By Friends Of The Earth International 

A feminist economy is a response to the current economic, environmental and social crises from a gender justice perspective. It is a political strategy to transform society and the relationship between people, and people and nature. Women are economic actors, and we, as women, have placed ourselves as protagonists in the fight against the dominant economic model. With a feminist economy, system change is possible.

The World March of Women and Friends of the Earth International have produced two animated films to explain the concept of a feminist economy and its role in achieving system change. 

What does a feminist economy mean?

Housework and care work are part of life’s social and economic conditions. It is mostly invisible work, generally done by women, Black and migrant people. Yet it sustains the economy.

A feminist economy recognises and reorganises housework and care work:

  • Recognising the work performed by women as a primary part of the economy.
  • Shining a light on all the work that sustains life, and all the people who do it: most of whom are women, Black and migrants.
  • The feminist economy values domestic and care work as part of the economy. It reorganises this work, so that it becomes a shared responsibility – among all people, with the support of public policies.

A feminist economy places the sustainability of life at the centre:

  • The sustainability of life means prioritising people’s needs instead of profit, putting life at the centre.
  • We need to change our lives and also change the world.

We are all vulnerable and interdependent.

Care work provides a clean and healthy environment that enables all other activities. Everyone needs care throughout their lives, regardless of age or health. Care is a fundamental human need.

To transform our current economic model, we need to practise solidarity and reciprocity in our lives, our social movements and our daily political efforts.

Care work that currently sits primarily on the shoulders of women must be shared with all people, under the responsibility of the State.

Ecodependence

The current capitalist economic model has created a false separation between nature and culture. As if nature were an endless source of resources. As if we weren’t nature too.

A feminist economy reminds us that biodiversity is the fruit of the relationship with traditional peoples and their ways of life.  We must respect nature’s regeneration cycle and rethink our relationship with food, valuing local agricultural and culinary practices, and ensuring that communities have the means to grow food in their own territories.

A feminist economy provides an alternative society built on the recognition and reorganisation of house and care work, the centrality of the sustainability of life, interdependence and ecodependence.

Join the fight for system change with gender justice at its heart.

Want to see more? Watch the second film.