Special issue on women and the solidarity economy

By Josette Combes

We are going through troubled times. The global pandemic has and will have serious consequences, especially for the poorest. More than ever we need to take care of each other. Alas, while real and/or ideological war is raging, when this newsletter will be reaching you, the fate of the inhabitants of the United States will have been sealed for another four years, for better or for worse, women on all continents are organising themselves so that crucial decisions are no longer left in the hands of men alone and so that relational software can be reviewed: in the hands of women, for the most part, the education of children, the care of fragile people, the concern for food survival.

While 70% of the poorest people are women and most of the power is in the hands of men, women are standing up to it, refusing to be mute followers, artists passed over in silence, raped women confined in shame, powerless and voiceless. Women are organising and resisting by creating wealth, the value of which is not necessarily measured in hard cash but in quality of life, in harmonious relationships with others, in saving nature threatened by useless big projects, while recovering the strength they may have been dispossessed of in previous centuries and putting their intelligence and sensitivity to work to influence the future of the world.

This thematic issue is dedicated to highlighting women’s initiatives, to present the ecofeminism that, after being born in the United States, is beginning to inspire and renew the approach and action of the young generation of activists. They have a more holistic vision of the struggle against patriarchy and the utilitarian and predatory domination of the liberal economy. They insist on the importance of the intersectionality of the struggles by combining all forms of discrimination against women, when added to gender discrimination there is the one about skin color or sexual orientation: belonging to racialised peoples, sexual orientations. It is all the more important to support these initiatives and movements as there is no shortage of reactionary attempts to reduce women’s rights. In Poland, for example, women’s right to choose whether or not to give birth through abortion is under threat. And for these struggles, it is less a question of opposing men than of inviting them to abandon authoritarian, virile, warlike, destructive attitudes in order to, women and men allies, invent together a peaceful world. A vast programme.