Urgent Appeal -- Your Donation Needed By Midnight Tomorrow!

Watch & Spread this Talk -- STOP THE WAR ON WOMEN!!!!

Here is the footage of the talk I gave yesterday at Revolution Books in New York City (thank you to RB to getting this online so quickly!) called:


From the Expanding Porn Industry to the Aggressive Religious Patriarchs -- End the Enslavement and Degradation of Women!

Watch it... Spread it... Get out in the streets on Saturday!!!


Sunsara Taylor, 3/4/2012 from Revolution Books on Vimeo.

Report On Taking Out Our Amazing "War on Women" Display and Building for the Intenrational Women's Day Protest March 10th

Over and over again a group of us who have been working to mobilize people to stand up for International Women's Day, have marveled at how little people know about the war on women. We've been very struck by how deeply people react and share their visceral feelings of upset, distress and righteous anger over the conditions facing women broadly and themselves personally. Mostly, these are people who seemed surprised themselves how strongly they reacted, but once they heard the whole war on women called out in its entirety, once they heard such sober truth telling and certitude, this drew out their own convictions. At the same time, largely because we recognize how deeply this connects with people who weren't already “looking for” this effort to End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women which we are launching, we've struggled with how to get people who aren't already thinking about the attacks on women be open enough to engage what we are saying and doing.

So, during a meeting a couple weeks ago we spent some time and we put ourselves to this. Through many hair-brain permutations and brainstorms along the way, what we came up with was the following. We got enormous paper (about 12 feet by 6 feet) and laid it out on the ground. On it we drew a couple of chalk outlines of women's bodies, the kind that the police do after someone has been murdered. Over the bodies of these women we placed big boot prints with various words which concentrate the hatred and enslavement of women: patriarchy, pornography, sex slavery, burkha, “beauty” standards, church, etc. Then, around that whole display we placed a collection of stunning facts about the level of hatred and violence against women. Different people volunteered to pull together different parts of the display and we assembled the whole thing on the spot the first time we took it out.

Read more »

Check Out Our Powerful "War on Women" Display!!!

Here is a quick video of the incredibly powerful display we have been using around New York City to confront people with the scope and the magnitude of the war on women -- and to call on them to join in the protest on International Women's Day to demand:

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

Abortion on Demand and Without Apology!

Fight for the Emancipation of Women All Over the World!


People have been stopping and shaking their heads in disbelief. "I knew things were bad... but I had no idea!" Covering topics affecting women such as lack of abortion access, a global epidemic of rape, the increasingly violent nature of pornography, the global sex slave trade, the violence against women in the U.S. military, objectifying and degrading "beauty" standards, and more.

To get involved, contact us at: stoppatriarchy(at)gmail.com

or check out: http://stoppatriarchy.tumblr.com/march10

Protest & March for International Women's Day -- March 10th NOON

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!

Saturday, March 10th Celebrate International Women's Day 12:00 Noon  Protest and March against sites of women's oppression!   Gather near St. Patrick's Cathedral (near Rockefeller Center, exact location TBA):   ►The Catholic Church's approach to women, gender, science and sexuality - like that of many religions - is a Dark Ages disaster! The Pope has condemned condoms (causing millions of HIV/AIDs deaths). The Church condemns homosexuality and insists that "divorce is a sin" (contributing to women staying in abusive marriages). Recently, Catholic Bishops urged "non-compliance" with new regulations requiring health insurance to cover birth control! MARCH to TIMES SQUARE: ►Protest the objectification of women! Women's near-naked and rail-thin bodies are displayed, often in subservient poses, and used to sell everything from clothes  to cars to "American culture" to the entire world. ►Protest the U.S. Military Recruiting Center!  The U.S. Military concentrates violence against women!  This includes its quasi-official reliance on brothels as a "perk" to male soldiers; the role of military forces in trafficking women and girls; and the epidemic of rape, harassment and violence against female soldiers.    MARCH to and PROTEST STRIP CLUBS (TBA) in the area! ►U.S. men spend an estimated $15 billion annually on strip clubs, as compared to $4 billion on baseball. Strip clubs have always objectified and degraded women. But with women entering - and fighting for increasing respect in - the public sphere, strip clubs have become the new "all male preserve" and an enclave for male chauvinism and entitlement towards women's bodies. Further, strip clubs prey upon the desperation, abuse and addiction of many women, including women who've been kidnapped and trafficked. ALONG THE WAY: Protest "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" & Celebrate Abortion Provider Appreciation Day: ►Crisis Pregnancy Centers are fake "clinics" that knowingly prey on women for whom being pregnant is a crisis. However, they are driven by an anti-abortion agenda. They often have no clinical staff, spread lies, guilt-trip women, and enormously delay and complicate women's ability to access abortion.  ►In contrast, we'll celebrate abortion providers because March 10th is Abortion Provider Appreciation Day!

