Gender and Sexuality

Wondering why we're experiencing abortion bans and attacks on birth control? The birth rate is plunging in the U.S.: It's a spontaneous birth strike! In other countries, panic over low birth rates has led governments to underwrite childbearing and childrearing with generous universal programs, but in the U.S., women have not yet realized the potential of our bargaining position. When we do, it will lead to new strategies for improving the difficult working conditions U.S. parents now face when raising children. Join Jenny Brown, in discussion with Laura Tanenbaum, on her new book, Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight over Women’s Work (PM Press, 2019).

Screening of OffCenter. OffCenter (2019) is an American, experimental documentary directed by Aylin Sözen and Cesar Jaralillo, emphasizing the attitudes and experiences of unconventional African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender people in Texarkana, a twin city in East Texas and Arkansas. It explores the racial, sexual, and gender identity of five central interviewees rebelling against Southern conservatism. Through firsthand perspectives, the subjects reclaim their identity, acknowledging the importance of affirming blackness, afrocentrism, the preservation of native civilization, and LGBTQ objectives in the rural South. The film merges low-fi cinema with a poetic, cinéma-vérité style to portray the existence of marginalized people, their encounters with racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia.

This panel will explore the crises that have transformed the daily lives of Americans both economically and personally. Existence is now precarious on every level. We will use New Marxian analyses to explore where the crises originated, how they function and how they can be a force in transforming America.

Our vision of Freedom Dreaming: A Call to Imagine envisions a world without racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, classism, etc. We recognize the impact that these multiple and intersecting structures of oppression can negatively have on individuals lives. We believe in elevating the voices of those from marginalized communities who experience oppression in order to call attention these inequalities. Inspired by Robin Kelley's "Freedom Dreams" we have created a platform, teaching materials, and structured workshops aimed at producing a communal vision for freedom through the radical imaginary. We aim to build empowerment through fostering safe spaces online, and networking like-minded marginalized folks together. If given the opportunity, Left Forum is an incredible platform to extend our reach in extending our mission and inspiring youth to express their thoughts without the fear of being silenced. Furthermore, we hope to inspire individuals to take action against these injustices by recognizing them to move towards a more just and free society. As the dreams of freedom continue this digital campaign builds on the community program that came before. Visitors to the workshop are encouraged to create, reflect, and engage with fellow dreamers in a supportive and creative environment both physically and digitally. This workshop will engage with the concept of Freedom Dreaming from multiple angles, including visual art, sound, and personal reflection to demonstrate the numerous ways in which one can Freedom Dream and what that might look like in a classroom setting and beyond. Our goal is for all participants to leave with at least one personal and communal Freedom Dream as well as connections, resources, and action steps to move their dreams forward.

Book launch: Presentation followed by discussion. The book being presented is Occult Features of Anarchism - With Attention to the Conspiracy of Kings and the Conspiracy of the Peoples: In the nineteenth century anarchists were accused of conspiracy by governments afraid of revolution, but in the current century various “conspiracy theories” suggest that anarchists are controlled by government itself. The Illuminati were a network of intellectuals who argued for self-government and against private property, yet the public is now often told that they were (and are) the very group that controls governments and defends private property around the world. Intervening in such misinformation, Lagalisse works with primary and secondary sources in multiple languages to set straight the history of the Left and illustrate the actual relationship between revolutionism, pantheistic occult philosophy, and the clandestine fraternity. Exploring hidden correspondences between anarchism, Renaissance magic, and New Age movements, Lagalisse also advances critical scholarship regarding leftist attachments to secular politics. Inspired by anthropological fieldwork within today’s anarchist movements, her essay challenges anarchist atheism insofar as it poses practical challenges for coalition politics in today’s world. Studying anarchism as a historical object, Occult Features of Anarchism also shows how the development of leftist theory and practice within clandestine masculine public spheres continues to inform contemporary anarchist understandings of the “political,” in which men’s oppression by the state becomes the prototype for power in general. Readers behold how gender and religion become privatized in radical counterculture, a historical process intimately linked to the privatization of gender and religion by the modern nation-state.

