Periodical Series: Does Anyone Read Newspapers Anymore?

 “Freedom Socialist – the Voice or Revolutionary Feminism” (April-May 2022) and …

“The Future is Female – but only if we fight” (May-June 2022)

Will the reversal of Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) lead to a new radicalization of the women’s movement and the fight against gender exploitation?  Or will it be led back into the arms of the Democratic Party, who promised to protect Roe by calling pro-choice groups to ‘vote for us’ for 50 years?  After all, a good number of Democrats voted for the Supremes who are on the wrong side of this issue.  Biden backed the Hyde Amendment and was himself personally opposed to abortion as a ‘good’ Catholic. 

There are plenty of feminist theoreticians of various stripes – Marxist, bourgeois, middle-class, anti-male – who publish books.  But are there left groups specifically focused on women’s liberation?  We’re not talking NARAL or NOW, both thoroughly run by the Democrats, nor left groups that fight sexism as a normal part of the struggle against capital. 

These two periodicals come from two different perspectives – one, Freedom Socialist (FS), is a Marxist group that focuses on revolutionary feminism.  The other is a lesbian feminist publication The Future is Female (TFIF) that celebrates gun-carrying female national liberation fighters, the Weather Underground and the SLA under the slogan ‘Feminist Revolution.’

TFIF

Let’s start with TFIF.  The color magazine contains lots of color iconography.  I counted 15 images of weapons – AKs, machetes and axes.  Many of the articles are in Spanish.  There is poetry. It is slanted as a cultural magazine.  Its one address is in Astoria, New York, its in its 3^rd year of publication, few authors are listed and it is free.  Then there are the articles.  A useful one on harassment of women on mass transit -–where they call for separate subway cars for women and children, much like India.  Another on how women are the most evicted, which advocates rent strikes and occupations.  Another on sexual harassment within corporations, by Valerie Solanas of SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men).  Solanas shot Andy Warhol in 1968, that great gay artist enemy of the working class...or not. 

Female Kurdish YPG Fighters

Then there are articles celebrating a Weather Underground ‘action’ in the late 1960s by a young lesbian woman; ones on revolutionary lesbianism and on Puerto Rico; a review of the old 1966 film “The Battle of Algiers,” a profile of a young Turkish woman who fought in Kurdistan with the YPG for Rojava, and was eventually killed at 19.  Lastly a poem celebrating a female member of the SLA, an ultra-left organization which existed in 1973-1975.  At least that is the charitable way to put it.  The BPP thought they were run by a cop.

Ideologically in their ‘Five Basic Ideas” they consider both women and youth as ‘classes’ – which makes a hash of a real economic class analysis.  They advocate ‘destruction of the patriarchy’ – not destruction of capitalism.  This is an ultra-leftist group, rooted in nostalgia, though the article on Rojava was at least somewhat current.

FS

Freedom Socialist on the other hand is a typical Marxist publication.  It is a newspaper in its 43^rd year and costs a $1.  It has 9 domestic addresses and 4 international ones, along with an ad for Radical Women magazine, which might be their in-depth ideological arm.  Most articles are written by women, but some by men.  There is no political program listed in the paper, except for “joining the fight to defend working people abroad and at home.”

It has news and analysis articles, with color photos. Its’ lead story is “Ravaging of the Ukraine,” against the Russian invasion and the U.S. imperialist provocations which led to this inter-capitalist war.  Other stories are on book bans, the Supreme Court’s rightist tack, Guantanamo, Florida’s anti-gay legislation, ending abuse of children in Australia, Starbucks union organizing, women’s soccer pay equity, fed-up U.S. workers and privatizing nature.  It has a letters section, guest columnists, a book review and editorials on the gas crisis, Rick Scott and the Ahmaud Arbery copycat shooters in Mississippi.

It also has short biography of James Cannon, key leader of the Trotskyist movement in the U.S. and the old Socialist Workers Party.

The two publications, both ostensibly dedicated to revolutionary feminism, could not be more unlike.   

We carry the SCUM Manifesto in our women's liberation book section.  May Day carries both publications in our periodicals section.            

Prior blog stories on this subject, us blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive, using these terms:  “Socialist Feminism and the New Women’s Movement,” “Feminists and Feminists,” “Fortunes of Feminism” and “The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born” (both by Fraser); “Weird Conservative Feminism,” “Revolt. Revolt She Said.  Revolt Again,” “Marxism and the Oppression of Women” (Vogel).   

And I got them at May Day Books!

Red Frog

May 11, 2022