• Monthly Review
  • Monthly Review Press
  • Climate & Capitalism
  • Money on the Left
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Mastadon
MR Online
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact/Submission
  • Browse
    • Recent Articles Archive
    • by Subject
      • Ecology
      • Education
      • Imperialism
      • Inequality
      • Labor
      • Literature
      • Marxism
      • Movements
      • Philosophy
      • Political Economy
    • by Region
      • Africa
      • Americas
      • Asia
      • Australasia
      • Europe
      • Global
      • Middle East
    • by Category
      • Art
      • Commentary
      • Interview
      • Letter
      • News
      • Newswire
  • Monthly Review Essays
 | Junaina Muhammed India  Young Socialist Artists A woman working in the korai fields where women often work from a young age to earn a living | MR Online Junaina Muhammed (India) / Young Socialist Artists, A woman working in the korai fields, where women often work from a young age to earn a living.

Women hold up more than half the sky: The Forty-First Newsletter (2021)

By Vijay Prashad (Posted Oct 15, 2021)

Originally published: Women hold up more than half the sky: The Forty-First Newsletter (2021) on October 14, 2021 (more by Women hold up more than half the sky: The Forty-First Newsletter (2021))
Culture, Feminism, Human Rights, LaborNewswireTricontinental Newsletter

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Reminder: Indian peasants and agricultural workers remain in the midst of a country-wide agitation sparked by the proposal of three farm bills that were then signed into law by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party government in September 2020. In June 2021, our dossier summarised the situation plainly:

It is clear that the problem in Indian agriculture is not too much institutional support, but inadequate and uneven deployment of institutions as well as the unwillingness of these institutions to address the inherent inequalities of village society. There is no evidence that agribusiness firms will develop infrastructure, enhance agricultural markets, or provide technical support to farmers. All this is clear to the farmers.

Karuna Pious P India  Young Socialist Artists Brick work locally known as pakka me kaam

Karuna Pious P (India) / Young Socialist Artists, Brick work, locally known as pakka me kaam.

The farmers’ protests, which began in October 2020, are a sign of the clarity with which farmers have reacted to the agrarian crisis and to the three laws that will only deepen the crisis. No attempt by the government–including trying to incite farmers along religious lines–has succeeded in breaking the farmers’ unity. There is a new generation that has learned to resist, and they are prepared to take their fight across India.

In January 2021, the Supreme Court of India heard a series of petitions about the farmers’ protests. Chief Justice S. A. Bobde reacted to them with the following startling observation: ‘We don’t understand either why old people and women are kept in the protests’. The word ‘kept’ rankles. Did the Chief Justice believe that women are not farmers and that women farmers do not come to the protests of their own volition? That is the implication behind his remark.

A quick look at a recent labour force survey shows that 73.2% of women workers who live in rural areas work in agriculture; they are peasants, agricultural workers, and artisans. Meanwhile, only 55% of male workers who live in rural areas are engaged in agriculture. It is telling that only 12.8% of women farmers own land, which is an illustration of the gender inequality in India and is what likely provoked the Chief Justice’s sexist remark.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation pointed out a decade ago that ‘Closing the gender gap in agricultural inputs alone could lift 100-150 million people out of hunger’. Given the immense problem of hunger in our time–as highlighted in last week’s newsletter–women in agriculture must be, as the FAO notes, ‘heard as equal partners’.

Daniela Ruggeri Argentina  Tricontinental Institute for Social Research Childcare workers protest the Modi governments unfair treatment of women and workers

Daniela Ruggeri (Argentina) / Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Childcare workers protest the Modi government’s unfair treatment of women and workers.

From Tricontinental Research Services (Delhi) comes a superb new dossier on the status of women in India, Indian Women on an Arduous Road to Equality (no. 45, October 2021). The text opens with an image of five women working at a brick kiln. When I saw that drawing, I was transported to a calculation made by Brinda Karat, a leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), about the labour of women construction workers. Bina, a young woman working in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand, carries between 1,500 and 2,000 bricks to masons in a multi-story building. Bina carries at least 3,000kgs of bricks every day, each weighing 2.5kgs, yet she earns a pittance of under ₹150 ($2) per day and suffers from severe body aches. ‘The pain has become an intrinsic part of my life. I don’t remember a single day without it’, Bina told Karat.

Reminder: Women in India have been an integral part of the farmers’ movement, the workers’ movement, and the movement to widen democracy. Does this need to be said? It seems that something so evident requires constant repetition.

During this pandemic, women public health workers and women childcare workers have played a central role in holding together society, all while being disparaged and having their work trivialised. On 24 September 2021, ten million scheme workers–those who work for government schemes such as public health (Accredited Social Health Activist or ASHA workers) and crèches (anganwadi workers)–went on strike to demand formal employment and better protection for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘Tax the super-rich’, they said, repeal the farm bills, stop the privatisation of the public sector, and defend women workers.

Over the past few years, ASHA workers have complained about routine harassment, including sexual harassment. In 2013, the Indian government enacted the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act to protect both formal and informal workers. No rules have been framed for ASHA and other scheme workers, nor are these workers able to lift up their experiences of harassment to the front pages of corporate media.

