14 February saw three hundred feminists gather in London for an event which provided a clear alternative to Valentine’s Day: discussing and debating anti-capitalist feminist ideas and planning the fight for our liberation from the bottom up.

Gender, Race, Class: An Anticapitalist Feminist Event was organised by Feminist Fightback and a coalition of other feminists groups who share the view that the current resurgence in feminist activism is important and exciting, but that the kind of movement and the politics it has matter. We come from a range of political backgrounds and traditions, but all the groups involved in the conference are committed to an anti-capitalist feminism: a feminism which sees the interconnections of our struggles against oppression within capitalist society.

The event sought to provide a space to discuss these politics, but also to organise. The groups involved in Gender, Race, Class want to build a grassroots feminism, not one which looks to ‘feminist’ politicians, charities or government bodies to direct us and bestow our rights upon us, but a movement which is born from our coming together to fight our own oppression and that of our sisters. We want to change the material realities of women’s lives and fight for the rights of all women – including sex workers and ‘illegal’ migrants.

The day was planned to be as participatory as possible, working from the perspective that we can all learn a lot from each other. Instead of panels of ‘experts’ followed by brief discussion, the event was structured to allow plenty of time for people to share ideas, hear from people involved in campaigns and to plan some concrete next steps for campaigning for people to work together on after the event.

We aimed to make it a space where people already involved in anticapitalist and/ or feminist politics could share and debate ideas and connect with others to work on campaigns and actions. But we also wanted it to be a welcoming space for those who hadn’t been previously involved. Many people thought it was, one commenting that ‘it was very welcoming and participative, even for those on margins of movement.’ It was also very positive to hear this from people who had previously felt unsure about such activities: ‘As a trans individual I had previously felt intimidated by feminist spaces. I now feel able to participate in anti-sexist campaigns without fear.’

There were fifteen workshops on the day (fully reported below) as well as an opening and closing plenary. The opening plenary sought to explain the aims of the day, firstly in terms of exploring the intersections between gender, race, class and other oppressions and what this means for an activist feminist politics. The opening also situated the event in the context of the contemporary capitalist crisis, arguing that this will undoubtedly affect both the realities of working-class women’s lives and the direction of our movement. Instead of a traditional closing plenary we had a lively action planning session where people broke down into groups to discuss next steps for the issues and ideas that came out of the workshops.

As organisers, we deliberately sought to avoid a ‘black women’s panel’, considering this be both tokenistic and implying that the rest of the workshops would not take into account the experiences and priorities of black women, i.e. ‘black women’s issues’ dealt with in one workshop, with all other workshops on (implicitly white) ‘women’s’ issues.

A large number of the workshops were on issues which clearly show the intersections of gender, race, class and other oppressions: women who have organised against appalling conditions and treatment in their temporary accommodation, the effect of the No Recourse to Public Funds restriction on migrant women experiencing domestic violence, sex workers organising against the forthcoming crime and policing bill, and on rape, racist violence and UK immigration policy to mention a few. These issues provide us with a lens through which to discuss our politics: the way this racist, sexist, capitalist system operates.

There is a long way to go. Barbara Ehrenreich wrote, ‘No longer do people meet, as many of us did, intensely and repeatedly, with the agenda of discovering the connections between everything- sex and class, housework and factory work, the family and the state, race and gender, sexuality and profits’. Ehrenreich was writing in the 1980s, reflecting on the changes in the feminist movement since the previous decade, but much of this holds true for today. Providing a space for this to happen – and also to plan for collaborative political action – is a huge task, but one which we are in no doubt about the need to take up. We started some of these conversations at Gender, Race and Class, productively, but others did not go far enough (building an anti-racist feminist movement is one example) and a few were absent altogether (the planned workshop on feminism and disability was cancelled due to the workshop not being completed in time).

But Gender, Race and Class provides us with a good start from which to move forward. The discussion was lively and thoughtful, with workshops focused on how to take ideas forward rather than them being stuck in the workshop room. Links were made between individuals and groups who may not have otherwise made contact, and many have since met to plan activity – to plan a week of action against the benefits cuts of the welfare reform bill; to challenge the crime and policing bill which will worsen conditions for sex workers. The sheer energy that ran through the day is inspiring. Above all, it is hugely encouraging to see that an anti-capitalist feminism is a significant current in the upsurge of feminist activity we see in the UK today.

