An Open Letter to My Generation

Don't Sleepwalk Through The War on Women!

March 28, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From a young revolutionary and member of StopPatriarchy.org

The purpose of college, so they say, is to prepare you for the 'real world.' If you are a student, then you already know that with the college experience, comes much more than ‘real world prep’. But with all that it offers, college also demands a whole lot. It demands your time, focus, and not to mention thousands of dollars. That being said, it can become easy for students to get completely wrapped up in all this; exams, jobs, clubs, social lives, etc. And with the added stress of knowing that upon graduation you will be entering an extremely competitive job market, it is understandable that with everything students learn in college, there is a pull towards channeling it all towards careers for the ‘real world’.

Let’s step back for a second and think about what it has meant to be a student throughout the history of this country...

Students have been at the forefront of almost every major social, cultural and political movement against injustice. In the 60s, large sections of people all over the country were rising up against the war, white supremacy, patriarchy, tradition, and ultimately against the whole system of capitalism imperialism. The social and political climate were very different back then. You had a blatantly unjust war going on, with troops coming back from Vietnam reporting horrible abuses against the people and deep trauma caused by this. You had the Civil Rights struggle, the Black Liberation Movement and the urban rebellions across the country. You had people throwing off the chains of tradition, which was so stifling especially in the 1950s. You had a wave of radical writers putting out texts on gender, race, and sexuality. You had a culture where the music, poetry, and art was rich with a spirit of rebellion, and imagined what a far better world could be like. All of this was influenced by the major uprisings and revolutionary struggles around and all this also reverberated back around the world.

We are in a very different time now. The movements of the 60s and 70s made some incredible advances, but ultimately they did not make a revolution, and so we are here today with the same patriarchal, white supremacist, capitalist system still in tact, and on top of that, a backlash against everything concentrated in that radical period. It is easy to just say, “Well the times were different back then, and anyway we don’t need to fight the system like that anymore, we are all equal now.” But unless you have blinders on, you know the second part of that last sentence just isn't true. Yes it is a very different time, but a time with just as many, if not more outrages that need to be fought against. If you are a student, and you probably are if you’re reading this, then you have to know this. This includes the situation for women, as well. Despite the LIE that “You are living in a society based on equality, and that there are no limits to what you can achieve” the oppression of women has intensified in many ways.

Part of the social/political climate that unfortunately gets reinforced by many college professors is this relativist approach to the world – an approach that denies the existence of a single objective reality that all of us live in and that can be understood objectively, and says things are only as bad or good as you think they are, or as you tell yourself they are. It is easy to accept this approach if you are a relatively privileged person in this society but it is entirely immoral to just ignore what is going on around you; maybe even right next door to you. It is also just unrealistic to think that you are not being impacted by any of this, or that you could not have a real impact on it.

The fact of the matter is, there actually IS objective reality and there really IS a war on women. Rape really is an epidemic – including on YOUR campus. Pornography really is training millions of men and young boys to see women as objects of sexual plunder and to get off on violence and degradation against women. Violence against women happens every 15 seconds. And right now women’s right to abortion is hanging by a thread. This has implications on real women’s lives. 41 years after Roe vs Wade and abortion has never been more stigmatized, more difficult to access, and more dangerous to provide. Already thousands of women in this country have no access to abortion and this will only get worse if we do not stand up. Rabid anti-abortion forces are hard at work making sure women are kept in their ‘rightful’ place as baby making machines.

We need to be hard at work building a movement which takes back the moral high ground, which tells the truth about what this fight is all about, i.e. women’s freedom or women’s enslavement, that is going out in the streets in public, visible, uncompromising protest and is setting its sights no lower than achieving the full liberation of women.

We actually can do this. There is a basis for it and a movement that is determined and prepared to lead. If we do not act on what we know; if we do not take seriously our role as people who have truth on our side, and students who have the potential to move millions, then really, what is the point?

Join in Emergency Actions to Stop the War on Women! April 11 & 12

Go to StopPatriarchy.org to find events in your city, or plan your own.

The Blood of Women is on Their Hands!
Abortion on Demand and Without Apology!

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