Watch the trailer for the new film of the Dialogue here!
Read: Ardea Skybreak, On Attending the Dialogue Between Bob Avakian and Cornel West
It is a striking fact—which is starkly evident in the U.S. now—that, in comparison to what is done to women, there is no other group in society that is so systematically reviled and defiled in a way that has become acceptable (or widely accepted in any case) as a significant part of “mainstream” life and culture, as happens in a concentrated way through pornography and the extremely demeaning and degrading images and messages about women it massively and pervasively purveys (with the Internet a major focus and vehicle for this), including pornography’s extensive portrayal of sadistic and violent sexual domination of women...
I began the “Revolution” talk with “They’re Selling Postcards of the Hanging,” reviewing the ugly history of the lynching of Black people in America and the way in which celebration of this became a cultural phenomenon in the U.S., with the selling of picture postcards of these lynchings a major expression of this—often including smiling and leering crowds of white people surrounding the murdered and mutilated body of a Black man. In a recent exchange, a comrade emphasized this profoundly important and compelling point: Today, the way in which pornography depicts women—the displaying of women in a degraded state for the titillation of viewers—including the grotesque brutality and violence against women which is involved in much of this, is the equivalent of those “Postcards of the Hanging.” It is a means through which all women are demeaned and degraded.
Bob Avakian
Unresolved Contradictions,
Driving Forces for Revolution
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
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.
Bob Avakian
Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
BAsics 3:22
END PORNOGRAPHY AND PATRIARCHY: THE ENSLAVEMENT AND DEGRADATION OF WOMEN!
We are told that “equality for women has been won” and that “there are no limits to what girls can achieve.” BULLSHIT! Every 15 seconds a woman is beaten. Every day three to four women are killed by their partners. One out of four female college students will be raped or sexually assaulted while in college. In recent years, pornography has become increasingly violent, cruel, degrading towards women....
June 27, 2016
by Sunsara Taylor
The Supreme Court has overturned the horrendous Texas anti-abortion law HB2, rejecting its anti-abortion restrictions as an “undue burden” on women's ability to obtain an abortion. This means that the remaining abortion clinics in Texas will be able to continue providing abortions to women, and this is a blow against a whole spate of similar anti-abortion restrictions which have been passed across the country. This is good news because, as Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, has pointed out, denying women the right to abortion and forcing women to have children against their will is a form of enslaving women to the dictates of an oppressive male supremacist, patriarchal system.
However, today's victory does NOT mark an end to the war on women. The fact that such an outrageous and anti-woman law could be passed in the first place—with over twenty abortion clinics forced to close during the three years while this law worked its way through the courts—is but one indication of the depth of anti-abortion and anti-woman fanaticism that pervades this country.
June 27, 2016
Islamic fundamentalists are carrying out a campaign of machete murders in the South Asian country of Bangladesh. Since February 2013, they’ve murdered some 39 people—secular thinkers and writers, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activists, religious minorities, foreign aid workers, and others. And the attacks are continuing: Five were murdered in April, four in May, and three (or more) in June. The killers strike with guns and bombs—but mostly with machetes, slashing the back of their victims’ necks, then riding away on motorbikes. On April 23, a university professor was hacked to death and nearly beheaded, and on the 25th a gay rights activist and his friend were butchered. On April 30, a Hindu tailor was cut down—supposedly for criticizing Islam; on June 5, a Christian grocer; two days later, a Hindu priest. A Bangladeshi blogger who’d exposed the abuse of workers and police brutality was driven into hiding for condemning the Islamists’ murder rampage.
June 13, 2016
by Sunsara Taylor
Bob Avakian has said that the frequency of rape in this society would be reason enough for revolution, even if all its other towering crimes and injustices did not exist. A deep look at the recent rape case at Stanford underlines that—and why a revolution is needed to solve it. Read more
» The Stanford Rape Case:
Statement from the Young Woman Who Was Raped
Read more
Rape at Stanford University and the Rest of the World
June 20, 2016
Rape Is as English as Steak and Kidney Pie
June 20, 2016
June 12, 2016
June 20, 2016
June 20, 2016
June 20 2016
June 13, 2016
June 6, 2016
May 23, 2016
by Sunsara Taylor
As communist revolutionaries, we are fighting for a world in which all relations between people are based on mutual respect, mutual equality, and mutual flourishing. This includes the way that people of different nationalities, genders, and sexualities relate to each other throughout society and the world. And this includes the way that people relate in their intimate and romantic lives, as well as in their friendships and family relations. Liberating all these relations from thousands of years of oppressive traditions requires an actual revolution—overthrowing the system of capitalism-imperialism that rules over us and enforces these oppressive relations, and going on to build a radically new economy and culture in the new revolutionary society. Our goal is a world where people are no longer divided into masters and slaves, oppressors and oppressed, exploiters and exploited—not in the way the society is organized, not in the culture, and not in the bedroom.
