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
Get connected with the movement to Stop Patriarchy! www.StopPatriarchy.org
More articles, campaigns, reports
Why I'm A Godless Communist and Why You Should Be One Too!
A Report on Talking to Students at a Small Midwestern College about Casting Off Religion, Liberating Women, and Emancipating Humanity
by Sunsara Taylor
They [the secular student group on campus] were excited to expose students to a more radical perspective and I was very excited to speak to and learn from these students and others.... I spoke about how I became an atheist and then a communist and the ways that patriarchy (the domination of women by men) is woven into Christianity as well as every other major religion in the world today. I got into many of the other harms of religion, both the specific harmful content of biblical morality as well as the way it trains people to not think critically, and I argued for science, a scientific approach to knowing and changing the world. Read more
Standing with Sasha and Against Bigotry
By a reader in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Oakland, California. On a public bus ride home from high school one afternoon in early November, Luke “Sasha” Fleischman was catching a little nap. Sasha woke up on fire! Was there a terrible accident with the fuel tank of the bus rupturing and spilling flammable liquid through the bus which subsequently lighted—a terrible disaster? No. Another human being set the sleeping 18-year-old Sasha on fire, then got off the bus and ran. Read more
OR WHY YOU CANNOT BREAK ALL THE CHAINS EXCEPT ONE
by Sunsara Taylor and Carl Dix
Statement from Sunsara Taylor on November 20, 2013
Congratulations are in order for all who raised their voices, donated money, and went into the streets to defeat the outrageous proposed 20-week ban on abortions in Albuquerque yesterday! This is a win not only for the women of Albuquerque, or even just for the women of New Mexico. Your work has won a victory for women, and the men and others who value women's freedom, all over the country as two out of only four doctors in the country who provide late-term abortions practice in Albuquerque.
On the same day, however, the Supreme Court allowed to stand a ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans which forced as many as 15 clinics to close altogether or to stop providing abortions to women who need them throughout Texas while the legal challenges to a completely bogus law requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals works its way through the courts.
In this #AbortionRightsEmergency … what will you do?
Sit on the sidelines? Hypothesize & criticize? Bury your head in the sand? Rely on the official political process which has buckled under the force of the anti-abortion movement? Or stand up, expose and oppose their illegitimacy, and fight unapologetically for abortion rights?! TODAY would not be a minute too soon.
igg.me/at/abortionrightsemergency
From StopPatriarchy.org
Five Things Everyone Should Know About Albuquerque's Proposed Ban on Abortions After 20 Weeks of Pregnancy
On November 19, people in the city of Albuquerque will vote on whether to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The very fact that a fundamental right of women—the right to abortion at whatever point in her pregnancy and for whatever reason she decides—can be put up for a vote is entirely illegitimate and reveals something profoundly wrong with the system that rules over us. Read more.
We Condemn the New Federal Ruling Which Will Immediately Shut Down Abortion Care at Many Clinics in Texas
We Appeal to All Who Care About Women: We Must Resist Now!
A statement issued by Sunsara Taylor, on behalf of StopPatriarchy.org
November 1, 2013
StopPatriarchy.org condemns in the strongest possible terms the outrageous ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on October 31 which will have the effect of immediately closing down abortion services at as many as 13 clinics throughout Texas! That this ruling came just three days after a federal judge had blocked the implementation of a new Texas law that would require abortion doctors to have arrangements to admit patients with local hospitals shows how extreme and intense the fight is right now over the direction of abortion rights—and the lives of women—throughout this country.
The Abortion Rights Freedom Ride Report
This past summer, nearly two dozen people loaded into vans and drove from both coasts and down the middle of the country, stopping in 15 states over the course of a month in response to the nationwide state of emergency facing abortion and reproductive rights. They set out to launch a national counteroffensive to the war on women, to reclaim the moral high ground by declaring Abortion on Demand and Without Apology, and to bring forward a movement of resistance that breaks free of the killing confines of official politics. Major advances were made on all of these fronts and critical lessons were learned. Download the report (PDF)
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This summer's Abortion Rights Freedom Ride made The Progressive magazine's list of "The Top 5 Moments in 2013's War on Women" where they look back and "remember some of the highest highs and the lowest lows."
Un-Blurring the Lines: On Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, and the MTV Video Music Awards...and the Need for a Culture of Revolt Against a Revolting Culture
A reader offers some thinking on "the many levels at which this whole incident, including most of the terms of 'debate' around it, reveals the need for a culture of revolt against this truly revolting culture."
Revolution Interview with Sunsara Taylor
Abortion Rights Freedom Ride
From both coasts, and through the middle of the country
Sunsara Taylor talks about the plans for the Abortion on Demand and Without Apology Freedom Ride set to begin in July, the emergency situation threatening abortion rights, where the oppression of women comes from, why unleashing the fury of women is essential to revolution as a whole, and other crucial questions.
Abortion Rights Are at a Crossroads:
This Is NOT a Time to Lay Low—It Is Time for Massive Uncompromising Struggle!
From Sunsara Taylor and David Gunn Jr.: "Across the country, people are waking up to the state of emergency facing the right to abortion... If we do not reverse this trajectory now, we will condemn future generations of women and girls to forced motherhood, to lives of open enslavement, terror, and life-crushing shame..."
Abortion Rights Freedom Ride!
