Feminism Not Militarism [3-8] [several cities and online]

[ckaihatsu]

Feminism Not Militarism





Dear Chris,

Last week Donald Trump announced his desire to increase the military budget by adding another $54 billion to the already obscene amount of money spent on violence, weapons and war.

This International Women’s Day, we call for Feminism Not Militarism! Tell leaders in Congress to stop the $54 billion increase in military spending! Invest in women, not war.

Women and other people in more than 40 countries, who have been impacted by decades of war and militarism, will take action today. We will rise because we want to live in a world without weapons and war, without violence and hate, without bans and walls. We call for a world where we are spending our tax dollars and our energies supporting life.

Over half of federal discretionary spending already goes to the military. Trump’s proposed increase will make it over 60 percent! This investment in war, on top of being unnecessary and immoral, it is taking money away from programs that support women’s health and safety, from agencies that protect our environment, from health care, from education.

This International Women’s Day, tell the leaders in Congress to move our tax dollars out of the military, share this on Facebook and Twitter, and join us on the streets in Los Angeles, NYC, Chicago, DC, Woodland Hills, Oakland, and the San Francisco, and online!

We have marched, disrupted, and protested, and we will continue to do so, as we build the strong connections we need to create a better world.

Toward a peaceful, just world!
Ann, Ariel, Jodie, Mariana, Mark, Medea, Nancy, Paki, Paula, Samira, and Tali



P.S. Share our special #IWD2017 flyer and graphic on social media! Also, print, post, and share these posters — because we say #Not1More detention or deportation and #nobannowall. Immigrants and refugees are #heretostay. Learn more about how to support vulnerable communities during these times at our No Ban No Wall resource page.

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[ckaihatsu]

100 Disruptions: A Day Without a Woman


freepress.net


Chris,

Today is International Women’s Day, and women around the globe are marking the occasion in many inspiring and impactful ways. Today's action is to participate in A Day Without a Woman, brought to you by the people who organized the Women’s March in D.C.

There are three ways to participate:

1. If you have the option to do so, you can take the day off — from both paid and unpaid labor.
2. You can avoid shopping for the day (making exceptions for women- and minority-owned businesses).
3. You can wear RED in solidarity.

Happy International Women’s Day!

Amy, Dutch and the rest of the Free Press team
freepress.net

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[ckaihatsu]

International Women’s Day 2017: Together we rebel, and together we will win



By Freedom Road Socialist Organization

The U.S. has a long history of women rising up against their bosses and demanding economic justice. The first industrial strike in the U.S. was in May 1824, when 102 women workers in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, left their looms after the mill’s owners announced a wage cut. They refused to return to their stations and, instead, gathered the rest of the workers (including children) and took to the streets. They marched to the factory owner’s house while throwing rocks and shouting obscenities. Before the strike ended, the protests affected factories in eight nearby towns. The workers only returned when the factory owners reinstated their wages.

International Women’s Day was first celebrated in 1909 in New York City. The day was organized by the Socialist Party of America to remember the 1908 strike of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. In 1910, at the International Women’s Conference, Clara Zeitkin and Luise Zeitz proposed and organized for the first International Women’s Day. In 1911, over a million people internationally marked Working Women’s Day.

It’s a powerful testament to our long history of victories and struggle that we celebrate International Working Women’s Day. All over the world, women, non-binary folk and men, will protest and march for this working-class tradition that is over a century old. On this day, we remember the struggles and victories that women have waged. And it’s become a day to look toward our future battles.

For imperialism to survive and thrive, it demands the oppression of all genders. Patriarchy - the system of male supremacy - results in real inequality and oppression for women, and puts forth the idea that women and those who present as feminine are weaker, less intelligent and less worthy than men. It’s a notion that capitalists have nurtured to pit the different sectors of the working class against each other. However, the fight for the liberation of the working class must be fought alongside the liberation of women.

All over the country, women are leading and organizing opposition to Trump's terrible agenda. The Women's Marches that took place the day after Trump's inauguration were some of the largest demonstrations this country has ever seen.

With the Trump presidency, ensuring the working class stands united against patriarchy is vital. The Trump administration has unleashed unprecedented attacks that affect all women - like banning Muslims from entering the country, lifting the protection against transgender people to choose which bathroom they can use, and attacking immigrants.

Within his first couple of days in office, President Trump reinstated the Global Gag Rule (Mexico City Policy) which prohibits international charities that receive aid from the U.S. to teach comprehensive sexual health education and family planning. Further, the Trump administration has proposed eliminating a list of federal programs, including federal grant funding to the 25 programs under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

These attacks are violent and go unopposed by his supporters. The president of the U.S. has a long history of sexual assaults and aggressions toward women. When President Trump was recorded saying he would, “grab them by the pussy”, the far right simply upheld this behavior as “locker room talk.” This attitude has blanketed every speech, policy and action coming out of the new administration.

Simply stated, the new administration’s overt disgust for women is racist, transphobic, Islamophobic, misogynist, and generally the highest form of bigotry we’ve seen in a recent administration. We’re living in a time where oppression isn’t sugar-coated with a saccharine Democrat smile, but openly waged by the far-right with aggression and impunity.

Trump’s actions have emboldened neo-Nazis and white supremacists who have taken to attacking everyday peoples. Hateful symbols are spray painted on houses and trains, slurs are shouted at passersby, Jewish cemeteries are defaced, hijabs are pulled off Muslim women, and black and brown people are attacked on the streets.

It’s in this new, openly reactionary period that we must fight harder for the liberation of women, and we need to stand with women leaders who under attack, like Palestinian American Rasmea Odeh who is facing deportation and jail on trumped-up charges.