The ideas and proposals for actions put forward at the event will be further discussed and strategised on at the Feminist Fightback campiagns planning day on 29 March. This will be held at The Arbour, 100 Shandy Street, London E1 4ST from 11.30am-4pm. Open to all self-defining women. A crèche will be provided which we will take turns to run. The building is accessible but regrettably there is no accessible toilet. Get in touch for more info – feminist.fightback@gmail.com

A few thank yous:

• Thank you to all the groups and individuals who put time and vast amounts of energy into organising the day and facilitating workshops, and contributed towards the costs of the event. Also to the volunteers on the day who helped prepare the venue and did shifts on the reception desk.
• Huge thanks to the London Pro-Feminist Men’s Group organised and ran the crèche. The crèche was incredibly well-run and the children certainly enjoyed themselves (one even asking when the next feminist event was!) – a particularly impressive feat given the crèche was being run in a lecture room. Thanks also to the comrades who spent many hours preparing and selling food for us all.
• Also to the Deaf Ethnic Women’s Association who paid much of the cost of providing British Sign Language interpreters on the day.
• And thank you to everyone who came, participated and shared their ideas and energy. The feedback we received on the day was really useful and has formed some of the basis for the discussion above.

Workshop reports

• Reproductive freedoms
• Challenging domestic violence
• Learning from Feminist History (coming soon)
• Penetrating sex: a queer discussion (coming soon)
• Prison Abolition: Building Links between feminist anti-violence and anti-prison work
• Community organising
• A woman’s place is in her union?
• Trafficking: myths, morals and migrants
• Education Not for Sale Women meeting :student caucus (coming soon)
• Gaza discussion (coming soon)
• ‘British babes for British workers?’: Gender, race, class and the wildcat strikes
• Feminist self-defence
• Fighting benefit cuts
• Bangladeshi garments workers from London to Dhaka
• Winning asylum and protection from rape and racist violence (coming soon)

Reproductive Freedoms

This session was focused on moving forward campaigning for abortion rights and on broadening out the scope of action to take on issues of women’s access to reproductive health care, including family planning and maternity care. The session was well-attended and successfully generated interest in and ideas for future activity.

The session began with an introduction from Gwyneth Lonergan who spoke about the significance of reproductive freedom as a concept, and gave attention to the lack of choices available to women in terms of family planning, and particularly highlighted the racism and classism faced by women accessing these services. Mary Partington in her contribution helped to clearly outline how abortion rights are not only a feminist but also a class issue, and this prompted questions and discussion about the unequal access to family planning and practical difficulties involved in accessing terminations, particularly if you do not have the money to do it privately. Ros Bragg from campaign group Maternity Action then gave an account of women born outside the UK being billed for their maternity care. This discussion highlighted how the economic interests of hospital trusts are being put before patient care and trusts are using arbitrary, or outright racist, protocols to generate money or deny care to women who are not deemed British enough. It was agreed that this was an issue that could be built into feminist work with trade unions, perhaps something to be taken on by Trade Unions for Choice.

The session then moved on to a discussion of the setting up of a support network for Irish and Northern Irish women coming to mainland UK for abortions. Mara Clarke spoke about her experiences setting up a similar network in New York. This was a very useful starting point and the idea seemed to generate a lot of interest, with many people who attended willing to volunteer their support. Many questions were raised about the practicalities and political implications, and it was generally agreed that some extra research and some small trial runs with plenty of feedback and mutual support within the network of volunteers would be necessary.

Toward the end of the session time was given to recording plans and ideas for action around all the issues discussed in the session, and these were brought together in the final planning workshop of the day. An email list was set up first of all for everyone involved to have an accessible forum for discussing and planning. The next task that was taken up was making contact with the Irish abortion rights activists known to us to get a better idea of the kind of support that would be useful for a network here to offer, and to then move forward from there. Time constraints meant that a full discussion of all the action ideas that came out of the session couldn’t take place, but there was definite enthusiasm for using the contact made at this event to build a campaign network.

