RETREAT PROGRAM REGISTRATION + DETAILS SUGGESTED READINGS CONTACTS & LINKS

SOCIALIST FEMINIST RETREAT | 2008 JANUARY 11 TO 13

RETREAT PROGRAM | With its expansive reach across the globe, capitalism organizes and penetrates every arena of work and personal life for all of the world's citizens. Women's labor, or feminized labor, always central to capitalism, is now the cornerstone of a highly exploitative, global economy. Integral to and intersecting with capitalism, heterosexism and racism work to consolidate and maintain deep gender, sexual and racial divisions within daily life. Bolstering the neoliberal project, the War on Terror has only served to shore up these divisions. Patriotic citizenry is defined not only by proximity to whiteness, but by how "appropriately" female, male and heterosexual one is. Those that fall outside of this definition (transgendered people, immigrants, queers, Muslims, etc.) are deemed threats to national security.

This retreat will examine the ways in which capitalist globalization, heterosexism, racism, and imperialism create vast inequities in work and daily life. We will strategize about how, as activists, we can build a democratic, revolutionary movement that reflects our intersectional analysis.

In each of the following sessions we will engage in thoughtful, democratic and fully participatory discussions. Speakers will offer insights from their activist projects and as a group we will address the following topics. We have compiled a list of suggested readings to enrich these discussions and our engagement with socialist feminist activism.

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  SATURDAY at 8-9:30 AM SUNDAY at 8-10 AM
  breakfast and informal activities breakfast and informal meetings
     
 
SATURDAY at 9:30 AM-12 PM
SUNDAY at 10 AM - 1 PM
  topic | Producing Gender: Individuality and Collectivity in the Workplace| This session will deal with how gender is produced in the workplace and how liberating our own genders is basic to any organizing. topic | Queering Intersectionality | We take this workshop to be The Queer Factor of Intersectionality. We want to radically interrupt tendencies to see any and all repressions of sex, gender, and sexuality as separable from any other form of systemic violence. In the same vein, we want to take into consideration the invisible sex, gender, and sexuality privileges that often work to sustain systemic violences.
     
FRIDAY AFTERNOON
SATURDAY at 2:30-5 PM

4 PM registration and check-in

5-7 PM dinner and socializing

6-7 PM greetings and introductions

topic | International and Gendered Divisions of Labor | This panel, will explore the relevance of gender and feminism to the international division of labor. We will discuss how women are gendered through global capitalist institutions (workplaces, families, financial institutions, states) and how this process is used to both exploit their labor and position them socially, culturally, and politically. We will also discuss how feminist activists can build solidarity and organize against these processes. What strategies have been employed and what strategies can we generate/consider in our understanding of how to change these systems of power?
     
FRIDAY at 7-9:30 PM
SATURDAY at 7-9:30 PM
topic | Gender and the War | How is war a gendered phenomenon? This session will examine the ways that war, militarism, and the War on Terror mobilize particular notions of gender and sexuality. It will also explore the troubling ways that women’s and queer liberation have served as rationales for military intervention. Finally, it will offer a feminist analysis of violence, terror, and security.

topic | Reproduction, Caring, and Sex Work | What happens when caring for others -- by providing sex, home care, or childcare, for example -- is your paid work? First we will hear from two women who are waging grassroots organizing campaigns that grapple directly with this question. Then we will explore why capitalism is so unsuccessful in its ostensible attempt to divide public life and work from private life and home, and what this might mean for the future of socialist feminism.

  

 

SOCIALIST FEMINIST RETREAT organized by SOLIDARITY a socialist, feminist, anti-racist, revolutionary organization

for more information or to register for the retreat contact chloe or brooke or erin