Screwnomics and Its Potential for WILPF Branches

By Marybeth Gardam
Chair, Corporations v Democracy Issue Committee
 
A new book is making waves across the country with information that is both practical and approachable… and appeals to women caught in an economy that deliberately disadvantages them. Your Corporations v Democracy Chair is delighted with the prospect of using the book and its accompanying online workbook in focused STUDY GROUPS across America, sponsored by our branches, to both educate a new generation of activists AND bring more new recruits to WILPF.
 
I remember how that is exactly what happened with our Challenge Corporate Power and WATER STUDY courses. Why not this one? The study groups Diamond is starting call themselves “EconoGirlfriends” and they enjoy a lively, youthful vibe.
 
The book, with its funny, hard-bitten approach and online workbook appeals to women who are stuck between caregiving for younger and older generations, working several jobs, and trying to make ends meet. They HAVE to be self-interested to survive.  Maybe appealing to that spirit of self-preservation will uncover new activists for WILPF! We think it could work, and we are looking to roll this out sometime in the fall for any branch interested to experiment.
 
The Author Explains
 
Screwnomics: How Our Economy Works Against Women and Real Ways to Make Lasting Change is by Vermonter Rickey Gard Diamond.  She notes:  “Screwnomics is a book for women like you who until now have wisely avoided a dismal subject.  You’d like to know more about economics, if only to hold on to more money, but something has warned you off, like a frat house late at night: hazing, secret clubs with creepy names, hoarding private privileges, taking advantage, scoring girls.
 
“Screwnomics isn’t intended to help you manage your personal finances, but it will explain the larger assumptions of a system that makes managing impossible for so many. Screwnomics is my word for the unspoken but widely applied economic theory that women should always work for less, or better, for free. But why? Where did this come from?”
 
“‘The personal is political’ wrote feminist Carol Hanisch in a 1969 essay of the same name…. The glass ceiling still in place however, turns out is actually made of green paper. Women need to talk together about who pasted this in place.”
 
“You will find in Screwnomics some big questions and big fixes, many of which were asked and proposed by women early on, but especially after the ‘70s, a period when a growing number of women were becoming scholars – historians, economists, and monetary thinkers.”
 
Diamond’s ‘Big Fixes’ include many that WILPF has already identified. In fact, she cites WILPF at least once in her book. Public banking, redesigned businesses, expanded accounting methods, and new currencies are a few of the solutions covered.  “(They) give me hope,” she says, “that transformation will happen when more women discover what’s going on, and how real change is possible.”
 
“This book is for the bit players, you and me, who only keep the whole show going, making sure everyone eats and has clean socks.”
 
Read excerpts and see the topics covered in the book here.
 
If this sounds like something you’d like to learn more about, or to start an EconoGirlfriend WILPF group, contact mbgardam@gmail.com.