From the Revolutionary Communist Group, Colombia

Break ALL the Chains! For the Liberation of Women and the Emancipation of All Humanity!

March 15, 2021 | revcom.us

 

International Women’s Day 2021.

Women’s day around the world! Day of rebellion! March 8 has to be a revolutionary holiday to declare our firm determination to break ALL the chains that hold women down and to fight and work for a radically new world, in which all traditional relationships and relations and old ways of thinking that keep humanity enslaved no longer exist.

The presence of women on all fronts in the fight against oppressors around the world is becoming broader and more powerful. This International Women’s Day, the struggles of women are vibrating all over the planet: struggles against rape, sexual harassment, prohibition or restriction of the right to abortion, pornography, beatings, insults and humiliations, genital mutilation, compulsory hijab, murder in the name of “love,” “jealousy” or in the name of “honor,” sex trade, poverty, and misery... all struggles that show how much women want to end gender oppression.

The situation of women’s oppression is getting sharper and so is the struggle of women in the world to combat this. Now entering the third decade of the 21st century, this International Women’s Day, however, a genuine revolutionary struggle for the liberation of women is still needed. The role of women in the world and in the home has profoundly changed since the second half of the 20th century, but why is it, even after so many changes in society (such as the participation of women in professions and in public life), that the oppression of women has not ended but on the contrary has taken on new forms (even with fascist overtones)?

The situation of women in different countries may be different, but they all have something in common: They are all enslaved in the patriarchal system that dominates the world. Even today, women are considered and treated as slaves who, more than other oppressed people, suffer from the utter monstrosity of this system. They are considered and treated as slaves that exist for the pleasure of men. They are considered and treated as slaves who are born to reproduce and provide labor power to ensure the continuation of this system of exploitation. They are considered and treated as slaves whose bodies and minds are dominated by men. In this world, behind every oppressive man stands the dominant patriarchal capitalist system with political, ideological, cultural, military, and legal power. Women are the people who are most oppressed by the system and therefore they bear the greatest burden in the fight against the depraved and ruthless aspects of the same system against women.

As the revolutionary thinker and leader Bob Avakian so accurately points out, 

male supremacy is… completely interwoven and tightly “stitched together” with the whole historical development of the division between exploiters and exploited, oppressors and oppressed, throughout the world, including the capitalist-imperialist system which is dominant in the world today. Thousands of years ago, with the development of human societies in such a way that means of production (land, domesticated animals, tools, and so on) were no longer the common resource of people but instead became privately owned—and with the “division of labor”… this led to the dominance of the patriarchal family, with the man having power over his wife (or wives) and children, and women in society overall being subordinate to men, with all the brutality and terror, both mental and physical, that has been used to enforce this and the whole ideology and culture of male supremacy and misogyny… that has rationalized and reinforced this inequality and oppression. (Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution)

Avakian has broken new ground in understanding the dialectical relationship between the oppression of women and the system of capitalism-imperialism, and the radical revolutionary solution! Other trends of revolution and communism (“somewhat” economist) treat the oppression of women as a tangential contradiction. And a significant current of feminists completely discounts the mode of production (its base and its superstructure), fighting many times against real sexism and discrimination, but not against the whole capitalism-imperialism system that needs to be OVERTHROWN. Such feminists discount the mode of production due to the fact that some of them are caught up in identity politics and “intersectionality,” seeking their part under this system.

“Identity politics” in reality boils down to “me.” “We see all the time that, even while this identity is associated with a group, in fundamental terms it’s really about ‘me’ and ‘mine’; it is posed, at least objectively and often consciously, against other people, even other bitterly oppressed people, in a way that smacks of disgusting individualism and petty rivalry based on that outlook.

“‘Identity politics’ distorts, corrupts, misdirects and undermines the exposure of and the needed struggle against what are, in fact, horrific forms of oppression.” The “identity standpoint” is 

a phenomenon that has also provided a convenient target and vehicle for the growing fascist forces to attack the struggle against very real oppression and injustice, while this ‘identity’ politics and ideology offers no real solution to that oppression and injustice and no real alternative to the system that has bred this fascism. 

(Bob Avakian, Hope For Humanity On A Scientific Basis, Breaking with Individualism, Parasitism and American Chauvinism)

And intersectionality, despite the fact that it appears to be an apparently radical and universal framework that can encompass and experience multiple oppressions suffered by billions of people on this planet without all the “chaos” of overthrowing the system that generates and imposes these oppressions—and in which supposedly the truth is confirmed and injustice is remedied by designating the most oppressed as the authority and leadership in the struggles for reforms—in effect, this intersectionality does not see the fundamental and deep-rooted social divisions and the lopsided gaps in the world, like between rich and poor nations. Thus, supposedly the “intersections” that are identified and the “direct experiences” that are shared through “lanes” are enough to change the world.

We don’t need more people to be manipulated—to waste their desire for real change by following those who seek to turn oppressed “identities” (gender or ethnic, age, etc.) into political capital, at times with a seemingly radical facade, pretexting harmful illusions and hollow reforms, and at other times promoting supposedly “progressive” candidates from the ruling class. We do not need them to legitimize the “right to speak” and to “lead” through identities and narratives, but rather to judge revolutionary projects according to the content of what is being said and towards what is being led. What is URGENTLY needed is to fundamentally and radically change the world and all its oppressive social relations. That requires serious dialogue and debate about reform or revolution: What is the source of these horrors and what is the solution, what is it that will emancipate all of humanity and what will be simple tweaks within the same system!

On a world scale the cry of women resounds to change the situation of subjugation in which they are trapped. The enormous energy for such struggles stems from fury and hatred for an oppression that weighs and forcefully beats down billions of women. Everyone must refuse to accept a world where women are subordinated, dominated, degraded, beaten, mutilated, and murdered in order to keep women “in their place,” and everyone must stand up in unity with the women who are taking to the streets, from Argentina and Chile to India and Iran, to demand an end to sexual assault, femicide and more. Right now there is an urgent need to support women who are casting off their hijab in Iran and are being repressed. We call on women who a fighting to expand the battlefield against the oppression of women and to fight against the entire capitalist system and on the path to liberation for ALL humanity (not just “flip the system in our favor”), and to get into revolution and become liberators of humanity.

This March 8, we call on all truly progressive and revolutionary movements in Colombia and around the world, on those who are fighting against patriarchy, racism and fascism, religious fundamentalism, the destruction of the environment, poverty, national oppression, political repression, and imperialist wars, to join with all those who are standing up in other places more acutely as in Iran. We call on all those who oppose any form of oppression under the capitalist system to unite around the demand for freedom for all political prisoners in Iran. Today’s women and men political prisoners are the freedom fighters of our society. You cannot fall into the pettiness of fighting for “me” and “mine.” We must unite against ALL patriarchal, repressive and oppressive governments. The liberation of women and the end of their oppression, which is a worldwide question, can and must be a unifying factor that links women’s movements around the world. The liberation of women also makes possible the fight to liberate all of humanity.

Revolutionary Communist Group, Colombia | March 8, 2021 | @ComRevCo

“Fight for the Liberation of Women and the Emancipation of All Humanity!” Bucaramanga, Colombia

Cartegena, Columbia

La Plaza de Bolivar, Bogota, Colombia