Women’s Rights

Women’s Struggle In Nicaragua: From Liberation Fighters To Building An Alternative Society

November 7, 2021 Erika Takeo And Rohan Rice, People's Dispatch. Create! Gender Parity, Nicaragua, Sandinista Revolution, Women's Rights

According to the Global Gender Gap Index, the Central American country of Nicaragua currently places twelfth in the world for gender parity, above the likes of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Since the 1979 Sandinista revolution, the living conditions for women have drastically improved, successes which even the period of neoliberal rule from 1990 to 2006 couldn’t completely overturn. Throughout the second Sandinista period—from 2007 until today—the material and social position of women has continued to strengthen. Recently, new laws protecting the political and economic rights of women have been ratified after organized campaigns from the Nicaraguan women’s movement, while women’s organizations are receiving unprecedented investment and interest from the socialist government.

How Feminists Can Support Afghan Women Living Under The Taliban

October 15, 2021 Medea Benjamin And Ariel Gold, Jacobin. Educate! Afghanistan, Feminism, Taliban, Women's Rights

Since the Taliban took control of Kabul and Afghanistan’s central government on August 15, efforts to support Afghan women have become extremely challenging. According to some prominent US feminists with strong ties to Afghan women, the Taliban “has no legitimacy beyond the brutal force it commands,” and governments, the United Nations, and regional actors should not recognize or work with it. For some, this means isolating the Taliban by continuing to freeze Afghan funds held overseas and suspending any assistance that is coordinated with a government agency. But does that position actually help Afghan women? There’s little question that gains made by Afghan women over the past twenty years, particularly urban women, have been rolled back since the Taliban returned to power.

Mexico Court Says Criminalising Abortion Unconstitutional

September 8, 2021 Aljazeera. Create! Abortion, Law, Mexico, Women's Rights

Mexico’s Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to penalise abortion, a major victory for women’s health and reproductive rights that comes amid a “green wave” of abortion decriminalisation in Latin America. The Mexican court’s decision on Tuesday follows moves to decriminalise abortion at the state level, although most of the country still has tough laws in place against women terminating their pregnancy early. “This is a historic step for the rights of women,” said Supreme Court Justice Luis Maria Aguilar. The court unanimously annulled several provisions of a law from Coahuila – a state on the border with the US state of Texas – that had made abortion a criminal act, and its decision will immediately only affect the northern border state.

For A Workers’ Olympics!

July 23, 2021 Nathaniel Flakin, Left Voice. Create! Germany, Olympics, Sports, Women's Rights

We need a Workers’ Olympics as an alternative to the bourgeois Olympics! This might sound like an empty slogan, but the International Workers’ Olympiads took place from 1921 to 1937. The workers’ movement had always organized its own sports competitions. The Workers’ Olympiads let workers from all over the world exercise and compete together. Participants did not march under national flags — instead, everyone used the same red flag as the universal banner of labor.

Women Everywhere In The World Are Squeezed Into A Tight Corner

July 10, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Human Rights, Pandemic, United Nations, Women's Rights

In 1995, the delegates elected Chen Muhua (1921-2011) as the president of the UN World Conference on Women. In 1938, Chen went to Yan’an to join the communist revolution, studying at Kàngda and helping to build the economic resilience of the base areas. After 1949, Chen worked in the Communist Party (rising to be an alternate Politburo member), in the Chinese state (becoming the governor of the People’s Bank of China), and in the women’s movement (leading the All-China Women’s Federation). At the Beijing Conference, Chen made a strong plea for the emancipation of women. ‘It is evident that women are crying out for an improvement in their status. The times demand it. Humanity aspires to it’.

Women’s Rights In Nicaragua Under Attack From An Unlikely Source

May 1, 2021 John Perry, Popular Resistance. Educate! Elections, Nicaragua, US Regime Change, Women's Rights

Gioconda Belli, the Nicaraguan writer perhaps best known for her autobiography The Country Under My Skin, has been described as ‘an icon of Latin American feminist literature’. She spoke recently of the ‘extraordinary power’ of being a woman, and that despite this power ‘women have often been relegated to a second place, one where they are only seen from the role of reproduction, pleasure and service.’ Nevertheless, she added, ‘there have been enough ground-breaking women who have been and are still breaking into lots of situations where we couldn't have been found before.’ Extraordinary, then, that Belli has attacked Nicaragua’s National Assembly, because it is proposing to strengthen the laws requiring female representation in politics.

Migrant Worker Women Submit First Petition Against The US Under USMCA

March 24, 2021 the Center for Migrant Rights. Resist! Migrant Workers, USMCA, Violence against Women, Women's Rights

Maritza Perez and Adareli Ponce have filed the first-ever petition against the U.S. under the USMCA in a pivotal moment for the fight to end gender discrimination against migrant worker women on temporary labor migration programs. The petition was signed by a binational coalition of allies led by CDM. Migrant worker women are denied jobs, channeled into lower-paying roles and exposed to gender-based violence at their workplace. They’ve fought for justice, demanding the U.S. government put in place enforcement measures that ensure equity and dignity for migrant worker women.

Abortion Ban Repealed In New Mexico After Years Of Struggle

March 10, 2021 Kuveni Scanlan, Liberation News. Resist! Abortion, Health Care, New Mexico, Women's Rights

Radical and progressive activists recently led the way to an important victory for working-class women in New Mexico. For the past three years, several organizations in New Mexico, including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, have struggled to force the repeal of a 1969 New Mexico law which made it illegal for women to make their own decisions about their bodies. Finally reacting to significant protests, on Feb. 26, the governor signed a bill which repealed the law that made abortion illegal. This ban was, of course, unenforceable under the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. However, with the new conservative-dominated Supreme Court, the real fear that this latent law could come into effect spurred action. PSL members joined other organizations in a series of protests during the 2018 legislative session, including a rally which disrupted proceedings.

