Shepherds and their flocks are integral to the history of European culture and ecology. Now, a new generation of pastoralists – from migrants escaping underpaid care work, to science graduates looking for tangible ways to protect the planet – are rewriting patriarchal traditions to preserve it for the future.
Microfinance loans were meant to offer a pathway out of poverty in countries like Nigeria, particularly for women. But as climate change makes weather patterns more unpredictable, the risk of falling into further debt falls onto the shoulders of women farmers who face not just erratic farming conditions but social stigma from default.
Medicinal wisdom is embedded in Indigenous Mixe languages. By sustaining their mother tongue and practices involving herbs and healing rituals, Mixe people keep alive a cosmovision in which they speak to Mother Earth.
“The people who face the most barriers are often those who need our care the most – and yet their voices are not the ones we hear in maternity care.”
For decades, Moroccan immigrants have called La Cañada Real home. Now, real estate speculators are closing in on the informal settlement. Authorities are starving the community of basic infrastructure and demolishing homes. But women are pushing back against eviction and uniting against oppression from outside their community and within.
Up against a platform and police who seem to view abuse as inevitable, OnlyFans creators are fighting back against online harassers who gamify stealing and distributing their copyrighted material.
Across Europe, Latin American women are coming together in myriad networks of mutual support, to face down isolation, exploitation and inadequate public services.
A migrant-led movement has used tactics from theatre to unionization to demand equal rights and dignity for those doing society’s most undervalued labor. They’ve appealed to the highest levels of EU justice and achieved major legal reforms. Yet perhaps their biggest triumph is an ongoing movement for social change powered by intersectional solidarity and care.