So, what exactly does this mean in terms of sex? Read more
May 12, 2016
by Sunsara Taylor
The following was provoked by the May 5 NY Times Magazine cover story, “Should Prostitution Be a Crime?”
We don’t need a “choice” between criminalizing women who are used and abused in the sex industry or glorifying and “regulating” this industry that perpetrates—and can only perpetrate—the sexual enslavement, rape, abuse, and dehumanization of millions and millions of women and girls.
We need a whole different world: where women and girls are never again coerced, forced, sold by starving families, or tricked into sexual slavery; where men are no longer socialized to want and feel entitled to sexually exploit, degrade, and brutalize women and girls; and where all relations between all people—including intimate and sexual relations—are based on mutual respect and equality and mutual flourishing, not domination, degradation, desperation or getting over on others.
Download full poster: PDF for print | JPG of full poster for web | JPG to tweet
May 30, 2016
» From a Prisoner in California
"Chauvinism and misogyny were deeply ingrained in me"
» From a Prisoner in the Midwest
"There isn't a day in their lives that women aren't made to feel like less than what and who they are"
May 9, 2016
From a Revolution Club member. Read more
May 2, 2016
by Sunsara Taylor
Last month, the website JustNotSports produced a damning video that revealed a taste of the pervasive hatred and harassment against women in sports. In this video, men read out loud just a few of the countless hateful comments that have been directed at Julie DeCaro and Sarah Spain, two female sports reporters. They read these comments directly to these women’s faces and they can barely get through it. You really have to watch the video. Read more
April 18, 2016
The rulers of this capitalist-imperialist system—built on slavery and genocide, operating through vicious exploitation, and perpetuated through unjust wars—declare they bring freedom and progress to the world. They proclaim themselves liberators of women while they enslave half of humanity in a world of sweatshops, forced motherhood (through denial of abortion or other forms of birth control), degrading pornography, and systematic sexual violence and rape. They brand themselves as champions of enlightenment while imposing forced ignorance on the oppressed.
Fundamentalist Islamic jihad poses as an answer to this, one that is lashing back with a vengeance. But look at the reality.
April 18, 2016
From a member of the Revolution Club:
February 22, 2016, North Carolina’s largest city, Charlotte, joined 18 states and over 200 cities and counties in passing an ordinance intended to prevent discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people in “places of public accommodation.” The ordinance included a measure that allowed transgendered people to use public restrooms that correspond to the gender with which they identify. Charlotte’s anti-discrimination ordinance was set to go into effect on April 1. Read more
April 4, 2016
On March 30, Donald Trump said that abortion should be banned and that women who undergo an abortion should face “some form of punishment.” The position of Trump and the whole anti-abortion movement rests on the LIE that abortion is murder. But ABORTION IS NOT MURDER. Read more
April 4, 2016
March 28, 2016. A World to Win News Service. It has been a year since the brutal murder of Farkhunda by a mob of men. She was accused of burning the Quran. Read more
August 17, 2015
The Bernie Sanders campaign—like those of every candidate who the ruling class allows to be taken seriously—essentially takes as its starting point stabilizing, strengthening, and ultimately enforcing the whole structure of a world dominated, exploited, and oppressed by the U.S. empire. And telling people that those interests are their interests. And nothing good can come from that. Read more
November 12, 2015
August 3, 2015
by Bob Avakian
From previously unpublished correspondence, 2014, now published in Break ALL the Chains! Bob Avakian on the Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution. Read more
November 9, 2015
by Sunsara Taylor
Updated August 7, 2015
Click here for the Summer 2015 Plan to Take Patriarchy By Storm, Reports, and MUCH MORE!
