Feminists in Struggle Launches YouTube Channel

Feminists in Struggle has launched its YouTube Channel with the video of our Preserving Sex-Based Rights event.

Actions to Take In Response to Biden’s Executive Order and Imminent Introduction of the Equality Act

Since the first day of the Biden administration, developments have come thick and fast regarding attacks on and attempts to protect single-sex programs and facilities for women and girls. FIST encourages everyone who cares about the legal rights of women and girls to contact Congress, the White House, and the federal agencies to demand the protection of our legal rights to single-sex sports teams, scholarships, prisons, shelters, and other facilities.

Reach out to the White House and social media, to your U.S. Representatives and Senators, and to the federal agencies. Letters, emails, phone calls,and demands for in-person meetings with your U.S. Representatives and Senators are all needed.

Regarding the Equality Act: Write and call your Senators and Representatives, urging them to support the Feminist Amendments to the Equality Act. Here is a sample letter.

The website The US Equality Act continues to grow and to be a valuable resource. The site includes much good explanation of how the Equality Act and Biden’s January 20 “Executive Order on Preventing & Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation” will harm women and girls and need to be amended, revised, or applied by federal agencies to preserve the Congressional intent behind Title IX.

 The US Equality Act site also has lots of guidance and sample material for sending letters to Congress and to the federal agencies tasked with applying the Executive Order. Most recently two new sample letters were added:

One for Speaker Nancy Pelosi

And one for the Bureau of Prisons

FIST Interviewed in Major News Source

One of Feminists in Struggle’s members was interviewed by RT in an article entitled, There is a major split in the LGBTQ community between the letter L and the letter T.  We are heartened to see that there are more reporters covering the effects of the trans agenda on members of the female sex.  The article covers the “alphabet soup” that now is being used to represent the ever-growing permutations of gender ‘identity,’ touches on the Spanish feminist leader Lidia Falcon O’Neill who likens the fascists of the Franco regime with the current transgender rights activists, the Christian Right’s opportunism, and trans-identified males participating in women’s sports.

Our FIST spokesperson represented us well and pointed out that:

“What males who identify as women are ‘feeling’ is they are identifying with sex stereotypes about how women are supposed to dress and behave in the world. Feminists reject these stereotypes.”

WOMEN’S SPORTS/ WOMEN’S OPPORTUNITIES : IN DEFENSE OF FEMALE-ONLY PROGRAMS

FEMINISTS IN STRUGGLE PRESENTS A FORUM ON WOMEN’S SPORTS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FEMALE ONLY PROGRAMS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN AND GIRLS

About this Event

Female-only sports and other programs specifically for women and girls have been under attack. How do these programs help advance the struggle for women’s equality? How can we help save women’s sports programs?

Join the discussion!

Speakers include:

Beth Stelzer, Founder of Save Women’s Sports and amateur powerlifter.

Linda Blade, Sports performance coach residing in and former champion heptathlete with a PhD in Kinesiology.

Ann Menasche, founding member of Feminists in Struggle.

Please register and join us for an interesting, interactive meeting!

Radical Feminist Book Announcement

In the 2020s, there is a rebirth of radical feminist theory and activism. It’s time to publish a new collection that brings together the best in contemporary radical feminist thought.
Announcing: Spinning and Weaving: Radical Feminism for the 21st Century. Tidal Time Press, the publisher of Female Erasure, will publish this collection, edited by U.S. radical feminist theorist and activist Elizabeth Miller, in March 2021.
 
Spinning and Weaving seeks to raise up the voices of women around the world writing or creating from a radical feminist perspective, including scholars, journalists, activists, organizers, bloggers, writers, poets, artists, and independent thinkers. The collection especially seeks to amplify the voices of Women of Color, as they are the most likely to be silenced, marginalized, or ignored, and their experience denied or minimized.
The collection include chapters on many areas of contemporary radical feminism, including foundational radical feminist theory; the intersection of sex, race, and other axes of oppression; lesbian feminism; the environment; women’s sexuality; political activism; feminist organizing; women-only spaces; pornography; prostitution; gender ideology; and many other topics of interest and import to radical feminist theory and practice.
FIST’s co-founder Ann Menasche has two chapters in the book. Check out the book website, https://spinningandweaving.org/, to see the full Table of Contents for the book.
 
Spinning and Weaving’s Contributing Editor, Elizabeth Miller, is a radical feminist activist who runs the Chicago Feminist Salon and co-organized the Women in Media Conference, a radical feminist conference held in Chicago in 2018. Among other projects, she is currently working on organizing two other radical feminist conferences in the U.S., and runs the Radical Feminism Resources community on Facebook.
You can read more about Spinning and Weaving, and sign up for updates on the book, at https://spinningandweaving.org

FIST on Joy of Resistance, WBAI Tonight!

Feminists in Struggle’s Ann Menasche will be interviewed on WBAI Radio’s Joy of Resistance show, 99.5 fm, tonight at 9 pm EST (6 pm PST) to discuss the Biden executive order on January 20th, collapsing gender identity with women’s sex-based rights, and to discuss the Feminist Amendments to the Equality Act, the changes FIST would like to see made to the Equality Act, legislation passed by the House in 2019 (but not the Senate) that is likely to be reintroduced this year and considered high on the Biden agenda.

The write-up of the JOR show states that:

“Last week, the Women’s Liberation Front, put out a press release that was carried on the AP newswire entitled “Biden Executive Order on Gender Identity Will Eviscerate Women’s Rights”; the group Feminists in Struggle (FIST) issued a similar statement and The Women’s Human Rights Campaign started a letter-writing campaign in protest of this EO.”

The Joy of Resistance summary acknowledges that these groups are all considered left of center, with Feminists in Struggle strongly identified with the Left.  This is a refreshingly accurate characterization in view of attempts by many transactivists to smear any group that speaks out about gender ideology or the erasure of women as “right-wing” or even as “hate” groups.  FIST denounces such mischaracterizations, and has spelled out our distinction from the Right in our Principles, particularly in #12.

We greatly appreciate the Joy of Resistance show on WBAI, which features feminist content, and we recommend anyone who cares about the liberation of women listen tonight, and every Monday, at 9 pm EST (6 pm PST).  Please tune in!

There is also a demonstration in protest of this executive order planned on March 8 in front of the White House, and FIST members plan to be in attendance.  Join us!