March 8: Day Of Revolutionary And Working Women, Not Queens And Exploiters

March 8, 2021 Cecilia Zamudio, Resumen English. Educate! Capitalism, International Women's Day, Liberation, Women's Rights

On the 8th of March, we commemorate working women, revolutionary women. Clara Zetkin, later a founder of the German Communist Party, proposed the commemoration in a conference of socialist women in 1920, to pay homage to the struggle of women against capitalist exploitation. We remember the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of March 26, 1911, in the US where 146 women textile workers were burned alive in a factory with the exits chained shut, assassinated by Big Capital. We commemorate the fight for social justice, for the rights of the working class, and the struggle against patriarchy and capitalism, which are inextricably linked. March 8 also stands out as a highly revolutionary date because of the events of 1917 in Czarist Russia when thousands of women came out into the streets demanding their rights, protesting exploitation and...

The Activist Roots Of Black Feminist Theory

December 30, 2020 Linda Burnham, Organizing Upgrade. Strategize! Black feminism, Intersectionality, Women's Rights

The idea that race, class and gender are interrelated dynamics of power and oppression has gained sufficient currency in the academic world to go by the shorthand “intersectionality,” or “intersection theory.” But the origins of contemporary Black feminist theory are not sufficiently known or acknowledged, and, given the invaluable work of university-based theorists, too many assume that the core concepts of Black feminism were born in the academy. In fact, much can be traced to activists in groups including the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Third World Women’s Alliance, and the Combahee River Collective.

Abuses In Palm Oil Fields Linked To Top Beauty Brands

November 23, 2020 Margie Mason and Robin McDowell, AP News. Educate! Cosmetics Industry, Indonesia, Palm Oil, Women's Rights

Sumatra, Indonesia - With his hand clamped tightly over her mouth, she could not scream, the 16-year-old girl recalls – and no one was around to hear her anyway. She describes how her boss raped her amid the tall trees on an Indonesian palm oil plantation that feeds into some of the world’s best-known cosmetic brands. He then put an ax to her throat and warned her: Do not tell. At another plantation, a woman named Ola complains of fevers, coughing and nose bleeds after years of spraying dangerous pesticides with no protective gear. Making just $2 a day, with no health benefits, she can’t afford to see a doctor.

How To Remember A Feminist Movement That Hasn’t Ended

August 24, 2020 By Erin L. Thompson, Tom Dispatch. Educate! Black Women, Racism, Statues, Women's Rights

Increasing outrage from critics over what the New York Times’ Brent Staples called the monument’s “lily-white version of history.” The proposed monument, wrote another critic in a similar vein, “manages to recapitulate the marginalization Black women experienced during the suffrage movement,” as when white organizers forced Black activists to walk at the back of a 1913 women’s march on Washington. Historian Martha Jones in an op-ed in the Washington Post criticized the way the planned monument promoted the “myth” that the fight for women’s rights was led by Anthony’s and Stanton’s “narrow, often racist vision,” and called for adding escaped slave, abolitionist, and women’s rights promoter Sojourner Truth. Although the New York City Public Design Commission had approved the design with just Anthony and Stanton, Monumental Women did indeed rework the monument, adding a portrait of Truth in June 2019. The sculptor would later make additional smaller changes in response to further criticism about her depiction of Truth, including changing the positioning of her hands and body to make her a more active participant in the scene.

Work In The Time Of COVID-19

August 5, 2020 Rebecca Gordon, Tom Dispatch. Educate! COVID-19, Essential worker, Farm Workers, Women's Rights

In two weeks, my partner and I were supposed to leave San Francisco for Reno, Nevada, where we’d be spending the next three months focused on the 2020 presidential election. As we did in 2018, we’d be working with UNITE-HERE, the hospitality industry union, only this time on the campaign to drive Donald Trump from office. Now, however, we’re not so sure we ought to go. According to information prepared for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Nevada is among the states in the “red zone” when it comes to both confirmed cases of, and positive tests for, Covid-19. I’m 68.

Philly Marches For ‘Justicia Para Vanessa!’

July 22, 2020 Joe Piette, Workers.org. Resist! Legal System, US military, Violence against Women, Women's Rights

Over 100 people, predominantly Mexican-American and young, marched in Philadelphia on July 12 to demand justice for Pfc. Vanessa Guillén. The protest was organized by JUNTOS and Lazos America Unida. Participants carried “Justicia para Vanessa” signs and large photos of the young soldier who was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. She disappeared after telling friends and family she was being sexually harassed and threatened within the military system. Speakers demanded justice from the higher-ups commanding the Army. Guillén disappeared in April, evidently killed at that time, but her body was not found on the Fort Hood installation until June 30. The remains of another soldier, Pvt. Gregory Wedel-Morales, were also found there in late June. Both the Guillén and Wedel-Morales families charge Army and local officials with not searching for their missing loved ones with urgency and empathy.

The Kurds Unbowed

June 28, 2020 By Dilar Dirik, New Internationalist. Educate! Kurds, Rojavia, Syria, Türkiye, Women's Rights

Despite the odds stacked against it, the women’s movement is determined to continue the struggle. In response to the Turkish invasions, hundreds of thousands of women from the different communities in Northern Syria have taken to the streets. On the International Day against Violence against Women, all the women’s organizations in Northern Syria organized large rallies across the region with the slogan ‘Occupation is Violence’. These local actions were echoed by feminist actions around the world under the campaign ‘Women Defend Rojava’. ‘Day and night, we engage in efforts to struggle against the occupation,’ Evîn says. ‘Our aim is for these areas to be liberated and for our people to see a dignified return. Both things must be led by the organized, free woman.’

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