ON DARKNESS, BETRAYAL, AND THE POWER OF SISTERHOOD

By Ann Menasche

This piece contains the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the collective views of Feminists in Struggle.

Many spiritual and religious traditions celebrate the dark, cold time of the year – winter solstice – by lighting candles, stoking a fire, and gathering close with loved ones.  We do so to help us survive this dark time and to remind us that after darkness comes the light.

The sadness for me this year is palpable.  We lost our beloved dog, Jaz, on December 9th.  And I can’t forget the state of the world that haunts me and disturbs my sleep: the relentless slaughter of the women and children in Gaza; the women in Afghanistan prisoners in their homes, denied work or study.  And closer to home, my homeless neighbors including a growing number of women – virtually all survivors of male violence -subsist crammed into government-sanctioned rat-infested camps, tents three feet apart, with no way to stay warm or dry.

And the state of our rights as women in the U.S. is abysmal.  Over 100 years after Alice Paul introduced the Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution, we are still considered second class citizens, as first Trump, then Biden refused to register the duly ratified Amendment into the Constitution. This weakens our ability to fight to regain reproductive rights, to end violence against women, and to achieve equal pay and opportunity in the workplace for women. Meanwhile, trans activists are attempting to erase our sex class from existence in law and public policy so it will be impossible to name, measure, or remedy ongoing sexism.

Is it any wonder that so many young girls are attempting to “identify” out of their womanhood?

Then there is the bitterness of betrayal. Over the last several months, FIST joined with Equal Means Equal and became part of a broad coalition of organizations demanding that the Biden administration instruct the archivist to publish the ERA.  We recently learned that behind our backs, leaders of mainstream feminist organizations such as NOW and the Feminist Majority, supposed feminists and ERA supporters, were urging Biden not to publish the ERA.

How do we explain this treachery?  Is it their loyalty to the corporate dominated Democratic Party that while using women’s rights as a campaign slogan to win votes and donations, never had women’s best interests at heart?  Or do they really believe that the best way to fight for our rights is to be “ladylike” and polite, to not rock the boat?

I’m with Frederick Douglass who said in 1857, “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are people who want crops without ploughing the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning, the want the ocean without the roar of its many waters…Power concedes nothing without a demand.  It never did and it never will.”

I learned a lesson in courage and tenacity watching my sick dog with her back legs failing her, forcing herself up again and again and walking through the house, and up and down stairs.  No matter how many times she fell, she persisted, until she could no longer move at all.

Building movements takes that level of persistence, along with a recognition that when women unite, collectively we have the power to bring in the light, to change everything.  We have that power regardless of who is in the White House.

Like the women in Iran who against incredible odds, led (and will continue to lead) their people in a movement against theocracy proclaiming, “Women, Life, Freedom.”

Like our foremothers, the suffragists.  Women like Alice Paul and the Women’s Party that declared their independence from the patriarchy and its two political parties and were relentless in carrying out their struggle.

It took 100 years to win the vote, but we were not defeated.

 

 

 

 

 

Trump’s Threat to Women’s Rights & the ERA

The Equal Rights Amendment MUST Be Published Before Trump Takes Office!

In view of recent election results and, despite denials, the clear intention of the Trump Administration to implement Project 2025, which reads as a male supremacist manifesto, it is imperative that Biden reverse his obstructionism and instruct the National Archivist, Colleen Shogun, to publish the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.  The ERA has met all the legal requirements, having been ratified by ¾ of the states, the 38th of which, Virginia, ratified on January 27, 2020.  Women have been waiting for over a century for the ERA to first be passed by Congress, and then be ratified by the required number of states.

The National Archivist is a ministerial position under the Executive Branch, and Biden is the only person who can reverse the decision by the Trump Administration to unconstitutionally interfere with its automatic publication following ratification by the requisite states, and reverse his own administration’s continuation of the Trump obstructionism.  The ERA represents our best, and only, real bulwark against the tide of male supremacism Trump promises to deliver.

We acknowledge that biological women, as a sex class, have enemies on the Left and on the Right. The embrace and promotion of gender ideology on the Left and its erasure of women has been breathtaking, despite its utter lack of scientific evidence; its having been founded on junk science; its clear misogyny and homophobia in its exaltation of sexual stereotypes; its disregard for the safeguarding of children and legitimate concerns of parents; the willful blindness to the real harms of medicalization, and the corporate pharmaceutical money behind it; the pain of detransitioners and regretters; and total disregard of the infringement on the sex-based rights and safety of women and girls.

