Socialist Feminist

Link:
Outreach Kit for SB 245
(Abortion Accessibility Act) 

The Socialist Feminist Working group was chartered on 2019-05-28.

The Socialist Feminist Working Group recognizes that the concerns of women, transgender, femme, and nonbinary people intersect with those of other groups including BIPOC comrades, people with disabilities, the LGBTQIA+ communities, and more. The Socialist Feminist Working Group operates from an intersectional feminist perspective and is committed to fighting for the liberation of all.

Charter

As members of Silicon Valley DSA, we propose the creation of a

  1. Socialist Feminist Working Group
  2. Which would report to the Silicon Valley DSA chapter
  3. Which would have the following objectives:
    • Create a space for women, transgender, femme, and non-binary comrades to come together in typically male-dominated leftist spaces.
    • Establish socialist feminist solidarity among comrades and community members to amplify women, transgender, femme, and non-binary voices in socialism.
    • Host and promote events that accomplish any of the aforementioned goals
    • Challenge all forms of oppression through a lens of gender equity in society as well as in our own socialist organizing spaces.
  5. Initial strategy
    • Create consistent and inclusive spaces for women, transgender, femme, and non-binary comrades to organize around issues caused by the detrimental impacts of capitalism, racism, misogyny, hatred of the queer community, and more.
    • Hold meetings for community members and members of Silicon Valley DSA.  
    • Build coalitions with other groups whose interests overlap with those of this working group including other working groups inside Silicon Valley DSA and other community groups. 
    • Educate ourselves and others, and take political action in areas where women, transgender, femme, and non-binary people are specifically hurt under capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and colonialism.
    • Hold campaigns to fund and create Period Packs for those that menstruate. 
    • Promote legislation that advances gender equity and challenges all forms of oppression, such as legislation that decriminalizes sex work and creates a safer work environment for sex workers, promotes reproductive justice, or advances the right of survivors of gender-based violence. 
  6. Duration
    • Until the objectives are met or the working group feels that it has the momentum and resources to broaden their objectives and/or initial strategies.
  7. Anticipated use of funds
    • We anticipate that we will need no special allotment of funds other than for meeting space and incidental expenses, such as printing.
  8. Membership criteria
    • Because of the historical and cultural oppression of women, transgender, femme, and non-binary individuals, we have created special rules to ensure that our SocFem WG is an empowering space for people of marginalized genders that can actually accomplish the goals above. Many people of marginalized genders find it difficult to participate and speak in meetings where men outnumber them, and also find it difficult to fully participate when men are present. In cases where people of marginalized genders have had to deal with emotional, cultural, physical, sexual dominance or abuse, some will not feel they are free to open up about past experiences or share their opinions in front of men. We feel that we should not completely exclude our feminist male identifying comrades, but there needs to be compromise to make sure we are welcoming to as many women, transgender, femme, and non-binary individuals as possible. In order to empower and amplify the marginalized voices and help cultivate a space where people of marginalized genders feel strong and able to take leadership roles within or outside of the SocFem WG, we enforce the following:
    • At our meetings we will follow progressive stack. 
    • Male identifying are asked to abstain from voting on working group decisions. 
    • We ask that male identifying comrades step back and allow the conversation to be guided by and dominated by non-male identifying voices.
    • We ask that our male identifying comrades volunteer to be of service to our goals and attend as allies.
    • We also reserve the right to convene caucus spaces for women, transgender, femme, and non-binary people to discuss anything that becomes an issue.
    • Leadership will be comprised of only women, transgender, femme, and non-binary people. Male identifying comrades are not allowed to hold leadership seats.