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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

How has feminism developed? What have feminists achieved? What can we learn from the global history of feminism? Feminism is the ongoing story of a profound historical transformation. Despite being repeatedly written off as a political movement that has achieved its aim of female liberation, it has been continually redefined as new generations of women campaign against the gender inequity of their age. In this absorbing book, historian Lucy Delap challenges the simplistic narrative of 'feminist waves' - a sequence of ever more progressive updates - showing instead that feminists have been motivated by the specific concerns of their historical moment. Drawing on an extraordinary range of examples from Japan to Russia, Egypt to Germany, Delap explores different feminist projects to show that those who are part of this movement have not always agreed on a single programme. This diverse history of feminism, she argues, can help us better navigate current debates and controversies. A tour de force from an award-winning expert, Feminisms shows that a rich relationship to the past can infuse today's activism with a sense possibility and inspiration.

The National Bestseller “Focused and persuasive... Bray’s book is many things: the first English-language transnational history of antifa, a how-to for would-be activists, and a record of advice from anti-Fascist organizers past and present.”—THE NEW YORKER "Insurgent activist movements need spokesmen, intellectuals and apologists, and for the moment Mark Bray is filling in as all three... The book’s most enlightening contribution is on the history of anti-fascist efforts over the past century, but its most relevant for today is its justification for stifling speech and clobbering white supremacists."—Carlos Lozada, THE WASHINGTON POST “[Bray’s] analysis is methodical, and clearly informed by both his historical training and 15 years of organizing, which included Occupy Wall Street…Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook couldn’t have emerged at a more opportune time. Bray’s arguments are incisive and cohesive, and his consistent refusal to back down from principle makes the book a crucial intervention in our political moment.”—SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE In the wake of tragic events in Charlottesville, VA, and Donald Trump's initial refusal to denounce the white nationalists behind it all, the "antifa" opposition movement is suddenly appearing everywhere. But what is it, precisely? And where did it come from? As long as there has been fascism, there has been anti-fascism — also known as “antifa.” Born out of resistance to Mussolini and Hitler in Europe during the 1920s and ’30s, the antifa movement has suddenly burst into the headlines amidst opposition to the Trump administration and the alt-right. They could be seen in news reports, often clad all in black with balaclavas covering their faces, demonstrating at the presidential inauguration, and on California college campuses protesting far-right speakers, and most recently, on the streets of Charlottesville, VA, protecting, among others, a group of ministers including Cornel West from neo-Nazi violence. (West would later tell reporters, "The anti-fascists saved our lives.") Simply, antifa aims to deny fascists the opportunity to promote their oppressive politics, and to protect tolerant communities from acts of violence promulgated by fascists. Critics say shutting down political adversaries is anti-democratic; antifa adherents argue that the horrors of fascism must never be allowed the slightest chance to triumph again. In a smart and gripping investigation, historian and former Occupy Wall Street organizer Mark Bray provides a detailed survey of the full history of anti-fascism from its origins to the present day — the first transnational history of postwar anti-fascism in English. Based on interviews with anti-fascists from around the world, Antifa details the tactics of the movement and the philosophy behind it, offering insight into the growing but little-understood resistance fighting back against fascism in all its guises.