Vikas Thakur India  Tricontinental Institute for Social Research A cycling training camp in Pudukkottai Tamil Nadu

Vikas Thakur (India) / Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, A cycling training camp in Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu.

Our dossier carefully dissects the prevalence of patriarchal harassment and violence, making sure to identify the different ways that such toxic behaviours strike at women of different classes. Working-class women in unions and in left organisations have built a kind of mass sensibility; as a result, their struggles now incorporate demands against patriarchy that had otherwise been distant from their lives. For instance, it is now clear amongst many working-class women that they must win maternity leave, equal wages for equal work, guaranteed crèches, and redressal and prevention mechanisms against sexual harassment in workplaces. Such demands cascade back into the family and community, where other struggles–such as against patriarchal violence in the home–expand the horizon of democratic movements in India.

The dossier closes with wise words about the importance of the farmers’ movement for the women’s movement:

Though the Indian women’s movement has seen many ups and downs over the decades, it has remained resilient, adapted to changing socioeconomic conditions, and even expanded. The current situation might present an opportunity to strengthen mass movements and to steer the focus towards the rights and livelihoods of women and workers. The ongoing Indian farmers’ movement, which started before the pandemic and continues to stay strong, offers the opportunity to steer the national discourse towards such an agenda. The tremendous participation of rural women, who travelled from different states to take turns sitting at the borders of the national capital for days, is a historic phenomenon. Their presence in the farmers’ movement provides hope for the women’s movement in a post-pandemic future.

Ingrid Neves Brazil  Tricontinental Institute for Social Research A seaweed harvester facing the rough seas

Ingrid Neves (Brazil) / Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, A seaweed harvester facing the rough seas.

Reminder: Nothing in the slogans coming from the farmers’ encampments is unique. Most of these are long-standing claims. The demands made by women farmers at the protest sites and amplified by the farmers’ unions echo the Draft National Policy for Women in Agriculture put forward by the National Commission for Women in April 2008. This policy included the following key demands, each one applicable today:

  1. Ensure that women have access to and control over resources, including land rights, water, and pasture/forest/biodiversity resources.
  2. Guarantee equal wages for equal work.
  3. Pay minimum support prices to primary producers and ensure that sufficient food grains are available at affordable prices.
  4. Encourage women to enter agriculture-related industries (including fisheries and artisanal work).
  5. Provide training programmes for women including agricultural practices and technologies that are sensitive to the knowledge that women possess as well as the practices they carry out.
  6. Provide adequate and equal availability of services such as irrigation, credit, and insurance.
  7. Encourage primary producers to produce and market seeds, forest and dairy products, and livestock.
  8. Prevent women’s livelihoods from being displaced without providing viable alternatives.

The left women’s movement has put these demands back on the table. The right-wing government will not hear them.

Once more, our dossier comes to you designed with great care and love. This time, our team has worked closely with the Young Socialist Artists (India). Together, we found powerful photographs from the history of the Indian women’s movement and from the farmers’ protests and used these as references for the illustrations in the dossier. We look forward to inviting you to an online exhibition of this art, our small gesture towards expanding a possible pathway to a socialist future.

Warmly,

Vijay

Monthly Review does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished at MR Online. Our goal is to share a variety of left perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or useful. —Eds.

About Vijay Prashad

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power.
Tricontinental Newsletter
How capitalism shackles the fight against climate change
The Opposition “Emocracy” Exposed: Kerala’s Landmark Left Victory
  • Also by Vijay Prashad

    • The Global North lives off intellectual rents: The Twenty-Sixth Newsletter (2025) by Vijay Prashad June 27, 2025
    • Despite the pain in the World, socialism is not a distant Utopia: The Twenty-Fifth Newsletter (2025) by Vijay Prashad June 20, 2025
    • The people want peace and progress, not war and waste: The Twenty-Fourth Newsletter (2025) by Vijay Prashad June 13, 2025
    • Hundreds of millions are dying of hunger: The Twenty-Second Newsletter (2025) by Vijay Prashad May 30, 2025
  • Also By Vijay Prashad in Monthly Review Magazine

    • The Actuality of Red Africa June 01, 2024
    • Africa Is on the Move May 01, 2022
    • Preface January 01, 2022
    • Introduction January 01, 2022
    • Quid Pro Quo? October 01, 2011
    • Reclaim the Neighborhood, Change the World December 01, 2007
    • Kathy Kelly’s Chispa December 01, 2005

    Books By Vijay Prashad

    • Washington’s New Cold War: A Socialist Perspective November 15, 2022
    • Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations September 16, 2020

    Monthly Review Essays

    • The Migrant Genocide: Toward a Third World Analysis of European Class Struggle
      Iker Suarez  | A banner at a memorial rally for victims of the 2014 massacre of migrants at Tarajal 2021 | MR Online

      Over 10,000 people died in transit to Spain in 2024 alone.[1] On June 2022, the border fence of Melilla, one of two Spanish enclaves in Morocco, was witness to a massacre that killed or disappeared over a hundred African migrants.[2]  A recent BBC investigation revealed that Greek border guards systematically repeal immigrants already on Greek […]

    Lost & Found

    • Strike at the Helm: The First Ministerial Meeting of the New Cycle of the Bolivarian Revolution
      Hugo Chávez  | Mural of Chávez in Caracas Univision | MR Online

      On October 7th, 2012, after hearing of his victory as the nation‘s candidate with 56 percent of the vote, President Hugo Chávez Frias announced from a balcony in his hometown that a new cycle was beginning the very next day, October 8th.

