by Zainab Rahman Chowdhury
Book: Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto (Verso, 2019)
Authors: Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, Nancy Fraser
The book Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto is incisive and compelling in its call for an anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and eco-social feminism. It rejects the narrow goals of liberal feminism, insisting instead on a mass politics for everyone impacted by capitalism’s crises. Written as eleven theses, the manifesto argues that feminism must be anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and eco-social, or it cannot claim to be feminism for the majority. Arruzza, Bhattacharya, and Fraser do not blur differences or homogenize struggles; they insist that feminist politics must be rooted in the fault lines of class, race or caste, coloniality, and ecology. For readers in Bangladesh, these propositions carry particular weight as we reflect on the broken promises of July and the unfinished struggles that define our present.
The authors place social reproduction at the heart of their argument. This is the undervalued work of keeping life going, whether on garment factory floors, in kitchens, or in classrooms. They describe it as “people-making,” and show how capitalism separated the making of people from the making of profit, assigned the first task to women, and subordinated it to the second (p.21).
This separation is riddled with contradiction. Capitalism cannot survive without people-making, yet it constantly devalues and exploits this labor. By defining labor beyond waged jobs, the authors push past the old divide between “identity politics” and “class politics.” They call for feminist strikes that politicize care work and link it to housing, state violence, climate struggles, and labor organizing. In doing so, they reject the false promises of corporate “lean-in” feminism and carceral solutions, and instead imagine a horizon where care, not profit, becomes the basis of society.
Reading the manifesto alongside Bangladesh’s current crises reveals deep resonances.
In 2023–2024, garment workers held mass demonstrations demanding minimum wage and unpaid arrears. They faced fatalities, injuries, and widespread prosecutions. Though the state announced an increase to BDT 12,500, it fell far short of demands and was quickly eroded by inflation. Thousands of cases remain pending against protesting workers, and corporations continue to enjoy impunity as they expropriate labor.
In 2022, nearly 150,000 tea plantation workers went on strike to demand a daily wage increase from Tk 150 to Tk 300. Their demand was denied; wages rose only to Tk 170, far too little to meet basic needs. Most plantation workers are women, who perform the most intensive labor for inadequate wages. Bound to estate housing without legal ownership, their dependency makes them especially vulnerable to exploitation.
At the same time, Indigenous peoples in the Chittagong Hill Tracts remain subject to dispossession. State-backed settlement policies have undermined Indigenous autonomy, turning settlers into the majority population. Land titles are granted to settlers while ancestral Indigenous claims are dismissed. Militarization, surveillance, and violence reinforce this system, ensuring capital’s access to land and resources.
These struggles differ in form but share a common thread: the accumulation of capital at the expense of workers, women, and Indigenous communities.
The manifesto makes clear that gender violence, settler colonialism, state repression, and ecological destruction are not separate phenomena. They are interconnected tools used to maintain profit and power.
The text is not without limitations. While intended for a wide readership, the prose and theoretical framing can be dense. It leans more on conceptual arguments than on the practicalities of building an internationalist, anti-capitalist, eco-social feminist movement. Still, it equips us with a powerful framework for interpreting the crises of capitalism and connects movements that might otherwise appear fragmented.
In Bangladesh, this means seeing the struggles of garment workers, tea plantation laborers, and Indigenous communities not as isolated “issues,” but as part of a shared terrain where feminist politics must intervene.
Feminism for the 99% shows that capitalism’s reach is vast, but also that its predations link diverse struggles across the globe. For Bangladesh, it clarifies how labor unrest, land dispossession, and authoritarian repression are bound together. It challenges us to imagine a society organized not around profit, but around care, justice, and collective survival.
Works Cited
Arruzza, Cinzia, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser. Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto. Verso, 2019.
“Bangladesh: Nearly 150,000 Tea Workers Stage a Nation-Wide Protest Urging a Wage Increase Equivalent to $3 Per Day.” Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 2022, https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/bangladesh-nearly-150000-tea-workers-stage-a-nation-wide-protest-urging-a-wage-increase-equivalent-to-3-per-day/
“Tk12,500 Minimum Wage Finalised for RMG, Calls for Increases Unheeded.” The Business Standard, 26 Nov. 2023, https://www.tbsnews.net/economy/rmg/rmg-workers-minimum-wage-set-tk12500-746694/
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