Chicago, IL – On Monday, March 16, UIC students gathered in the Women’s Leadership and Resource Center to learn about and discuss women’s and LGBTQ liberation and socialism.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization held the presentation and discussions to commemorate Women’s History Month by showing how both women and the LGBTQ community are oppressed by capitalism, and that both have an interest in fighting for socialism.

Speakers engaged the audience in discussion about how the rich benefit from gender-based exploitation in and out of the workplace. Audience members shared personal experiences of seeing how women in their life face gendered oppression in both their jobs and in their homes.

“LGBTQ equality presents a direct challenge to this oppressive system, and so LGBTQ people are also subject to severe repression, including discrimination in employment, housing, education, and healthcare, and denial of the right to marriage equality,” explained River Argyilan from FRSO.

Students also shared the stories of women fighters for liberation including Claudia Jones, a Black Trinidadian communist woman who was a dedicated leader within the Communist Party USA in the 1940s and 50s, as well as Marisol Marquez, an active Chicana revolutionary in California who is a member of FRSO.

Presenters recommended that students read Marisol Marquez’s pamphlet “My Journey to Aztlán,” which discusses her path to becoming a revolutionary Chicana activist, and to honor Women’s History Month by continuing to study and fight for women’s and LGBTQ liberation as an integral part of the struggle for socialism.

#ChicagoIL #IL #WomensMovement #LGBTQ #InternationalWomensDay #FRSO