March 8th is International Working Women’s Day (IWWD). The commemoration traces its earliest roots to the socialist parties of the 2nd International, the date later becoming solidified on the 8th for its association with the women textile workers’ strike that initiated the first phase of the Russian Revolution in 1917.
In the US this history is often obscured in order to reduce the significance of the date’s history. Elsewhere however, ‘8M‘ is a date of combative mobilization for social movements fighting for bodily autonomy and women’s self determination.
Given mounting state efforts to claw back popular wins related to bodily autonomy in the US—whether reproductive care, gender affirming care, or even the simple recognition of gender expansive identity—we believe a core task for our moment is the establishment of a fighting feminist movement from below.
This means going beyond sloganeering and social media posts to actively incorporate feminist principles into our mass organizing efforts in the labor, tenant, neighborhood, student, and prisoner movements. We are firm in our recognition of feminism as an indispensable dimension of class struggle.
This year, several Locals of Black Rose/Rosa Negra (BRRN) organized or participated in IWWD events. Below are reports from BRRN Locals in the California Bay Area; San Antonio, TX; Salt Lake City, UT; Durham, NC; and Boston, MA.
Bay Area, CA
This International Working Women’s Day (IWWD), the Bay Area Local of Black Rose/Rosa Negra affirmed our commitment to revolutionary feminism from below by participating as a core co-organizing partner in the Bay Area March 8th Coalition. The coalition includes organizations such as Palestinian Feminist Collective, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, Gabriela, the California Coalition of Women Prisoners, and others. While each of our organizations maintain differences in strategy, politics, and even in conceptions of feminism, the coalition is united by broad commitments to anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and women’s self determination.
Our vigorous participation in the coalition allowed us to develop closer ties with organizations and individuals who share this perspective, while presenting opportunities to further collaborate in ongoing campaigns. Importantly, members of BRRN brought on more than a dozen mass organizations we are embedded within as sponsors of the coalition and demonstration. This included several union locals, caucuses within unions, tenant unions, student organizations, and more.
While coalition work necessarily involves compromise, we nonetheless seized the opportunity to articulate, strengthen, and promote the specific principles of anarchist feminism. Mainly we carried this out by deepening our relationships with local contacts and supporters of BRRN by holding two closed events in the leadup to March 8.
The first of these leadup events was a night of postering in and around the East Bay. Participants wheatpasted posters promoting the IWWD event and coalition, as well as other materials related to a local anti-ICE neighborhood organizing campaign. For many this was their first experience with postering. Throughout the night participants discussed the legacies of anarchist feminist thinkers such as Lucy Parsons, Louise Michel, and Luisa Capetillo—talking through how their ideas remain relevant for fights in the present.
Additionally, we organized a pre-demonstration art build. Members and supporters of BRRN painted our own banner, reading “For a Fighting, Class Struggle Feminism From Below”. The event also involved members of the local Kurdish and Sudanese diaspora, who painted their own banners to carry during IWWD.
On March 8th we gathered in Oakland with more than 600 others for the demonstration. In the days prior we put out a general call for an anarchist feminist contingent, which approximately 40 people joined. With purple and black flags flying, our picket signs and banner held aloft, and purple smoke billowing from our section of the march, we made an effort not only to stand out, but to engage with onlookers enjoying the sunny spring day. As we marched we chanted: “1, 2, 3, 4 – women lead the class war! 5, 6, 7, 8 – feminists will smash the state!”
We look forward to organizing in the coalition again next year.
Durham, NC
In January the people in the North East Syria/Rojava called on their international supporters to raise awareness about the ongoing attacks on their communities and the Women’s Revolution happening there. In response to this call the Durham, NC Local of BRRN decided to organize our International Working Women’s Day event around revolutionary feminism and the political/social projects in Rojava.
BRRN members hosted a documentary screening and discussion at The Burrow, a local anarchist community space. Two documentaries were screened (both available online): “Jiyan: Story Of A Female Guerilla Fighter” and “ŞOREŞA JİN: Women’s Revolution.”
These documentaries highlight the history of revolutionary groups across Kurdistan, the women’s military units of the YPJ, and how civilian structures are organized in DAANES that operate on the principles of direct democracy, local autonomy, and women’s empowerment.
Around 30 guests attended the screenings and following discussion. Ideas were shared on how the revolutionary feminism operating in Rojava contrasts with Western and liberal ideas of feminism we find here in the United States. More importantly, we discussed how revolutionary feminism plays into our organizing efforts here and how we can further the goals of true women’s liberation and egalitarianism along gendered lines.
Salt Lake City, UT
The Salt Lake Local of Black Rose/Rosa Negra threw on an event for International Working Women’s Day with the aim of building collective understanding around the history and current conjuncture of the revolutionary feminist movement in Utah. Lasting 3 hours, a historical presentation on local labor organizers (who also happened to be revolutionary feminists), group discussion on building a class struggle-oriented feminist movement along the Wasatch Front, zine-making, the creation of an altar to honor those who began walking the path of organized anarchism, and jubilant laughter defined the event.
Around 30 attended the discussion, both those from within our network of supporters as well as new faces. As a new Local, we did not expect there to be many people who would come to the event, but were grateful and humbled that so many showed genuine interest through their attendance.
A few takeaways from the collective discussion on how to build a fighting feminist movement include:
- Continuously showing up;
- Embracing being uncomfortable;
- Broadening imaginations for what is possible along the revolutionary horizon;
- Building interdependence outside of the state;
- Holding onto collective memory;
- Fighting against the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC)/awareness raising groups.
The central theme from the event was that we create this world and therefore, we can build a better one. Juxtaposed by a seemingly never-ending polycrisis, the state of the revolutionary feminist movement along the Wasatch Front currently resembles the process of firecrafting. For an ember (a small grouping of similar-minded individuals) to grow into a fire (a mass movement of working people), consistent energy and willingness to experiment with new (or maybe “old”) forms of firebuilding (organizing) is paramount.
San Antonio, TX
For International Working Women’s Day, we participated in the Fury is Fuerza march, held every year in downtown San Antonio for something near 20 years.
To prepare for this event we chose and assembled pamphlets relevant to a class struggle feminism. Despite the rainy weather, we set up our table near other comrades gathering for the march and enjoyed wide ranging conversations with those who approached us to take literature or learn about anarchist feminism.
Many of these conversations revolved around maintaining a revolutionary feminist lens in our everyday organizing. As the march departed, we packed up our table and joined the crowd, chanting as the rain finally abated.
Boston, MA
On the night of March 7th, the Boston Local of Black Rose/Rosa Negra held a panel discussion and social in honor of International Working Women’s day. The panel consisted of both local and international speakers who spoke on feminist movements in North East Syria/Rojava, El Salvador and Palestine presenting a clear overlap in their struggles as well as differences based on their individual contexts.
Around 20 comrades sat together as speakers both virtual and in-person explored their identities and the influence of their personhood and experiences on their organizing. State repression, the origins and continuation of their movement work, and the importance of popular power were central themes throughout the discussion. The meaning of Women’s Liberation took on many dimensions. We discussed the theoretical and sociopolitical framing of the feminized body by the state and its agents. Feminist organizing praxis included a wide array of forms: neighborhood assemblies, physical transportation and accompaniments, identity/affinity-based unions, self-defense practices, and community education processes.
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