PLANNING/MOBILIZING MEETINGS - THURSDAYS @ 7 PM   If anything in this call resonated with you... If you care about the conditions of women... If you want to do something that can really make a huge difference - not only for yourself, but for women (and all people) worldwide and for future generations... CONTACT US! stoppatriarchy@gmail.com

3 things you can do right away: 1. Invite us into your class, club or dorm. 2. Spread this on FB and Twitter. 3. Spread this announcement for IWD everywhere

Call to 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; women are referred to as "cumdumpsters" and "fuckbuckets"; the "money shot" (ejaculation in a woman's face) is standard; humiliating cruelty-like violent "ass-to-mouth" penetration-is normalized, and racist bigotry is sexualized. Meanwhile, the broader culture has been pornified: pole dancing is taught at gyms, "sexting" is a national phenomenon among teens, and the strip club is the accepted backdrop to "male bonding." All this is tied in with, and reinforces, the trafficking of millions of women and girls as literal chattel in the international sex industry.

This is NOT society becoming more comfortable with sex. This is society becoming saturated with the sexualized degradation of women. If you can't imagine sex without porn, you're fucked.

At the same time, a Christian fundamentalist-driven assault is imperiling abortion, birth control, real sex education and women's lives. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people who do not conform to traditional patriarchal gender and sexual norms are demonized and threatened. Abortion doctors are killed. Women who seek abortions-or even birth control-are stigmatized. 2011 saw the largest spate of legal restrictions on abortion since Roe v. Wade in 1973.

ALL THIS MUST BE STOPPED!

Fetuses are not babies. Women are not incubators. Abortion is not murder.

Women are not objects. Women are not things to be used for the sexual pleasure of men NOR are they breeders of children. WOMEN ARE HUMAN BEINGS CAPABLE OF FULL EQUALITY IN EVERY REALM!

 

It is long past time that this new generation stand up, reject, and RESIST this culture of rape and pornography; this culture that labels women "selfish" if they choose not to become mothers; this culture that reduces women and girls to sexualized objects while denying their full multi-dimensional humanity (including their right-as one essential part of this-to explore their sexuality without shame or stigma); this culture that demonizes and bullies LGBT people. 

Our purpose is NOT to lobby for new legislation to ban pornography ("decency laws" have always served to further repress homosexuality, boundary-challenging art, and scientific sex education). We oppose the criminalization of women in the sex industry. Our mission is to challenge the new generation in particular to reject this culture of rape and pornography, to resist the shaming of women who have sex and/or abortions, to wage fierce cultural and political resistance to wake others up, and to bring forward a liberating culture that celebrates the full equality and liberation of women.

 contact: stoppatriarchy@gmail.com

A Call to Atheists and Secularists to Defend Women's Right to Abortion and Birth Control

Signed by:

Annie Laurie Gaylor, Freedom From Religion Foundation*; Sikivu Hutchinson, BlackSkeptics; Hemant Mehta, Friendly Atheist; Sunsara Taylor, Revolution Newspaper & sunsara.blogspot.com; Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon*, Norm Allen, former executive director of African Americans for Humanism*, and many others.

Add Your Name Here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/atheists-and-secularists-defend-abortionrts/


Atheists and secularists generally pride themselves on respect for science, opposition to harmful religious myths, and a fierce defense of the separation of church and state.  Yet there is a critical need for atheists and secularists of conscience to collectively challenge the current moral, cultural, and political siege upon women’s right to self-determination. Flowing from each of these principles, we call on atheists and secularists to make public their support for women's right to abortion and birth control. Due to the insidious climate of anti-abortion propaganda and legislation these basic rights are being viciously imperiled.


Nearly 90% of U.S. counties have no abortion provider. 2011 saw 92 new abortion restrictions enacted throughout the states, shattering the previous record of 34 adopted in 2005 under President Bush. Doctors who provide abortion are terrorized and killed. In many communities, Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs), funded by powerful Religious Right foundations and staffed by non-medical personnel, outnumber legitimate reproductive health facilities. Due to this climate of misogynist persecution the moral stigma and shame cast on women who get abortions is as great as ever. Women of color and working class white women who live in communities without adequate reproductive health care are disproportionately impacted by these policies.


