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.

 

 

 

 

 

DEFEND ABORTION RIGHTS – MARCH ON MAY 14th!!!

In the wake of the horrifying Politico leaked draft Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs vs. Jackson case, placing Roe vs. Wade in immediate jeopardy, FIST urges all women and their male allies to join the beginning fight back in peaceful protests to defend the right of women to control our own reproductive capacity and our own lives.

The 1973 Roe decision was not a gift from on high by powerful males in the Supreme Court, but the result of the organizing and mass struggle of a powerful independent movement for women’s liberation that emerged in the late 1960’s. We can secure our rights in the same way we won them, by relying on ourselves, not the politicians, and by pouring into the streets and building our independent movement.

We should demand that the Supreme Court uphold Roe, that Congress immediately pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, that President Biden register the Equal Rights Amendment that will put sex-based protection in the U.S. Constitution, and that all anti-abortion laws in every state be repealed. We join with Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights in demanding ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY!

Please join the national protests called by Rise Up culminating in united actions on May 14th! Checked the Rise Up website for more details. Take a FIST Abortion Flyer with you!

In the words of Christabel Pankhurst: “Remember the dignity of your womanhood, Do not appeal, do not beg, do not grovel. Take courage, join hands, stand beside us, fight with us.”

“On the Basis of Sex”: Why the ERA is still important for women and girls

Why do women still need the ERA? Won’t the placing of the word “sex” in the U.S. Constitution and providing for legal equality between the sexes just be used against us and provide no real benefit? Some, like our sisters in WoLF, think so. We think they are dead wrong on this one.


First we need to understand our past. The eagerness and utter blindness in which so many progressives have betrayed their principles and sold out the interests of women and girls in favor of a sex-denying gender identity ideology is not unprecedented in history. After the Civil War, the Abolitionist movement, the male comrades of the early suffragists and First Wave feminists betrayed their sisters by insisting that women, both Black and White, wait for our rights, and that only Black males should have their rights recognized. They ended up putting the word “male” in the Constitution for the first time, in the Fourteenth Amendment. Women were now explicitly non-citizens.

This split the movement, weakened both the feminist and anti-racist struggles, and led to some feminists incorporating racist ideology into their campaigns and for the first time opposing universal suffrage. This betrayal also delayed the victory for women’s suffrage until 1920. But, guess what, the word “male” is still in the Fourteenth Amendment, the Amendment that provides due process and equal protection of the laws. The Equal Rights Amendment is in part about a long overdue correction, to treat sex discrimination with the same seriousness and status as race discrimination under the highest law of the land, the U.S. Constitution.

Race and national origin discrimination claims benefit from what is called “strict scrutiny”–it is far easier under the Fourteenth Amendment to challenge discriminatory laws and practices based on race than on sex–and to do so everywhere in the country. And women still suffer from a ton of such practices. One of the biggest aspect of female oppression is we are poor and grossly underpaid. Poverty means that women often are forced to stay with abusive male partners or are vulnerable to being prostituted in order for them and their children to survive. We still have a largely sex-segregated workplace, with “men’s” jobs having higher status and pay. Women who entered the trades in the late 1970’s, were forced out a few years later largely as a result of sexual harassment. White women who work full-time earn 78 cents to every dollar a man earns. For women of color it is far less. Women are over 62% of minimum wage workers.

And even in female-dominated professions, men make more than women do, with women nurses paid 10% less than the males, and women lawyers earning 83 cents on the dollar compared to their male colleagues. While we have laws against discrimination in employment and wage discrimination they have loopholes or may not be enforced. And these laws could be weakened or repealed at any time. A Constitutional Amendment has much more staying power.

Or take pregnant women workers. Despite the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, pregnant women, especially those in low paid physically demanding jobs, are routinely fired or forced off the job. They are treated far worse than employees covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act suffering from a variety of medical conditions. Putting sex in the U.S. Constitution would make it far easier for those women to make their case.

The Equal Rights Amendment would give women an additional hook to challenge male violence against women in the universities and in the military. And women being denied access to contraception could challenge the double standard that allows Hobby Lobby to refuse to cover contraception while covering Viagra. And can it not be argued that it is sex discrimination for vasectomies to be perfectly legal and funded while abortion is not funded and instead even treated as a crime as many states are trying to do?