Rachel Ferguson (Feminist Fightback)

Challenging Domestic Violence

The domestic violence workshop discussed the experience of women from a personal and social perspective. Groups discussed the role of the state in providing sanctuary and support for women at risk of abuse/ The conversation considered the inadequacies of a system in which the police are a woman’s first and often only point of call; women have no say over the sharing of their own personal information between government agencies; and access to services is dependent on immigration status - a matter which frequently is inextricably linked with a woman’s marital status. Positive alternatives and ways forward were discussed also, but too briefly due to time limitations. Participants were informed of the Community Organising and Prison Abolition workshops as places where this conversation could be continued.

Laura Rogers (Feminist Fightback)

Prison Abolition: Building Links between Feminist Anti-Violence Work and Anti-Prison Work

The goal of the workshop was to explore links between feminist anti-violence work and struggles against imprisonment. The workshop started with a brief exercise where participants were asked to think about the kinds of images, words, people or experiences that are invoked by the phrases “police brutality” and “violence against women.” The exercise drew attention to the ways in which state violence against women (i.e. police assaults of women, deaths in custody, sexual assault by immigration/law enforcement agents), is often overlooked in both anti-prison/anti-police activism and feminist anti-violence activism. The facilitators then gave a slide presentation which gave an overview of the current crisis of prison expansion in Britain, the gendered impact of imprisonment and feminist approaches to prison abolition.

The main part of the workshop involved small group discussions around the relationship between prisons and domestic violence. Participants were asked to make a list of the similarities and differences between domestic violence and imprisonment. Participants noted how efforts to end domestic violence and prison violence require linked approaches. The workshop concluded with a brief introduction to “Communities of Resistance” (CoRe) – a new anti-prison initiative in Britain, whose first campaign is to stop the government from building three new massive “Titan” prisons. CoRe has also recently launched the Bent Bars Project – a penpal project that connects queer/trans prisoners with queer/trans people outside of prison (for which penpals are needed, so get in touch if you are interested!).

For more information about CoRe, contact: communities.of.resistance@gmail.com; www.co-re.org

Sam Lamble (CoRe)

Community Organising

The Community organising workshop aimed to share experiences, ideas and tactics especially regarding the practicalities of organising among low income women. Small groups brainstormed what issues are faced when organising, which included childcare needs and language barriers, and accessibility of meetings. Linda Burnip, a Disabled Peoples Direct Action Network (DAN) activist shared a range of tactics that can be useful when organising, like making sure people are kept in the loop with phone calls, and making marches so that kids don’t get bored. Vicky Laker, a London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP) organiser talked about how she started a organising campaign in a emergency accommodation hostel. The workshop was intended to inspire others to campaign and organise in similar ways, although we forgot in the end to collect peoples contact details, so if anyone would like to be in touch please contact londoncoalitionagainstpoverty@gmail.com.

Ellie Schling (London Coalition Against Poverty)

A Woman’s Place is in her Union?

Around 30 people attended the “A Woman’s Place is in her Union” workshop. Participants came from many different unions and no union, were experienced union members and less experienced. There was a wide ranging discussion but the focus was on how the decline of and lack of a democratic culture in the unions limits workplace activity and confidence for all union members but especially affects women workers. Women’s concerns are often about workplace nitty gritty issues – bullying, combining work with childcare and so on. A longer account of the issues discussed and ways of tackling those issues will be written up soon. The plan is to use the write up to form the basis of workshop which can be used in union branches.

Cathy Nugent (Feminist Fightback)

Sex Trafficking: Myths, Migrants and Morals

The aim of the workshop was to build on previous debates about the sex industry that have taken place in a variety of left feminist spaces over the last three years (including at Feminist Fightback conferences and the FAF-sponsored-event last International Women’s Day). We wanted to look more in-depth at the Trafficking discourse that provided the background and ideological justification for the Policing and Crime Bill - to ask what evidence it was based upon, and how it interconnected with issues of gender and migration. We began with a brainstorm, asking the whole workshop what they had heard about trafficking from the media, government and women’s groups. Then we gave out materials from anti-trafficking campaigns and asked for people’s comments on them, leaving people to discuss these further in smaller groups.

Speakers from the English Collective of Prostitutes, the International Union of Sex Workers and XTalk (a sex worker run project which provides free English lessons for migrants in the industry) contributed for 5 minutes each before we opened discussion up again to the whole workshop. These speakers gave different perspectives but all agreed the the Policing and Crime Bill would make it less, not more, safe for workers in the sex industry and that the debate about trafficking was actually about immigration - a smoke screen for tightening up our borders and deporting migrant workers.