Why I'm Going
A young woman writes about her decision to go on the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride.
An Open Letter
To the Civil Liberties and Public Policy program and the Hampshire Community
April 24, 2013
We are outraged at the illegitimate, immoral and dangerous decision made by CLPP organizers, including CLPP Director Mia Sullivan, to use police to eject us from your conference under threat of arrest simply for peacefully advocating an anti-pornography position to those who approached us at our own organizational table.
What's the Real Deal About the Hampshire CLPP Reproductive Freedom Conference Using Police to Eject Stop Patriarchy From Their Conference Under Threat of Arrest?
April 25, 2013
On April 12, 2013 eight members of the movement to End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women (StopPatriarchy.org) traveled up to Hampshire college to take part in the annual conference sponsored by the program for Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) called "From Abortion Rights to Social Justice, Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom."
Letter from Prisoner:
Defending the Right to Abortion, and Transforming People for Revolution
...after reading one of the recent issues of Revolution geared toward the abolishment of patriarchism, and promoting Abortion on Demand, this brother came up to me and said He feels that line to be morally Incorrect. He says he feels this way not only because he's a Christian, but the fact that a potential life is being murdered doesn't sit well with him. He said that a woman should be more responsible and keep her legs closed if she doesn't want to have a baby.... Now, at this point I really want to go upside his HEAD. I actually felt a slight rage come over my entire body..... keeping my cool, and being flexible, I kindly ask the brother if he at least felt that a woman should have the right to choose to terminate their pregnancy or not?...
"The Future of Women Depends on Us"
Sunsara Taylor at Revolution Books NYC January 15, 2013
Sunsara Taylor on pornography and the military—
From the Q&A at New York University on February 23, 2010.
Sunsara Taylor's national campus speaking tour: "From the Burkha to the Thong: Everything Must, and Can, Change—WE NEED TOTAL REVOLUTION!"
Michael Slate interview (5/22/13) with Sunsara Taylor, writer for Revolution newspaper and the initiator of StopPatriarchy.org, and Jordan Davis, Revolution Club, New York City.
Taylor and Davis discuss the eviction of StopPatriarchy.org from a conference titled "From Abortion Rights to Social Justice, Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom." Organizers of the conference held at Hampshire College called the police to surround and remove the anti-patriarchy and anti-pornography activists from the conference. Taylor and Davis expose the politics behind this move and the danger it poses for the movement, insisting that higher standards need to be in place.
ALERT! Condemn CLPP's Use of Police to Shut Down Critical Debate
CLPP Called on Police to escort StopPatriarchy.org
organizers out of conference under threat of arrest.
THIS DECISION MUST BE REVERSED AND REPUDIATED!
Report from April 25 National Campus Day of Action for Abortion on Demand & Without Apology
April 28, 2013
APRIL 25, 2013
ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY
National Campus Day of Action
Wear Stickers, Speak Out, Raise Awareness!
Fetuses are NOT babies!
Women are NOT incubators!
Abortion is NOT murder!
DID YOU KNOW...
...2011 and 2012 saw a RECORD number of restrictions on abortion across the country, and already this year there are 278 bills introduced to further restrict abortion?
...97% of rural counties have no abortion provider?
...several states have only ONE abortion clinic, and starting August 1 in North Dakota (to give just one example), abortion will be illegal at around 6 weeks? That's before most women know they are pregnant!
...over 80% of clinics that provide abortions have experienced violence, threats, harassment? And that 8 abortion providers and staff have been KILLED by anti-abortion violence?
It is WRONG to force women to have children against their will.
Forced motherhood is female enslavement.
Women are NOT breeders.
Women are HUMAN BEINGS, capable of full equality in every realm.
CONTACT US: StopPatriarchy@gmail.com
Let us know what you'll be doing on April 25
April 14, 2013
On the evening of Saturday, April 13 at the CLPP (Civil Liberties & Public Policy) conference, several conference attendees approached the StopPatriarchy.org table with our Call to Action in hand to argue against our condemnation of the sex industry and pornography. We welcomed this argument and got into a lively debate. However, instead of engaging our critique of the social harm caused by pornography and the selling of women's bodies for sex (how reducing women to sex objects through porn is the "mirror opposite" of reducing women to breeders through denying abortion), these people took offense to the fact that we dared to make this analysis.
Plans, Reports and Photos Straight from the Week of Action for Abortion Rights from DC and SF
Check frequently for updates on the week of action called by the End Pornography and Patriarchy campaign to fight for abortion rights on the 40th anniversary of Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
Join us in DC for the 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
January 20-26, 2012, Week of Action to Defend Abortion & Defeat the War on Women
We Won't Go Back!
ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY!
Defeat the War on Women!
REGISTER NOW!
From Delhi to Ohio and Around the World:
If You Are Not Fighting Rape, You Are Condoning It!
We Need Revolution and a Whole New World!
by Sunsara Taylor
Posted January 7, 2013
November 17:
People Take to the Streets Against Pornography and Patriarchy
Read more
Activists from around the country came to NYC for 10 days, August 4-14, to Take Patriarchy by Storm and to launch the movement throughout society to End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women. Above: in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC.
In front of a porn store downtown NYC, also during the ten days of Take Patriarchy by Storm from August 4-14, 2012.
Photo: Li Onesto/Revolution
Go to stoppatriarchy. org to read more about this movement.