Selma James | |
|---|---|
 James in 2012 | |
| Born | Selma Deitch (1930-08-15)August 15, 1930 (age 95) New York City, US |
| Other names | Selma Weinstein |
| Occupation(s) | Writer,activist |
| Years active | 1952–present |
| Known for | Co-founder ofInternational Wages for Housework Campaign |
| Notable work | The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community (1972); Sex, Race and Class (1974) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 son |
| Website | globalwomenstrike |
Selma James (bornSelma Deitch; formerlyWeinstein; August 15, 1930) is an Americanwriter,feminist, and socialactivist who is co-author of thewomen's movement bookThe Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community (withMariarosa Dalla Costa), co-founder of theInternational Wages for Housework Campaign, and coordinator of theGlobal Women's Strike.[1]
Deitch[2] was born in theBrownsville neighborhood ofBrooklyn, New York, in 1930.[3] She was raised in aJewish household[4] and her father was a truck driver while her mother had been a factory worker prior to having children.[3] As a young woman, Selma worked in factories, and then as a full-time housewife and mother to her son,[5] Sam, with whose father, a fellow factory worker, she was in a short-lived marriage.[2] At the age of 15, she had joined theJohnson–Forest Tendency, one of whose three leaders wasC. L. R. James, and she began to attend his classes on slavery and the American civil war.[2]
In 1952, she wrote the bookA Woman's Place,[6] first published as a column inCorrespondence, a bi-weekly newspaper written and edited by its readers with an audience of mainly working-class people.[7] Unusual at the time, the newspaper had pages dedicated to giving women, young people andBlack people an autonomous voice.[8] She was a regular columnist and edited theWomen's Page. In 1955, she came toEngland to marryC. L. R. James, who had been deported from theUnited States during theMcCarthy period. They were together for 25 years, and were close political colleagues.[9]
From 1958 to 1962, she lived inTrinidad and Tobago, where, with her husband, she was active in the movement for West Indian independence andfederation.[10] Returning to Britain after independence, she became the first organising secretary of theCampaign Against Racial Discrimination in 1965, and a founding member of the Black Regional Action Movement and editor of its journal in 1969.[11]
In January 1971, James made aBBC Radio broadcast in the seriesPeople for Tomorrow – using her own experience of working in low-paid jobs and being a mother and housewife, as well as interviews with full-time housewives, and other females working outside the home while still doing most of the household chores – to explore the exploitation of women in society in general.[12] In 1972, the publicationThe Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community (authored withMariarosa Dalla Costa) launched the "domestic labour debate" by spelling out how housework and other caring work women do outside of the market produces the whole working class, thus the market economy, based on those workers, is built on women's unwaged work.[citation needed]
That same year, James founded the InternationalWages for Housework (WFH) campaign, which demands money from the State for the unwaged work in the home and in the community.[13] A raging debate followed about whether caring full-time was "work" or a "role" — and whether it should be compensated with a wage. James's 1972 paperWomen, the Unions and Work was presented at the National Conference of Women on March 25–26, 1972.[14] In a 2002 interview withBBC News 24 she stated that housework counted for "basic work in society", that women are entitled to a wage, and said: "We also want the acknowledgement from society that the work we are doing is fundamental and important."[15] Housework counted for "basic work in society", she added.[15]
James was the first spokeswoman of theEnglish Collective of Prostitutes,[16] which campaigns for decriminalisation as well as viable economic alternatives to prostitution. The 1983 publication of James'sMarx and Feminism broke with establishedMarxist theory by providing a reading ofMarx'sCapital from the point of view of women and of unwaged work.[17]
Beginning in 1985, she co-ordinated the International Women Count Network, which won theUN decision where governments agreed to measure and value unwaged work in national statistics.[18] Legislation on this has since been introduced inTrinidad and Tobago andSpain, and time-use surveys and other research are under way in many countries. InVenezuela, Article 88 of the Constitution recognises work in the home as an economic activity that creates added value and produces wealth and social welfare, and entitles housewives to social security.[citation needed]
James lectures in the UK, the US, and other countries on a wide range of topics, including "Sex, Race, & Class",[19] "What the Marxists Never Told Us About Marx", "The Internationalist Jewish Tradition", "Rediscovering Nyerere's Tanzania", "CLR James as a political organizer", and "Jean Rhys: Jumping to Tia".[20]
Since 2000, James has been international coordinator of theGlobal Women's Strike, a network of grassroots women, bringing together actions and initiatives in many countries. The strike demands that society "Invest in Caring Not Killing", and that military budgets be returned to the community starting with women. She has been working with theVenezuelan Revolution since 2002.[21] She is a founder of the Crossroads Women's Centre, begun under the WFH auspices in 1975[22] in a red-light district near London'sEuston railway station and now located inKentish Town,[1][2][23] and is general editor of Crossroads Books.
In April 2008, James visitedEdinburgh (along with Edinburgh-based couple Ralph and Noreen Ibbott, both members of the Britain Tanzania Society in the 1960s) on the anniversary ofTanzania Muungano Day, which falls on April 26. James gave a talk in a session hosted by the Tanzania Edinburgh Community Association (TzECA) onJulius Nyerere'sUjamaa (African socialism) in the 1960s inTanzania with reference to the subject of Ruvuma Development Association (RDA),[24] and the TanzaniaArusha Declaration. RDA traces its roots to the original Ruvuma Development Association (RDA), which was registered in the early 1960s when, encouraged byJulius Nyerere the first President of Tanzania, following Independence a number of communal villages joined together and organised themselves into what became known as the Ujamaa villages. The driving force behind the Association was Ntimbanjayo Millinga, who was the secretary of the local branch of theTanzanian African National Union Youth League, and he was supported by Ralph Ibbott, an English quantity surveyor who acted as an advisor and agreed to live and work with his family in the village ofLitowa. The session took place at the "Waverley Care Solas" Abbey Mount.[citation needed]
In July 2015, James endorsedJeremy Corbyn'scampaign in theLabour Party leadership election.[25]
James is a founder member of theInternational Jewish Anti-Zionist Network[1] and, in May 2008, signed the Letter of British Jews on 60th anniversary of Israel published inThe Guardian, explaining why she would not celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary.[26] In August 2015, she was a signatory to a letter criticisingThe Jewish Chronicle's reporting of Jeremy Corbyn's association with allegedantisemites.[27]
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James appeared briefly inSir Steve McQueen's 2020 retelling of theMangrove Nine trial, entitledMangrove, which formed part of McQueen'sSmall Axe strand.[29] James was portrayed by actressJodhi May, withDerek Griffiths featuring as C. L. R. James.[30]
James was a participant inHow the Mangrove Nine Won, an hour-long film launched in 2020 giving first-hand accounts of the Mangrove Nine trial, also featuringIan Macdonald andAltheia Jones-LeCointe.[31]
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