But what of the downside, that women-only spaces and programs might be eliminated? First, this is already happening under Title IX and in other areas of civil rights law, and through regulation, without the ERA. Should we then repeal Title IX or Title VII because the sex discrimination provisions can be used to eliminate the separate spaces and programs that women need? No, we need to fight against the use of “gender identity” to remove sex-based rights and we need to do so with or without the ERA.


Strict scrutiny doesn’t mean no distinction is possible. There is extensive case law holding that distinctions meant to address past discrimination of a historically disadvantaged group are allowed, or where there is a compelling reason to treat the groups differently. Female-only spaces and programs, including women-only scholarships, colleges, shelters, clinics, and training programs have compelling reasons justifying them, based on privacy, male violence, addressing past discrimination and other grounds. Same goes for women’s sports programs. The fight to defend affirmative action, for example, has been going on for decades and this is an area where men of color and women’s interests as a sex coincide.


It is quite telling that President Biden is all-in for eroding sex-based rights through support for an un-amended Equality Act and issuing Executive Orders that would have gender identity override sex, but can’t manage to tell the Archivist to publish the ERA. Women must expect and demand more.


It has been nearly one hundred years since the first version of the ERA was introduced in Congress in 1923 as the Lucretia Mott Amendment.  A century is too long to wait for equal rights based on sex under the Constitution. EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT NOW!

SISTERHOOD IS GLOBAL: The Feminist Strikes in Poland

Feminists in Struggle proudly hosts a panel of grassroots radical feminist activists from Poland to speak about their struggle.

About this event

Hear first hand reports about the challenges facing Polish radical feminists as they fight their anti-abortion right wing government on the one hand and gender ideologues on the other.

Saturday, June 5th, 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time, 1:00 p.m. Central time; 2:00 p.m. Eastern time.

SPEAKERS and TOPICS:

Hanka Kulikowska: “Broken dream of reproductive freedom. The rise and fall of Women’s Strike.”

Natalia: “Why Poland – a Catholic conservative country is embracing trans ideology? A paradox that’s not really a paradox.”

V.L.: “Lesbians in Poland, the law vs. real life.”

Michalina Bychenko: “Fandon, anime and cosplay culture influence on trans-identified and nonbinary identified popularity in Poland.”

Aleksandra: Radfem and left wing political parties in Poland.

Register for event

Forum on Reproductive Rights planned

The right of women to control our reproduction including the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy has never been in greater jeopardy since the Supreme Court first decided Roe vs. Wade 48 years ago.

Women are invited to join Feminists in Struggle for a Zoom interactive forum Our Bodies, Our Lives on January 23, 2021 on the struggle to save reproductive rights, led by a foremother of the movement, Carol Downer.

Carol Downer has been a leader in the reproductive rights movement for five decades. She started the Self-Help branch of the Women’s Health Movement. She was tried and acquitted of practicing medicine without a license in 1972. Her group, the Feminist Women’s Health Centers started and ran abortion clinics around the country. She presently is the vice-president on the board of 3 clinics in Northern California, Women’s Health Specialists. She has written several books, and is presently studying population control by government and how it perpetuates white supremacy and class privilege. She invites inquiries by those who want to join this study project.

Other speakers include:

SPECIAL GUEST FROM ARGENTINA ON THE SUCCESSFUL ABORTION RIGHTS STRUGGLE THERE: Jimena Diaz, psychologist, feminist and women’s rights activist.

Rochelle Glickman, long-time lesbian feminist and member of Feminists in Struggle

Tickets available at Eventbrite, for $5.00. A few free tickets are also available but please pay if you can in order to help us continue to fight for women’s rights.

