while many, including this writer, are skeptical of the pragmatic significance of often single-issue mass protests, specifically those in the ‘west’, [the ‘arab spring’ protests cannot be lumped in with those of the west], today’s feminist protests are qualitatively a very different animal. they self-consciously, articulately, and loudly link the oppression of women directly to the systemic oppression of capitalism, which of course, means, capital’s oppression of the laboring classes in general. of particularly note: the successful protest of teachers in West Virginia, where 70% of teachers are women, was successful specifically because they defied their own union which encouraged them to settle last weak without achieving their demands. which is to say: the position of men and women in the labor movements and organizations like unions, are far from ‘equal’. sexism reigns in unions as it does everywhere else.

as usual, the only place where these issues are extensively discussed, is on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now program. The first video below offers and account of what took place in Spain.

the second interview on DN today was with Tithi Bhattacharya, associate professor of South Asian history at Purdue University. She is one of the national organizers of the International Women’s Strike in the US.