Women's Seminar 2021

1. Date and length of seminar

The seminar will be held online only over two weekends 10/11 July and 17/18 July. The plenary sessions will be held 14.00-17.00 Central European Standard Time (CEST) to allow maximum participation over our different times zones. You can check what this means for you here: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

2. Languages

The seminar will be held in English/French/Castilian with simultaneous translation. It may be possible to also schedule language-based discussion groups if comrades are available.

3. Participants

National organizations are invited to propose participants from among the comrades leading their women’s work. There is not the same restriction on numbers as for a seminar in Amsterdam. However, questions of representativity, geographical balance and permitting a real discussion will have to be taken into account so although we will not at this point fix a limit we may have to later. Attending the seminar is a political task, therefore we ask organizations to ensure collectively that the comrades designated are available to attend each session and are free from other tasks (such as caring responsibilities or militant tasks) to do so.

4. Seminar programme

The four themes for discussion are :

1. What do we mean by the strategic role of the autonomous women’s movement as a political subject, how is this expressed in its action?

2. Why and how are we transinclusive?

3. Difficulties in forging united fronts in the women's and feminist movements (ultraleftism; intolerance; cross-class alliances, how?

4. What alternatives to combat violence against women: institutional de-patriarchalization, self-resolution of conflicts, preventive / punitive laws against violence?

We recommend comrades (re)read our major resolutions:

Socialist Revolution and the Struggle for Women’s Liberation (1979) https://fourth.international/en/world-congresses/535/50

Latin America: Dynamics of mass movements and feminist currents (1991) https://fourth.international/en/world-congresses/53

The New Rise of the Women’s Movement (2021) https://fourth.international/en/international-committee/666/299

READINGS

READINGS point 1 women’s seminar July 2021

1) Presentation of the topic “What do we mean by the strategic role of the autonomous women’s movement as a political subject, how is this expressed in its action?” 2) Extracts of 1979 resolution Socialist Revolution and the Struggle for Women’s Liberation 3) Audre Lorde "Age, Race, class and sex: women redefining difference” from Sister Outsider.

           https://www.colorado.edu/odece/sites/default/files/attached-files/rba09-sb4converted_8.pdf 

4) Veronica Gago, chapter 6 “The Feminist International” from Feminist International: How to Change Everything (Verso 2020) 5) Feminism for the 99%, Thesis 2 (separate pdf)

Point 1 Women’s seminar July 2021 + Feminism for the 99%, Thesis 2

Point 2 Women's seminar July 2021

Point 3 Women's seminar July 2021 + Mandel 1, Mandel 2, Mandel 3 + Undivided Rights

Point 4 Women's seminar July 2021