In addition, the cancel culture, McCarthyist repression of free speech and de-platforming of anyone questioning gender ideology and so-called “gender affirming care”, has exposed the authoritarian nature of this men’s rights movement, which has captured the Left, with rare exception.

Among other issues such as Gaza, the border, the disastrous handling of the exit from Afghanistan, concerns about the price of living, etc., the Biden Administration’s elevating the rights of trans-identified males over the rights of women and girls and the promotion of gender ideology was one of the reasons that the Presidential Democratic ticket lost the election to Trump.

In following the dictates of the TQ+ gender lobby, the Biden/Harris Administration and the Harris/Walz campaign ceded rational ground to the other enemies of women’s rights, the Christian nationalists and their MAGA allies, men’s rights activists, and other garden variety misogynists, who nevertheless know what a woman is and that there are only two sexes, observable at birth. Their adherence to this ideology contributed directly to Trump’s appeal and ultimate win, as this is an issue he plans to confront, some long-time Democrats even voting for him because they hope for some relative sanity to be restored in this regard.

The men’s rights activists insist that women are inferior, should cater to men, be subservient, and allow themselves to be sexually exploited. Some young incels and “bros” have been emboldened by Trump’s win to the extent that they are now exultantly proclaiming “Your body, MY choice!” in defiance of the abortion rights battle cry and women’s right to bodily autonomy and agency and in their zeal to dominate and control women’s lives and bodies.

The Christian Right, the other enemy of women’s sex-based rights, has embraced Trump as their champion and tirelessly devoted itself to his campaign, and has been greatly empowered by Trump’s win and takeover of Congress and the Supreme Court. It would like to not only turn women into handmaidens, but outlaw and criminalize abortion and also birth control, attempt to grant fetuses “personhood”, track women’s pregnancies and penalize miscarriages, do away with no-fault divorce, treat rapists with kid gloves and accuse victims of “false reporting”, end investigation of campus rape, penalize unmarried women, and generally return women to 1950’s America. The Christian Nationalists also take a very dim view of our federal government and welcome Trump’s plan to dismantle it.  The truth is, it aims to destroy our representative democracy, do away with the separation of church and state, and transform this country into a theocratic dictatorship. If you think this is an overstatement, please view the recently released documentary, “Bad Faith”, and prior to that, “The Family“. This is the enemy that will be in ascendance with Trump in power.

We call on all women and men who oppose tyranny and the destruction of the rights of natal women and girls to help us get the ERA finally published onto the Constitution in order to protect us from the twin threats of gender ideology and the religious right.  We have allies in Congress who have signed onto the resolutions, SJR 39 in the Senate, and HJR 82 in the House, which recognize that the only remaining step for the ERA to become law is publication, and that it is up to Joe Biden to finally take this step to ensure that all the hard-won rights women have fought for, including voting rights, abortion rights, contraception, equal pay, no-fault divorce, owning property, obtaining credit in one’s own name, safe spaces, sports, etc. are not rolled back. The ERA would ensure that women cease to be treated as second-class citizens before the law, and would have prevented Roe being overturned.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the sponsor of SJR 39, is hosting a virtual Town Hall on the ERA on this coming Tuesday, December 3rd at 4 PM PDT, 7 PM EST and we need supporters of the ERA to register now and attend! We also need you to call these Senators and U.S. Representatives and direct them to apply pressure to Biden to publish and text Biden at 302-404-0880 and Harris at 310-861-2977.

The time is NOW!  We cannot let the efforts of our First Wave Feminist forebears like Alice Paul’s efforts to be in vain.  Sign up for the Town Hall and start calling and writing these representatives and the White House, remind them on social media, and don’t stop until Biden makes the call to the National Archivist and gets the ERA in the Constitution!

The Equal Rights Amendment – Final Impact Plan!

What is the ERA? The ERA is an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to correct the omission of women. Like all amendments, it required ¾ of the states (38) to ratify it for it to become part of the Constitution. This is the full text:

Section 1: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Section 2: The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3: This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

The ERA was ratified by the 38th state (Virginia) on January 27, 2020. So why isn’t it in the Constitution?  Because first the Trump Administration and then the Biden Administration have unconstitutionally obstructed its being published by the National Archivist, as the Constitution requires.

