The event kicked off with a solidarity statement from Sol Marquez, a member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Centro CSO’s core, immigration, and police brutality committees. Marquez said, “We have come a long way. For Chicanas and Latinas, between the 1920s and 1950s we suffered forced and state-sanctioned sterilization in the highest numbers. Out of about 60,000 total sterilizations, more than 20,000 were Chicanas and in California, meaning one-third all the sterilizations in the U.S. were to our people.”

Marquez continued, “Texas, Mississippi, and Florida are three places where the system is currently attacking our reproductive freedom, and the right to determine what is best for our bodies. Let’s continue fighting back against these attacks. March 8 is our day, but also our reminder to keep pushing back against the many ways the U.S. attempts to wipe out our people, through controlling what we do with our bodies.“

After Marquez’s speech, Cristal Haro, an artist born and raised in Boyle Heights as well as a member of Centro CSO’s police accountability committee, first read poetry before presenting a series of paintings. Haro’s paintings focused particularly on crimes committed by the Los Angeles police and sheriff’s departments in Boyle Heights/East LA, including the 2016 murder of 14-year-old Jesse Romero by two-time killer cop Eden Medina.

Facilitated by CSO core members Isabel Gurrola and Juliana Castellon, the panel discussion included representatives from each of CSO’s three committees. Gurrola and Castellon asked panelists three questions: What made you want to become active in your community? How has gender roles and expectations sparked or fueled your activism as a femme or non-binary person? How has organizing during a pandemic impacted your life?

Julie Regalado and Antonietta Garcia, parents and veterans of the movement against charter schools in Boyle Heights and East LA, spoke on behalf of CSO’s education committee. Regalado explained how charters selectively admitted students – for example, denying those with learning needs – inspired her activism while Garcia sees the threat that these privatized schools have on public education in her community.

Hilda Pedroza, sister of David Ordaz Jr. who was killed by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department on March 14, 2021, and Em Hubbard represented CSO’s police accountability committee. Pedroza described not only how the killing of her brother forced her to take up the fight against LASD, but also how she tries to raise her own sons to combat sexism. Both activists attended the recent conference for the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression in Chicago and are trying to win community control of the sheriffs through a charter amendment.

Finally, Ofelia Carrillo and Jenny Bekenstein, who works at UPS and organizes against U.S. intervention in Central America, presented for CSO’s immigration committee. According to Carrillo, the experience of patriarchy within her immigrant family began her journey toward organizing. Bekenstein mentioned how observing the progress socialism has brought to women in Nicaragua helped lead her to CSO.

Centro CSO can be reached through its email (CentroCSO@gmail.com), by texting its hotline 323-943-2030, or messaging various social media platforms: @CentroCSO on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok.

#LosAngelesCA #OppressedNationalities #PeoplesStruggles #ChicanoLatino #CentroCSOCommunityServiceOrganization #InternationalWomensDayIWD

Chicago, IL – Freedom Road Socialist Organization-Chicago held an annual International Women’s Day celebration at the Grand Ballroom in the Woodlawn community on the South Side of Chicago. 40 people attended, some from Woodlawn, and others from around the city, including a delegation of Brown Berets, Chicano and Chicana activists, from Little Village. The venue is in the same building as the offices of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

The program was filled with speakers and poets. Organizations represented included the Malaya movement of the Philippines, fighting against the fascist attacks by the Duterte regime; a livestream talk by a member of Students for a Democratic Society in Tallahassee, Florida, about their militant opposition to the attacks on abortion rights there; the US Palestinian Community Network on the resistance of women to the occupation of Palestine; and Crista Noel of the Women’s All Points Bulletin in Chicago, working to stop Chicago police crimes against women.

Melanie Navarro, a high school student from Little Village who helped lead a student walk-out for safety in the face of the spike in COVID infections in January, shared her poetry. There was even a video greeting from a special guest, Connie Ledesma of the International Women’s Alliance. Ledesma was also a leader in the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

Jazmine Salas of FRSO emceed the event. Salas said, “IWD is more than a celebration of women who are leading struggles across the world. It’s a time to reaffirm our commitment to ending gender-based oppression, to fight for the rights of women.”

Sales continued, “And in 2022, we need to act more urgently than ever. The reversal of Roe v. Wade threatens women, non-binary and LGBTQ folks of all genders. We are never going back to the days of back-alley abortions. We are never going back to the days of asking a man permission for decisions about our bodies. We are never going back, ever!”

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #FreedomRoadSocialistOrganizationFRSO #InternationalWomensDayIWD

Tampa, FL – In light of the continuing attacks on reproductive and women’s rights, both here in Florida and across the country, members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), and other organizations in the Tampa area held a rally this past Saturday, March 5 on the corner of Bearss and Florida Avenues.

Florida’s abortion ban, just passed by the legislature, would ban people from seeking abortions after 15 weeks, and makes no exception for survivors of assault, incest or trafficking. Protesters shouted chants of, “Racist, sexist, anti-gay: GOP go away” and, “Pro-life, that’s a lie, they don’t care if people die.” The rally also marked that International Women’s Day, observed March 8, has its origins in the socialist movement, and speakers highlighted this history, when the German socialist leader Clara Zetkin proposed the idea of an International Women’s Day in 1910.

A speaker from Tampa Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had this to say, “This just goes to show that they know the people don’t want this and they know that this bill will negatively affect the working class, but are still abusing their power to pass this bill. Over 70% of Florida does not want this abortion ban yet it still passed. People in power seek to silence and repress our voices.” SDS members have previously been active in opposing this bill at the state capitol, eventually being forcibly ejected and trespassed from the grounds in a profoundly anti-democratic display.