Abortion is a Woman’s Fundamental Right

Our world is crying out as abortion bans are sweeping through conservative parts of the country, particularly the southeastern United States, the historical site of much slavery and the largest African American communities, as well as a stronghold of white Christian patriarchy. While some women in the liberal northeast and west coast may never experience these bans, Black and U.S. Native American women (groups who researchers say have the highest risk of dying in childbirth) as well as poor, young, and rural women (who cannot as easily access affordable health care) will be primarily impacted by these bans. In addition, the Journal of Perinatal Education states that unintended pregnancies — which abortion allows us to stop — are associated with increased likelihood of risk factors causing death in childbirth, which also happens to vary by state. Women will always attempt to obtain abortions, whether or not the abortions are legal. Women die from both unintended pregnancies and attempted unsafe abortions all over the world, and lack of access to safe abortions (caused by outlawing abortion) puts them at risk. Therefore, the bans on abortion amount to the state-sanctioned murder of women, especially those of less social privilege. All of the country is ablaze with fury and apprehension, and we are seeing even women who were previously apolitical now come forward to speak with their families and communities on the right of a woman to abortion.
The male supremacist right wing sees women as vessels to produce the working class, soldiers to uphold their various patriarchal nationalisms — and not as full human beings unto ourselves! As radical feminists, we vehemently reject this ethos. These are the hateful convulsions of an anti-abortion movement that knows many of these bans are nearly impossible to enforce. This round of bans are purposely unconstitutional, designed to force a Supreme Court case that (they hope) would overturn Roe v. Wade. But we women won’t let them. We have a vast number of sympathetic medical personnel nationwide and can end unwanted pregnancies privately during the first 9 weeks with the medications misoprostol and mifepristone.
Abortion rights have been whittled away, step by step for decades, starting with the Hyde Amendment. Because legislators couldn’t take abortion away from us immediately, they have been doing it slowly. Parental Consent & Notification laws, TRAP laws, mandated sonograms/guilt trips/”waiting periods” — an astonishing array of laws designed to deprive us of our bodily autonomy. When Donald Trump took office, his Supreme Court picks were specifically for overturning Roe v. Wade, and one of his first executive orders was an attack on abortion. As Planned Parenthood Action Fund states: “The global gag rule was first introduced by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. On January 23, 2017, in one of his first acts as president, President Donald Trump reinstated and expanded the global gag rule. … The global gag rule prevents foreign organizations receiving U.S. global health assistance from providing information, referrals, or services for legal abortion or advocating for access to abortion services in their country — even with their own money.”

Trump’s executive order, which was essentially an imposed sanction on women’s bodies around the world, severely hampers women’s ability to obtain abortions and other sexual health care, regardless of the legality of abortion in their own countries. It even prohibits health care providers’ ability to treat AIDS, a crisis which Trump boasted about attempting to fix. The terrible impact is felt “especially in places where maternal deaths, HIV rates and unmet need for contraception are unacceptably high. Communities have lost access to essential life-saving services such as HIV testing, antiretroviral medications, nutritional support, birth control and pregnancy care,” says Dr. Leana Wen, President of Planned Parenthood.

It’s a United States tradition for the ruling elite to practice human rights abuses overseas before bringing them home. This year, we are seeing a wave of abortion bans. The New York Times (pdf) has the rundown. As of May 2019, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Mississippi severely limited abortion rights to the first trimester. Alabama eliminated abortion rights entirely, even in cases of rape and incest. Utah, Arkansas, and Missouri all reduced abortion rights farther back into the 2nd trimester, away from the framework established in Roe v. Wade.

The bans are being met with fierce resistance. Kansas just added abortion protection to its constitution. New York enacted a law that will preserve access to abortions, protect medical professionals who perform abortions from being criminalized, allow medical professionals who are not doctors to perform abortions, and allow abortions to be performed after 24 weeks if the fetus is not viable or to protect the life of the woman. Vermont is about to pass a bill allowing abortions with “zero” limits, as a “fundamental right”, and prohibits government entities from interfering with or restricting access to abortion, “ensuring that any pregnancy may be terminated for any reason at any time.” Some Democrats have claimed that the Vermont bill goes”too far“! And this isn’t the first time Democrats started sounding like Republicans: in New Mexico, eight Democrats crossed party lines to defeat a pro-choice bill. Nor is it simply a matter of going “too far”. A milder law comparable to New York’s was proposed in Virginia by Kathy Tran, who immediately faced death threats, and the Republicans spread fake news that the bill was about legalizing “infanticide”. The Virginia bill removed some restrictions on abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy, allowed abortions during the second trimester to take place outside of hospitals, and made it so only one doctor would be needed to determine that pregnancy threatens the woman’s life or health.

