Press release from National Women’s Liberation:
Feminist author Jenny Brown will talk about her widely-praised new book, Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight Over Women’s Work, on Tuesday, May 7, at 6pm at Firestorm Books & Coffee, 610 Haywood Rd., in Asheville. Brown is a National Women’s Liberation organizer and former editor of Labor Notes Magazine. She was a leader in the grassroots campaign to make morning-after pill contraception available over the counter in the U.S. and was a plaintiff in the winning lawsuit. The event is co-sponsored by the Carolina Abortion Fund.
When: Tuesday, May 7, 6:00 pm.
Where: Firestorm Books & Coffee, 610 Haywood Rd, Asheville
The birth rate is plunging in the U.S.: It’s a spontaneous birth strike! In other countries, panic over low birth rates has led governments to underwrite childbearing and childrearing with generous universal programs, but in the U.S., women have not yet realized the potential of our bargaining position. When we do, it will lead to new strategies for improving the difficult working conditions U.S. parents now face when raising children. The book was released March 1 by PM Press.
Liza Featherstone of The Nation writes, “Jenny Brown compellingly explains the low U.S. birth rate: those primarily responsible for the labor of bearing and raising children (women) are responding as one should to lousy working conditions—by going on strike! Brown’s bold and brilliant book ventures into terrain that left and feminist thinkers have avoided for far too long. A breathtakingly accessible analysis, supported by riveting and intimate testimonials, it’s also an inspiring call to action.”
Loretta J. Ross, author of Reproductive Justice: An Introduction writes, “Birth Strike is a well-researched and wide-ranging analysis of how the public responsibilities of pregnancy and parenting have been privatized to benefit a capitalist for-profit system designed to minimize labor costs to produce wealth for the few. Offers fresh insight into how women’s biological power may be harnessed to resist reproductive oppression.”
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