Women and the FI in
Presentation (July 2006 PSOL –Fourth International)
Meeting of the women of FI and the PSOL
I. Introduction
a) Feminism in the workers party: self-organization, affirmative action (quotas, creches, women in power);
b) Organization of women in mixed movements: Unions, the popular movement, and the movement of the church;
c) Emergence of the movement of black women: 1998;
d) Conferences and
councils of women: UN,
e) World March of Women: 1998-1999;
f) World Social Forum in
g) Campaign against the FTAA and against the foreign debt: Church;
h) Brazilian Lesbians’ League: 2004, feminist lesbians;
i) National Women’s Conference: 2004, legalization of abortion, joint manifesto of Black and Indian women;
j) Coordinating committees of women in government: limits and dangers.
II. Brazil: Important
changes, new arrangements
a) Election of Lula: entry into the government (Ministry of Agrarian Reform);
b) Social movements and their relation with the government: WMW, CUT, etc;
c) World March of
Women and the FI in
d) Public policies: instrumentalization of women for their implementation – PRONAF Women (National Agricultural Family Program – Credits so that women can accede on condition that the husband agrees), family credit, PSF (Family Health Program)
e) Feminist work in
Latin America – campaigns for the right to abortion and unitary action with the
feminist movements of
f) Leaving the PT and building the PSOL: Women’s Collective of the PSOL
g) PSOL and the “Enlace” tendency: multiple trajectories and old vices
III. Campaigns
a) Adoption of the draft law on violence against women – the campaign was begun in the 1980s
b) Legalization of abortion
c) Criminalization of social movements: peasant women (MST – against genetically modified organisms /GMOs)
d) Draft law proposed by Heloisa Helena and adopted : Creches (child care centers)
e) Commercialization of the body and the image of women: trafficking of women and young people, prostitution
f) Valorization of the minimum wage
IV. Feminism and Mixed Movements
a) Religions and
Sectors of the Church in
b) Lesbians, young people, and trade unionism
c) Global Justice
Movement. WSF in
V. Perspectives and Proposals
a) for the women’s commission of the FI to function again
b) creation
of women’s commissions on a regional level (Latin America, Asia, Africa,
c) campaigns: abortion, violence, prostitution, anti-racism
d) taking into consideration of the discussions and the struggles of black and immigrant women within feminism, on the level of developing ideas and of struggles