25 September 2026: Convention/Conference : Bread and Roses!

Whether juggling everyday life tasks as a single parent or caring for relatives while on unemployment benefits, whether working to the bone in a hospital or helping to heal the wounds everyday racism inflicts within our communities — much like the violence that is done to our bodies and relationships — we all know: the world does not run on its own. We keep it running. And that is precisely why we are devalued. We are individualized and often even pitted against one another.

However varied our struggles may be, we are all faced with some common questions: who keeps the world going — and under what conditions? Who receives support and who doesn’t? Who has access to and control over whose labour, body, and time?

The hierarchical division of productive and reproductive labour is central to the devaluing of care work and is a load-bearing pillar of capitalism: by encoding care work as “feminine” and relegating it to the private sphere, labour costs are reduced and profits secured. Our labour is exploited in multiple ways, while vitally important common goods are privatized. This is not just about the economy. The binary gendered division of labour also reinforces violent patriarchal, cis-normative, and heteronormative gender relations. This affects FLINTA* people particularly harshly.

Our bodies are sexualized and subjected to racist and binary norms. In the crisis of capitalism, right-wing authoritarians the world over are declaring that there are only two genders, attacking reproductive rights, and attempting to reimpose traditional gender roles. The closing of borders and the relentless persecution of immigrants demonstrates just how far dehumanization has progressed, and that some lives are valued less than others. At the same time, cheap immigrant labour is recruited in attempts to stave off the healthcare crisis.

We know that liberation for all will only be possible if we act together to tackle the various intertwining forms domination takes.

Feminist socialization means challenging this global, gendered, and racist division of labour — and with it the devaluing and oppression of the very people whose labour makes life possible in the first place. We want collective care rather than the burden of care being forced upon the family, public infrastructure rather than neoliberal austerity, and solidarity rather than right-wing divisiveness.

How this might be achieved is what we plan to discuss together at the second Feminist Futures conference:

We are inviting groups and initiatives engaged in struggles around the politics of care work, against patriarchal and sexualised violence and femicide, or for queer and trans liberation, reproductive justice, and diverse ways of life. Come and join us in discussing anti-racist and internationalist perspectives in struggles for freedom of movement and abolition, against war and militarization, and for climate justice.

How can we better link up our various struggles? And what strategies does a queer-feminist and anti-racist movement need in times of rising authoritarianism? Let’s share our experiences, forge alliances, and take concrete steps toward a caring, solidary society.

The conference is free and open to people of all genders. There will be some workshops that are reserved for FLINTA* people. (FLINTA* is an inclusive German acronym for Frauen, Lesben, intergeschlechtliche, nichtbinäre, trans und agender Personen — women, lesbians, intersex, nonbinary, trans, and agender people).

The programme includes the following thematic threads (the workshop titles are TBC):

I. Caring Cities – Toward a socialist-feminist future

Under the rubric of Caring Cities, many feminists the world over are organizing practical initiatives toward a completely different way of living together, in which the care work and those who do it are given pride of place. The concept links the concrete utopia of a caring society with practical initial projects at the municipal level. Feminist socialization here takes on the sense of a twofold de-privatization: that of care work itself, but also of infrastructure and responsibilities. Municipal struggles over care work, childcare, housing, health, common goods, and social infrastructure, but also over the local immigration policies of solidarity cities, are all part of a wide-ranging social transformation. The goal is to no longer conceive of care as the private responsibility of individual, often feminized and racialized people, but as a collective, democratically organized one.

• Introduction: What is wrong with the gendered division of labour?
• Introduction: What does feminist socialization actually mean?
• Caring Cities – International examples show how this can work 
• Feminist municipalism – On the relation between government/administration and social movements
• Making the home into a social space: Rejecting the division between private and public
• Cities for all: What might a city that took children’s rights into account look like?
• How can we turn a shopping mall into a care centre? And what would that look like?
• “Bargaining for the common good” – Striking for the common good?!
• What does socialization mean in the healthcare sector?
• “The production of society” – What does democratic planning mean in the care sector?
• No profiting from aged care
• Infrastructure socialism: The democratic transformation of (care) infrastructure
• How are things going with the feminist strike? How can we work towards a new Feminist International?

II. Socialization meets...

Care work isn’t merely one issue among others. It is the gendered aspect of property relations and it raises fundamental questions: Who has access to and control over whose labour? Who holds the power and who is devalued in this process and how? In conflicts over gender violence, precarization, and social rights, the capitalist hierarchy of production and reproduction has a structurally determining force. Closely linked to this is the global division of labour between North and South: racialized people are the ones who ensure that labour costs remain low. This is likewise accompanied by devaluation and violence. At the conference, we aim to make these links explicit and ask whether and how feminist socialization might provide a framework for shared struggles:

III. Intersectional antifascism

Gender issues are core topics for right-wing movements. How can we understand moral panics and the construction of “internal enemies” as struggles over hegemony? What might queer-feminist and anti-racist resistance look like? And what role can a feminist socialization movement play within left-wing circles in developing an intersectional antifascism?

• Antifascist economic politics and waging culture war from the left – Why and how?
• “The fascization of social reproduction” – What does this mean? And what form is it taking in Europe?
• Feminist socialization as antifascist praxis?
• There are only two genders: fascists and antifascists

In cooperation with the Marie Jahoda Center for International Gender Studies.

Please address any questions to feministfutures@rosalux.org.

Conference updates as well as materials on the topic of “feminist socialization” will be shared on our Telegram channel, which you can join via the following QR code: