First Quick Report on Yesterday's Protest to End Pornography & Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women!

Yesterday we took to the streets – beginning at St. Patrick's Cathedral and ending in front of a porn store and strip club in Times Square – against the war on women.

Along the way, we stopped at the offices of the foundation which sponsored the anti-abortion billboard which was featured in SoHo last year which claimed that, “The most dangerous place for a black child is in the womb,” at Fox News, at the US Military recruiting station, and to speak out against the way that women's bodies are displayed and objectified on billboards (and everywhere else) in Times Square.

This was a very lively and powerful launch to a new movement. It was a beginning. I will post more about it in the coming days.

At its height, the crowd swelled to about 75 and there were joined in for different legs of the march and protest.

Along the way, we encouraged people who had never spoken before against the war on women to step up and do so. We made clear that we are done with a situation where women all too often tell their stories of rape and sexual assault, of battery and sexual harassment, of obstacles and shame encountered while seeking abortion or even birth control. Meanwhile, woman-haters and religious fascists scream at the tops of their lungs that women are “sluts,” and use the power of the state to strip away our rights. Throughout the march, people did find their voices.

Particularly by the time we reached our last stop, many people stepped forward to speak. A young man told of the first time he saw pornography. He was ten years old. He came into the living room and a bunch of his male relatives were watching. They were all pretty young and began acting out the poses and behavior of the porn. He concluded, “Pornography takes a little boy's natural curiosity and turns it into something perverted,” and into something that is about degrading and getting over on women. A young woman who had toured the porn store with me and others last week stood up and spoke angrily about what was for sale inside. She held high some of the DVD's which were for sale inside, one featuring a woman performing oral sex and other sex acts on a pitbull, one in which the woman's breasts were bound and tortured, and one in which featured the words “All Women are Goo Swallowers.” She spoke of how these videos train men to think this is what women want, “But I am a woman and I don't find pleasure in this! I don't want to be treated like this!” She called on people to get involved in the movement to end pornography and patriarchy and to come to the next meeting.

A young Black woman stepped up and spoke of how she had grown up surrounded by pornography, including that the guys she had relationships with would watch it and try to get her to watch it. She said that when you think this is what you are supposed to do you go along and you even try to find pleasure in it yourself. But now she has the confidence and clarity to say that she finds it demeaning and humiliating and that she sees it as completely bound up with the abuse that is heaped on women in every sphere of their lives. She spoke of how her father brutalized her mother for years, of street harassment, and of the experience of a female relative who works in a profession where most of the men go out to strip clubs at night and bring that same attitude of disrespect into the workplace against her.

A young white woman spoke up about how even doing something as innocent as playing online card-games has made her the target of vicious anti-woman hatred. She explained that everyone must choose an “avatar,” or an online screen picture that represents you on the computer as you long and and play games. But, if she chooses an avatar with long hair (that looks female) she said as soon as she starts winning about 25% of the time men will start calling her “cunt,” “slut,” “whore,” and threatening her. She said that when she changed her avatar to a cat, the harassment stopped. Think what it means that the cat got more respect than the woman!

A young woman stepped to the front with a handmade sign which read, “I am not an incubator!” She spoke for a minute against pornography and built up momentum until she was screaming at the top of her lungs, along with her sign, “I am not an incubator!” The crowd cheered and offered support to every speaker.

There is much more to report. And I promise to write more.

But, this was a very powerful beginning. It needs to grow. More people need to get out in the streets with us.

The reactions of men along the way were further confirmation that a new era of struggle against the enslavement and degradation of women is necessary. Will write more on this tomorrow.

Why I Will Be Marching Against Religious Patriarchs and Woman-Hating Pornographers This Saturday – And Why You Should Join Me

It is no longer deniable by anyone paying attention, that we are living through an all out war on women's lives, women's rights, and women's futures. This is not a minor matter; women are half of humanity. Defeating this war is everybody's responsibility.

This is why this Saturday at noon I will be out in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City with a rowdy band of others screaming at the top of my lungs. This is the home of Timothy Dolan who spearheaded the recent attacks on birth control, which come on top of decades of attacks on abortion. Nearly 90% of counties now lack an abortion provider.

From there, we will march to the porn stores in Times Square and once again scream at the tops of our lungs. We will protest these stores because pornography has become more violent, more humiliating, and more cruel towards women – even as it has become more mainstream.

