The Thread is an independent, non-partisan research organisation committed to shaping and informing the discourse on key policy issues through information sharing, dialogue, and consensus-building. We are dedicated to generating ideas and new ways of thinking. We are also committed to working inclusively to provide the necessary critical analyses to contribute to public policy alternatives.
Economic justice rests on the fair redistribution of income and public goods, and on social investment for the promotion of human development and security. Economic growth can benefit all citizens if it goes hand in hand with a decent living wage, with ensuring the dignity and well-being of the most vulnerable members of society, and with making the best use of talent and capabilities. We are encouraged to explore how policymaking can bring about inclusive economic systems that account for care duties, child-rearing and domestic work.
Some feminists theorise gender-based violence as a way of achieving sustainable public policy interventions that value the lives and choices of women. Feminists also seek an understanding of the elements of violence by campaigning against the prevalence of pornography, or by exposing the socio-cultural cultural biases against women that fuel that prevalence. We are encouraged to continue advocating for a person's right to a life free of violence; for the rights and protection of sex workers; and for the sexual and reproductive health and rights of all people.
Sometimes choice is conceptualised as a matrix of possibilities. But this matrix is framed by what we know, what we are told we know and by the existing conditions of our lives. Education, strong community networks, a fair wage, access to care, transportation and even safe public spaces frame our life's choices. Sometimes these are so narrow, we find choice is not an act of free will, but something to which we must resign. We are encouraged to question the frameworks, and the institutions that circumscribe our choices, and to promote civic engagement, programmes for further education and training, and access to participatory decision-making.
Equality is not an end in and of itself, for the source of the systemic imbalance it tries to redress, with respect to sexual difference, has never been identified. The bases for unequal relations seem to be unequal relations themselves. Sex and gender may not mean the same things, but just as gender is defined as the social and cultural instantiation of sexed bodies, so too can biological sex be seen as a social construct.
We define feminism as respect – respect for oneself and for others, despite difference or ability, visible or otherwise. We are united in the notion of struggle as a sign of the complexity of the issues at stake. Feminisms make clear the level of antagonism bodies must take on in order to engage with the world. By inference, the phrase ‘the personal is the political’ alludes to the condition of persons affected by broader social patterns.
Choice is not simply a question of expanding the range of opportunities available to a less privileged group. Feminisms re-present the problem of equality and rights-based approaches as a questioning of the choices that are made available to individuals within a prescribed framework that still retains a sexist bias. Freedom, for a political subject, only becomes a reality when sexual differentiation has no bearing to the application of that freedom.