Author: Frieda Afary

Interview With a Russian Anti-War Feminist About Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine

Below is the audio link to my interview with Ella Rossman, a feminist from Russia, a member of the coordinating group of Feminist Anti-War Resistance and a doctoral student at the University College London, who writes about gender and Soviet history.  She talks about the feminist anti-war solidarity with the resistance of Ukrainian people against Putin’s invasion,  and the needed global solidarity to oppose misogyny, racism, capitalist authoritarianism.

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Interview with a Ukrainian Socialist Feminist

 

Below is the audio link to my interview with Oksana Dutchak, a Ukrainian sociologist and co-editor of Commons, a journal published inside Ukraine.  She talks about the courageous popular resistance to Putin’s brutal invasion,  as well as  the needed solidarity with regional and global struggles against  authoritarianism, racism and misogyny.

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Putin’s War on Ukraine, Syria & the #Me Too Movement

We cannot let the Syria scenario continue in Ukraine.   Given the direct connection which Putin himself has drawn between his invasion of Ukraine and his support of rape and misogyny, it is incumbent upon global feminist activists who are opposed to gender violence to stand up and speak out against this invasion.

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Afghanistan and Its Challenge to Feminism

In this article I take up the ways in which feminists of various political orientations have responded to the plight of women in Afghanistan.   I argue that it  is critically important not to separate opposition to U.S. imperialism from opposition to the Taliban and solidarity with Afghan women, oppressed minorities, and refugees. Any talk of legitimizing the Taliban as the so-called “will of the Afghan people” should be rejected. If we allow for the legitimization of the Taliban government, we have betrayed Afghan women and we have emboldened the extreme-right racists and misogynists around the world, like those taking away voting rights and abortion rights in the United States. Instead we need to give voice to Afghan women who oppose the Taliban.   We also need to develop principled socialist feminist solidarity.

This article will appear in the Winter 2022 issue of New Politics.  https://newpol.org/afghanistan-and-its-challenge-to-feminism/

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