Screaming Violets

Submitted by AWL on 23 June, 2015 - 6:01 Author: Cathy Nugent

Screaming Violets is a new left feminist magazine. It looks good. It has in-depth reports, analysis, interviews and poetry! Hopefully it can expand and grow and be a broad vehicle for anti-capitalist and socialist feminists to promote and discuss ideas.

Where is the magazine coming from? The mission statement by the magazine says the publication is “informed, inspired and influenced by the many insights and truths of intersectional feminism” — feminism which has “raised our collective understanding of how different forms of oppression... intersect with each other.”

The authors say this is significant because “traditional Marxism...” “has either ignored or not paid enough attention to the impact of these systems of oppression within the working class”. I agree... up to point. I think the statement needs elaboration in several ways. Certainly groups like the SWP and the Socialist Party, affected by the Stalinist degradation of Trotskyism, often (not always) have used feminism and ideas about women’s liberation in an instrumental way i.e. the cause of women’s liberation is okay when it suits their organisation.

On the other hand what do we want from our Marxism? Many socialist feminists have had lots to say about that.

I hope the magazine will be a space to discuss issues of theory as well as activism!

Screaming Violets

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