March 8 celebrates International Women’s Day (IWD). This important international holiday originates in the struggles of working women in the U.S. Now is a pivotal time in the history of the fight for women’s liberation. At this moment women are finding their voices, their strength, and solidarity in numbers.

There have been attacks on women’s equality on many fronts

Attacks ranged from the Trump administration’s revoking the 2014 Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Act, which ensured all federal contractors had to report safety violations (including assaults and discrimination), to the Justice department scrapping 25 guiding documents for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The past summer, the military banned transgender soldiers from joining. While everyone must actively discourage anyone from joining the imperialist war machine, banning transgender people will only encourage further discrimination and violence against them.

The attacks on women extended to the Justice Department ruling that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 doesn’t cover sexual orientation, putting thousands of queer people at a further disadvantage and open to harassment.

And in a move feared by many, the Trump administration passed a bill that effectively did away with provision of the Title X Family Planning program, which ensured access for low-income people to access birth control, abortions and cancer screenings.

These attacks on women are also taking place internationally. One example of many is the Philippines, where those who struggle for liberation, the women of the New People’s Army, are facing sexualized and gendered violence as the U.S.-backed president, Rodrigo Duterte, has called for their murder.

Women have shown that attacks on us will not be pass without a fight

This is very clear in the #MeToo movement. The movement was started over a decade ago by Tarana Burke, a civil rights activist, to contextualize the pervasiveness of sexual assault. It was revived in late 2017 with a tweet by Alyssa Milano that asked women to share their experiences to “give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.”

Since then, thousands upon thousands of messages and posts have been shared by people recounting their harrowing experiences, along with the hashtag #MeToo. This led to the first major wave of sexual predators being called out and removed from authority. From Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and Louis CK to Brett Ratner and James Franco, these men have finally had to answer for their disgusting crimes and behaviors

The bold action by the teachers, largely women, of West Virginia circles us back to the origins of Women’s Day itself, when working women walked the strike lines to demand decent pay and working conditions in a sector that is devalued and viewed as inferior work.

On International Women’s Day we rise to honor our heroes, the women who have led, struggled and sacrificed for their communities.

Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, murdered because she refused to stand back as neo-Nazis marched into the city.

Erica Garner, a prominent and powerful Black Lives Matter activist in New York City who passed away this year.

Ahed Tamimi, a 16-year-old whose slap was seen around the world. Tamimi is a symbol of the Palestinian resistance – she called renewed attention to the conditions under Israeli occupation and the hundreds of children currently imprisoned.

Rasmea Odeh, a prominent Palestinian-American organizer, who powered through political repression to continue organizing in Jordan.

We rise for the hundreds of thousands who continue to march for immigration rights, against islamophobia, for workers’ rights, and who are keeping the streets alive with marching and chants.

On International Women’s Day we not only commemorate the contributions of the past and present. As we battle each and every abuse and manifestation of oppression, we look forward to the day that our class holds within our hands the power to remake society. One day we will have the opportunity to remake society in the image of liberation.

It is said, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” This past year has been marked with these weeks. Yet, with each of these weeks, the strength of the oppressed has only grown and their resilience only more resolute. For the next year, any blow dealt by the Trump administration and the ‘alt-right’ cronies will be met with loud and powerful resistance. History is in the favor of the people, and the people alone. We will fight back, and will win.

#US #PeoplesStruggles #InternationalWomensDay #FreedomRoadSocialistOrganization #frso #RasmeaOdeh #IWWD #March8th

The U.S. has a long history of women rising up against their bosses and demanding economic justice. The first industrial strike in the U.S. was in May 1824, when 102 women workers in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, left their looms after the mill’s owners announced a wage cut. They refused to return to their stations and, instead, gathered the rest of the workers (including children) and took to the streets. They marched to the factory owner’s house while throwing rocks and shouting obscenities. Before the strike ended, the protests affected factories in eight nearby towns. The workers only returned when the factory owners reinstated their wages.

International Women’s Day was first celebrated in 1909 in New York City. The day was organized by the Socialist Party of America to remember the 1908 strike of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. In 1910, at the International Women’s Conference, Clara Zeitkin and Luise Zeitz proposed and organized for the first International Women’s Day. In 1911, over a million people internationally marked Working Women’s Day.

It’s a powerful testament to our long history of victories and struggle that we celebrate International Working Women’s Day. All over the world, women, non-binary folk and men, will protest and march for this working-class tradition that is over a century old. On this day, we remember the struggles and victories that women have waged. And it’s become a day to look toward our future battles.

For imperialism to survive and thrive, it demands the oppression of all genders. Patriarchy – the system of male supremacy – results in real inequality and oppression for women, and puts forth the idea that women and those who present as feminine are weaker, less intelligent and less worthy than men. It’s a notion that capitalists have nurtured to pit the different sectors of the working class against each other. However, the fight for the liberation of the working class must be fought alongside the liberation of women.

All over the country, women are leading and organizing opposition to Trump's terrible agenda. The Women's Marches that took place the day after Trump's inauguration were some of the largest demonstrations this country has ever seen.

With the Trump presidency, ensuring the working class stands united against patriarchy is vital. The Trump administration has unleashed unprecedented attacks that affect all women – like banning Muslims from entering the country, lifting the protection against transgender people to choose which bathroom they can use, and attacking immigrants.

Within his first couple of days in office, President Trump reinstated the Global Gag Rule (Mexico City Policy) which prohibits international charities that receive aid from the U.S. to teach comprehensive sexual health education and family planning. Further, the Trump administration has proposed eliminating a list of federal programs, including federal grant funding to the 25 programs under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

These attacks are violent and go unopposed by his supporters. The president of the U.S. has a long history of sexual assaults and aggressions toward women. When President Trump was recorded saying he would, “grab them by the pussy”, the far right simply upheld this behavior as “locker room talk.” This attitude has blanketed every speech, policy and action coming out of the new administration.

Simply stated, the new administration’s overt disgust for women is racist, transphobic, Islamophobic, misogynist, and generally the highest form of bigotry we’ve seen in a recent administration. We’re living in a time where oppression isn’t sugar-coated with a saccharine Democrat smile, but openly waged by the far-right with aggression and impunity.

Trump’s actions have emboldened neo-Nazis and white supremacists who have taken to attacking everyday peoples. Hateful symbols are spray painted on houses and trains, slurs are shouted at passersby, Jewish cemeteries are defaced, hijabs are pulled off Muslim women, and black and brown people are attacked on the streets.

It’s in this new, openly reactionary period that we must fight harder for the liberation of women, and we need to stand with women leaders who under attack, like Palestinian American Rasmea Odeh who is facing deportation and jail on trumped-up charges.

As we’ve seen in the past, the only way to get rid of far right is to band together and punch harder. When we stand together, when we protest and march for justice, the imperialists and their cowardly allies tremble. When Trump tried to shut us down, we shut down the streets, buildings and airports. Today, we continue to feed the flame of our outrage and use it to stand up for all of the working class and all oppressed people.

Together we rebel, and together we will win.

#UnitedStates #ImmigrantRights #LGBTQ #PeoplesStruggles #Antiracism #RasmeaOdeh #InternationalWorkingWomensDay #IWWD