Houston, TX – During the last elections, Hillary Clinton, who used a sort of bourgeois ‘feminism’ to sell reactionary ideas to the public. Since then, there have been a number of films, such as Wonder Woman, that use images of powerful women to promote a pro-war capitalist agenda. Atomic Blonde is the latest of this genre, which stars Charlize Theron as a kind of female James Bond, who fights communist leaders in the German Democratic Republic, aka East Germany to help the British Intelligence and the CIA stage their famous 1989 coup d’état.

The film is set in 1989 in Berlin right before the counter-revolutionary coup against the socialist government of East Germany. The film reproduces a common theme of Cold War anti-communist propaganda, which makes communists look like impersonal monsters, while portraying the imperialists as heroic. Each communist in the film is portrayed as violent, monstrous and lacking in subjectivity, while the hero of the film, British intelligence agent Lorraine Broughton, is portrayed as clever and intelligent. The plot of the film is extremely simplistic, and is centered around her mission to retrieve a list, the details of which are never revealed. The film mobilizes some very aesthetically pleasant imagery and music to deaden our senses to anti-communist ideas that this film is promoting.

Throughout the film, we see agent Lorraine murdering communists, who are depicted as dangerous and beast-like. The film creates a one dimensional good guy/bad guy framework, where the imperialists are the good guys who help save Germany from communists, who are depicted as the bad people.

Atomic Blonde is full of stereotypes about socialism, and particularly East Germany. Although West and East Germany are geographically in the same climate, the West is always depicted as full of light and having a nice climate, while East Germany is depicted as dark and depressing. They don't show the homeless people in West Germany who died during cold winters as a result of capitalism, nor the well-fed people in East Germany who had free healthcare and universal education. Instead, the film depicts the socialist German Democratic Republic as a kind of hell, while depicting West Germany as 'free' and 'democratic.' We don't learn about the heroic anti-fascists in East Germany, and the post-socialist persecution of them. In short, there is no context that would allow the spectator to make a critical analysis of socialism in the German Democratic Republic, which was not a perfect society but most certainly not the type of hell depicted in Atomic Blonde.

The film is interlaced with bourgeois newsreels from that period, which show anti-communist protesters in both West and East Germany, with the commentators celebrating their 'resistance.' In Atomic Blonde, the British Intelligence agent Lorraine Broughton helps counter-revolutionaries to overthrow the socialist government of the German Democratic Republic. Having not grown up in that period, I was amazed at how similar this is with our current times, in which the capitalist-controlled media continually shows right-wing protesters in Venezuela who are trying to bring down the democratically elected government of Nicolas Madura.

The worst part about Atomic Blonde is that the film portrays a powerful, independent woman, but all her independence and power is bound up with her job as an agent of British intelligence. She is a female James Bond who can fight, but all the people she fights and kills are communists, who were working to create a society with women's liberation on its agenda. Indeed, the German Democratic Republic was a society where women held important positions in the government, and there was a strong climate in East Germany of fighting against sexism. Atomic Blonde is a film about a woman who does the job of the capitalists to fight against a society that made significant gains for women.

#HoustonTX #PeoplesStruggles #Movies #Capitalism #feminism

Minneapolis, MN – More than 70 students, staff, faculty and community members protested a speech titled “CALM DOWN!! Restoring Common Sense to Feminism” delivered by journalist Milo Yiannopoulos at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Feb. 17.

The protest, organized by Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Minnesota with help from groups such as Asian and Pacific Islanders for Equity and Diversity and Whose Diversity? opposed the presence of Yiannopoulos’s misogynistic hate speech on campus paid for by university funds. The U of M allocated funds to the hosts of the event, the Minnesota Republic. The Republic is the paper affiliated with the student group Students for a Conservative Voice, which also were granted roughly $80,000 in student service fees by the university for the 2015-2016 school year.

Milo Yiannopoulos grew in fame chiefly for his response to Gamergate, a controversy in which a group of men referring to themselves as Gamergate began harassing women who demanded a change in the overwhelmingly sexist video game industry. The instances of harassment included doxing (a form of online harassment), threats of rape and death threats. Yiannopoulos became a major figure of the controversy with his 2014 online essay defending men’s rights to harass and threaten the lives of women and claimed the video game industry to be under attack by an “army of sociopathic feminist programmers and campaigners” who are “lying, bullying and manipulating their way around the Internet for profit and attention.” Students for a Democratic Society argued that his violent speech against women and in defense of sexist violence is hate speech.

Activists at Rutgers University confronted Yiannopoulos in protest on Feb. 9 after the Rutgers chapter of Young Americans for Liberty invited him to speak. Despite Yiannopoulos’s claims against the existence of rape culture, the Rutgers activists, primarily women of color, have received death and rape threats.

