SELMA JAMES

Selma James is an antisexist, antiracist campaigner and has fought for justice for over 50 years. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1930 she became the wife of the internationally renowned West Indian Historian and political philsopher C.L.R James. In Britain during the 1960s, she became a leading activist in the movements for the rights of immigrants and people of colour. 

Selma is the author or several seminal books among them A Women's Place; Sex Race and Class; The Perspective of Winning; Wageless of the world and Women, the Unions and Work. She has lectured and led workshops all over the World and is the founder of the Wages for Housework and Care Income Now campaign.

Selma's most recent book Our Time Is Now: Sex, Race and Class and Caring for People and Planet is steeped in the tradition of Marx. She draws on half a century of organizing across sectors, struggles and national boundaries with others in the Wages for Housework Campaign and the Global Women’s Strike, an autonomous network of women, men, and other genders that agree with their perspective. There is one continuum between the care and protection of people and of the planet: both must be a priority, beginning with a care income for everyone doing this vital work. This book makes the powerful argument that the climate justice movement can draw on all the movements’ people have formed to refuse their particular exploitation, to destroy the capitalist hierarchy that is destroying the world. Our time is now.

Antiracism, anti-discrimination and the justice work we do for ourselves and with others are at the heart of Selma James' campaigning.

Wages for Housework Campaign in major exhibition – Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights

By Global Women's Strike | 12th September 2024

‘Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights’ at the Wellcome Collection (London) explores “the profound impact of physical work on health and the body. It delves into the stories of underrepresented workers and their rights within precarious and unsafe labour environments. From protests to healing practices, the exhibition unveils hidden histories of resistance and collective action.…

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Why we support Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Farming: a grassroots rebuttal by Nina López and Selma James

By Global Women's Strike | 5th September 2024

In June 2024, the Global Women’s Strike was invited to speak at two sessions on A Care Income to Protect the Land, the People and the Natural World at the International Degrowth Conference in Pontevedra. At the second session, Swati Renduchintala presented via zoom on Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) and the women’s Self-Help…

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Event: London Land Justice Fair, 21 July, 12-6pm

By Global Women's Strike | 3rd July 2024

We’ll be running a stall, and a workshop on land use in the women-led natural farming movement in Andhra Pradesh, India. All welcome!

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Press release from Queer Strike: “When women are paid for all we do, there’ll be a lot of wages due . . .”

By Global Women's Strike | 2nd July 2024

Singer-song writer Gemma Rogers has re-imagined the song, “Wages Due”, written and originally sung by Boo Watson in 1975.  Released on Bandcamp, people are asked to pay what they can when they download the song.  We’re delighted that all proceeds will go to Crossroads Women.    Boo Watson was a founding member of Wages Due Lesbians in Toronto, Canada, and a talented musician. She composed and wrote the “Wages…

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Natural Growing in India – our article in Allotment Gardener newsletter

By Global Women's Strike | 24th May 2024

Dear Friends, Please see article below by food growers in the Global Women’s Strike network, inspired by the movement of women farmers in Andhra Pradesh spreading natural farming through their Self-Help Groups. More information on this growing movement here. Natural Growing in India We are allotmentgrowers/gardeners in London and Suffolk,growing food withoutchemicals for some time.We have been inspired bythe grassroots women’sself-help farmingmovement in AndhraPradesh, India.Since 2016, Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming has been spearheaded by women groups that…

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Webinar : What Mothers and Other Caregivers Want – findings from international survey, May 11

By Global Women's Strike | 7th May 2024

From March 2022 to May 2023, this survey asked 1065 mothers and other caregivers from different generations and in different countries what they want and need.  Assumptions are always being made about this, but in fact caregivers are rarely directly asked about how we spend our time, the resources we have or don’t have, or…

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We denounce the gay Israeli Defense’s (IDF) soldiers

By Global Women's Strike | 1st February 2024

We denounce the gay Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF) soldiers in this article https://www.jta.org/…/israeli-lgbtq-soldiers-hope-the… and all vicious Israeli pinkwashing. There is No Pride in the Slaughter of Others!  Palestinian people in Gaza being bombed, starved, and denied all human rights, will not care if the IDF soldiers killing them and their loved ones are gay or…

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We were shocked and saddened by the sudden death of Benjamin Zephaniah

By Global Women's Strike | 25th January 2024

Benjamin was an old friend of the Wages for Housework Campaign/ Global Women’s Strike since our centre’s early days in a King’s Cross squat. The last time we had the pleasure to see him was in October 2022 at the 40th anniversary of the English Collective of Prostitutes occupation of the Holy Cross Church against…

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Mothers Manifesto outside Parliament today!

By Global Women's Strike | 13th December 2023

Dear friends The Global Women’s Strike will be supporting the Mother’s Manifesto on Wednesday 13 December, 9.30-2pm, on their stall outside Parliament while some of them meet MPs inside. We hope you will join us there for all or some of the time. Mother’s Manifesto are a group of mothers who have been campaigning for 18 months to raise awareness of family food poverty and…

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Book 2

Our Time Is Now: Sex, Race, Class, and Caring for People and Planet

Author: Selma James • Foreword by Margaret Prescod • Editor: Nina Lopez

Subjects: Feminism / Economics