We expected people in the workshop to have a variety of views on this however, and aimed to make this a safe space for people to disagree with each other. The rest of the discussion time was taken up with one contribution from a sister who told us about the painful experiences of her friend who had sold sex on the streets. Unfortunately, the workshop had to finish after that but about 10 people continued the discussion in break out space afterwards. This was a fairly heated exchange, with some people feeling that the speakers had only represented one view, while others felt that space for discussion had been closed down through the use of emotive personal stories. Nevertheless, I think we all made an effort at this stage to be respectful and hear each other out. The fact that those who both supported and opposed the decriminalisation of sex work were able to be in a room together and to talk is massive progress on the situation till now, where abolitionists have refused to attend conferences where sex worker organisations were speaking. We all expressed our desire to continue discussing with each other.

Laura Schwartz (Feminist Fightback)

“British Babes for British Workers?”: Gender, race and class and the wildcat strikes

An emergency session on ‘British Babes for British Workers?’ was called to allow space for discussion on some of the questions raised by the recent strikes and protests, with a focus on left responses and actions. Both the Sport and the Star have been using ‘page 3 girls’ on placards during the strikes - the Guardian on 5 February carried a picture of the Sport’s placards at Lindsey - and have been taking models to the picket lines. See here for a photo of Derek Simpson (General Secretary of Amicus Unite Trade Union) with women from the Star. http://jesshurd.blogspot.com/2009/02/daily-star-joins-british-jobs-campaign.html

The main questions asked at the session were: yes there has been very real sexism and racism involved in these strikes but has this been the only voice? How have the nationalist slogans been used instrumentally by the bosses, right wing press and goverment? Will the strikes be used to further immigration controls?

One of the speakers at the session had been to talk to protesters at a gas refinery on the Isle of Grain and described a photo shoot with models from the Star. Until the Star arrived with the models and their placards there were no ‘British workers’ slogans being used at the picket. The speaker reported that the women felt uncomfortable about the messages they were being photographed to promote. We sought to unpick some of the issues of both sexism and nationalism operating here. The slogan was reportedly used on the picket lines, but our workshop at Gender, Race and Class wasn’t focusing on the use of the slogan itself but rather on how these issues came together during the strikes.

There will be further discussion and planning on this issue. Ideas from the group were to: invite strikers to come and speak at meetings so they can meet other groups of workers; set up meetings that concentrate on these key issues: casualisation, sub-contracting, attacks on workers and have debates about the slogans in this context; protest action against Daily Star; protest action against Derek Simpson - including putting motions through trade unions for conference season on all the issues raised in the dispute by Simpson’s posing with ‘Star babes’; does Unite have a women’s committee - if so let’s urge them to take up these issues; show films - eg. Builders Labourers Federation; Asian Youth Movement - in which an activist describes his first experiences of visiting miners’ picket lines, it is not a good reception but we know how miners came to value the support they got from many different groups of people and this is an inspiration for us; send a representative of the Gender, Race, Class conference to the Unite Left Unity meeting in Birmingham on 21 February; carry out some activities as part of the G20 Saturday 28 March London demo, called by TUC and NGOs, and Thursday 2 April protest (in Watford); visit protests/picket lines together; engage with BearFacts website.

Our first action will be to organise a joint Campaign Against Immigration Controls, No Borders and Feminist Fightback meeting to further un-pick the use of the slogans and to decide on action.

Rebecca Galbraith and Alice Robson (Feminist Fightback)

Feminist Self Defence

The self-defence workshop was a very short, very quick look at what feminist self-defence is all about.

Most importantly, we believe that we’re all worth defending, and able to defend ourselves, however strong/ fit/ able-bodied we feel we are.

We believe that all of us have developed our own self-defence strategies just to survive in this violent world.

In our classes we share some tactics that we know to be effective.

These tactics could be verbal, or more physical; they could include thinking about our body language as well as hitting things; the more ideas and tactics we have in our ‘toolbox’, the more options we have to get out of a bad situation…

So we all practised shouting ‘no!’ loudly, and learnt some strikes.. we even had time to practise the knee-to-the-groin move against pads, which are great cos you get to feel what the impact is like, and get confident that your strikes are actually really strong and powerful.

