In celebration of International Women’s Day (8th March) 2021, Socialist Alternative held the Bread & Roses Festival on Sunday 7th of March, a full day of political discussion. We had an excellent turn out with over 70 people attending each session and over 100 in total throughout the day!
We kicked everything off with the insightful session ‘Revolutionary Women’. The conversation centered around historical revolutionaries, such as Eleanor Marx, Sylvia Pankhurst and Clara Zetkin, and everyday working women who fought for better working conditions in their time. Authors Rachel Holmes (Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel, Eleanor Marx: A Life) and Louise Raw (Striking a Light: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and Their Place in History) lead off the discussion of these historical women, their revolutionary roles in the struggle, and their accomplishments that are too often left out of our history books or overshadowed by bourgeois feminists.
Our second session, methods of women’s struggle focused on how to fight against sexism effectively and the role women have in the struggle for equality today. Yaara, the co-founder of Tel Aviv Slutwalk and member of Socialist Alternative spoke along with Anja, from ROSA and International Socialist Alternative in Belgium, spearheaded the session touching on the double oppression working class women face in our society and the different ways women, from students to frontline workers, all around the world are organising to fight against the repressive system that is capitalism. We had many women come in and talk of their experiences and views on how we can build a strong, socialist, feminist movement!
“We fight for bread, but we fight for roses too!” International solidarity rally was the final session of our jam packed Bread & Roses Festival and saw women speaking from all over the world! We were joined by amazing contributors such as Ferron Pedro from South Africa, Ginger Jentzen from the US, Devi Cerenil from Mexico, Tiphane Soyez from Poland, and Ruth Coppinger from the Socialist Party and ROSA feminist movent in Ireland. These fantastic women gave contributions to inspire, fueling all attending with the fire to fight, reminding us that the fight for women’s rights is an international struggle, a socialist struggle.
A big thanks to all who attended, our inspiring speakers, and to the organisers for putting on the best event of the year (so far)! Socialist feminism for the win!