But that is not all. Birth control is also under attack. Pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions. “Personhood” amendments threaten to criminalize miscarriages and ban all contraception. And President Obama openly upheld Kathleen Sebelius's unprecedented decision to overrule the FDA, thereby banning over-the-counter distribution of Plan B (emergency contraception).


All this constitutes an affront to science. Fetuses are not babies. Women are not incubators. Abortion is not murder. Fetuses have the potential to become babies but until they are born they are a subordinate part of a woman's body and they are not independent biological or social beings.


All this is rooted in harmful religious myth. The driving core of the anti-abortion movement has always been the biblical mandate that women bear children as “payment” for having allegedly caused original sin. This is clearly laid out in 1 Timothy 14-15: “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.” This explains why every major anti-abortion organization is also anti-birth control.


All this is an egregious violation of the separation of church and state. Given that the restrictions on a woman's right to abortion and birth control fly in the face of science and are driven primarily by religious myth and social stigma rooted in these myths, they are wholly illegitimate. In the final analysis, these incursions fundamentally undermine women’s right to self-determination.


We, the undersigned atheists and secularists, find one or all of these reasons require us to raise our voices in defense of women's right to abortion and birth control. Women who cannot decide for themselves when and whether to bear children are not free and if women are not free then none of us are free.


We call on others in the atheist community to publicly join us in this stand. Add your name to this call. Pledge that on January 22nd, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (the Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion), and going forward after that, you will join us in publicly expressing these views through blogs, interviews, articles, Facebook and other social media; as well as to the friends and family in your lives.

*organizations for identification purposes only

Listen Now to: The "Abortion Wars" Now Include Birth Control!

My radio show from Dec. 31st, 2011 is now available to download and listen to.  Please do so, let me know what you think, and share this with others.  Then -- join me in DC to stand up for abortion rights on the anniversary of Roe V. Wade, the Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion.

Saturday December 31, 2011 "Equal Time for Freethought"

Listen/Download

Thirty-nine years after women won the right to abortion, this fundamental right is hanging by a thread. 2011 saw the greatest number of restrictions passed on womens access to abortion ever – and now, more than 90% of counties don’t have abortion providers, millions of women face unnecessary and humiliating legal restrictions to access, doctors who provide this service are hunted and terrorized and women who get abortions are stigmatized and shamed.

But that is not all. Now, even birth control is under siege. Pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions. “Personhood” amendments seek to criminalize miscarriages and ban all contraception. And President Obama openly upheld Kathleen Sebelius’s unprecedented decision to overrule the FDA to ban the over-the-counter distribution of Plan B (emergency contraception).

Sunsara Taylor convened a round-table of experts and commentators to look back at the past year in the battle over women’s right to birth control and abortion… and, to look ahead to the battles to come.
Guests included:

Irin Carmon, staff writer for Salon, whose recent titles include, “Why women have second trimester abortions,” and, “The next front in the abortion wars: Birth control.”

Amanda Marcotte, author of “2011: The War on Contraception,” and, “Restricting Plan B Is Bad Politics,” for rhrealitycheck.org.

Erin Gloria Ryan, writer for Jezebel whose pieces include, “The Year In Your Uterus.”

January 2012: Stand Up for Abortion and Birth Control!

Join us in Washington DC

in front of the Supreme Court
on January 23rd

(to counter the "March for Life")

starting at 11am

IT IS TIME!
January 22 and 23, on the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Decision which legalized abortion, come to DC to:

Stand up for Abortion and Birth Control

39 years after women won the right to abortion, this fundamental right is hanging by a thread.

• Nearly 90% of U.S. counties have no abortion provider.
• 2011 saw the greatest number of restrictions passed at the state level – parental notification laws, mandatory waiting periods, gestational bans, etc. – restricting this access even further.
• Doctors who provide abortions are hunted, terrorized and killed.
• And the stigma and shame cast on women who get abortions is greater than ever.

But that is not all.

Now, even birth control is under siege. Pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions. “Personhood” amendments seek to criminalize miscarriages and ban all contraception. And President Obama openly upheld Kathleen Sebelius's unprecedented decision to overrule the FDA and block the over-the-counter distribution of Plan B (emergency contraception).

The truth of the statement from the World Can't Wait is being born out with horrific and escalating consequences: “There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into 'leaders' who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people.”

