Silvia Federici: Gender and Democracy in the Neoliberal Agenda: Feminist Politics, Past and Present

6th Subversive festival
13/05/2013, 21:00h, cinema Europa
Silvia Federici ''Gender and democracy in the Neo-liberal agenda: feminist politics past and present
Moderator: Ankica Čakardić
As feminism has been institutionalized and subsumed to the neo-liberal agenda in the name of democratization, a feminist critique of liberal democracy is more urgent than ever. Federici discusses the role this grand illusion has played in feminist politics and contrasts it with the contribution feminist movements have made to democracy intended as self-government and egalitarian division of the commonwealth.
Silvia Federici
Scholar, teacher, and activist from the radical autonomist feminist Marxist tradition. She is a professor emerita at Hofstra University where she was a social science professor. She is also the co-founder of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Arica. Federici's best known work, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. In it, she argues against KarlMarx's claim that is a primitive accumulation is necessary precursor for capitalism. She is the editor of several books including Enduring Western Civilization: The Construction of the Concept of Western Civilization and Its Others and African Visions: Literary Images, Political Change, and Social Struggle in Contemporary Africa.
www.subversivef...

[@DAVIDFERNANDEZ-jx4fb]

this is painfully boring and uninteresting to watch, I m only watching this to complete an school assignment

[@sherriingrey3346]

nothing like men trying very hard to make it about THEM - just LISTEN for once, and realize you do NOT share women's experiences.

[@mschell8022]

They are taught by the world that they are the true human- the central one, the one who determines all of true reality. Its delusional androcentrism youre witnessing

[@stepmaster9988]

He really just embarrassed himself trying to mansplain to the Prof. Was he even in the room before that question?

[@pairadeau]

Bless this woman.

[@rosemaryperry7150]

Sylvia Federici is an objective observer. She draws together points brilliantly. Her comparison between the UK Enclosures Act and its use for the appropriation of 'Common' land; and the present day global sanctioning of irrevocable industrial plundering of the earth's wealth ("the common wealth") and e.g. attempted patenting of nature is a sad but true analogy. Who else is speaking about enabling women to be at home in order to look after their own children? When there is harmony in the home there will be harmony in the community, when there is harmony in the community there is harmony in the country then, eventually, harmony on this planet: humanity's home.

[@ct9196]

❤️❤️❤️

[@derekdiamond846]

I need a beer..again.

[@agnesclamfanger3960]

Meh. I really want to be on the Federici bandwagon, but the more I engage with her work and thought, the less enthusiastic I am. I don't think she takes into account the dismantling of public spaces, most remaining forms of community, and (an important characteristic of this century so far-) the complete atomization of the individual (including as wage-workers in the workplace) on a level that is completely unprecedented, not just in history, but in the entire existence of our species. This creates a major barrier to any form of collective resistance or 'democratization', yet she talks about the situation as if it is still 1968. There seems to be a crazy vacuum of analysis dealing with the reality of the present from an emancipatory perspective. I mean, what she has to say is way better than e.g. anything liberal thinktanks come out with, but the problem is that she doesn't offer a way forward, or rather she offers a way forward that is not applicable to the conditions that actually exist today.

[@stfnba]

It is exactly because of "the complete atomization of the individual" that she keeps her focus on paid and unpaid domestic labour, done mainly by women and women from the global south, for instance. Because that atomised worker is male and white, and needs someone at home to keep him healthy. The same mechanism applied to professional white women, from what I understand from her 'the reproduction of labour power in the global economy'. Not sure what you mean for 'bandwagon' here: as far as I know she never took advantage of positions in 'academic feminism', she always been on the side of house workers, peasants in the 3rd world and (my favorites) the Zapatistas.

[@mschell8022]

That "bandwagon" of WOC who originate from the Third World will carry on without you then.

[@stepmaster9988]

@@stfnbaAgreed. She even has a few videos on here talking about the political consequences of the demise of the commons. As for the global south this lady has lived and worked and taught in places like West Africa, the Pacific islands and Asia. Anyone making these critiques of her work has not studied even one of her lectures as she is relentlessly anti-imperialist throughout