Video: Family, Reproductive Justice, and Socialism (in the Time of COVID)
Watch video of the panel here.
The Democratic Socialists of America Fund, Dissent magazine, The New Press, National Women's Liberation, SisterSong, NYC for Abortion Rights, and Lux Magazine hosted part of ongoing series of virtual discussions based on the book We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism—American Style. This month’s discussion focused on Sarah Leonard’s chapter titled: “The Family of the Future.”
Amidst an unprecedented pandemic and in the face of a racist police state, we must chart a new course. In We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism—American Style, leading thinkers and activists come together to examine the democratic socialist history of the United States and how we might achieve a world where every human being is guaranteed a life of safety, health, dignity, and even joy, free from the commodification of basic necessities. The chapters of this timely and urgent volume tackle climate change, foreign policy, gender and the family, healthcare, socialist governance, reparations, and more.
The October 21 was framed by the chapter’s discussion of socialist reproductive justice in relation to policy including childcare, housing, abortion access, and policing; as well as historical practices and policies around “family” in the U.S and extending the idea of what family is and what it's for.
Panelists:
Sarah Leonard is the editor of Lux, a forthcoming socialist feminist magazine. She is a contributing editor to Dissent and The Nation.
Jenny Brown is an organizer with National Women’s Liberation and a former editor at Labor Notes. She is a co-author of the Redstockings book Women’s Liberation and National Health Care: Confronting the Myth of America and author of BIRTH STRIKE: The Hidden Fight Over Women's Work (PM Press, 2019). Her latest book is Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now (Jacobin/Verso, 2019).
Vanessa Nisperos is a social worker and community builder in Brooklyn, NY. Sharing her experience as a single mom of twins, Vanessa is an advocate for community-engaged parent support. She has worked on behalf of local community-based organizations like the Red Hook Initiative and Girls for Gender Equity and she and several families founded an African-centered Vegan homeschool in Flatbush, Brooklyn, before becoming a public school parent.
LaKia Williams is a young Reproductive Justice activist based in the South. She is an aspiring abortion provider and works for SisterSong: The National Women of Color Reproductive Justice Organization as their Digital Organizer, and hosts the podcast Black Feminist Rants.
Sunshine Royanian Ludder is the Program Director for the Democratic Socialists of America Fund, an Iranian-American from Virginia living in New York City, and another struggling parent in the time of 21st-century capitalism and COVID.