What is our vision of a feminist future in a feminist economy?
Throughout history, women, gender-oppressed people of color and Indigenious peoples across the globe have had to fight for their safety, livelihood, and basic human rights. We have shouldered the disproportionate burdens of a global economy that relies on our domination and the exploitation of our planet’s natural resources.
In this context, the Feminist Organizing School provides a space for grassroots leaders to create shared vision for the grassroots internationalist feminist movement we need. We explore the theoretical and historical intersections of patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, white supremacy and climate change. We support each other in the crucial task of imbuing our daily work with a feminist agenda.
Our majority women of color training team uses a Train the Trainers model so leaders can replicate the curriculum in their local or regional contexts. In addition to the original FOS, we have been exploring regional and thematic schools based on the national model to address the need for political and popular education during this groundswell of women’s mobilization. We are currently engaged in a process with international feminist movements to develop an International Feminist Organizing School.
The first Feminist Organizing School took place in 2016 (FOS2016), and it was co-hosted by the SouthWest Organizing Project in Albuquerque, NM. Over 40 people represented 17 organizations from across the country. Grounded in the spirit of slain Indigenous feminist environmental activist, Berta Cáceres, participants delved into the intersections of patriarchy, white supremacy and imperialism from a multi-gendered perspective. The school sparked excitement for the development of the World March of Women branches held by GGJ member organizations and solidified our commitment to gender justice work.
Read blog posts from Participants:
- Growing the Roots of Ecofeminism by Zelene Pineda Suchilt, WE ACT for Environmental Justice
- Lessons from Feminist Organizing School by Lydia Simas, Grassroots International
- Reportback from Feminist Organizing School 2016 by Karen Soffer Sharon & Zahara Zahav, Jews For Racial & Economic Justice
The second Feminist Organizing School (FOS2017) took place outside of Philadelphia, PA with over 35 member organizations. Through popular education, we drew collectively from everyone’s experience, knowledge and questions. We dove deep on feminist organizing, including history, theory, and tools for incorporating it into our individual work.
In 2018, we held the Florida Regional Feminist Organizing School in Miami, co-hosted by the Miami Workers Center (MWC), the Florida Statewide Alignment Group (SWAG), and Grassroots Policy Project. About 40 participants from 20 different organizations came together to celebrate and strengthen our commitment to grassroots feminisms. We built a community of support where we challenged and learned from one another.
We discussed:
- Power, patriarchy and the importance of maintaining an intersectional lens
- Gender, sexuality and the artificial boundaries that should not limit us
- Feminisms and the history of our movements
- The evolution of capitalism, its effect on gender and reliance on patriarchy
- Feminist economics and the need to socialize reproductive labor
- Organizing with a feminist lens locally, nationally, and globally. With MWC, we looked at the Femme Agenda, and with SWAG, we considered the importance of brining a feminist lens to electoral organizing