Category: Solidarity & Sisterhood

Calling All Feminists Near Dallas Texas for a Protest

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Hooters exploitation

An energetic young feminist from Texas has initiated a protest in front of  the Hooter’s “breastaurant” on July 15th at 2201 N. Lamar St., Dallas, TX at noon.  Ever hear of the term “breastaurant?” It was a new term to this feminist writer.  Apparently, it is a recognized term for those eating establishments that use young women’s bodies to attract customers.  The term has even been used in lawsuits as the following Instagram post points out.  The feminist activists behind the planned protest are on Twitter and Instagram as “WomenOverWings,” they demand men respect women and get their wings elsewhere.

Breastaurants use a whopper of an argument and have the nerve to cite the Civil Rights Act: If your business is based on sexism then you have the right to objectify women’s bodies as a bona fide occupational qualification!  And they got away with it, what a legal system we have in this country…

 

#WomenOverWings was inspired by the 1968 protest against the Miss America Pageant as this tweet shows:

 

#WomenOverWings asks provocative questions:

Oppose Injustice

The climate crisis has made Texas a real furnace, so be sure to take precautions against the sun and heat if you attend.  And send your impressions of the demonstration to feministstruggle@protonmail.com!

Report Back on WDI-USA national conference

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FIST members attended the the Women’s Declaration International – USA conference , which took place in Washington DC, September 23-25, 2022. The theme and title of the conference was “Reigniting the Women’s Liberation Movement”. The gathering lived up to its “national” title with women having traveled to the conference from across the country; we spoke to women from at least 11 states. Relative to the female population in the U.S., there was good representation of black and brown women (including in the leadership) and a large lesbian contingent. Some of us estimated that 2/3 of us were older and 1/3 were women in their mid-30s or younger. The feeling was very warm and welcoming, it was truly wonderful to share a weekend meeting 100 like-minded women (or so we assumed).
The conference was very well organized, there were back-to-back plenaries and breakouts for a full two days, in addition to the introductory plenary on Friday night, where members of the Board of WDI-USA introduced themselves and the conference–plenaries took place in the dining room so we were able to continue eating and have our dessert even as we took in all of the ideas presented. The food was good and plentiful. Everything ran on time. It took place in a swanky hotel and we sat in a ballroom complete with sparkly chandeliers and white tablecloths.  There were many good presentations with some time for questions afterwards but there was very little actual discussion. Very little exploration of how far our assumed like-mindedness went.
Plenaries included those on the Second Wave of the WLM, Radical Feminist Structural Analysis, Nonviolent mass Action as a strategy for Resistance, the history of feminists “trashing” each other in the women’s movement and strategies to combat it, Women’s writing, Grassroots Organizing, Women in Leadership, Women’s Community, Stories and Land, Ethical Communication, and finally “What Would Victory Look Like?”.

The plenaries were interspersed with smaller breakout sessions on Reproductive Rights, Opposition to the Sex Trade, the Value of Lesbian Only Spaces, Consciousness Raising, Gender and Feminism, Misogynoir (“Black Patriarchy”, facilitated by Black women) and Legislative Advocacy.

Some of our differences became evident during the last session of the conference. as all women in attendance were asked to present their visions of what “victory” would look like. Otherwise differences were not discussed at all; we never touched upon feminists taking money from Christian Nationalists, or the WDI-USA promotion of Women’s Bill of Rights, or their opposition (or at least WoLF’s) to the ERA (see our ERA-FIST brochure) or the WDI statement in opposition to the Inflation Reduction Act or their former work on their Equality for All Act which is a watered-down version of FIST’s Feminist Amendments to the Equality Act or the history of the right wing trying to co-opt feminism through groups such as the Independent Women’s Forum. Nor was there any discussion of how WDI/WDI-USA is funded or how the conference itself was funded.
 
The conference centered on the issue of gender and there was a great sense of relief in being at a large gathering where gender-critical views could be openly discussed. However, it did eclipse other crucial issues, such as the recent catastrophic loss of legal abortion in the U.S.  Reproductive rights and justice was not a major topic at any of the plenaries at which everyone in attendance was present. After the conference, FIST members and other attendees from NY had a discussion about what the place of gender should be in terms of women’s liberation as a whole (we reached no conclusion and consider this an ongoing discussion).
This one meeting might not reignite the Women’s Liberation Movement but it certainly demonstrated that the embers have not burned out. The great deal of warmth and openness—really great spirit—gives us hope for bringing the different “factions” of feminism together on mutually agreed upon campaigns.
Posts to our blog page by Feminist Writer are the opinions of individual FIST members and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Feminists in Struggle organization.  Official posts are authored by Feminist Struggle.

WE SUPPORT RISEUP4ABORTION RIGHTS!!

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We wish to voice our full-throated support for the group, RiseUp4AbortionRights and commend them for leading the fight against the reprehensible Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe V. Wade.  RiseUp4Abortion Rights has been on the ground working for years to build grassroots resistance to the attempt by the religious right and extremist politicians to pass restrictive, punitive laws regarding abortion and we wish to acknowledge them specifically as the driving force demanding the right to abortion with no apologies!  We agree with their core message, that this is a fight for women’s lives, and that we need to exercise solidarity and sisterhood, get in the streets, and not wait for elections!! We wish to thank Sunsara Taylor, Merle Hoffman, and Lori Sokol for their leadership and for calling for unity of all women’s groups and people of conscience to join the fight!!

Read the Open Letter for Unified Action

Demand Legal Abortion Nationwide

Sign up for RiseUp4AbortionRights Actions

Spinning & Weaving: Radical Feminism for the 21st Century

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Feminists in Struggle (FIST) is hosting a book launch event on April 24th for Elizabeth Miller’s forthcoming radical feminist anthology, Spinning & Weaving: Radical Feminism for the 21st Century. The event will feature presentations by several of the book’s amazing radical feminist authors in this groundbreaking anthology.

Spinning & Weaving , Radical Feminism for the 21st Century features 45 chapters of radical feminist analysis and fiction on topics like sisterhood, intersectionality, lesbian feminism, ecofeminism, sexual exploitation, gender ideology, and technology. The book features over 35 radical feminist authors from across the globe. The book is published by Ruth Barrett at Tidal Time Publishing and edited by Elizabeth Miller.

Listen to a few of these authors discuss their ideas expressed in the book and join the discussion as we build our international radical feminist movement.

Cherry Smiley – feminist from Nlaka’pamux & Dine Nations , author of “Women Aren’t Men: A Radical Feminist Analysis of Indigenous Gender Politics”.

Yagmur Uygarkizi – 24 year old feminist born in Turkey, author of “Feminism Allowed You to Speak: Reinforcing Intergenerational Feminist Solidarity Against Sophisticated Attacks”.

Angela C Wild – Lesbian Feminist activist and founder of “Get the L Out UK”, author of “Understanding Heterosexuality: Eroticizing Subordination and Colonization, A Lesbian Feminist Prospective”.

Melissa Farley & Inge Kleine , co-authors “Harm and its Denial: Sex Buyers, Pimps and the Politics of Prostitution”.

Gail Dines – founding president and CEO of the non-profit, Culture Reframed and author of “Racy Sex, Sexy Racism: Porn from the Dark Side”.

Special performance by singer song-writer Thistle Pettersen, who has written a song celebrating the book and our feminist work together!

Get your  TICKET today!

Order the book