We aim to make anti-capitalist and grassroots feminism transversal throughout the Friends of the Earth International organisation and work, starting with looking inwards at our own practices, relationships and actions, as well as those outside the federation. This type of ground up feminism, based on an antiracist, anticolonialist, anti-LGBTQ phobic and class perspective, is a political tool to change the system and strengthen struggles against systemic oppression and violence, for rights, equality, and women’s autonomy and that of non-binary people and other social groups. It aims to transform the life of women and all peoples, as well as defending nature and our territories.

In order to fight oppressions and achieve system change, we need to build a shared understanding of patriarchy, how it operates, how to challenge it, and why dismantling it is key to Friends of the Earth International’s objectives and System Change. This shared understanding must also recognise the necessity of dismantling racist, capitalist, (neo)colonialist, heteronormative structures of oppression with which patriarchy is intimately linked.

We have therefore created a new feminist popular education manual called “Sowing Gender Justice to Dismantle Patriarchy” – based on the political formation and training processes facilitated over many years within Friends of the Earth, with the support of educator-activists from the World March of Women.

This feminist popular education manual will introduce you to:

  • The basics of feminist popular education methods;
  • Ways in which you can organise and structure inclusive workshops;
  • Feminist popular education techniques;
  • Detailed examples of workshops such as:
    • “24 hours in the life of women and men” (introduction to the sexual division of labour),
    • “Inequalities, obstacles and challenges to women’s participation”,
    • “Gender justice and dismantling patriarchy”,
    • “Violence against women”,
    • “Mapping socio-environmental conflicts and their impacts” (introduction to ecofeminism).

We hope this manual will be a useful and accessible tool for capacity-building, training and political formation. We invite you to enjoy it, and to use it with comrades in your organisation to support collective self-training, and the learning processes in the local groups, communities and territories you work alongside.