Thoughts Upon Release From Jail After Sunday's Abortion Rights Protest Inside St. Patrick's Cathedral

It's been just a few hours since I was released from jail in New York City. I was arrested yesterday and charged with “criminal trespass” and another lesser trespass charge as I was leaving St. Patrick's Cathedral after a group of women and men shouted out the following statements during a break in the service:

“Abortion on Demand and Without Apology!”
“Forced Motherhood is Female Enslavement!
“Stop the War on Women!”


Outside St. Patrick's Cathedral -Sat Aug 11, 2012

St. Patrick's is, of course, home of Cardinal Timothy Dolan – head of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, a lifelong staunch opponent of abortion rights, and the person who spearheaded the U.S. Catholic church's recent political and legal revolt against birth control.


As I and one other woman, Alice Woodward, spent a long night each alone in a filthy cell, looking out between fourteen bars to cold flourescent lights, a dingy wall, and a window that revealed only the dirty bricks and tarp of the next building (no green and no sky), I thought of the women in El Salvador staring out of similar cells after being arrested out of the emergency room and imprisoned if the doctors suspect they are bleeding due to botched abortions. I thought of the women who are imprisoned in Afghanistan if they fall in love with the wrong man or end up pregnant while still unmarried. I thought of Dr. Pendergraft who had spent seven months in jail for illegitimate charges leveled against him by anti-abortion fanatics seeking to put him out of business.


There is a real war going on against women. Around the world, under the cover of religious authority, women's dreams are extinguished, women's bodies are treated like mere vessels for men's sperm and the incubation of fetuses, and women's lives are foreclosed. Around the world, women and men face not only the church, but also the state, if they dare to defy thousands of years of tradition's chains.

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"Look at all these beautiful children who are female in the world..."

Revolutionary Communism and the Liberation of Women -- WE NEED TOTAL REVOLUTION!    

#5

"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."

Bob Avakian 

Chairman of the

Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

BAsics 1:10

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.

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Out of Denial and Into the Streets – International Women's Day 2012

Women the world-over are facing a growing assault on their lives, their rights, and even their recognition as full human beings.


In the U.S., Catholic Bishops have turned women's basic right to birth control into a national controversy. At least twenty percent of U.S. female soldiers are sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers. Every moment we are bombarded by images of women's bodies, half naked and half starved. And strip clubs, which serve up the subordination of women to men in the living flesh, have become so mainstream that annually men spend an estimated $16 billion dollars on them (as compared to the $4 billion they spend on baseball).


In the Congo, tens of thousands of women have been so brutally raped they can no longer hold their bladders or bowels. From Moldova to Thailand and beyond, millions of girls and women are sold as sex slaves. Throughout the world, fueled by the massive dislocations caused by imperialist development as well as imperialist wars, Islamic fundamentalism is rising with its “honor” killings, forced veiling, and hatred of women. And from China to Honduras to Silicon Valley, the near-slave labor – and sometimes outright slave-labor – of women and girls has disproportionately fueled the growth in cheap manufacturing.


These are not “just a bunch of different bad things happening to women."  These are but a few of the many fronts in an all-out war on women. While the forms this takes may appear different – or even unrelated – a common rope is tightening around nearly every dimension of the public, social, political, and intimate lives of women.

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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

the burkha...the thong - what they have in common

Revolutionary Communism and the Liberation of Women -- WE NEED TOTAL REVOLUTION!    

#3

"While they may appear very different, the burkha enforced by fanatical Islamic fundamentalism, on the one hand, and the "thong," widely advertised and promoted as "sexy underwear" for women, in "modern" capitalist society, on the other hand, are both hideous symbols and embodiments of the degradation of women. The fundamental thing they have in common is that they are both manifestations of a world marked by horrendous forms of oppression, both "traditional" and "modern"—a world dominated overall by capitalist imperialism—a world that needs to be turned upside down and radically transformed."

from A Declaration: For Women's Liberation and the Emancipation of All Humanity 

by Revolution Newspaper

"the equivalent of those 'Postcards of the Hanging.'..."

Revolutionary Communism and the Liberation of Women -- WE NEED TOTAL REVOLUTION!    

