Selma James

James was the first spokeswoman of the English Collective of Prostitutes,^[16] which campaigns for decriminalisation as well as viable economic alternatives to prostitution. The 1983 publication of James's Marx and Feminism broke with established Marxist theory by providing a reading of Marx's Capital 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 the UN decision where governments agreed to measure and value unwaged work in national statistics.^[18] Legislation on this has since been introduced in Trinidad and Tobago and Spain, and time-use surveys and other research are under way in many countries. In Venezuela, 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]}

Recent activity

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]

Feminist activism

Since 2000, James has been international coordinator of the Global 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 the Venezuelan 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's Euston railway station and now located in Kentish Town,^[1][2][23] and is general editor of Crossroads Books.

Socialist activism

In April 2008, James visited Edinburgh (along with Edinburgh-based couple Ralph and Noreen Ibbott, both members of the Britain Tanzania Society in the 1960s) on the anniversary of Tanzania Muungano Day, which falls on April 26. James gave a talk in a session hosted by the Tanzania Edinburgh Community Association (TzECA) on Julius Nyerere's Ujamaa (African socialism) in the 1960s in Tanzania with reference to the subject of Ruvuma Development Association (RDA),^[24] and the Tanzania Arusha Declaration. RDA traces its roots to the original Ruvuma Development Association (RDA), which was registered in the early 1960s when, encouraged by Julius 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 the Tanzanian 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 of Litowa. The session took place at the "Waverley Care Solas" Abbey Mount.^{[citation needed]}

In July 2015, James endorsed

James is a founder member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network^[1] and, in May 2008, signed the Letter of British Jews on 60th anniversary of Israel published in The Guardian, explaining why she would not celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary.^[26] In August 2015, she was a signatory to a letter criticising The Jewish Chronicle's reporting of Jeremy Corbyn's association with alleged antisemites.^[27]

Notable works

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• A Woman's Place (1952)
• The Power of Women & the Subversion of the Community (with Mariarosa Dalla Costa; Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1972)
• Women, the Unions and Work, or What Is Not To Be Done (Notting Hill Women's Liberation Workshop, 1972; Falling Wall Press, 1976)
• Sex, Race & Class (1974)
• The Rapist Who Pays the Rent (co-author, 1982)
• Marx and Feminism (1983; Crossroads Books, 1994)
• Hookers in the House of the Lord (1983)
• The Ladies and the Mammies:
  ISBN 978-0905046259
  )
• Strangers & Sisters: Women, Race and Immigration (ed. & introduction; Falling Wall Press, 1985,
  ISBN 978-0905046297
  )
• The Global Kitchen: The Case for Counting Unwaged Work (1985, 1995)
• The Milk of Human Kindness: Defending Breastfeeding from the Global Market and the AIDS Industry (co-author; Crossroads Books, 2003,
  ISBN 978-0954437206
  )
• Introduction to Creating a Caring Economy: Nora Castañeda & the Women's Development Bank of Venezuela (Crossroads Books, 2006,
  ISBN 978-0954437220
  )
• Introduction to The Arusha Declaration, Rediscovering Nyerere's Tanzania (2007)
• Editor of Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners Vs the USA by Mumia Abu-Jamal (UK edition Crossroads Books, 2011)
• Sex, Race and Class—the Perspective of Winning: A Selection of Writings 1952–2011 (
  ISBN 978-1604864540
  )
• Our Time Is Now: Sex, Race, Class, and Caring for People and Planet, ed. Nina Lopez, Foreword by
  ISBN 978-1-62963-838-6)^[28]

James was a participant in How the Mangrove Nine Won, an hour-long film launched in 2020 giving first-hand accounts of the Mangrove Nine trial, also featuring Ian Macdonald and Altheia Jones-LeCointe.^[31]

See also

• International Wages for Housework Campaign

References