“But silence and paralysis are NOT acceptable. That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn—or be forced—to accept. There is no escaping it: [this] whole disastrous course... must be STOPPED. And we must take the responsibility to do it.”

Millions upon millions do not want to see women forced to bear children against their will. We must rely on ourselves.

If 2011 marked an unprecedented escalation in the assault on women's lives, 2012 must mark the launch of unprecedented resistance!

On January 22 and 23, as tens of thousands pour into DC in their so-called “March for Life” to further shame and enslave women, join us in standing up to demand:

ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY!


Fetuses are not babies.
Abortion is not murder.
Women are not incubators.

A woman who cannot decide for herself when and whether to have a child is not free. Forced motherhood is female enslavement. And when women – half of humanity – are not free, then no one is free.

contact: info@worldcantwait.org

Tune in Today 3-4pm EST, Dec. 31st

This Saturday on Equal Time for Freethought, Join Sunsara Taylor for:

The “Abortion Wars” Now Include Birth Control!

End of Year Round-Up & Looking Forward For Women's Lives

99.5 FM in the NYC area or
wbai.org streaming live

39 years after women won the right to abortion, this fundamental right is hanging by a thread. 2011 saw the greatest number of restrictions passed on women's access to abortion ever – and now, more than 90% of counties don't have abortion providers, millions of women face unnecessary and humiliating legal restrictions to access, doctors who provide this service are hunted and terrorized and women who get abortions are stigmatized and shamed.

But that is not all.

Now, even birth control is under siege. Pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions. “Personhood” amendments seek to criminalize miscarriages and ban all contraception. And President Obama openly upheld Kathleen Sebelius's unprecedented decision to overrule the FDA to ban on over-the-counter distribution of Plan B (emergency contraception).

This Saturday, December 31^st on Equal Time for Freethought, join Sunsara Taylor as she convenes a round-table of experts and commentators to look back at the past year in the battle over women's right to birth control and abortion... and, to look ahead to the battles to come.

Guests will include:

Irin Carmon, staff writer for Salon, whose recent titles include, “Why women have second trimester abortions,” and, “The next front in the abortion wars: Birth control.”

Amanda Marcotte, author of “2011: The War on Contraception,” and, “Restricting Plan B Is Bad Politics,” for rhrealitycheck.org.

Erin Gloria Ryan, writer for Jezebel whose pieces include, “The Year In Your Uterus.”

Jacquelyn Arsenuk, founder, producer and former host of the F-Files feminist radio, writer and political activist.

Should a Woman Feel Sad About Her Abortion? Fuck No!

There is absolutely nothing wrong, tragic, unfortunate, or sad about a woman choosing to get an abortion. Nothing.

Why?

Because being forced to have a child against your will is enslavement. Period.

Why else?

Because fetuses are NOT babies. Fetuses have the potential to become babies, but until they are born they have no independent social or biological existence. They are a subordinate part of a woman's body. Any state, religious, or family intervention which forces – or even pressures – a woman into subordinating her life, dreams and health to incubating that fetus against her will is completely unjust and illegitimate. It is immoral and it is enslaving.

But what about her responsibility? If she didn't want a baby, shouldn't she have thought of that before she “opened her legs”?

This argument is wrong on at least four levels. First, this suggests that it is wrong for women to have sex and that they must be punished for doing so (while applying a totally different standard to men). Second, this approach treats children – who should be wanted and well cared for – like nothing more than a punishment to women. Third, this ignores the fact that getting an abortion when one is not ready or eager to have a child is taking responsibility. Finally, this ignores the fact that it is the very Christian fascists who are criminalizing abortion who are responsible for denying increasing numbers of women access to birth control and sex education (which makes it enormously harder for them to protect themselves from pregnancy during sex in the first place).

But what about when a woman is raped? Or if she really wanted to have a baby but there is something wrong with the fetus or a danger to her own life? Doesn't that make the abortion sad?

Again, fuck no!

If a woman is impregnated because of being raped, it is the rape that is the horrific crime – the abortion which prevents her from being forced to bear the child of her rapist is positive and liberating.

If a woman really wants a child but something goes wrong with the pregnancy, it is the medical problems that are the tragedy – the abortion that eliminates those dangers is positive and liberating.

*************************

Women are human beings, not incubators. A woman who cannot decide for herself when and whether she will have a child has no more freedom than a slave. Abortion is not something to apologize for, it is something to celebrate and defend. 1 in 3 women will have an abortion in her life, she is not wrong for doing so. It is time to declare loudly and boldly:

ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY!!!