enough.įinance is a global force that pits different countries against one other - it can’t be defeated one country at a time. We need to oppose the retrenchment and commodification of public services. One thing feminists, like all progressive forces, must do is defend public services against the austerity that states are imposing at the behest of the financial sector. In this interview, Fraser spoke to Olimpia Malatesta about how feminism can help us see beyond the traditional demands of the labor movement, how anti-capitalist politics can unite the social majority, and how far engagement with parties and the state can advance the feminism for the 99 percent. Instead, the feminism for the 99 percent is about how to rally the social majority behind a common agenda, uniting the material interests of working people with fronts of struggle like anti-racism, LGBT liberation, and the fight against male violence. This isn’t a matter of limiting feminism to narrow workplace issues - far from it.

Her Feminism for the 99%, written with Cinzia Arruzza and Tithi Bhattacharya, instead argues for a feminism focused on the needs of the social majority.

Just as the youth climate strikes are utterly different in spirit to corporate greenwashing, the annual strikes on International Women’s Day have shown that the liberalism advanced by the likes of Hillary Clinton is far from the only kind of feminist politics.įew writers have been as clear on this point as Nancy Fraser, a sharp critic of those feminisms that seek only to put more women in boardrooms and parliaments. In the fight for equality, not all feminisms are just the same.

Feminism 99 percent