Feminism and Antiracism: International Struggles for Justice

Introduction - Feminist Antiracist Maps: Transnational Contours

Introduction Feminist Antiracist Maps Transnational Contours Kathleen M. Blee and France Winddance Twine On March 9, 2000, in commemoration of International Women’s Day eight thousand Mexican women, many of them Zapatista rebel sympathizers , peacefully took over a Chiapas radio station, to demonstrate for the rights of women and indigenous people (Indians) in Mexico. They stopped the programming for half an hour to call attention to their situation as women of indigenous ancestry who continue to suffer from discrimination and whose economic status is lower than that of lighter skinned women of mixed and European ancestry in Mexico. The idea of International Women’s Day arose at the turn of the twentieth century among women working in the clothing and textile factories in the United States. They staged a protest on March 8, 1857 in their fight against inhumane working conditions and low wages. Two years later these women formed their first labor union to protect themselves and gain some basic rights in the workplace. In March 1908, fifteen thousand women marched through NewYork City demanding shorter work hours,better pay, voting rights,and an end to child labor.They adopted the slogan“Bread and Roses,” bread symbolizing economic security and roses a better quality of life. In May 1908, the Socialist Party of America designated the last Saturday in February National Women’s Day. Following the declaration of the Socialist Party of America, the first Women’s Day was celebrated in the United States on February 28, 1909. Women in the United States continued to celebrate the twenty-eighth of that month through 1913. In 1917 Russian women chose the last Sunday in February to strike for “bread and peace” in the aftermath of the death of 2 million Russian soldiers. Four days later, the Czar of Russia abdicated and the provisional government granted women 1 the right to vote. That Sunday fell on February 23 on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia but coincided with March 8 on the Gregorian calendar used by many in other countries. Today International Women’s Day is an international holiday observed around the globe. International Contours of This Book In this volume feminist scholars and activists committed to feminist and antiracist struggles map the trajectories of several contemporary feminist and antiracist movements for social justice.This book builds upon the work of previous feminist volumes that considered postcolonial struggles, citizenship , and democracy.1 However, in contrast to several feminist analyses of global feminisms, women and development, and transnational feminism , this book seeks to bridge feminist theorizing and transnational antiracist activism by bringing together empirically grounded studies of practices intended to explicitly challenge the intersections of racial, ethnic, and gender inequalities. This volume includes sixteen chapters from scholars and activists trained in nine fields or professions, selected from those received in response to a Call for Papers distributed internationally via electronic mailing lists, advertisements in feminist journals, and newsletters. We asked the contributors to this volume to consider the following question: (1) How does gender and region/nation structure how feminists engage in antiracist practices? (2) How has the restructuring of the world economy affected feminist and antiracist practices? and (3) What are the actual practices of feminist and antiracist organizers? While we2 are aware that the terms“feminism” and“antiracism” must be problematized as they possess neither a fixed meaning nor a unitary history, we also recognize that practices that can be considered “feminist” and “antiracist ”in intent or effect are refashioned and reworked by women to serve their interests in particular locales.3 While the meaning of racism and antiracism is contested and mutable, for a number of the contributors who write from nations that have fought for independence against British imperial rule, the circulation of antiracist discourses has been facilitated by the struggle against British imperialism.4 This volume covers ten countries in Africa, East and South Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, the South Paci fic, and the Middle East.With the exception of those chapters that address 2 k at h l e e n m . b l e e a n d f r a n c e w i n d d a n c e t w i n e local movements in Western Europe and East Asia, the countries represented here were former colonies of the British empire. Although they work in diverse national contexts, the contributors to this volume describe...