It is time for swift-striking gender insurgency. Time for women guerrillas, [21st] century Amazons, mad shrieks of protest, and careful mobilization of political battalions. Goddammit, sisters: Let’s get revolutionary. Let’s understand that the private profit system is at the bottom of all this horror, and let’s catapult ourselves on to the mainstage of history.
–Clara Fraser, Radical Women and Freedom Socialist Party co-founder
The system has only begun to get a taste of U.S. women’s anger. The Kavanaugh nomination hearings call out women’s outrage against the sexual violence that every woman is subject to. In addition, it lays bare the whole system of class, race and gender privilege in this patriarchal capitalist system. Who but these super-wealthy white males could engage in such brutal, gang-rape activities and not only get away with it but have it tolerated as “boys will be boys”? And even find women willing to defend them!
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings were an utter sham, as is Jeff Flake’s last- minute call for an FBI investigation. Does he want the truth to come out? No, he just wants to cool things off. But women won’t calm down like “good girls.”
It is time for protest in the streets, time to go beyond limited “Give Now” activism. Radical Women and Freedom Socialist Party applaud the 200 feminists arrested so far in Washington, D.C. We need to keep the pressure on with more and bigger actions. So where do we go next?
The rage against blatant sexual violence needs to fuse with the righteous anger of women of color whose communities are under daily attack by murderous police; with immigrant families fleeing violence and poverty only to be denied sanctuary or imprisoned in U.S. jails; with women denied access to their full range of reproductive rights, including support for families in poverty. Sisterhood needs to embrace Syrian women and their children who are dying from U.S. bombs, and it needs to reach out to transgender people and indigenous women who face astronomical rates of rape and murder.
The fight won’t end with Kavanaugh or the mid-term elections. Let’s not forget the casual abuse of sexual power that also typified the Democratic figureheads – from J.F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy to Bill Clinton. A system based on women’s subjugation does not deserve our loyalty or our adherence to laws that oppress us.
We must wreak women’s rage on all pillars of sexist, racist patriarchy and end the rule of the rich. Our freedom lies in building a socialist world of true equality, where the formerly oppressed rule on behalf of all, where collective wealth is used wisely and democratically to end the poverty, wars and violence of this criminal system.
Let’s bring the future that Clara Fraser predicted: “a new global upsurge of women like you have never seen, one that will engulf every economic relationship, every institution, every government.” Contact RadicalWomenUS@gmail.com or fspus@socialism.com to share your ideas and let us know about your actions. Let’s find ways to work together to mount this offensive for all of humanity!
