Warp Yarns: Consistent Characteristics of Feminist Movements
“The patriarchy, racism, colonialism and neoliberalism coexist, fuse and mutually strengthen themselves, structuring and intensifying inequalities that express themselves in the continuum of violence that affects poor, feminized and racialized bodies”
Multiple forms of violence
Across all countries, feminist movements are simultaneously tackling multiple, interconnected forms of violence, discrimination and oppression, applying an intersectional lens to their work. First, they are addressing multiple forms of interpersonal violence, including intimate partner violence, sexual violence and harassment. In addition, they face political violence, cyber violence, police violence and more.
In Nicaragua, for example, members of the feminist movement are facing mass political imprisonment. In South Africa, the feminist movement was directly aligned with the anti-apartheid movement. In India, feminist movements occupy the political space and stand at the frontlines of democratic struggles. And in Australia, we see alignment with Indigenous rights movements, anti-racism campaigns and police brutality.
Indigenous women are arguably erased from both Indigenous rights movements and women's rights movements. Ye, they are at the forefront of both, claiming space. They are shaping the national conversation: a senate inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, a separate national plan to end violence against Indigenous women and children, and a landmark coronial inquest and resulting report/recommendations to address violence against Aboriginal women in Australia's Northern Territory. Indigenous women still find themselves excluded from policy spaces (evident in a recent government announcement of an 'expert panel' to look how to prevent VAWC that included NO Indigenous women) but draw upon collective power of movements and advocacy to speak back to white patriarchal colonial systems and structures that seek to marginalise and erase them.