Feminist Antifascism

Feminism as the bulwark against fascism In this exciting, innovative work, Polish feminist philosopher Ewa Majewska proposes a specifically feminist politics of antifascism. Mixing theoretical discussion with engaging reflections on personal experiences, Majewska proposes what she calls “counterpublics of the common” and “weak resistance,” offering an alternative to heroic forms of subjectivity produced by neoliberal capitalism and contemporary fascism.

An intergenerational dialogue on the meaning of feminist antifascism. Anti-Fascism Against Machismo collects & continues a conversation begun by Tammy Kovich (as "Petronella Lee") in 2019. Four feminist, antifascist revolutionaries jump off from each other's reflections & bring the particularities of their varied contexts to bear on one central problem: What has & will a women's war against fascism look like? Kovich kicks things off with a probing look at the central importance of gender to fascism, & its particular formulations in today's far right. She continues by examining the historic role of women as partisans in three antifascist wars of the 1930s & 40s-Ethiopia, Spain, & Yugoslavia-contrasting this with the restrictive image of "antifa" as a young, Euro man of a particular subcultural aesthetic & antifascist activity as not much broader than street fights. Finally, she builds on this to propose what an antifascism that takes a fight against patriarchal domination-on the right & the left-seriously. Butch Lee, a white woman who worked in support of Black revolutionary movements & who sought to elaborate a vision of what a women's revolutionary movement must be, responded to Kovich's zine a few months later. The 80-year-old Amazon theorist brings her life of experience & study to bolster Kovich's main points, while asking questions about some limits she sees in the work. From 1950s white, small town New Jersey to the civil rights struggle in Southside Chicago, refugees from Tsarist pogroms to the fighters of the Black Liberation Army, Lee's most autobiographical public writing-the last before her death in 2021-questions Kovich's framing of antifascism as a limited struggle that must expand to meet the needs of a properly revolutionary politics. While Kovich's work focuses on the position of revolutionary women, stuck between misogynist fascists & macho antifascism, Butch Lee reframes the discussion around the position of white women: the reproducers of the "white race," colonized for the role, yet so often participants, willing collaborators in the extension & preservation of white supremacy. Lee asks what it means to see today's fascists as transcending their previous role as fringe cosplayers, now becoming something more intractable & more deeply rooted in the changes occurring in global patriarchal capitalism. Veronica L. then offered her own contribution, advancing the conversation by seeing the ways in which the analyses of fascism offered by Lee & Kovich each illuminated different aspects of what they all see as profoundly inter-related phenomena. She also applies the earlier works to her own experiences as a white woman organizing without cis men & to the new context made by the experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic & the mass antiracist & anticolonial reverberations of #ShutDownCanada & the George Floyd rebellion, which had each reshaped the political context since Kovich & Lee's 2019 writings. The book also features a new introduction by El Jones, which continues & frames the discussion through her own experiences as a Black antifascist, antiracist, abolitionist organizer & educator on occupied Mi'kmaq land on Canada's east coast. In these times of rising instability, fracturing identities, & a resultant rise in challenges to & defences of white supremacist patriarchy, Antifascism Against Machismo makes a powerful contribution to the understanding needed for a revolutionary resistance at the same time as it offers a model for political discussion. Women building revolutionary theory together, between different contexts, across borders & generations, & beyond the stale fences of political sects.

Feminism as the bulwark against fascism In this exciting, innovative work, Polish feminist philosopher Ewa Majewska proposes a specifically feminist politics of antifascism. Mixing theoretical discussion with engaging reflections on personal experiences, Majewska proposes what she calls “counterpublics of the common” and “weak resistance,” offering an alternative to heroic forms of subjectivity produced by neoliberal capitalism and contemporary fascism.

Bringing together leading scholars from a range of nations, Rethinking Antifascism provides a fascinating exploration of one of the most vibrant sub-disciplines within recent historiography. Through case studies that exemplify the field’s breadth and sophistication, it examines antifascism in two distinct realms: after surveying the movement’s remarkable diversity across nations and political cultures up to 1945, the volume assesses its postwar political and ideological salience, from its incorporation into Soviet state doctrine to its radical questioning by historians and politicians. Avoiding both heroic narratives and reflexive revisionism, these contributions offer nuanced perspectives on a movement that helped to shape the postwar world.

Anti-Fascism, Gender, and International Communism provides a comprehensive history of the Comite mondial des femmes contre la guerre et le fascisme (CMF), an international women’s organisation concerned with confronting the impact of fascism on women and children across the globe. Women played an essential role in the international struggle against fascism during the interwar period, although a focus on the efforts of men and political figures by the historiography has largely overshadowed women’s interventions against right-wing dictatorships. Through an examination of the committee’s key figures, strategies, connections, and campaigns, this book offers a significant contribution to the histories of both women’s activism and anti-fascist activism by positioning the CMF as an important contributor to international political advocacy in the interwar period. Further, the group’s association with international communism and the burgeoning Popular Front movement placed the CMF at the forefront of global debates about the threat posed by fascism and imperialism. This book explores how the professional women activists and the working-class women who populated the organisation developed a committee which advocated for women on a global scale. It charts how the CMF utilised a variety of physical spaces and literary formats to co-ordinate anti-fascist actions through its expansive and ambitious campaigns. The author also demonstrates the close connections between the Communist International and the CMF as a communist front organisation, to provide context for the group’s decision-making and prioritisation of certain campaigns over others. This book will be of interest to scholars of anti-fascism, feminism, women’s history, communism, activism, internationalism, anti-imperialism, and French history.

Since the birth of fascism in the 1920s, well before the global renaissance of "white nationalism," the United States has been home to its own distinct fascist movements, some of which decisively influenced the course of U.S. history. Yet long before "antifa" became a household word in the United States, they were met, time and again, by an equally deep antifascist current. Many on the left are unaware that the United States has a rich antifascist tradition, because it has rarely been discussed as such, nor has it been accessible in one place. This reader reconstructs the history of U.S. antifascism into the twenty-first century, showing how generations of writers, organizers, and fighters spoke to each other over time. Spanning the 1930s to the present, this chronologically-arranged, primary source reader is made up of antifascist writings by Americans and by exiles in the U.S. - some instantly recognizable, others long-forgotten. It also includes a sampling of influential writings from the U.S. fascist, white nationalist, and proto-fascist traditions. Its contents, mostly written by people embedded in antifascist movements, include a number of pieces produced abroad that deeply influenced the U.S. left. The collection thus places U.S. antifascism in a global context.

This volume examines the varieties of anti-fascism in inter-war Britain. Ordinarily anti-fascism is defined in terms of anti-fascist activism. By extending the scope of the concept, this book breaks new ground. Chapters examine political parties, the state, the media, women, the churches, and intellectuals.

A History of the Women’s Antifascism Movement in Argentina that Contains Lessons for Opposing Fascism Today Argentine women’s long resistance to extreme rightists, tyranny, and militarism culminated in the Junta de la Victoria, or Victory Board, a group that organized in the aftermath of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in defiance of the neutralist and Axis-leaning government in Argentina. A sewing and knitting group that provided garments and supplies for the Allied armies in World War II, the Junta de la Victoria was a politically minded association that mobilized women in the fight against fascism. Without explicitly characterizing itself as feminist, the organization promoted women’s political rights and visibility and attracted forty-five thousand members. The Junta ushered diverse constituencies of Argentine women into political involvement in an unprecedented experiment in pluralism, coalition-building, and political struggle. Sandra McGee Deutsch uses this internationally minded but local group to examine larger questions surrounding the global conflict between democracy and fascism.