In an interview filmed by activist Kaila Boulware, Rutgers University student Nyuma Waggeh addressed the ‘free speech’ issue explaining “Well, we also have the right to speak our opinions on certain issues, and we’re exercising our right to freedom of speech.” Waggeh goes on to cite Yiannopoulos’s denial of the rape epidemic on campus as well as his transphobia as examples of his hate speech.

Coordinated with the SDS protest outside of the Humphrey School, within the talk itself, where 250 people were seated, members from the local branch of the International Workers of the World led a disruption with air horns and shouts. Meanwhile, protesters gathered outside around 5:30 p.m., chanting “Yiannopoulos out of Minneapolis,” “Trans lives matter,” and “They say calm down, we say sit down,” referencing the title of the event.

Later on, after protesters were locked out of the Humphrey School, SDS led a march around West Bank campus into the tunnels as an alternative route, leading to a short confrontation with chants outside the tunnel-level doors into the building. Campus police then locked down that half of campus, demonstrating the tremendous impact of the action.

#MinneapolisMN #SDS #WomensMovement #PeoplesStruggles #Minnesota #sexism #feminism #MiloYiannopoulos #Gamergate

Asheville, NC – On Aug. 8, protesters gathered in downtown here, to rally for an end to the attacks against women and against abortion restrictions in North Carolina. The event was organized by WORD (Women Organized to Resist and Defend).

Protesters chanted, “When women's rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back!” referencing the latest abortion restrictions in North Carolina that were first snuck into an Anti-Sharia Law bill, then ultimately added to a Motorcycle Safety Bill.

Emily Parker, an organizer with WORD, spoke saying, “The war on women is apparent. Right now in North Carolina you cannot receive an abortion procedure. Although it is not technically illegal, there are no clinics for one to go to. Femcare in Asheville is being pushed around by right-wing bullies who don't want women to have the right to choose.”

Protesters rallied in support of Femcare, the only abortion provider in western North Carolina which was recently shut down for nearly 24 health and safety violations. This was a clear politically-motivated attack against women. Several protesters noted that the violations don't seem to be serious and that it was very suspicious that they should be inspected and closed right after this bill was passed.

“Femcare has been safely serving this city since 1985. Their staff is nothing but kind and helpful. Their facilities are nothing but safe and sanitary. Femcare has never had an infection since it has opened. Thanks to the new restrictive abortion bill, they are being forced to temporarily shut their doors even though they would've been the last remaining clinic in the state. The North Carolina government says these new laws will ensure women's safety but in reality they are causing women physical harm and hardship,” Parker said.

Protesters marched through downtown Asheville carrying signs that read “End the war on women,” and “We won't go back, we'll fight back!”

#AshevilleNC #PeoplesStruggles #abortion #NorthCarolina #feminism #WomensRights #AbortionBan #Rally #WomensLiberation

Tallahassee, FL – Over 30 Florida State University (FSU) students and Tallahassee community members gathered on campus to speak out and march against rape culture on April 12. The F-Word (a feminist campus organization), Students for a Democratic Society and Dream Defenders organized the rally.

Protesters marched from Oglesby Union to Landis Green, a popular hangout spot for students.

Representatives from the Center for Participant Education, The Outlet (a mental health non-profit) and Advocates for Immigrant and Refugee Rights spoke at the rally. The speakers educated the crowd by defining rape culture and acquaintance rape, describing how to be an ally to survivors, the effect of rape culture on African-American, Latina and other oppressed nationality women, and how immigrants are oppressed by rape culture. A spoken word artist captured everyone’s attention with a passionate piece about sexual assault.

The rally was part of Rape Culture Awareness Week, sponsored by the FSU groups, including the Women’s Student Union. The purpose of the rally was to raise people’s consciousness about rape culture, which is a society that permits rape to occur through gendered socialization, victim blaming and slut shaming. The F-Word tabled with resources from the Refuge House, a domestic violence shelter; the Victim Advocate Program, a campus center for survivors of sexual assault and a resource list of local and national organizations.

“My parents taught my sister how to protect herself from rape, but never sat me down and taught me not to rape,” said Andrew Arachikavitz, lead coordinator for Students for a Democratic Society.

Maressa Simmons, a member of The F-Word, stated, “I went because rape is a crime that can affect anyone at any time; and hoped to raise awareness about what rape is and its effects on everyone.”

Students for a Democratic Society and The F-Word hope to partner up in the fall for a campaign against rape culture.

#TallahasseeFL #StudentsForADemocraticSociety #womensMovement #antirape #rapeCulture #feminism #TheFWord