International Women’s Day 2021

| revcom.us

 

March 8 is International Women’s Day (IWD), a revolutionary holiday to declare our determination to break ALL the chains that hold women down and to fight and work for a radically new world, beyond all the traditional relations and old ways of thinking that keep humanity enslaved.  

This year, for IWD, The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less—Show on YouTube aired a special episode in celebration of the day. The episode includes inspiring scenes and words from around the world challenging women's oppression. And there were calls for people to rally, celebrate, and protest in various cities across the U.S.

March 11, 2021

On International Women’s Day, The Revcoms Host a “Gender Reveal Party” Like No Other

From members of the Revolution Tour

If you’ve been following the news recently, you might’ve heard about multiple people dying from explosions and the Angeles forest literally set ablaze from “gender reveal parties.” These celebrations to reveal the sex of a baby-to-be, often involving extreme stunts, have become increasingly popular. What kind of culture are people reflecting and reinforcing with these gender reveal parties? It is not only the absurd obsession with the reproductive organs that a baby will be born with, it is the oppressive gender roles that go along with this—strong dominating boys, and delicate pretty girls, etc. Your typical gender reveal party might have a title like “Trucks vs. Tiaras” or “Cowboys vs. Princesses.”

Think about how children’s fates are being determined before they are even born, disfiguring their humanity and suffocating their full potential. Think of the violence that maintains and enforces all this: domestic abuse, sexual assault and rape, self-harm, bashing LGBTQ folks and others who don’t fit the gender norms, harassment on the street, in the workplace and everywhere, commodification of women’s bodies, a pornified culture of domination and degradation, using the state to deny women control over their own reproduction, a world of femicides, honor killings, genital mutilation, and on and on. Why have we not moved past this ridiculous, outmoded, and CRIMINAL way of life? One reason: this system of capitalism-imperialism that has inherited, adapted, and relies upon patriarchal oppression, and could not do away with it even if the rulers of this system wanted to.1

On International Women’s Day, March 8, the Revcoms shut down a major intersection in Hollywood for a “gender reveal party” like no other to tear the lid off of this popular fad, revealing what it really means to be born female in a male-supremacist society. We declared our determination to overthrow this system and completely abolish the oppression of women, as part of a communist revolution to end ALL oppression—connecting people up with Bob Avakian, a leader who speaks passionately about the horrors women go through and lays out the science of how those horrors can be ended.

Our gender reveal party in Hollywood started like any other “reveal” might—with a very pregnant woman, lots of pink and blue, and a lot of anticipation to find out the “gender” of the baby-to-be. Passers-by were encouraged to choose “team boy” or “team girl.” Then all of a sudden the Revcoms and some new volunteers stepped into the middle of the busy intersection, bringing traffic and any promise of a normal afternoon commute to a halt, releasing clouds of pink smoke into the air. One volunteer in a “Handmaid’s Tale” costume held up a big sign exclaiming “IT’S A GIRL!” For 10 minutes, as cars honked and police hovered, volunteers laid in the road in a dramatic die-in. On top of the “corpses” were signs exposing how women are abused and killed all over the world. One read, “I will be murdered in Juarez, Mexico.” Others read “I will be molested by age 3,” “I will be forced into prostitution,” and “I will be beaten and killed by my boyfriend.”

After a few minutes, as international photographers (from the AP and AFP) and others took photos and video, the Revcoms stood up with the signs visible to all who passed, and a Revolution Tour member read the moving quote from Bob Avakian, BAsics 1:10, which speaks to what women face for being born female in a world of male domination. A banner that read “A Better World Is Possible” next to Bob Avakian’s image was unfurled, and photos of women rising up in Mexico, Myanmar, Venezuela and Iran were held, while Noche Diaz and Michelle Xai gave brief but powerful remarks. Noche spoke to how young boys are trained to dehumanize women, to treat them as sex objects, and how we can reclaim our humanity by fighting for a revolution to get rid of this system which has male supremacy built into it. Michelle really made you feel how intolerable it is that all this brutal oppression goes on while people are misled by superficial “solutions” that don’t deal with the problem: “This is why the leadership of Bob Avakian is so crucial, to get to the root of where this oppression comes from… In this moment, if you want to get free, if you want to put an end to all forms of oppression, you follow Bob Avakian.”