Reprinted August 3, 2015
by A.S.K. Read more
August 17, 2015
Editors’ note: We received a thoughtful letter from a reader who is “profoundly disturbed and in opposition to the RCP’s positions on pornography,” and asked a team of other readers of Revolution to write a response. We think this is an important discussion and debate, and encourage readers to continue to write on this and other controversial questions. Read the letter and response
Originally posted January 16, 2015
January 26, 2016
August 18, 2013
May 25, 2015
Vicious and escalating attacks on women’s access to abortion have reached a new level. So far this year, more than 330 restrictions on abortion have been introduced by 43 states, and as of April 2, over 50 were made into law. Read more
August 3, 2015
In the face of the continuing and increasing attacks on the right to abortion, it is vital to tell the scientific truth about abortion. This brochure lays out the truth about what a fetus is and is not, gives some key information about the urgency of the current situation, and lays out what everybody who cares about women's lives and reproductive rights can (and should) do right now. Order from StopPatriarchy@gmail.com or download PDF
Click the image to enlarge, or Download PDF.
December 14, 2015
by Sunsara Taylor
On December 11, Anna Yocca was arrested after rushing to a hospital in Tennessee because she was bleeding so profusely she feared for her health and quite possibly her life. Read more
January 4, 2016
It is inconceivable that a woman desperate enough to use a coat hanger in a failed attempt to self-induce an abortion, in order to avoid being forced into motherhood, could actually be charged with attempted murder and thrown into prison! But that is exactly what is happening in Tennessee right now to Anna Yocca. Read more
December 23, 2015
The Revolution Club, Stop Patriarchy, revolutionaries, and activists came to Mursfresboro, Tennesse to #StandWithAnnaYocca during her arraignment on December 22, 2015 (she is still in jail with a $200,000 bail). We were 14 strong from NYC, Atlanta, and Tennessee. We brought a simple message "When a Woman Attempts a Coat-Hanger Abortion...It is the Patriarchal SYSTEM That Is Guilty of Attempted Murder—Against Her!" Read more
March 7, 2016
On March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the most important abortion case in decades. How the court rules on this case will have life and death implications for millions of women, not just in Texas, but all over the country. Read more
March 7, 2016
From a reader:
On March 2, passions ran high on the plaza in front of the Supreme Court as about 2,000 people came together to cheer, chant, intently listen, and sometimes break into tears as speaker after speaker spoke to what the court case being argued inside was all about: women’s lives, their aspirations, hopes, and dreams. This was the biggest protest to defend the right to abortion in many, many years. Read more
January 29, 2016
February 8, 2016
“To the world, I am an attorney who had an abortion, and, to myself, I am an attorney because I had an abortion.” These are the words from one of the 113 women in the legal profession who are part of an amicus brief in a major case having to do with abortion that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on March 2. Read more
January 29, 2016
Poster PDF (for print) JPG (full size, for web)March 21, 2016
March 14, 2016. A World to Win News Service. This text, dated March 8, is from Alborada Comunista, the website of the Revolutionary Communist Group (GCR) of Colombia (acgcr.org). Read more
March 14, 2016
March 7, 2016. A World to Win News Service. Written by “A group of revolutionary communists—Afghanistan.” Read more
January 29, 2016
March 8, International Women’s Day, is a day when people all over the world join together to declare our determination to break the thousand-years-old chains of oppression that bind half of humanity. IWD is a day to call forth the fury of women and unleash it as a mighty force for revolution; a day for all who dream of and yearn for a better world to act on the recognition that you cannot break all the chains except one, that if you are serious about emancipating all of humanity you must include the fight for the full liberation of women. A day of struggle against the many different chains of women’s oppression: from the brutality of Dark Ages patriarchal feudalism and Islamic fundamentalism; to the trafficking of women worldwide; to the “modern-day” chains of Internet pornography and denial of reproductive rights. Read more
March 7, 2016
Read statement from the 8 March Women’s Organisation (Iran-Afghanistan)
March 7, 2016
On March 2, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the most important abortion case in decades. How the court rules on this case will have life and death implications for millions of women, not just in Texas, but all over the country. Read more
March 7, 2016
From a reader:
On March 2, passions ran high on the plaza in front of the Supreme Court as about 2,000 people came together to cheer, chant, intently listen, and sometimes break into tears as speaker after speaker spoke to what the court case being argued inside was all about: women’s lives, their aspirations, hopes, and dreams. This was the biggest protest to defend the right to abortion in many, many years. Read more
January 29, 2016
January 29, 2016
Poster PDF (for print) JPG (full size, for web)March 21, 2016
March 14, 2016. A World to Win News Service. This text, dated March 8, is from Alborada Comunista, the website of the Revolutionary Communist Group (GCR) of Colombia (acgcr.org). Read more