There are so many reasons why women and girls need the ERA. Let’s review some statistics:

  • Over 4 women a week were murdered in California in 2020
  • Over 298.000 rapes of women were reported in the U.S. in the same year
  • Spousal abuse of women is estimated at 4.8 million every year
  • Approximately 1 million women are stalked annually in the U.S.
  • Over 78% of sexual harassment charges were filed by women between 2018-2021
  • 7 in 10 human trafficking victims are women and girls
  • Over 500,000 cases of female genital mutilation have occurred or are at risk of occurring in the U.S.
  • Abortion rights and birth control are increasingly under attack, risking women’s health and lives
  • Women in every state report injustice in their family law cases, especially battered mothers trying to protect their children from abusive fathers who aggressively litigate against them, using family court to stalk, harass, punish, and impoverish their former partners and children
  • Child marriage is still prevalent in the U.S., 87% of victims of which are girls
  • Women still earn 82 cents to every dollar men earn
  • Single women and mothers with children are the two fastest-growing groups of people experiencing homelessness in the United States

All of this is facilitated and amplified by the fact that women do not have equal standing in the U.S. Constitution.

Attorney Wendy Murphy explains more in this video:

Some History:

The ERA was first introduced into Congress in 1923 as the Lucretia Mott Amendment, shortly after women suffragists won the right to vote. It was always Alice Paul’s and the First Wave feminists’ intent to gain equal standing in the U.S. Constitution following gaining the vote. The ERA languished for decades, however, was rewritten in 1943, and finally passed in its present form in 1972. This was due to the efforts of Paul who seized the moment when the Civil Rights Movement for black people gained ground in order to press for the civil rights of women. It then went to the states for ratification and reached 35 states before the imposed deadline of first 7 years, extended to 10 years, expired in 1982. In 1992, when the 27th amendment was passed after over 202 years, efforts began anew to obtain the last 3 states to ratify in order to reach the ¾ requirement.

Because of the tireless efforts of individual women and especially the organization, Equal Means Equal, Nevada ratified in 2017; Illinois in 2018, and Virginia in 2020, reaching the required 38 states. Instead of being published onto the Constitution by the National Archivist as Article V of the Constitution mandates, however, the Trump Administration unconstitutionally interfered with its publication by writing a memo, known as the Bill Barr Memo, to the National Archivist telling him not to publish because the deadline had passed.  As Archivist, David Ferriero had recorded the ratifications of Nevada and Illinois, but pursuant to the memo from the Office of Legal Counsel in the Trump administration’s Department of Justice, he did not act to publish and certify the ERA after receiving Virginia’s ratification documents in January 2020.

Then after the 2020 election, the Biden Administration continued obstructing its publication and has fought it in court like the Trump Administration did, despite claiming support for the ERA and women’s rights when campaigning. This is especially outrageous considering the fact that the Dobbs decision overturning Roe would not have been possible had the ERA been in the Constitution.

David Ferriero retired in the spring of 2022, and Colleen Shogan was confirmed as his successor as Archivist; she has stated she would publish the ERA if she were told to do so by President Biden. So that is what we need to pressure him to do! We need as many people as possible participating every day in this campaign between now and the election, as that is when we have some leverage and can get some national attention.

Here is our battle plan to finally get the ERA published:

  • CALL: White House Comment Line 202-456-1111 open T-Th 11-3 EST 8-12 PDT
  • TEXT: 310-861-2977 – Harris    302-404-0800 – Biden
  • EMAIL: whitehouse.gov/contact – request a response!
  • HOUND ON SOCIAL MEDIA:    

Twitter accounts: @JoeBiden or @POTUS /@KamalaHarris or @VP  –  Use Hashtags #ERA #EqualRightsAmendment #ERANow!

Sample posts:

 The #EqualRightsAmendment was fully ratified on January 27, 2020 and has been unconstitutionally obstructed by Trump & now by @POTUS and @VP. It is now over 100 years since the #ERA was first introduced into Congress. How long must women wait for equality?!  Make the call, @JoeBiden!

Congress and the American Bar Association @ABAesq have both deemed the #EqualRightsAmendment to be fully ratified. Why are you standing in the way of women’s equality? What are you waiting for @POTUS and @VP?! Call the National Archivist and tell her to publish #ERA, @JoeBiden!

