Take the Revolution and Stop Patriarchy Into One Billion Rising For Justice
By Sunsara Taylor | February 3, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On February 14, around the world women and men will take to the streets as part of One Billion Rising For Justice to dance, sing, and protest against violence against women and other forms of injustice. As Andy Zee, spokesperson for Revolution Books in New York City, wrote last week, “One Billion Rising For Justice is a very positive international manifestation against the abuse of women.... The day forges a sense of worldwide community of joyful resistance to what is one of the deepest and most vicious forms of oppression—the brutalization, degradation, denial of the basic humanity of women.” (See excerpts from the letter at revcom.us.)
Andy Zee went on to call for Revolution Books stores to host events and “risings” as part of this international day of protest and to bring the need for all-the-way communist revolution as it has been re-envisioned by Bob Avakian into these and other events all day long. This was a great idea and I am very happy to see that Revolution Books in New York City has taken up the call to do just that and hope that others will follow suit.
I want to offer just a few further thoughts and ideas for people who are part of the movement for revolution and who have joined in the fight against the enslavement and degradation of women, or who are just now waking up to the need to be part of these fights.
In addition to hosting events, and as part of building for the events that Revolution Books stores host, I strongly urge revolutionaries and others to meet up with friends and comrades or go by yourself to as many outpourings in your area that day as you can. You can check the Vday website to find events that are taking place. One idea is to make a big sign that reads, “Talk to Me About Revolution and a World Without Rape! revcom.us.” Join in the dancing and the celebrations and conversations, but keep that sign up high and be sure to have many copies of the special issue of Revolution newspaper that goes very deeply into the source and solution to women’s oppression here and all over the world, “A Declaration for the Liberation of Women and the Emancipation of All Humanity.” If you do not have any more copies of this newspaper in your area, be aware that there is a PDF which you can download and print many copies of so be sure to do this before that day.
At the same time, bring palm cards with quotes from Bob Avakian (BA) that speak powerfully to the centrality of the fight for the full liberation of women to the revolution that humanity needs. In particular, I recommend BAsics 3:22, BAsics 1:10, and BAsics 5:18:
“You cannot break all the chains, except one. You cannot say you want to be free of exploitation and oppression, except you want to keep the oppression of women by men. You can’t say you want to liberate humanity yet keep one half of the people enslaved to the other half. The oppression of women is completely bound up with the division of society into masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited, and the ending of all such conditions is impossible without the complete liberation of women. All this is why women have a tremendous role to play not only in making revolution but in making sure there is all-the-way revolution. The fury of women can and must be fully unleashed as a mighty force for proletarian revolution.”
BAsics 3:22
(Download: PDF | JPG)“Look at all these beautiful children who are female in the world. And in addition to all the other outrages which I have referred to, in terms of children throughout the slums and shantytowns of the Third World, in addition to all the horrors that will be heaped on them—the actual living in garbage and human waste in the hundreds of millions as their fate, laid out before them, yes, even before they are born—there is, on top of this, for those children who are born female, the horror of everything that this will bring simply because they are female in a world of male domination. And this is true not only in the Third World. In ‘modern’ countries like the U.S. as well, the statistics barely capture it: the millions who will be raped; the millions more who will be routinely demeaned, deceived, degraded, and all too often brutalized by those who are supposed to be their most intimate lovers; the way in which so many women will be shamed, hounded and harassed if they seek to exercise reproductive rights through abortion, or even birth control; the many who will be forced into prostitution and pornography; and all those who—if they do not have that particular fate, and even if they achieve some success in this ‘new world’ where supposedly there are no barriers for women—will be surrounded on every side, and insulted at every moment, by a society and a culture which degrades women, on the streets, in the schools and workplaces, in the home, on a daily basis and in countless ways.”
BAsics 1:10
(Download: PDF | JPG)
“In many ways, and particularly for men, the woman question and whether you seek to completely abolish or to preserve the existing property and social relations and corresponding ideology that enslave women (or maybe ‘just a little bit’ of them) is a touchstone question among the oppressed themselves. It is a dividing line between ‘wanting in’ and really ‘wanting out’: between fighting to end all oppression and exploitation—and the very division of society into classes—and seeking in the final analysis to get your part in this.”
BAsics 5:18
It is also the case that these outpourings are happening at a time of escalating emergency surrounding women’s right to abortion and to the entire war on women. As StopPatriarchy has written in calling for protests around the country on March 8, International Women’s Day, this year:
Abortion rights are in a state of emergency! 203 new restrictions to abortion were passed in the last three years. Five states have only one abortion clinic left. Anti-woman bigots harass women at abortion clinics across the country. 97% of rural counties have no abortion provider. Upcoming court rulings threaten to close dozens more clinics nation-wide. Forcing women to have children against their will is a form of enslavement!
Meanwhile, women are slammed backwards in every realm: from the mainstreaming of violent and degrading pornography to the global epidemic of rape, from a culture that celebrates pimping to the shaming of women who choose to have sex, and from the sexual enslavement of millions of women and girls in the sex industry to the widespread celebration of Pope Francis while he has changed nothing of church doctrine that enslaves and humiliates women and LGBT people.
Take to the streets this International Women’s Day. Through our public resistance we will expose the illegitimacy of this whole war on women and put the woman-haters on notice that we will not sit silently by. We will express our outrage and bring alive a culture of defiance and liberation. We will wake up and rally forth many thousands more, refusing to stop until we win.
As such, I strongly recommend that people also bring copies of Stop Patriarchy’s Call to Action and fliers announcing the time and place of International Women’s Day protests if they are being planned in your area and get these out to everyone in the crowd. If you have enough people, it would be great to bring some of StopPatriarchy’s bright orange signs which read, “Abortion On Demand and Without Apology!” not only to hold up yourself but to share with others in the crowd who might want to also raise that message.
In this way, we can strengthen the expressions of defiance and protest that are taking place on February 14, we can deepen the understanding of those who have taken the responsibility to step out on that day, and we can work to involve growing numbers of people in the ongoing fight for genuine revolution and for the full liberation of women in all its forms.
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