We’ll be running some more basic self-defence workshops throughout the year, for women and for queer people. These could be on weekday evenings (in which case a course would last 6 weeks or so), or on weekend daytimes (in which case we can cram it into two full-on, intensive days).

Please email us at feministselfdefence@yahoo.co.uk for more details, or if you have any other questions….

We’re excited about the possibility of a Deaf woman coming to our next course - with a bsl interpreter - and training to be a self-defence instructor herself.

Carolyn (London Anarcha-Feminist Kollectiv)

Fighting Benefit Cuts

This session heard from claimants about the difficulty of claiming what we’re entitled to, and shared information about the attacks on welfare proposed in the Government’s Welfare Abolition Bill, which target single mothers and disabled people in particular, as well as further privatisations and sharing our information with the police.

The Welfare Reform Bill could be voted on any time from 7 March. Activists involved in the workshop have called a week of action on 7-15 March against these draconian changes.

• Read the call to action and find a toolkit with more information on the bill, leaflets, a press release and suggestions for action here: http://www.lcap.org.uk
• Join the planning email list here: http://groups.google.com/group/no-to-welfare-abolition
• Forward the call to action and links to the toolkit (see them here: www.lcap.org.uk) to every e-list you are on or to organisations you think might be interested.
• Call an emergency meeting of a group you are involved in to plan an action.
• Get together with others to leaflet your local Jobcentre Plus.
• Join LCAP and Feminist Fightback to leaflet at job centres in Hackney in the next few weeks. Email londoncoalitionagainstpoverty@gmail.com if you have time to spare to leaflet.

Anne-Marie O’ Reilly (Feminist Fightback; London Coalition Against Poverty)

Bangladeshi Garment Workers from London to Dhaka

The workshop sought to inform participants about the exploitation and the struggles of garment workers in Bangladesh, connecting this to the conditions of workers and the experiences of those involved in organising the largely Bengali workers in the clothing industry of east London. The recent struggles of Bangladeshi workers against their exploitation are a source of inspiration for the workers’ movement internationally; they also require us to think through what we mean by ‘international solidarity’ and how we can best show solidarity across national borders. Over thirty people came to learn and discuss.

Stuart Jordan from No Sweat began the workshop by laying the theoretical background to the discussion, talking about global capitalism and migration. We then broke into small groups to discuss two questions raised by Stuart – what does ‘international solidarity’ mean and why do we need it? One thing that came up was that international solidarity is a term often used on the left, but that sometimes doesn’t amount to very much. Other responses included ‘knowing what’s going on’, discussing the limits of ethical consumption and talking about the need for working class movement transcending borders and for workers’ struggles that are about opposing capitalism together not pitting a worker of one nationality against another. The use of boycotts of particular companies as a commonly used expression of solidarity was problematised.

We then heard about the exploitation and struggle of workers in Bangladesh. Salma Islam, who interpreted on the recent UK tour of Bangladeshi workers organised by No Sweat, discussed the political and economic conditions experienced by workers in factories in the Dhaka area. She talked in particular about the struggle for trade union rights that the workers faced. We also saw a poster produced by the women workers for international women’s day which showed how sexism affects all areas of their lives – in the work place, within their families and communities and within the labour movement.

Jean Lane was the final speaker, describing the campaign by GMB and No Sweat to organise workers in the sweat shops of Whitechapel in 2002. In a 2 mile square area, there were around 8,000 garment workers – facing conditions such as chronic illness from breathing in cotton dust, low pay and underage working. Jean said that whilst the campaign had raised national awareness of the conditions (several of them were closed down - not what had been aimed for - and there was a big expose about Philip Green’s Arcadia group), the campaign to organise workers was not successful.

For the final ten minutes of the workshop (an inadequate amount of time) we returned to group discussion, this time as a whole group. Contributions included: questions about the bosses responses to workers fighting back and whether this would result in factories being relocated across borders, and responses about the need for an international working class movement which would mean that there is no where the companies can go where they are not faced with an organised labour movement. We heard briefly about the struggles of migrant Bengali textile workers in Romania. Next steps to take forward to the final session focused on supporting the No Sweat action on 4 April.

Alice Robson (Feminist Fightback)