    Trending

    • The Tactical Failure of Israel/U.S. Attacks on Iran
      The tactical failure of Israel/U.S. attacks on Iran is leading both to a strategic disaster
    • Surveillance
      The United surveillance States of America
    • Paul Sweezy
      Harvard. Renewal of Faculty Instructorship. Case of Paul Sweezy, 1940
    • An East Asian man writes on a white board. To his right is a text bubble on the board that reads, in all capitals, "MACHINES WILL NEVER THINK AS HUMANS CAN."
      No, You Aren’t Hallucinating, the Corporate Plan for AI Is Dangerous
    • A 2010 advertisement for Blender, a concept store, created by advertising agency Rafineri
      The everyday horror of modern sexism
    • Brinda Karat in Sandeshkhali, West Bengal, 2015
      Intellectuals and neo-fascism
    • Grocery (Photo: Bruce Dupree)
      Is it time for a public option for groceries?
    • The Grim Arithmetic of 377, 000 Missing Palestinians
      The grim arithmetic of 377, 000 missing Palestinians
    • The Global North Lives Off Intellectual Rents
      The Global North lives off intellectual rents: The Twenty-Sixth Newsletter (2025)
    • Karl Marx in America by Andrew Hartman. University of Chicago Press, 2025. 600 pages.
      Marx: The Fourth Boom

    Popular (last 30 days)

    • Airbus A330-243F cargo aircraft
      Russian and Chinese Military cargo planes shuttling weapons, missiles, supplies into Iran
    • Trump
      Mainstream media ignore Trump’s planned Office of Remigration, a term for ethnic cleansing
    • AP Photo / IRNA/ Mostafa Qotbi
      Iran now first line of defense of BRICS and the Global South
    • Plutonian Mac: December 2017
      Official: U.S.-Israeli deception gave Iran false security ahead of attack
    • New Pan-African Path
      Forging a new Pan-African path: Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, and the Land of the Upright People
    • Natanz, Iran
      Exclusive: Iran given advance notice as U.S. insisted attack on nuclear sites is ‘one-off’
    • Figure 2 – Credit: Matt Kenard / Declassified 2023
      The urgency of abolishing Britain’s colonial bases in Cyprus
    • A black and white photograph of Paulo Freire later in life. Freire is bald, bearded, and wears large eyeglasses.
      Pedagogy and Class Power: Reclaiming Freire in an Age of Reaction
    • A building damaged in an Israeli strike on Tehran, on 13 June 2025 (Atta Kenner/AFP)
      Exclusive: U.S. quietly sent hundreds of Hellfire missiles to Israel before Iran attack
    • Activist Greta Thunberg stands near the stage during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Mannheim, Germany, on Dec. 6, 2024. Uwe Anspach | AP
      From media darling to persona non grata: Greta Thunberg’s journey

    RSS MR Press News

    • EXCERPT: Colonial dreams, racist nightmares, liberated futures (from the introduction to A Land With A People) June 13, 2025
    • The legacy of a Sardinian original (Roses for Gramsci reviewed in ‘Counterpunch’) June 13, 2025
    • LISTEN: Gramsci’s lasting contributions (Andy Merrifield on ‘Against the Grain’) June 6, 2025
    • Why did Marxism fall into such deep crisis in the West? (Western Marxism reviewed in ‘Socialism and Democracy’) June 5, 2025
    • A remarkable personal journey WATCH: Andy Merrifield, author of Roses for Gramsci, at The Marxist Education Project June 4, 2025

    RSS Climate & Capitalism

    • Can carbon dioxide removal save the climate? June 29, 2025
    • Global heating isn’t just getting worse. It is getting worse faster. June 19, 2025
    • Ecosocialist Bookshelf, June 2025 June 17, 2025
    • 1.5 is dead: How hot will the Earth get? June 5, 2025
    • Carbon capture company emits more than it captures June 3, 2025

     

    RSS Monthly Review

    • June 2025 (Volume 77, Number 2) June 1, 2025 The Editors
    • The Trump Doctrine and the New MAGA Imperialism June 1, 2025 John Bellamy Foster
    • The War in Ukraine—A History: How the U.S. Exploited Fractures in the Post-Soviet Order June 1, 2025 Thomas I. Palley
    • Big Pharma and Monopoly Capital: Four Dynamics in the Decline of Innovation June 1, 2025 Jia Liu
    • What’s going on June 1, 2025 Marge Piercy

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
    Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

    Creative Commons License

    Monthly Review Foundation
    134 W 29TH ST STE 706
    New York NY 10001-5304

    Tel: 212-691-2555