Feminists in Struggle 13 Principles

Feminists in Struggle (“FIST”) is a national female-only radical feminist network, democratically run, and composed of individuals born female and affiliated female-only feminist organizations.  We aim to bring together women from diverse radical and revolutionary feminist traditions. FIST welcomes women of every racial, ethnic, and class background, all ages and abilities/disabilities, whether lesbian, heterosexual or bisexual, who share a common set of feminist principles (see below). We are committed to organizing a serious fight-back against the attacks on our rights from multiple quarters.

  1. We affirm that women and girls are oppressed based on our biological sex, i.e., the female capacity to bear and birth children. 
  2. We fight for all females, not just the privileged few, and oppose not just male supremacy but also white supremacy and class hierarchy.  
  3. We are gender role abolitionists seeking an end to socially-imposed roles based on sex that enforce male supremacy.
  4. We demand an end to all forms of discrimination and harassment based on sex, including the wage gap and de-facto job segregation. Pass the Equal Rights Amendment now! 
  5. We fight to end racism and the system of white supremacy that oppresses women of color. 
  6. We struggle against all forms of male violence against women whether it takes place in the home, on the street, at work, or in colleges or universities. 
  7. We work for the abolition of prostitution and pornography; we support the criminalization of traffickers, pimps, and sex buyers and the decriminalization of prostituted women and girls (“Nordic Model”).
  8. We support complete sovereignty over our bodies and reproductive lives, including free unimpeded access to safe, legal abortion and birth control and no forced sterilization.
  9. We defend our fundamental right to female-only spaces, programs and organizations that allow us to collectively resist our sex-based oppression against serious challenges by forces within the transgender movement.
  10. We call for free childcare, paid parental leave, and other community supports needed to end the double day and empower women to live independent lives. Fund human needs, not war.  
  11. We demand an end to discrimination and stigma against lesbians and other women who have intimate relationships with women. 
  12. We reject any alliances or collaboration with the male supremacist religious Right or the white supremacist, anti-immigrant Right.  
  13. While the mission of FIST is to build a women’s liberation movement to oppose that which oppresses women because of male supremacy, we recognize the existential threat that the capitalist-induced climate crisis and risk of nuclear war pose not only to the possibility of women’s liberation, but to the whole of humanity, and life on this planet.

For the full unabridged principles, see the “Principles” page. https://feministstruggle.org/principles/