Provisional timetable
10.30-11.00am: Registration
11.00-12.15: Opening Plenary
12.15-13.15: Lunch
13.15-14.30 Sessions/Workshops
14.30-14.45: Break
14.45-16.00 Sessions/Workshops
16.15-17.00 Closing Rally
17.00 Social
Opening Plenary: The rise of the far right right and culture war politics (and what we should do about it)
The far right are organising internationally and building strength in our communities. Over the last year in the UK we’ve seen continued hostility outside hotels housing refugees; over 100,000 on the Unite the Kingdom rally; a relentless barrage of anti-trans legal action; and Reform growing their electoral base.
In the US Trump has stripped women, trans people and people of colour of rights and unleashed ICE – demonstrating the murderous consequences of these forces in power.
All this exists in the context of a failure of governments to address social needs of working class people and a looming capitalist crisis.
There are many examples of communities organising to fight back. Women, LGBTQ+ and migrants are on the front line of attack and resistance.
In this session a panel will discuss these issues and how we can best confront and counter far right ideas and actions
Sessions/Workshops
1. The Sex Talk
With members of the Women’s Fightback editorial board. The strapline for Women’s Fightback, the socialist-feminist magazine published by Workers’ Liberty, says we stand for “sex positive, trans-inclusive, class-struggle feminism”. Should we still stand for “sex-positive” feminism, despite a growing move away from it among many “fourth-wave” feminists? Members of the Women's Fightback editorial board discuss the politics of sex and sexuality in the age of the sexual counter revolution.
2. Decrim Now! The fight for sex worker rights
It’s time for the decriminalisation of sex work in the UK. We live in a society that is obsessed with controlling what women should and shouldn’t do with their bodies, particularly when it comes to work and sex. Sex workers can narrate their own lives, decide their own experiences, and set their own demands and are increasingly organising alongside other workers within the trade union movement.
Speaker:
- Rosa: Decrim Now and the Sex Workers' Union.
3. Red Rags: socialist feminist press, from 1970 to today
Amy Todd is currently studying a PhD at the University of Manchester and with the People's History Museum (which also holds the Labour History Archives and Study Centre). She researches the 1970s socialist feminist magazine Red Rag.
In this workshop Amy will bring a selection of 1970s socialist feminist magazine and print culture to explore and discuss; how different was socialist feminism 50 years ago? And what can we learn from this material today?
4. Women and workers' revolt in Iran.
For decades now street rebellions against the clerical fascist regime have been occurring with increasing regularity, and are being met with increasing savagery. Those in power are ideologically committed and have made sure they hold onto power through their own organisations, in particular the IRGC, which is both an armed force which exists above the army and police, and a powerful economic force. This is not a “normal” military dictatorship.
Working class organisation, women’s freedom and the rights of minorities all require the regime to fall but what force can bring it down after decades of brave rebellion and resistance. Hear from Iranian and British socialist women on the Iranian resistance and how to defeat it.
5. Socialist Feminist Book Club: How Not to Skip Class
Workers’ Liberty hosts monthly socialist feminist book clubs in Manchester, Sheffield, Edinburgh, and London. The groups provide an opportunity for discussion, debate and the development of socialist feminist ideas based around books, book chapters and essays.
This session will be a facilitated, collective discussion of Tithi Bhattacharya’s essay, ‘How Not To Skip Class: Social Reproduction of Labor and the Global Working Class.’ In this essay Bhattacharya develops a dynamic understanding of the modern working class, based on fundamental Marxist insights and using a framework of social reproduction to help us consider the relationship between class struggle and oppression within capitalism.
This session is suited to those new to Marxist or socialist theory, and anyone who would like to learn about Social Reproduction Theory, a key socialist feminist concept.
- Read ‘How Not to Skip Class’ by Tithi Bhattacharya here.
6. Women and ill-health under capitalism
Is capitalism bad for our health? In this session we will discuss the politics of women's mental and physical health; what has shaped our understanding of it, current attacks including the puberty blocker ban and trans health, and what sort of movement we need to transform the services that have been created to 'treat' us.
Speakers:
- Jo Sutton-Klein: activist in the BMA/doctors pay campaign. She will talk about the emergence of "patient flow" and "treatment pathways", and why the shift from medical paternalism to patient pathways matters.
- Janine Booth: from Asylum, the radical mental health magazine, and who will also bring knowledge of neurodiversity into the discussion.
- Elaine Jones: systemic family therapist and Unison activist. Who will address how capitalism impacts our health and what sort of movement we need to transform women's health provision.
Closing Plenary: Why class struggle feminism?
Workers' Liberty want an anti-capitalist feminist movement, geared to class struggle, and a labour movement and left transformed to finally take women's struggles seriously.
We recognise that the oppressions of women and of trans, non-binary, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people all stem from restrictive gender relations sustained by capitalism. The ability of the working class to act as a universal agent of collective human emancipation means we must integrate the struggles of those sections of our class which face specific forms of oppression into our programme for liberation and equality.
Hear from socialists and trade unionists on how class struggle feminism can help us win our struggles now and replace class society with a socialist alternative.