Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto

Unaffordable housing, poverty wages, healthcare, climate change, border policing; not the issues you ordinarily hear feminists talking about. But don't these issues impact the vast majority of women globally? Taking as its inspiration the new wave of feminist militancy that has erupted globally, this Manifesto makes a simple but powerful case: Feminism shouldn't start - or stop - with seeing women represented at the top of society. It must start with those at the bottom, and fight for the world they deserve. And that means targeting capitalism. Feminism must be anti-capitalist, eco-socialist and anti-racist. This is a manifesto for the 99%.

About the Author :
Cinzia Arruzza is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. She is the author of Dangerous Liaisons. The Marriages and Divorces of Marxism and Feminism (Merlin Press, 2013) and of A Wolf in the City. Tyranny and the Tyrant in Plato's Republic (OUP, 2018). She was one of the main organizers of the International Women's Strike in the United States and is a member of the editorial collective of Viewpoint Magazine. Tithi Bhattacharya is Associate Professor and Director of Global Studies at Purdue University. She is the author of The Sentinels of Culture: Class, Education, and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal (OUP, 2005) and the editor of Mapping Social Reproduction Theory (Pluto Press, 2017). She was one of the main organizers of the International Women's Strike in the United States and is on the editorial board of the International Socialist Review. Nancy Fraser is Henry and Louise A. Loeb Professor of Philosophy and Politics at the New School for Social Research. She is the author of Fortunes of Feminism. From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis (Verso, 2013) and the coauthor, with Rahel Jaeggi, of Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory (Polity, 2018). A vocal supporter of the International Women's Strike, she coined the phrase 'feminism for the 99%'.

Review :
Nancy Fraser is among the very few thinkers in the tradition of critical theory who are capable of redeeming its legacy in the twenty-first century. For more than a decade, Nancy Fraser's thought has helped to reframe the agenda of critical theory. Nancy Fraser challenges us to reactivate the audacious spirit of second-wave feminism. Analyzing an imaginary aimed at eradicating exploitation as well as subjugation, she offers a rousing conclusion as to how we might mobilize feminism's best energies against the perils of the neoliberal present. Nancy Fraser is one of the most creative social philosophers and critical theorists of her generation. Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser ... have collaborated and written what is effectively a prospective programme for the global women's movement, a feminist manifesto for the 99%. [Feminism for the 99%'s] captivating vision of feminism is not a standalone movement, isolated from battles against the exploitation of people or the planet ... in contrast, [it] calls for radical movements to join together in a 'common anti-capitalist insurgency.' Where do I sign up? Fulfils the serious promise of its subtitle, 'a manifesto', as it makes feminism generally applicable and available - and addresses the crisis of capitalism as a feminist issue ... excellent a treatise for an intersectional, socialist feminism that centers collective power over power for just a few a visionary, relatable and all-encompassing resource valuable both to the collective committed to achieving a feminist informed anti-capitalist society and to those who are yet to be haunted by the spectre [a] timely, fiery manifesto ... Arruzza, Bhattacharya, and Fraser herald the arrival of a new internationalist, anticapitalist feminist movement ... The feminism they describe is universalist and collaborative, in solidarity with antiracist, queer, environmental, migrant, and labor rights movements also endangered by capitalism. 'An anti-capitalist feminism has become thinkable today,' Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya and Nancy Fraser argue in Feminism for the 99 Per Cent, 'in part because the credibility of political elites is collapsing worldwide.' They are right. A crucial formulation of an inclusive, transformative, and global social shift. In a searing anti-capitalist manifesto written by three scholar-activists based in the US, Feminism for the 99% stands for allwho are exploited, dominated and oppressed. ... Combining theory, rhetoric and principle, it reads as a call to arms.