  • Write/call/tweet to senators and congressional representatives in support of HJ Res 82 and SJ Res 39, resolutions to urge the publication of the ERA.  Make it clear that you realize that Congress has already done its job in 1972, and it is Joe Biden’s turn to do his by calling the Archivist and instructing her to publish. Let them know they should be pressuring him directly as it is HIS responsibility, not theirs.  No bill extending the deadline is needed either (nor is it valid).

ADDITIONAL ACTIONS:

  • Take a photo of yourself with an ERA sign with the demand “Make the call Joe!” and upload it to https://finalimpact.org.

For more information see the following videos and articles:

https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1mrGmyQqmEVGy or https://t.co/hpWyArF6kn

https://x.com/i/spaces/1jMKgmqrXkyJL

https://www.equalrightsamendment.org/faq/

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/diversity/women/initiatives_awards/era

SAN DIEGO FIST MEMBERS PARTICIPATE IN INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY EVENT IN SAN DIEGO

Dozens of women and their male supporters including FIST members helped organize a candlelight vigil and rally on March 8th 2023 for International Women’s Day in downtown San Diego. The demonstration highlighted women’s demands for restoration of women’s right to abortion nationally, the registration of the ERA into the Constitution that has already been ratified by 38 states and is being held up by the Biden administration, and an end to male violence against women and girls.

Ann Menasche. a co-coordinator of FIST, spoke at the rally urging that women should utilize their own voices and mobilize in the streets, rather than rely on politicians or judges.  Menasche said, “We have the power to change the world, sisters, and there is no better time than now”, and led the crowd in a chant made popular by Iranian feminists, “Woman, life, freedom.”

Andrea Gabay a grassroots feminist activist and organizer for Femme Fight Club, also spoke and was interviewed by a local TV station.

The coalition of local feminist groups plan to organize other protests in defense of women’s rights in San Diego.

FIST to host Zoom Forum March 25th on Strategies for Winning Back Abortion Rights

Feminists In Struggle continues its series with a forum on abortion rights: “After Dobbs and the continuing threat to women’s reproductive rights, how do we develop a strategy to regain and secure the right to abortion nationally?”  Tickets on sale now!

FEMINIST FORUM: STRATEGIES FOR WINNING BACK WOMEN’S ABORTION RIGHTS Tickets, Sat, Mar 25, 2023 at 1:00 PM | Eventbrite

Here is our exciting panel of speakers:

Andrea Gabay is a grassroots activist who first volunteered in 2020 while living in New York City. She was an active volunteer doing food drives and composting at GrowNYC environmental program to empower New Yorkers to secure a healthy environment. She also supported many marches throughout NYC, including many BLM movements and was involved with Women’s March in Manhattan. Andrea brought her activist work back with her to San Diego, where she organized a march/rally in January 2023 as part of the national Women’s March.

Wendy Murphy , J.D. is an impact litigator specializing in women’s and children’s civil and constitutional rights. She won landmark Title IX cases against Harvard, Harvard Law, and Princeton between 1992 and 2010 that led to the revolutionary 2011 Dear Colleague letter; and sued the Trump and Biden Administrations in federal court to advance women’s rights. She also won landmark cases to improve privacy rights for women crime victims and testimonial rights for disabled crime victims. She is adjunct professor of sexual violence law and law reform at New England Law Boston where she directs the Women’s and Children’s Advocacy Project under the Center for Law and Social Responsibility. She is well known for her legal advocacy in support of the Equal Rights Amendment.  See our ERA-FIST brochure, “Why We Need the ERA” on which Wendy collaborated, and her book, From Suffrage to Inequality.

Ann Menasche is a San Diego civil rights attorney, grassroots activist, lesbian, and long-time feminist who is a founding member and co-coordinator of the national radical feminist organization, Feminists in Struggle. She is also co-chair of the Green Alliance for Sex-Based RIghts. She has fought for access to safe legal abortion in the years before Roe and in the decades that followed. In the 1980’s she led a landmark case against an anti-abortion center or “fake clinic” for consumer fraud and won. She also helped organize Marches for Women’s Lives in San Francisco that drew tens of thousands of people. Ann was recently fired from her civil rights job for asserting that abortion bans harm women as a sex and has filed a wrongful termination law suit against her previous employer as a result.

JOIN US FOR THIS IMPORTANT DISCUSSION!

Why We Need the ERA!

The ERA would end women’s second-class citizenship by finally giving women equal standing in the federal CONSTITUTION, thus would ensure women’s equal TREATMENT under all laws, regulations, and policies of state and federal governments.

