Here’s a handy reading list on issues around labor, feminism and organizing for anyone who is participating in, supporting or just curious about the 2017 International Women’s Strike. This syllabus was assembled by Red Papers, a collective of socialist feminist thinkers, organizers and writers.
The 2017 Women’s Strike
“Striking on International Women’s Day Is Not a Privilege” by Magally A. Miranda Alcazar and Kate D. Griffiths
“The Impossibility of the International Women’s Strike is Exactly Why It’s So Necessary” by Camille Barbagallo
“When Did Solidarity Among Working Women Become a ‘Privilege’?” by Tithi Bhattacharya and Cinzia Arruzza
“Argentina’s Life-or-Death Women’s Movement” by Veronica Gago and Agustina Santomaso
“Women’s Right to Refuse” by Melissa Gira Grant
“A Feminism for the 99 Percent” by Sarah Jaffe & Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
“A Feminism for the Masses” by Stephanie McFeeters
“Why Women Are Going on Strike in Ireland Tomorrow” by Lia McGarrigle
“For Domestic and Low-Wage Workers, the Stakes are Higher than Ever” by Ai-jen Poo
“Why Women Should Strike” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
“The Women’s Strike and the Messy Space of Change” by Jia Tolentino
“While The Iron Is Hot” by Dayna Tortorici
On Strikes
“A Strike Against the New Jim Crow” by Janaé Bonsu
“The Strike That Didn’t Change New York” by Megan Erickson
“The Only Way to Know If Striking Works Is to Do It” by Dayna Evans
“A Day Without Care” by Sarah Jaffe
“The Role of the Mass Strike in the Revolution” by Rosa Luxemburg
On Reproductive Labor: Care Work, House Work, and Emotional Labor
“Having a Child will Bankrupt You” by Bryce Covert
“The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community” by Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James
“Approaching the Obsolescence of Housework” by Angela Y. Davis
“Women and Capitalism: Dialectics of Oppression and Liberation” by Angela Y. Davis
“Wages Against Housework” by Silvia Federici
“Grin and Abhor It: The Truth Behind Service With a Smile” by Sarah Jaffe
“Adventures in Feministory: Johnnie Tillmon and the Welfare Rights Movement” by Kjerstin Johnson
“Love’s Labor Earned” by J.C. Pan
“The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty” by Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward
“More Smiles? More Money” by Dayna Tortorici
“Sex Class Action” by Dayna Tortorici
“Viewpoint Issue 5: Social Republicroduction” by Viewpoint
On Organizing Women’s Work
“The Problem with (Sex) Work” by Peter Frase
“Happy Hookers” by Melissa Gira Grant
“Organized Labor’s Newest Heroes: Strippers” by Melissa Gira Grant
“Let Call Sex Work What It Is: Work” by Melissa Gira Grant
“The Negro Woman Domestic Worker in Relation to Trade Unionism (1940)” by Esther Cooper Jackson
“Walmart’s women can’t save money or live better with wages or hours like this” by Sarah Jaffe
“A Life in Writing: Selma James” with Selma James
“Domestic Workers’ Rights, the Politics of Social Reproduction, and New Models of Labor Organizing” by Premilla Nadasen
“Unite and Fight” by Kate Redburn
On Hillary Clinton, Liberal Feminism, and “Trickle-Down” Feminism
“The Atlantic, Trickle-Down Feminism, and My Twitter Mentions, God Help Us All” by Tressie McMillan Cottom
“Trickle-Down Feminism, Revisited” by Tressie McMillan Cottom
“Sheryl Sandberg’s ‘Lean In’ campaign holds little for most women” by Melissa Gira Grant
“Trickle-Down Feminism” by Sarah Jaffe
“Opting for Free Time” by Sarah Jaffe
“Housekeepers Versus Harvard: Feminism for the Age of Trump” by Sarah Leonard
“Feminism’s Tipping Point: Who Wins from Leaning In?” by Kate Losse
“Kicking Back, Not Leaning In” by Madeleine Schwartz
“The Woman’s Party” by Namara Smith
On Feminist Futures
“On the “dispute” between radical feminism and trans people” by Juliet Jacques
“The Kids Are Alright: A Legendary Feminist on Feminism’s Future” by Sarah Leonard and Ann Snitow
“As Many Shoes As She Likes: On Feminism” by Jenny Turner
Books and Further Reading
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa
Part of the Family? Nannies, Housekeepers, and the Battle for Domestic Workers’ Rights by Sheila Bapat
Undoing the Demos by Wendy Brown
The Other Women’s Movement by Dorothy Sue Cobble
Dishing It Out by Dorothy Sue Cobble
Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins
Women, Race and Class by Angela Y. Davis
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Global Woman by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild
Class War: The Privatization of Childhood by Megan Erickson
Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Worker’s Rights at Walmart by Liza Featherstone
Revolution at Point Zero by Silvia Federici
Scales of Justice by Nancy Fraser
Fortunes of Feminism by Nancy Fraser
The Lost Promise of Civil Rights by Risa Goluboff
Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work by Melissa Gira Grant
The Managed Heart by Arlie Russell Hochschild
The Second Shift by Arlie Russell Hochschild
The Time Bind by Arlie Russell Hochschild
Feminist Theory from Margin to Center by bell hooks
To ‘Joy My Freedom by Tera Hunter
Sex, Race and Class: The Perspective of Winning by Selma James
Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism by L. A. Kauffman
Caring for America by Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein
Freedom is Not Enough by Nancy McClean
Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale by Maria Mies
To Serve God and Wal-Mart by Bethany Moreton
Household Workers Unite by Premilla Nadasen
One Dimensional Woman by Nina Power
Whipping Girl by Julia Serrano
From Bondage to Contract by Amy Dru Stanley
Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power by Ann Stoler
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor
Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity by Micah Uetricht
The Problem With Work by Kathi Weeks
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy