Personal and Global: Feminism, Sexual Liberation, and Contemporary Struggles

What do the issues raised in the 1970s by the feminist movement mean for gender struggles today? The legacy of the late 1960s and early 1970s is often simplified and transmitted as a revolutionary, univocal narration, full of male leaders and workers. Yet this panel intends to highlight how sexual liberation and the feminist movement enriched ideas of freedom, starting to speak publicly not just of politics in an abstract sense, but of everyday life. The idea of gendered freedom and liberation of women needs to be discussed frankly, in its limits and co-opted forms.

Video clips from recent Italian films will be shown to connect 1970s feminism in the U.S. and in Europe. This discussion will bring together three generations of scholars and activists from different backgrounds and perspectives; from North America in the 1960s, anti-colonial Marxism in the 1970s, to transnational contemporary perspectives.

Featured Panelists:

Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz - writer, teacher, historian, and social activist - is Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies at California State University, East Bay.

Silvia Federici - scholar, teacher, and activist from the radical autonomist Marxist tradition - professor emerita and Teaching Fellow at Hofstra University.

Paola Bacchetta - Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at University of California at Berkeley and Director of Beatrice Bain Research Group (BBRG), the research center for gender, sexuality and race based on the UC Berkeley campus.

Laura Fantone (moderator and event organizer) - visiting scholar at BBRG, teaches and researches gender and political participation at the University of Padua.

This event is co-sponsored by the BBRG, Beatrice Bain Interdisciplinary Research Group along with the Free Speech Movement Cafe Educational Programs.

Free Food and Drink will be provided

This event is free and open to the public