The ERA would afford women equal treatment under the DUE PROCESS CLAUSE and the EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE, which affect all other rights including everything from obtaining a dog license to the First Amendment, LIBERTY, etc. These fundamental constitutional rights ensure that all people enjoy the most basic freedoms: autonomy, self-determination, authority over the self,  bodily integrity, etc. Without the ERA, women cannot be assured that any rights will apply equally to them.

The ERA would require courts to use strict scrutiny when reviewing claims involving different treatment of women. Without the ERA, courts are allowed to use only intermediate scrutiny, which, unlike strict scrutiny, permits infringements on rights.

The ERA would protect abortion rights and literally save women’s lives by making it clear in the text of the Constitution, for the first time in history, that women are fully equal persons who can no longer be subjected to unequal treatment under any laws, including abortion laws.

The ERA would allow us to fight and reverse any sex discriminatory state or federal law, regulation or policy. The ERA specifically states that the Congress may pass legislation to enforce the ERA, which would mean Civil Rights laws would be amended to ensure women’s equal legal stature. Without the ERA women do not enjoy equal treatment under civil rights laws. For example, aside from employment, women are excluded from Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ERA would fix this

Under the ERA and strict scrutiny, women would still enjoy separate spaces and sex-based preferences that serve a compelling state interest, such as a need to address a history of discrimination.

The ERA would allow women to sue the government for unequal enforcement of rape and domestic violence laws, bias against women in family court, and courts enforcing laws requiring equal pay for women would have to construe the word equal to mean actually equal. Without the ERA courts can interpret laws requiring equal treatment to mean something less than fully equal. The ERA would enable women to assert stronger legal arguments against the commodification of women by surrogacy, pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking.  

According to Wendy Murphy, attorney for Equal Means Equal, “The ERA is more desperately needed in 2022 than ever before because of Dobbs” (the decision that overturned Roe). “Women’s pervasive status as second-class citizens enabled the Supreme Court to cavalierly take away all personhood rights of pregnant women. Women are literally the lifeblood of this nation, yet they are vulnerable to dystopian court rulings solely because they lack basic equality in the Constitution. The only solution is to fix the Constitution. The ERA does that.”

The ERA was ratified by the 38th state in January of 2020 and is now the law of the land, but, just like the Trump Administration, the Biden Administration is blocking the ERA from being published in the Constitution. Biden is also fighting against the ERA in federal court the same way Trump did.    #PublishERANow!

Four lawsuits are currently pending in NY, MI, RI and DC that seek to validate the ERA. The DC case is scheduled for oral arguments at:

DC Circuit Court of Appeals on September 28th.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: 

  • Come to DC and help us protest Joe Biden’s opposition to Women’s equality. WE DEMAND EQUALITY NOW!!
  • Call/text the White House Comment Line: 800-456-1111
  • Tweet #PublishERANow!  @SCOTUS and @JoeBiden
  • Call your Senators and urge them to demand Biden publish the ERA!!

Distribute our ERA-FIST brochure

WE DEMAND NOTHING LESS THAN FULL EQUALITY AND ABORTION ON DEMAND, NO APOLOGIES!!

Well, we knew this was coming.  The wrongheaded, misogynist decision by the highest court today to overturn Roe v. Wade was expected, but still is a brutal blow to the basic human rights of half the population.  Such a blatant attempt to restrict women’s autonomy, agency, and freedom could only be accomplished in a system devoted to the institution of patriarchy and promotion of male supremacy.  The court showed its callous disregard for the suffering and brutalization of women and girls in its 6-3 decision to upend 50 years of precedent, ending an ugly week of attacking the separation of church and state, elevating gun rights over human rights and public safety, with the disastrous decision to dismantle Roe.  As one female abortion protester’s sign read, “Guns have more rights than I do.”  As do churches, one might add.

Apparently the current Supreme Court thinks it knows best and is above the law, but it is in error.  This court is an illegitimate travesty of injustice by any rational person’s standard, completely out of touch with the majority of the populace who want legal, safe abortion, more gun control (not less), and which is increasingly secular. It is time that we consider imposing strict standards of conduct, eliminate lifetime appointments, expand the number of justices, institute citizen oversight and input into the selection process, and facilitate and streamline impeachment procedures in order to be able to recall justices who defy the Constitution, disregard decades of legal precedent, and substitute spiteful partisanship and sanctimonious religiosity for fairness.

It’s past time that we women stand up and seize our rightful place of honor and respect, and that we demand full citizenship by inclusion in the founding document of this nation, the Constitution, that we have earned as the Equal Rights Amendment has been ratified and is now law.  All that’s needed is for the Biden Administration to stop giving lip service to women’s rights, get off their collective derriere and publish the ERA!  Legislation is needed to protect women’s reproductive rights as well, but with the ERA in the Constitution, we can adjudicate all the unfair laws at the local, state, and federal level, including abortion restrictions, and we are on much firmer ground than with only legislation.

One good thing about this ruling, it has stirred the sleeping Tiger that is WOMAN, and WE WON’T GO BACK, WE WON’T GROVEL, WE WON’T ASK PERMISSION, WE DEMAND NOTHING LESS THAN FULL EQUALITY AND ABORTION ON DEMAND, NO APOLOGIES!!

Women’s Rights Under Attack: Fighting Back–The ERA and the Women’s Bill of Rights

Please join Feminists in Struggle and the Green Alliance for Sex-Based Rights in a joint presentation, Women’s Rights Under Attack: Fighting Back on June 18th at 10 a.m. PDT to explore how to effectively fight back against the multiple incursions on the rights of women, focused on the Equal Rights Amendment and the Women’s Bill of RightsEqual Means Equal‘s Wendy Murphy and FIST’s Ann Menasche will be presenting.  Register here.

War, Peace, and Feminism

During World War I, Alice Paul and her sister suffragists called out the hypocrisy of President Wilson and the US government in denying the rights of women at home while claiming to be fighting a war for freedom and democracy abroad. 


So little has changed. President Biden is beating the drums of war, proposes an unprecedented $770 billion dollar military budget, and risks nuclear confrontation between the great powers, all in the name of “freedom” and “democracy.” Meanwhile, women in the U.S., who make up a majority of the poor, are denied housing, health care, equal pay, and accessible, affordable childcare. Even the pandemic-related child tax credit program that provided government relief to low-income families has been allowed to expire. We are poised to lose Roe vs. Wade, which will have a devastating effect on women’s freedoms with little action from the White House.


Biden has also failed to take the simple step of instructing the archivist to publish the Equal Rights Amendment already approved by the requisite 38 States, which would put women’s sex-based protections into the Constitution. His administration is thus undemocratically depriving us of a crucial tool to challenge our continued second-class status as a sex.


Those who are familiar with the history of U.S. wars abroad over the past century, have long known that U.S. foreign policy has everything to do with oil and empire and not a scintilla to do with democracy. Our military-industrial complex is a destructive money-making machine; it is the epitome of patriarchy in action, fighting to maintain status as the biggest bully on the block with no regard for human beings or their rights. Our government has repeatedly spearheaded the overthrow of democratically elected governments from Chile to Guatemala to Iran, rained untold destruction on Vietnam to prevent the people there from determining their own future, and currently counts as its closest allies (and arms to the teeth) the military dictatorship of Egypt, the religious fundamentalist sexual apartheid Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the ethnic apartheid regime of Israel. The decades-long occupation of Afghanistan not only failed to liberate the women there from the Taliban, but instead murdered 71,000 civilians, mostly women and children, and after the U.S. finally withdrew its troops, the imposition of murderous sanctions is now threatening the civilian population with mass starvation.


We must call out this hypocrisy today loudly and clearly, just as Alice Paul did more than a century ago.  Fortunately, women around the globe are recognizing that war is not in our interests. Medea Benjamin of the women-led organization Code Pink, long a voice of the U.S. peace movement, has been speaking out against the threat of war with Russia over Ukraine, as well as demanding diplomacy and an end to NATO expansion.


On February 15th a group of women from the United States and Russia released a joint statement, “Independent American and Russian Women Call For Peace” raising their voices against militarism and war and calling for diplomacy and peace. They wrote:
“We are women from the United States and Russia who are deeply concerned about the risk of possible war between our two countries, who together possess over 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. We are mothers, daughters, grandmothers, and we are sisters, one to another. Today we stand with our sisters in Ukraine, East and West, whose families and country have been torn apart, have already suffered more than 14,000 deaths…For the U.S. and Russia, the only sane and humane course of action now is a principled commitment to clear, creative and persistent diplomacy – not military action…We stand together and we call for peace. Stand with us.” 


Thank you, sisters!