Our Work, Our Lives, issue 8: Songs that Women Sing
Dear friends,
The March issue of Our Work, Our Lives focuses on music. Songs and music have always been powerful tools to inspire and mobilise people. They have been an integral part of social justice movements and the feminist movements have a treasure chest of powerful songs. So we thought that in March, when we celebrate International Women’s Day, it would be good to learn about the songs that our colleagues have been inspired by and use in their work. We are delighted that friends from so many countries shared songs, old and new, that they have used in their movements – for protest marches, trainings, celebrations, and solidarity gatherings. These songs raise their voice against patriarchy, discrimination, injustice, and extractivism and call for peace, freedom, and equality. Many songs are creations of groups. Some are full of humor and sarcasm. Some have anger. All are simple and powerful.
Songs have also been important for workers, including women workers. A lot of work that women do is repetitive, monotonous, time consuming, and taxing. They need patience, grit, imagination, love, and care to carry out their tasks, day in and day out. Women workers in traditional societies, like their male counterparts, have made up songs to go with work. They have sung while planting, weeding, cleaning, grinding, knitting, weaving, and putting their babies to sleep. Our friends from Aaina in Odisha, India shared a song performed by a woman farmer which is sung while planting rice.
Many songs have travelled across time and place. Bella Ciao, which many of us may know as a resistance, anti-fascist song, has its roots in the paddy fields of Po Valley in northeast Italy. The original singers of Bella Ciao in the nineteenth century were women mondine (literally “weeders”), who were bemoaning their harsh working conditions. Now the song is available in multiple languages and part of the social justice movements in many parts of the world. Even in the pre-digital era, songs like Bread and Roses and We Shall Overcome, had crossed geographical and linguistic barriers and become global. More recently, the protest march titled “el violador en tu camino” (A rapist in your way) organised by a Chilean feminist collective, LASTESIS, has gone viral and inspired women to hold street protests in many parts of the world including in Delhi and Nairobi.
The invitation to our colleagues was simple. We asked them to share one or two songs which they have used in their work along with some contextual details and a summary translation. We said that the songs could be from the social justice movements that they have been part of or they could also be chosen and sung by the women they work with. We asked them to share an audio or video clip and some photos, if possible.
The response is a wide-ranging collection of clips and write-ups from 21 organisations in 12 countries around the world – Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Colombia, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Nigeria, Nepal, Sierra Leone, and Thailand. The songs speak of love, separation, and longing, celebrate nature and the beauty of Spring, question the hypocrisy of mainstream society, reject patriarchy and discrimination, and express hopes for a just and peaceful world. When we announced the theme, we wondered how many of our colleagues still use songs in their work and if it is popular only with some organisations in certain parts of the world. Our request made some colleagues nostalgic and many told us that there is a need to compile all the songs that they have used in their movements over the years. Some sisters felt inspired to compose or choose a song to sing for International Women’s Day as well as share in the magazine.
As the month progressed, we came to know of many new songs. Most songs about labour migration, we realised, are written from male perspectives. Women’s voices in those songs are often of the wives, daughters and sisters left behind at home. Listening to the songs and poems of our migrant worker sisters, we think that a new genre of writing might be in making. With women as the protagonists talking about nostalgia, loss, longing, and dreams. Similarly, we found very little documentation of songs from the perspective of women workers. Hopefully, our colleagues working in rural communities will document songs that women sang while going about their work. Indeed, those would be invaluable cultural resources.
Each short piece of this issue features one or two songs with translation and some background information. We have inserted links to the audio or video files into the essays, but page 88 also lists all the clips in alphabetical order. There is a small compilation of links to clips of songs and essays which colleagues may find useful.
“Does music have the power to stop war? Sadly, the answer is no,” said Haruki Murakami in one of his recent programmes on FM radio Japan where he chose to share some powerful anti-war songs. “But it has the power to make listeners believe that war is something we must stop,” he added. We agree. Music does not change the world but it inspires us to work for social change. It makes us believe that another world is possible.
You can read the issue as a "flip book" by clicking on the image below or you can download the pdf here.
We hope you feel inspired by the songs shared by our colleagues.
Do write to us with your comments, suggestions, or stories for upcoming issues at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Warmly,
GAATW-IS team
PS: After a break of two years, local and international travel is starting again. Our colleagues in different countries have resumed work travel and in person meetings and we at GAATW Secretariat will do so very soon. In order to allow everyone a little more preparation time, we have decided to make Our Work, Our Lives a bi-monthly magazine. The next issue, focusing on the how and why of organising, will be published on 31 May 2022.