After leaving the intersection, we marched down along the “Walk of Fame” on Hollywood Boulevard, chanting the main slogan of the day, “Break the Chains! Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution!” and “There’s a whole better way that the world could be—make revolution, get humanity free!” The Revcoms were joined by others who made it out to the event, as well as a few young people who joined us on the spot, including a couple who raised the “Break the Chains!” banner for the whole march.

The event ended with a speak-out. A young Black man who joined on the spot said he was sick of seeing women treated lesser than men. Another person from out of town said that they had never seen people speak about the oppression of women in this way.

1. In his New Year’s Statement, Bob Avakian writes: “…the elimination of male supremacy is impossible within the confines of this system. This is true because male supremacy has been deeply woven into the fabric of this society, and because this system is based on capitalist commodity relations and exploitation—things are produced to be exchanged (sold), through a process in which masses of people work, for a wage or salary, to create profit that is accumulated by capitalists who employ them and control their work—a system in which the patriarchal family unit remains an essential economic and social component and requirement, even as it is being put under increasing strains.”  [back]

March 8, 2021

“Break ALL the Chains” Car Caravan Through LA’s Oppressed Neighborhoods

From a member of the Revolution Club:

In LA Saturday, March 6, a sound truck with the words “Break ALL the Chains!” visible high above the truck bed, led a small International Women’s Day car caravan through large stretches of oppressed neighborhoods from South Central to immigrant MacArthur Park, stopping for short rallies along the way. “A Better World Is Possible” popped from a large banner on one side of the truck, with the image of Bob Avakian, whose leadership is making that a real possibility. The other side of truck said, “Women are NOT: bitches, hoes, incubators, punching bags... WOMEN ARE FULL HUMAN BEINGS!” The full banner on the truck bed was readable as you got closer: “Unleash the fury of women as a mighty force for revolution! A new world is in birth—we can and will transform everything!”

Throughout the day there was speaking from the truck exposing the outrages women suffer under this system, challenging different ways of thinking that keep people going along with or perpetuating this oppression, and challenging people who want to get free to get with the revolution and the leadership of Bob Avakian.

There was a ripple as the truck came through disturbing the air. Some women—and some men—cheered on the sidewalk as they read the banners, saw the people on the truck and in the cars, and heard enough to tell that this is something going up against the ways women are degraded and dehumanized in this society. Some people came out of their houses to see what the noise of the caravan was all about.

The caravan stopped in places where a lot of the desperate life conditions of the people were on display, including “markets” of the prostitution of women. One man said he has seen women hit by cars right in front of him as part of that horror show. When he and his friend heard that Bob Avakian is leading not just to deal with some problems in a neighborhood but with the science to make a revolution for a whole new society, they offered support for the caravan.

The caravan ended with a visual action drawing inspiration from the group Osyan in support of the Iranian women and political prisoners. Photos were displayed of women taking to the streets in fierce rebellion from Myanmar to Iran to Poland. And a poetic skit was carried out with symbols of the oppression of women tied to the ends of sticks, the way women in Iran have taken off the veils they are forced by law to wear and put them on the ends of sticks in protest. The sticks in our skit not only had the veils but other symbols of women’s oppression like the Bible and the bloody pants symbolizing the outlawing of abortion. There was also a stick with a belt that had been supplied by a young woman a couple days before. When asked what symbols of oppression should go on the sticks, she had replied, “the belt my brother beats his wife with,” and went home and got it to contribute to the action.

Break ALL the chains! Unleash the fury of women as a mighty force for revolution!


Revolution Club in Los Angeles, March 7.

Initial Coverage of International Women's Day Around the World
(Check back for more.)

March 6: A protest that featured Kurdish Women's Movement marched in Strasbourg carrying a banner that reads: The time has come to defend ourselves against femicide. Tweet: @Jinen_Kurd

“This is how they transformed the barriers put up to protect the National Legislature with offerings of flowers, ribbons and posters from hundreds of women in memory of the victims of femicides.”

Mexico City, March 7, people leave flowers at a wall honoring hundreds of women who were victims of feminicide.

A woman holds a flare during a march ahead of International Women's Day in Guatemala City, March 7. In 2020 there were 500+ femicides in Guatemala and increasing violence against indigenous women human rights defenders. Photo: AP

 

 

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