In reality, there is no meaningful difference between the Bible's view of women and pornography's view of women. Both reduce women to “things” to be controlled by men. The church reduces women to breeders. Porn reduces women to sex objects to be brutalized and degraded. We are neither. Women are human beings. On Saturday, we are shaking off any remnants of our own passivity and launching a new movement that will not stop until the full humanity of all women is recognized throughout society and throughout the world.

By taking to the streets in protest, we are not appealing to those in power, neither to the politicians who are either outright attacking women's lives nor with those who are “just” seeking “common ground” with and conciliating to those attacks. We are calling out the millions of people who are horrified by this relentlessness but who are sitting paralyzed on the sidelines. We are also calling out to those who have become so acclimated to the unceasing violence and disrespect of women that they aren't even angry.

Our message: IF WE WANT THINGS TO CHANGE – WE MUST ACT! We must rely on ourselves. We must do more than click an online petition or send money to some politician, we must get out in the streets, we must make our voices heard, we must confront the woman-haters and we must create through this protest a taste of the future we want.

For too long, those who attack women have felt free to do so at the tops of their lungs and with the backing of the state. Rush Limbaugh can call a thirty year old woman who uses birth control a “slut” and monopolize headlines for days. Timothy Dolan can revolt against birth control and get a personal phone call trying to appease him from President Obama. Porn producers can speak openly, as Bill Margold does here, about their desire to portray violence against women, “I'd like to really show what I believe the men want to see: violence against women... The most violent we can get is the cum shot in the face. Men get off behind that because they get even with the women they can't have."

Meanwhile, women tell us the stories of their rapes, the obstacles and shame they've encountered seeking abortions, the humiliation they've experienced from boyfriends who take their cues from pornography in whispers and through tears.

Why should a woman feel she has to whisper to us about birth control and then add, “I hope no one hearing this gets offended”? Why should a woman be embarrassed to tell us how humiliated she has been because, “Every guy I have ever dated has begged me to let him ejaculate in my face”? Why should a woman break down in tears not because she feels guilty about having had an abortion but because she had gone her whole life without anyone ever saying to her that it is okay to feel good about her abortion?

It is time for women to stop choking on their anger and pain, to stop turning it inward. And it's time for the men who want no part of this to stop going along.

We know that the body count of battered women – three to four women killed every day – never makes the front page. We know it's easier not to consider the crushed spirits and ravaged bodies of the trafficked women who are locked inside the "massage parlors" we walk past. We know it's degrading to consider how many of the men we interact with get off on depictions of women being "throat-fucked" til they gag. We know its a lot of energy to respond every time a religious fascist insists women "keep their legs closed" and be forced to bear children against their will. We know it is painful to confront that most people—including most progressive people —have learned to accept and to live with this escalating hatred of women.

But we also know that this is not the only way the world can be. We know there is a reservoir of people, women and men, young and old, who hate this relentless assault on women's lives, rights and futures. We know that there are millions more who can be won to see that all this is intolerable. We know that not all men hate women. We know that women are not innately weak and passive and destined to lay down for this shit. We know – and we have already seen in our work building up for this protest – that, when people come together to confront the woman-haters and speak up defiantly in an uncompromising voice, tears and whispers can transform into righteous anger and defiant political action.

By standing up together, by confronting the institutions that concentrate the war against women, we can shake off our own passivity. We can plant a pole that challenges and changes what other people feel they just have to accept. We can create a situation where the anger that is simmering, often stuffed very deep down in women everywhere, can be brought to the surface and unleashed to fuel powerful thinking and action. We can give inspiration and backing to people of all genders who everywhere who want to be part of bringing a better future into being. We can forge a vehicle, a new movement, that changes the terms throughout society and gives people a meaningful way to act.

On Saturday, our protest is not symbolic. It is a beginning. It is a declaration. From now, until we win the full liberation of women, this war on women will be resisted with conscience, anger, imagination, massive mobilization, and relentless determination to turn the tide.

End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women!

Abortion On Demand and Without Apology!

Fight for the Emancipation of Women All Over the World!

http://stoppatriarchy.tumblr.com/march10

Saturday, March 10th 
12:00 NOON
ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL:

Fifth Ave. btw 50-51st. Streets