Emancipatory Feminism in the Time of Covid-19

Rethinking social reproduction

Vishwas Satgar, Ruth Ntlokotse, Hawzhin Azeez, Asanda-Jonas Benya, Christine Bischoff, Jane Cherry, Jacklyn Cock, Samantha Hargreaves, Inge Konik, Jane Mbithi-Dikgol, Courtney Morgan, Sonia Phalatse, Busi Sibeko, Dineo Skosana, Vishwas Satgar, Ruth Ntlokotse, Vishwas Satgar, Ruth Ntlokotse

• Publisher: Wits University Press
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9781776148295
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Conservation & Protection
• Index: Biological Sciences

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.