Speakers discussed the fact that International Women’s Day should not be confined to historical study, but has real life implications today, for millions of women, primarily for oppressed nationality folks who have less access to abortion services, and who will predominately feel the effect of undemocratic attacks on reproductive freedoms. Speakers made special mention of two African American women, Tammy Jackson and Erica Thompson, who were forced to give birth alone, resulting in a miscarriage for Tammy and the death of Erica’s daughter Ava. Florida’s response to these tragic attacks is to put more women in jail for having the audacity to want bodily autonomy.

“This International Women’s Day, it’s important to take a stand against a major attack on reproductive rights: abortion bans. The history of the women’s movement empowers us to struggle even harder to defend the right to choose,” said a member of the Tampa Bay Community Action Committee.

Abortion bans do nothing to improve infant or maternal mortality rates, and that the real purpose of these laws is control over people’s bodies, primarily oppressed nationality women, both cis and trans, as well as non-binary people. The people demand basic freedoms of autonomy and privacy, not the religious controls that the state of Florida is imposing on them.

#TampaFL #LGBTQ #PeoplesStruggles #FreedomRoadSocialistOrganizationFRSO #InternationalWomensDayIWD

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following March 8 statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) extends its revolutionary greetings to women in the country and across the world on the occasion of the International Working Women’s Day. Let us recall the heroism of women from the ranks of workers, peasants and other progressive classes and sectors who broke through imposed gender, cultural and economic barriers and took their place as cadres and fighters of the Philippine revolution.

It is significant that in ten days, we are set to mark the 50th anniversary of the Makabayang Kilusang ng Bagong Kababaihan (Makibaka), the forerunner of the women’s liberation movement in the Philippines, which has been at the vanguard of women’s struggle over the past five decades. The militance and courage of the Makibaka continues to inspire women to shoulder ever important tasks in rousing the people and in waging revolutionary armed struggle. From among the ranks of Makibaka have emerged Red fighters and commanders of the New People’s Army.

Amid the rapidly worsening economic crisis marked by a sharp fall in standards of living of millions, it is urgent that women, together with the rest of the toiling people, come together and take action to defend their welfare and interests and resist the policies that worsen their oppression. Overall worsening social conditions hit women particularly hard as it intensifies their oppression and suffering from unemployment, unequal wages and unequal conditions in the household.

Knowing first hand the burden of the socieconomic crisis, Filipino women are determined to march among the head of the toiling masses as they condemn the misogynist U.S.-Duterte regime, its corrupt bureaucrat capitalists, cronies, big bourgeois compradors and military generals that impose burdensome policies and measures. They must militantly demand an immediate rollback in the prices of fuel products, food and other necessaries, jobs, higher wages, land, the elimination of land rent, higher farm gate prices, reduction of taxes, an end to all-out import liberalization, and other urgent measures. At the same time, they must fight without letup for their rights as the Duterte regime resorts to more brazen acts of state terrorism in its desperation to silence the people and secure its power.

As the chronic crisis of the ruling semicolonial and semifeudal system worsen amid the international capitalist crisis, Filipino women are bound to rise up in greater numbers, building and strengthening their unions and women’s committees in factories, community and campus organizations, marching on the streets and waging all forms of mass struggle, and joining the revolutionary armed struggle to fight for national and social liberation.

#Philippines #International #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #InternationalWomensDayIWD

Across the world, March 8th honors the contributions of women to the people’s struggle. This year,Freedom Road Socialist Organization will hold events to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD).

IWD was founded to honor the sacrifices of heroes named and unnamed. Some capitalists have triedto sanitize and co-opt International Women’s Day. The origins of this day are clearly anti-capitalist.Our celebrations will carry forward that spirit.

Long History, Global Reach

International Women’s Day originates in the struggle of working women in New York City. In 1908there was a determined battle by garment workers to improve their lot. There was also an intenseagitation for the right to vote. Inspired by this, the outstanding German revolutionary Clara Zetkinproposed to the socialist movement a worldwide celebration of International Women’s Day.

Women’s Rights are Bound to Reproductive Freedom for All

The main reason to celebrate International Women’s Day is not because it is 114 years. The mainreason to celebrate IWD is to build resistance against gender-based oppression. Sexual violence andintimate partner abuse continue to be tolerated and taken lightly by the U.S. legal system. It’s noaccident that the weight of these crimes falls most heavily on women, both cis and trans and alsonon-binary folks.

Systematic attacks on reproductive freedom being carried out in Texas and Mississippi are attacks onbodily autonomy. They are also an attack on democratic rights more broadly. The attempt to subjectthe people’s bodies to the control of a state, guided by a religious worldview, is not just oppressive topeople who bear children. The legal foundation of modern LGBTQ rights in the U.S. is the right toprivacy of the Fourth Amendment. The reversal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, which seemslikely, threatens four decades of progress for women, non-binary folks as well as LGBTQ people, nomatter our gender.

Oppressed nationality folks will be most impacted by abortion restrictions. In Mississippi, AfricanAmericans make up 80% of people having abortions but 44% of the population. The abortion rate isclosely linked to Mississippi’s level of poverty and access to health care. Mississippi has an infantmortality rate that is twice as high for Black infants. There are currently no proposals in theirlegislature to cut infant mortality, only to control people’s bodies.

Women Hold Up Half the Sky

On March 8, 2022, join Freedom Road comrades to celebrate, commemorate and continue to pullstruggles forward in celebration of International Women’s Day. Check social media pages for detailson local events. Get involved and join us.

#Minneapolis #FreedomRoadSocialistOrganizationFRSO #reproductiveFreedom #InternationalWomensDayIWD