March 14, 2016
March 7, 2016. A World to Win News Service. Written by “A group of revolutionary communists—Afghanistan.” Read more
January 29, 2016
March 8, International Women’s Day, is a day when people all over the world join together to declare our determination to break the thousand-years-old chains of oppression that bind half of humanity. IWD is a day to call forth the fury of women and unleash it as a mighty force for revolution; a day for all who dream of and yearn for a better world to act on the recognition that you cannot break all the chains except one, that if you are serious about emancipating all of humanity you must include the fight for the full liberation of women. A day of struggle against the many different chains of women’s oppression: from the brutality of Dark Ages patriarchal feudalism and Islamic fundamentalism; to the trafficking of women worldwide; to the “modern-day” chains of Internet pornography and denial of reproductive rights. Read more
March 7, 2016
Read statement from the 8 March Women’s Organisation (Iran-Afghanistan)
January 12, 2016
On January 8, Michael Slate interviewed Sunsara Taylor about the upcoming mobilizations for abortion rights, the need for massive resistance to defeat the war on women and the urgent need for people to take up the leadership of Bob Avakian and join the fight for a revolution that can emancipate all of humanity. This interview has been edited for publication. Read more p>
February 22, 2016
The World Health Organization has declared a global public health emergency due to what they’ve described as the “explosive” spread of the Zika virus. Over the last year, the virus has been detected in 23 countries in the Americas. As many as four million people could be infected with the virus throughout the hemisphere this year. There is a correlation and possible link between the Zika virus and thousands of birth defects in Latin America. Read more
December 15, 2015
Discussion at Revolution Books, New York City
December 21, 2015
Transcript of talk by Sunsara Taylor at Revolution Books as part of "The Abortion Rights Emergency—STOP the War on Women" on December 15, 2105. Read more
December 8, 2015
March 14, 2016
January 25, 2016
November 9, 2015
In this article, Sunsara Taylor gets into the context of the abortion rights protests being called for January 22-23, 2016 and the crucial importance of those actions. January 22 marks the anniversary of the 1974 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide—for the first time, women could decide for themselves whether and when they wanted to give birth to children. Read more
January 18, 2016
January 19, 2016
February 15, 2016
February 15, 2016
by Mary Lou Greenberg. Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, says that women should vote for Hillary Clinton, and that “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.” I have a thought on this, Madeleine. Read more
February 15, 2016
Mustang is a beautiful and deeply moving film about the irrepressible spirit of five young sisters coming of age in modern-day rural Turkey and fighting not to be crushed by the heavy weight of tradition’s chains on women. Read more
January 12, 2016
In December 2015, Sunsara Taylor interviewed David Cohen about the book he co-authored, Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism (Oxford University Press, 2015). Cohen is a law professor at Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law, where he teaches constitutional law and gender and the law. Prior to teaching, Cohen was a staff attorney at the Women's Law Project in Philadelphia and litigated cases involving abortion clinic safety, reproductive rights, Title IX, and LGBT family law. Read the interview
January 12, 2016
January 18, 2016
January 18, 2016
January 9, 2016
December 21, 2015
December 8, 2015
Revolution: You are wearing bloody pants to school to make a statement and provoke people to act around the assault on abortion rights. So we want to hear all about that. What is the message? What kind of response you’ve gotten? What inspired you or compelled you to do this? And how does this fit into the upcoming anniversary of Roe v. Wade and actions in support of abortion rights on that day? But let’s start with what it is you are doing. Read the interview
January 18, 2016
Updated January 18, 2016
December 29, 2015
Host & Producer:
Sunsara Taylor, writer for Revolution newspaper and initiator of StopPatriarchy.org
Including the voices of:
» Merle Hoffman, Founder and CEO of Choices Women’s Medical Center, abortion provider, author and activist for over 40 years
» David Cohen, author of the book Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism
» Activists from StopPatriarchy.org and Revolution Clubs around the country
Listen here (Program begins at 01:30)
January 12, 2016
The pope’s official designation of Mother Teresa’s official “sainthood” isn’t expected to come until September 2016. But for the Catholic hierarchy, from the Vatican on down, Mother Teresa has been a “saint” for decades. Read more
Bob Avakian on the
Emancipation of Women and the
Communist Revolution
A Declaration: For Women's Liberation and the Emancipation of All Humanity
Unresolved Contradictions, Driving Forces for Revolution
by Bob Avakian
Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal)
Away With All Gods!
Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World
by Bob Avakian
AUDIO: Question and Answer session with Bob Avakian—the difference between eroticism and pornography