As we’ve seen in the past, the only way to get rid of far right is to band together and punch harder. When we stand together, when we protest and march for justice, the imperialists and their cowardly allies tremble. When Trump tried to shut us down, we shut down the streets, buildings and airports. Today, we continue to feed the flame of our outrage and use it to stand up for all of the working class and all oppressed people.

Together we rebel, and together we will win.

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]

[ckaihatsu]

Work for Liberation


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On this International Working Women's Day:
Work for Liberation!

Today, we stand with feminists striking around the world for International Working Women’s Day. Together we build a feminism grounded in antimilitarism, queer and trans justice, and working women’s grassroots movements across the globe!

Our liberation— as women, as queer and trans people, as poor and working people, as Black, indigenous, Muslim, and undocumented people— requires nonviolent revolutionary feminism. Our feminist agenda opposes the Trump administration’s proposal to drastically expand U.S. Military spending. We oppose proposals for the inclusion of women in draft registration, while resisting policing, murders of transwomen, drone wars, ICE raids, nuclear warfare and all forms of human exploitation that threaten our collective liberation. We condemn executive orders that bolster the power of police, border patrol agents, and an increasingly impermeable border. But, most importantly, today we assert:

Our feminism is anti-militarist, non-binary, revolutionary, intergenerational, multicultural, peace-lovin', radical at its roots, stylin’, and centered around our collective accountability to care for each other and our planet!



Our feminism also values our feminist herstory. Today we lift up the two Women’s Pentagon Actions of 1980 and 1981, supported by War Resisters League feminists. On November 17th in 1980, four huge puppets led 2000 feminists in a march to the Pentagon. Protesters encircled the building, put gravestones in the yard, and created rituals of mourning, defiance and reweaving life. Over 140 people were arrested for blocking entrances. One year later, on November 17th, 1981, more than 3500 feminists marched again to the Pentagon in a four-staged procession: mourning, rage, empowerment and defiance. Activists encircled the building with affinity groups blocking entrances while weaving brightly colored yarn across doorways. 65 people were arrested. The Women's Pentagon Action released a statement, excerpted below:

“We have come here to mourn and rage and defy the Pentagon because it is the workplace of imperial power which threatens us all... We are in the hands of men whose power and wealth have separated them from the reality of daily life and from the imagination. We are right to be afraid. At the same time our cities are in ruins, bankrupt; they suffer the devastation of war. Hospitals are closed, our schools are deprived of books and teachers. Our young Black and Latino youth are without decent work. They will be forced, drafted to become the cannon fodder for the very power that oppresses them. We women are gathering because life on the precipice is intolerable.”

Read full Women's Pentagon Action statement in English and Spanish!
WRL RESOURCES


Don't Pay War Tax
Pre-order your 2018 pie-chart here + hit up NWTRCC for more info on redirecting funds to Black, brown + indigenous communities!



Girls + Queer + Trans Youth: Don't Join the Military
Use this brochure filled with stats on gender- + sexual-based discrimination in the military to counter military recruitment in schools!



Women Conscientious Objectors
Pick up this anthology of women's struggle against miiltary conscription-- reclaiming conscientious objection as a feminist issue!


DONATE


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[ckaihatsu]

Over 1000 join Chicago International Women’s Day rally



By staff

Chicago, IL - Over 1000 people gathered at the headquarters of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) to celebrate International Women’s Day, March 8. Speakers from CTU, Fight For 15, the teachers union at the Charter School Aspira, AFSCME and other unions shared the stage with Rasmea Odeh, along with Filipino, Iranian and undocumented immigrant women.

Jazmine Salas from the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression spoke about the women who have been the backbone of the movement against police crimes in Chicago.

Here are excerpts from Salas’ speech to the crowd: “Thank you for allowing the Chicago Alliance the chance to speak tonight. It has been so moving to hear from other speakers and to feel the energy and emotion in this room. Solidarity is the only way that we will win.

“As women, we live in constant fear of assault and harassment from men. As Black and Latina working class women, we have an added threat of state-sanctioned violence in the form of police brutality. We are familiar with the stories of Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, and Miriam Carey - all Black women killed at the hands of police. But there is a different struggle, as women of color, who face racism, sexism and the threat of sexual violence, and as women who are the backbone of our communities.

“The struggle against police crimes has been waged for more than 50 years in Chicago. There are many forces that have stood with us in solidarity, including unions like the CTU and groups like the Arab American Action Network. But for most of those years, when young Blacks and Latinos have been murdered, tortured or wrongfully convicted by criminal cops, the families of the victims have been the backbone of the movement. And in most of these cases, it has been the women in these families that have fought these battles.

“Women like Danolene Watts, whose teenage autistic son Stephon was killed by the Calumet Police five years ago. Armanda Shackleforth, whose son Gerald Reed still sits in prison after many years, having been tortured into confession. Bertha Escamilla, whose son Nick was tortured into confessing and then spent 15 years in prison. Anabel Perez, who has fought for 20 years for her son, Jaime Hauad. Ruth Peña, whose brother, Angel "Javi" Rodriguez was wrongfully convicted for murder by the gang crimes unit in Humboldt Park in the 1990s.

“We have been sexually and physically assaulted, shot to death for exercising our rights or just existing, had our sons ripped from our lives, without our families ever seeing a ounce of justice. Where is accountability for the police?

“Police accountability is a woman’s issue and our participation in this struggle is crucial if we are serious about creating safer communities. We demand community control of the police and we demand an elected civilian police accountability council.”

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]