Feminist Popular Education: WTF is Reproduction?
The Women’s Strike Assemblies in London, Bristol and Cardiff are launching a series of feminist educational events to build up our confidence and collective feminist politics in an inclusive, non-academic and accessible way. Based on talks, archives, workshops and open discussions we want to create the time and space for collective learning, doubts and asking those actually not so silly questions – for more information contact: info@womenstrike.org.uk
WTF is Reproduction is the first series of feminist educational events that will take place during the Anti University Festival in June 2019, and focuses on the relations between work, gender and capitalism
WTF is Reproduction #1: Learning from our histories to create our present
Sat, 15 June 2019 16:30 – 18:30 BST
St John On Bethnal Green, 200 Cambridge Heath Road
Bethnal Green, London, E2 9PA
Most people think of having babies when they hear the word “reproduction”, but for many feminists the concept of social reproduction includes all the labour we do (and don’t do) that makes and remakes people and workers. Not only is this work gendered it is also racialised. We will delve into the feminist archives of Wages for Housework, Campaigns for Welfare and Domestic Worker Organising to learn from past feminist movements and thinkers to help develop a collective understanding of reproduction for today’s red feminists movements..
WTF is Reproduction #2: They say it’s love but is it actually unpaid work?
Mon, 17 June 2019 19:00 – 21:00 BST
Common House, Unit 5E Pundersons Gardens
Bethnal Green, London, E2 9QR
Some of the biggest debates in feminism involve motherhood and sex. What does it mean to sell love or sex? Why are so many feminists uncomfortable with prostitution and surrogacy? What does it mean to understand motherhood and sex as work?In this session we will collectively share thoughts, questions and ideas surrounding love, motherhood and sex and the inherent contradictions and tensions they present. With representatives from the Decrim Now: National Campaign for Sex Workers Rights, this workshop explores some of the most contentious issues in contemporary feminist politics.
WTF is Reproduction #3: The Fight for Childcare is On!
EAST VENUE: Common House, Bethnal Green
Tuesday 18th June 7pm – 9pm
FACILITATORS: Camille and Esther
What does a feminist strategy for childcare look like and how can we build the industrial power of childcare workers? In these sessions happening across London on 17-18 June we will discuss how to push forward with the ideas and demands from 8 March Mums on Strike events. There will be short presentations followed by break out groups to begin to build a feminist political and industrial strategy for the care of children and rights of childcare workers.
WTF is Reproduction #5: When is care bad and when is it good? Cardiff
Sat, 22 June 2019 10:00 – 16:00 BST
Wyndham Street Centre 3-5 Wyndham St
Cardiff, CF11 6DQ
WTF is Reproduction #5: When is care bad and when is it good? Bristol
Sat, 22 June 2019 10:00 – 16:00 BST
Tyndall House, George St, St Judes, BS2 9ED
Our care work is powerful, and yet it makes us powerless. Every day, all over the world, we care for others: we cook, shop, clean, chaperone, comfort, listen organise…….the list is endless. We do this for those we love: our kids, partners, parents, friends, neighbours. This tiring, repetitive hard work is unpaid and often Unseen. It’s our work that reproduces humans, keeps the world turning and profits flowing. But our care work can also empower us, for through caring we learn how to understand and support one another.
Taking inspiration from Italian feminist Laura Balbo who describes women’s care work ‘as the sorting, piecing and patching together of goods and services into a crazy quilt’, in this participatory workshop we will share our lived experience of care work, from the making of meals and homes, to the emotional work of responding to others needs.
Together we will make quilts to explore the different dimensions of care in the context of an increasingly individualised society which punishes carers, examining the good and the bad, what empowers and disempowers us.
Our objective is to identify alternatives to current corporate child and social care provision, which is amongst the most expensive in the world, explore dilemmas and formulate our demands for good, fair and empowering care work.