We’ve never had full abortion rights. All the ways that the patriarchy nitpicks a woman’s right to abortion into “trimesters”, “medical” necessity, conditions of rape, harsher restrictions in some regions, etc, only serve to divide women and distract us from the fundamental right that women have to abortions on demand without apology, without approval, and without being treated as criminals.

Feminists in Struggle, like the early Second Wave Feminists, insists on FREE ABORTION ON DEMAND with zero questions asked. The only condition should be the consent of the woman who is pregnant. We also demand an end to the petty restrictions and code regulations (TRAP laws) that specifically discriminate against pregnant women and abortion clinics. We won’t stop there. We demand safe abortion access for women both in the United States, where we are based, and everywhere else. But because patriarchy divides women, the women’s liberation movement is divided into various camps. The Democratic party soaks up most of women’s political energy, preventing us from experiencing our full potential as a movement.

You must be wondering: what can radical feminists do? What can WE all do about this? Especially while we are still living out the war on feminism by dominant forces in the transgender movement, positioning radical feminists as underdogs in any discussion on feminism? Ridiculous rhetoric we’ve been peddled about “pregnant people” instead of “pregnant women” is now   becoming “abortions for people” instead of “abortions for women”. We consider abortion a right of the female sex, but for us to say that in progressive circles will bring controversy and distractions that women can’t afford.

As radical feminists, we can utilize our position as the radicals and underdogs to push harder and farther than anyone else will. Our hearts are with everyday women and our right to control our bodies and lives. We will do what the long arm of the Democratic party would never do. We will demand ABORTIONS ON DEMAND WITHOUT CONDITIONS. Not to mention, free health care that includes birth control and abortions.  No forced sterilizations.  And… END THE GLOBAL GAG ORDER!  100% of unwanted pregnancies are caused by MEN, yet no one holds the men responsible for the life-threatening condition of pregnancy!

If thousands of women join Feminists in Struggle and turn it into a powerful radical feminist movement, we would be able to organize and lead marches for abortion rights and pressure legislators to secure abortion as women’s fundamental right  We would be able to all strategize together in a bottom up democratic movement. However, because our organization is young and still small what we want and what is feasible are two different things.  We will often have to join in actions called and organized by liberal feminists and other more conservative sections of the movement. But still our voices as radical feminists can be heard.

We call for united mass action in the streets. We call for civil disobedience. We call for all women to speak up about abortion. We call for you and us to join the larger marches under the FIST banner and apply pressure there for people to take up more radical positions in support of the complete liberation of our sex.

We call for teaching women en masse how to use and smuggle the abortion pill, and perform menstrual extractions. We call for you, if you live in a state that protects abortion, to consider taking direct action to provide safe harbor for women seeking out of state abortions. Bring back the Jane Collective that performed thousands of safe abortions on women in Chicago before Roe v. Wade. We want to educate women about women’s self help groups who work to keep women’s health in women’s hands. Educate yourself and others on the use of plan B, a medication you can buy at the pharmacy that is effective in preventing pregnancy if taken within 48 to 72 hours following unprotected sex. Educate yourself and others on misoprostol and mifepristone, which can end unwanted pregnancies privately during the first 9 weeks. Educate women on preventing pregnancy and obtaining safe abortions. Spread the word to women affected by these bans not to sign any waivers when they get an abortion. You can also agitate and get previously apolitical women involved in the broader struggle. And of course… Join FIST and get actively involved by becoming a member of FIST’s Feminist Assembly!

Women are half the population. Women have the numbers. We will prevail!

We have a few suggested chants and slogans:

“Our bodies, our spaces, our sex based rights.”

“My body, MY CHOICE!”

“Keep your rosaries off my ovaries!

“Women’s bodies are not incubators!”

“It’s not a womb, it’s a WOMAN”

“Abortion on demand, NO APOLOGY!”

“Birth must be voluntary. Abortion is health care. Health care is a human right.”

“Free Abortion on Demand!”