Tallahassee, FL – Freedom Road Socialist Organization – Tallahassee hosted a panel for International Women’s Day at The Bark, a local vegan restaurant in the All Saints community, on Saturday, March 12. The panel was co-sponsored by FAMU Generation Action, the Tallahassee chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, and the Tallahassee Community Action Committee with about 50 people from various organizations and the community in attendance.

The panelists spoke about various topics ranging from destigmatizing the conversation around sexual assault on college campuses and the community, reproductive rights being under attack, lack of quality healthcare for trans people and Black women, as well as combatting marginalization in activist spaces.

When asked how their organization supports International Women’s Day, Regina Joseph, president of TCAC and District Organizer of Tallahassee FRSO said, “The people leading that fight are women. That is something that TCAC is doing in terms of making sure we uphold the vision of International Women’s Day, letting people know that women hold up more than half the sky because we do more than half the work, to be honest.”

Joseph continued, “There’s so many ways that all of us have a role in the movement.”

Cas Casanova of the Tallahassee chapter of SDS quoted Engels when asked about their stance on women’s liberation, “From the beginning of Marxism, when it was still being theorized, even Engels said it himself, ‘The capitalist society we live in is so dependent on the subjugation of women, the enslavement of the wife, to ensure production occurs.’”

Casanova went on to highlight the unpaid labor of women and that despite them being just as much a part of the workforce, they are often still held responsible for other tasks and chores at home despite working a nine to five like their male counterparts.

Noella Williams, a journalism student at FAMU and member of FAMU Gen, spoke about their anti-capitalist position going on to say, “I feel like you cannot exist being Black and especially a woman, especially queer, and not realize that there’s so many things working against you. You kind of have to be an anti-capitalist because there’s so many systems working against you.”

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