While the #MeToo and #BalanceTonPorc social media campaigns have brought attention to sexual violence, it is important to understand the roots of the problem, including that violence against women reinforces and intensifies the oppression that women face in this society. Men like Harvey Weinstein receive relatively lenient punishments due to their class status. Stanford swimmer Brock Turner was released from prison after a measly six-month sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. President Donald Trump, who has had multiple accusations of sexual assault against him and openly admitted it through the infamous “Grab her by the p*ssy” quote, was still able to get elected. Meanwhile, prisons are filled disproportionately with Black and Latino men, and they are also more likely to be wrongfully convicted.

Some of the responses to the campaign have been troubling. The issue has also been deemed “unimportant” and a “distraction from the real issues.” There has been a tendency to view it only as a sectarian weapon and make excuses for liberals engaged in the same behaviors.

While sexual violence against celebrities is what’s getting media attention, it is an issue that directly affects working class and oppressed nationality people as well. It is important to remember those who are most affected by rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment, and to combat it in our workplaces and our movements. It is the working-class women afraid to speak up for fear of losing their job. It is the migrant workers who face deportation if they try to speak to the authorities. It is Native American women have the highest numbers of rape and sexual assault of any nationality. It is the victims of prison rape, where the population is disproportionately black and Latinx. It is the people of oppressed nations who are sexually degraded at the hands of the U.S. war machine. It is LGTBQIA+ women and gender nonconforming who face higher rates of hate-motivated sexual assault. It most strongly affects people who do not have the financial needs to stand up to their attackers.

Turn a #hashtag into a movement to overthrow the system that enables predators and silences victims. Start a dialogue, but fight for tangible victories against sexual violence. Organize your union to combat sexual violence in your workplace. Demand protections for undocumented women who are sexually assaulted. We must continue to struggle against patriarchy and strikes blow against the capitalist system. Ultimately socialism will be the beginning of the end of women’s oppression, in the meantime we can fight to win all we can.

#NewYorkNY #Socialism #LGBTQ #PeoplesStruggles #rape #rapeCulture #KevinSpacey #MeToo #BalanceTonPorc #HarveyWeinstein #SexualAssault #Harassment

While the #MeToo and #BalanceTonPorc social media campaigns have brought attention to sexual violence, it is important to understand the roots of the problem, including that violence against women reinforces and intensifies the oppression that women face in this society. Men like Harvey Weinstein receive relatively lenient punishments due to their class status. Stanford swimmer Brock Turner was released from prison after a measly six-month sentence for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. President Donald Trump, who has had multiple accusations of sexual assault against him and openly admitted it through the infamous “Grab her by the p*ssy” quote, was still able to get elected. Meanwhile, prisons are filled disproportionately with Black and Latino men, and they are also more likely to be wrongfully convicted.

Some of the responses to the campaign have been troubling. The issue has also been deemed “unimportant” and a “distraction from the real issues.” There has been a tendency to view it only as a sectarian weapon and make excuses for liberals engaged in the same behaviors.

While sexual violence against celebrities is what’s getting media attention, it is an issue that directly affects working class and oppressed nationality people as well. It is important to remember those who are most affected by rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment, and to combat it in our workplaces and our movements. It is the working-class women afraid to speak up for fear of losing their job. It is the migrant workers who face deportation if they try to speak to the authorities. It is Native American women have the highest numbers of rape and sexual assault of any nationality. It is the victims of prison rape, where the population is disproportionately black and Latinx. It is the people of oppressed nations who are sexually degraded at the hands of the U.S. war machine. It is LGTBQIA+ women and gender nonconforming who face higher rates of hate-motivated sexual assault. It most strongly affects people who do not have the financial needs to stand up to their attackers.

Turn a #hashtag into a movement to overthrow the system that enables predators and silences victims. Start a dialogue, but fight for tangible victories against sexual violence. Organize your union to combat sexual violence in your workplace. Demand protections for undocumented women who are sexually assaulted. We must continue to struggle against patriarchy and strikes blow against the capitalist system. Ultimately socialism will be the beginning of the end of women’s oppression, in the meantime we can fight to win all we can.

#NewYorkNY #Socialism #LGBTQ #PeoplesStruggles #rape #rapeCulture #KevinSpacey #MeToo #BalanceTonPorc #HarveyWeinstein #SexualAssault #Harassment

Turner faced five counts against him: two for rape, two for felony sexual assault, and one for attempted rape, but was only charged with three counts of felony sexual assault. Judge Aaron Persky, who let Turner off with the slap on the wrist sentence has a victim-blaming history. In 2011 Perksy allowed into evidence seven photos of a gang-rape survivor taken at a party she attended – approximately a year after the gang rape. The photos would help get accused members of the De Anza basketball off the hook.

The most unfortunate part of it all is that the survivor remembered nothing from the assault, so the entire trial would be molded and twisted by Turner. Turner completely denied any guilt or wrong-doing, and even stated at one point he thought the survivor had consented when she “rubbed his back.” Per Turner’s attorney, the survivor had only said three words the entire night, “Yes.”

“Emily Doe” will always be remembered as the brave survivor who addressed her attacker in the courtroom by writing him a jaw dropping letter. In her letter, the survivor addressed the following: Turner never once admitted to his guilt and learned nothing from the trial, when the media blasted Turner, they always included his swim scores to make people sympathize with him, and the two Swedish students who caught Turner helped convict him.

As women, and especially as working-class and oppressed nationality women, we are not surprised that Turner would be released so soon. Turner’s own father said his son’s “20 minutes of action” should not determine the rest of Turner’s life. The survivor was subjected to horrible scrutiny and questioning; all of which perpetuate a long U.S. history of victim-blaming and a biased opinion that women who are raped are responsible for their own rapes.

In freeing Turner, the U.S. justice system shows its priorities; white, upper-strata men are free to rape and attack women. Meanwhile, working-class undocumented Mexicans and Central Americans are deported for trying to simply provide for themselves and their families. And Black men and Chicano men are gunned down for buying iced tea, as with 17-year-old Trayvon Martin from Sandford, Florida, or graffitiing a wall like 14-year-old Jesse Romero from East LA.

Today I learned a valuable lesson: if we want justice, we have to make the U.S. ungovernable. Stop rape, not teach women how to “not get raped.” Let us liberate ourselves from the oppression we experience not only in our neighborhoods, workplaces, while we try to jog or walk, but even in our homes. And as a working-class Chicana, say you side with us and not the well-off, white, rapists like Brock Turner.

Sol Marquez is a Chicana member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

#LosAngelesCA #WomensMovement #Opinion #rape #BrockTurner

Protests are continuing in cities across India, Dec. 23, in response to the gang rape of a woman on a Delhi bus, Dec. 16. Police used water cannons to attack demonstrators in Delhi and scores of protesters have been injured.

A statement from the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) condemned the attacks on protesters, “We are shocked to find instead that the Delhi police came down brutally with tear-gas, batons and water cannons upon the protestors coming from all sections of people from all walks of life, who were rightly demanding proper and immediate action from their peaceful massive rally in front of the President’s palace.”

#India #WomensMovement #SocialistUnityCenterOfIndia #rape #Asia