#2

"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

"The fabric of women's oppression..."

Revolutionary Communism and the Liberation of Women -- WE NEED TOTAL REVOLUTION!    

#1

"The fabric of women's oppression is carved deeply into the calloused hands of women in the sweatshops of China and Honduras. It is draped over the faces of young women in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. It is stripped off the bodies of girls of Moldova and Bangkok who are put up for sale in brothels worldwide, and it is worn like a prize by pre-teens in the U.S. and Europe who are taught to dress and move like sex objects long before they understand what sex even is. This fabric ropes back into history, it winds its way around the globe, braided into all the dominant religions and “moral codes” and woven into every aspect of human societies. It is a heavy veil that cases the darkness of humanity's first oppressive divisions over the lives, the dreams, and the prospects of every corner of humanity in the 21^st century.

To live like this on this planet in the 21^st century cannot be justified and should not be accepted. None of this can be tolerated or excused away with counsel of patience.
WE DECLARE: NO MORE!"

from A Declaration: For Women's Liberation and the Emancipation of All Humanity 

by Revolution Newspaper

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

Another excerpt of Dr. Susan Wicklund and I Speaking about Why Abortion is NOT a "Wedge Issue"

Abortion Clinic Burned on New Year's Morning – Into the Streets for Abortion Rights On Roe V Wade!

On January 1^st, by 1:00 in the morning, an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida was engulfed in flames. By all accounts thus far, this was a case of arson.

But chances are you have heard nothing about this.

The fact that there has not been a single politician commenting on this violent assault on an institution that is essential to women's freedom and that this act of terror has not been picked up on in the national/mainstream media should only serve as a further wake-up call to those who care about women's rights.

No one will defend women's right to abortion and birth control but the millions of us who refuse to see women enslaved. We must rely on ourselves, not on the Democrats or electoral politics. We must take to the streets and not go back home. We must reseize the moral high-ground, declaring: Abortion on Demand and Without Apology. We must be in the streets in DC on January 22^nd & 23^rd to stand up for abortion rights!

While no one was hurt in the fire, this fire will cripple the ability of an already overstretched community of abortion providers to meet the very real and urgent needs of women in western Florida, Alabama and Mississippi for abortion care. This will cause tremendous suffering and unnecessary burdens on women who seek abortions. This will cause great financial strain on those who seek to provide abortions.   And, this will – as it was undoubtedly intended to do – strike fear in the hearts of those most courageous individuals who knowingly risk their lives every day to provide women with this absolutely essential, completely moral, remarkably common, and medically safe procedure all across this country.

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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.”

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.

Sunsara Taylor Speaks at Protest Against Backpage.com for Facilitating Sex Trafficking

Yesterday I joined the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and others to protest Backpage.com for making millions of dollars off of paid advertisements which facilitate the trafficking and the prostituting of women.



The overwhelming majority of women and girls in prostitution are tricked, coerced, or forced through male predation, outright violence, and/or desperation. The notion that women's bodies should be available for sale to men for sexual use and sexual degradation and plunder is a product of thousands of years of patriarchy as it is filtered today through capitalism, which commodifies everything -- including the flesh, the sexuality and the lives of women and girls.

The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, which is led by Bob Avakian, is building a movement for revolution. This revolution takes the complete liberation of women as a driving force, and a dividing line. Find out more at: revcom.us

Keep up with the new effort to
End Pornography & Patriarchy: the Enslavement and Degradation of Women
here: stoppatiarchy.tumblr.com

Sex, pornography, prostitution, trafficking & the sexualization of young girls

all spoken to in my radio program on Equal Time for Freethought - Nov 5, 2011
when I interviewed:
- Meenakshi Gigi Durham, author of The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It
-Samantha Berg, National Coordinator of Stop Porn Culture and creator & moderator of Genderberg.com
-Michelle Bart, Chair of Northwest Conference Against Trafficking
Listen here

Sunsara Taylor at SlutWalk NYC Yesterday

Yesterday was a beautiful outpouring of women, men and trans folks against rape, sexual assault, sexual shaming, and violence against women.  Much more to be said -- but here is a quick video from me along the march route.