Emancipatory Feminism in the Time of Covid-19: Transformative resistance and social reproduction

The Covid-19 pandemic threw into stark relief the multi-dimensional threats created by neoliberal capitalism. Government measures to alleviate the crisis were largely inadequate, leaving women – in particular working-class women – to carry the increased burden of care work while at the same time placing themselves in direct risk as frontline workers.
Emancipatory Feminism in the Time of Covid-19, the seventh volume in the Democratic Marxism series, explores how many subaltern women – working class, peasant and indigenous – responded to challenges of increased labour precarity and additional care-work. The book critiques neoliberal feminism, which has overshadowed the experiences of feminist grassroots resistance. Instead, the academics and activists in this volume call to action a new wave feminism that is responsive to socio-ecological and economic exploitation, and the oppression of both women and the environment within the patriarchal capitalist system.
Offering a diverse range of approaches to this topic, contributions range from women leading the defence of Rojava – the Kurdish region of Syria, anti-capitalist ecology and building food secure pathways in communities across Africa, championing climate justice in mining-affected communities and transforming gender divisions in mining labour practices in South Africa, to contesting macro-economic policies affecting the working conditions of nurses. These practices demonstrate a feminist understanding of the current systemic crises of capitalism and patriarchal oppression. What is offered here is a focus on subaltern women’s grassroots resistance that advances and enables solidarity-based political projects, deepens democracy, and builds capacities and alliances to advance new feminist alternatives.

The Covid-19 pandemic threw into stark relief the multi-dimensional threats created by neoliberal capitalism. Government measures to alleviate the crisis were largely inadequate, leaving women – in particular working-class women – to carry the increased burden of care work while at the same time placing themselves in direct risk as frontline workers.
Emancipatory Feminism in the Time of Covid-19, the seventh volume in the Democratic Marxism series, explores how many subaltern women – working class, peasant and indigenous –challenge hegemonic neoliberal feminism through their resistance to ordinary capitalist practices and ecological extractivism. Contributors cover women’s responses in a wide range of contexts: from women leading the defence of Rojava – the Kurdish region of Syria, to approaches to anti-capitalist ecology and building food secure pathways in communities across Africa, to championing climate justice in mining affected communities and transforming gender divisions in mining labour practices in South Africa, to contesting macro-economic policies affecting the working conditions of nurses. Their practices demonstrate a feminist understanding of the current systemic crises of capitalism and patriarchal oppression. What is offered in this collection is a subaltern women’s grassroots resistance focused on advancing and enabling solidarity-based political projects, deepening democracy, building capacities and alliances to advance new feminist alternatives.