The political crisis of the capitalist world embodied by the rise of authoritarianism and populism around the world has been met with resistance internationally. Women have played a disproportionate role in these struggles from Sudan to the West Virginia teachers strikes. The Caribbean has been no exception and the rise of the #LifeinLeggings movement throughout the Caribbean as well as the prominence of feminist groups like the Tambourine Army in Jamaica is testament to this. Many Caribbean countries have a hostile atmosphere towards LGBTQ people, these states tend to still have colonial era anti-cross dressing and buggery laws on the books. There has been resistance to this in recent times evinced by the striking down of the anti-cross dressing law in Guyana and the buggery law in Trinidad as well as the rise in visibility of the LGBTQ population through daring Pride parades, some held for the first time in the last few years. These struggles have had important cultural reflections such as legendary Trinidad & Tobago singer Calypso Rose’s “Leave me Alone” song which stood as an anthem against sexual harassment. The emergence of the “Lost Tribe” carnival band with openly gay Indo-Trini director Valmiki Maharaj was yet another such incursion of previously excluded oppressed people into the popular culture of the Caribbean. This panel aims to explore the historical antecedents which gave rise to the oppression of women and the LGBTQ population in the Caribbean. The panel will also look at the contemporary situation while giving details of the recent struggles and how they intersect with each other and the broader anti-colonial and anti-imperialist radical tradition in the Caribbean.

The focus of our panel is on the meaning and challenges to love in a neo-liberal era wherein what is valued is consumer driven and conditioned by the market forces of conformity, conditional love, helicopter parenting, gender and sexual normatives, and the resultant profound loneliness escaped via addictions, celebrity culture and social media. Our focus is on retrieving the richness of loving and being loved from neoliberalism’s shallow versions of both. Britton: Saving Love in an Unloving Culture Javors: The Mental Health Industry: Normalizing Regimens of Love Langer: Gender and Sexuality: My Life as a Chameleon

While the feminist movement began in 1848, never before in American history, have women splayed such a critical role in the political, especially the large numbers of young women, that now embrace socialism. This is been especially evident in the midterm elections and we would go so far as to say the extent to which women, especially younger women mobilize politically will be the deciding factor in the Democratic nominee and perhaps the election. As Marxists, how do we understand the role of women thaat was frist examing by Marx and Engels and how feminisim has changed over tiime to where it has become a significant factor impelling the progress toward a postcapitalist society. This panel will explore Marxist, and neo-Marxist perspectives on feminism from a variety of perspectives, such as political economy, intersectionality and female subjectivity

A farmworker leader from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) will share the history of the organization, conditions faced by farmworkers in the U.S. agricultural industry — including abuses such as sexual harassment and forced labor — and the transformative changes now in effect in the U.S. tomato industry as a result of the award-winning Fair Food Program in setting new farm labor standards, implementing fair wages, and eliminating abuses through its groundbreaking model of Worker Driven Social Responsibility. The workshop will also focus on the models through which the CIW has built power-- from the early days of general strikes and labor stoppages in the tomato fields of Southwest Florida, to the Campaign for Fair Food with successful boycotts of powerful multinational corporations, and then to the implementation of new worker directed standards in the agricultural industry. The workshop will be facilitated in both Spanish and English. There will be a question and answer session in which attendees can engage with farmworker leaders on their experiences as farmworkers, the movement for Fair Food and how they can be involved in the movement for farmworker justice.

Throughout recorded history, sex workers have not only existed, but have fought for their rights - the right to pursue their livelihood without harassment, the right not to be stigmatized, and the right to be taken seriously as agents of progressive change. From the Paris Commune of 1871 - when anarchist Louise Michel organized armed brigades of sex workers to fight alongside their fellow Communards against the invading Prussian army - until today, organized sex workers have not avoided militancy. Speakers will address the ripe opportunites that have emerged recently to enact decriminalization and organization of sex work both in New York and elsewhere.