From members of the Revolution Club, Chicago:
More Than My Body
March 10, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
A few days ago, the Revolution Club was out in Englewood on the south side of Chicago taking out the statement "From the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party to ALL People: What The Trump/Pence Regime Will Mean for Black People—and What Must Be Done About It, NOW!"
As we were preparing to leave we saw a young woman walking down the street holding a small colorful sign with the words “More Than My Body” written on it. It caught our attention right away and we asked her what this was about. She told us that all the girls at her high school had all made similar signs and had been carrying the signs everywhere they went all day during and after school because they were tired of being treated as sex objects. We told her this was really awesome and how important what she and they were doing was, especially in light of the vicious woman-hating Trump/Pence regime’s assault on woman.
She told us where she went to school, a school on the West Side that draws students from all over the city, miles from where we met her. We decided this was a place we needed to get to, to reach these students with the message of revolution and driving out the Trump/Pence fascist regime and work to bring forward and organize as many as possible into taking this up and acting on it.
On International Women’s Day, March 8, we arrived at the school shortly before it let out for the day. We were carrying a colorful poster saying: “Women Are Not Bitches, Hos, Incubators, Punching Bags, Sex Objects or Breeders! Women Are Full Human Beings,” a bullhorn and fliers for the International Women's Day celebration in Chicago, and the Central Committee statement mentioned above.
Even before the bell rang, an administrator and security person came out to find out who we were and why we were there. When we told them it was International Women’s Day and about seeing a student from the school with a sign a few days before, they welcomed us and directed us to the door where students exit the school. They said that they knew there was a protest downtown for “The Day Without a Woman.”
We set up at the gate and one of us began doing agitation over the bullhorn about how we learned about all the girls carrying “More than my body" signs and how important that was, about it being International Women’s Day, about the Revolution Club and our Points of Attention and the urgent need to drive out the Trump/Pence regime.
The students were happy to see us—and amazed to learn that we had seen a student on the South Side with her sign and had decided what they were doing was so important that we had to be at their school. One young woman told us that the whole thing started when one boy was disrespecting one of the girls, telling her she didn’t look good enough to have sex with. She began texting her friends and got the word out, and all the girls ended up making and carrying signs. The young women we talked to were very proud of what they had done. They told us there was a lot of controversy at school the day they carried the signs. It brought out some really ugly male chauvinist shit from some of the guys, but other guys lined up to support the young women.
As we passed out flyers we were talking with students about the need to act to drive out the Trump/Pence regime, that we don't have a lot of time, don't know how much time we have before they bring the hammer down with the whole fascist package, what Trump/Pence are doing to the environment, Black people, etc. We had a sign-up sheet we got around so that students who were moving through quickly could follow up with the Revolution Club. In some of our initial follow-up the next day, we learned that some students there had been part of protests against Trump's inauguration and were talking with each other about the flyer they'd gotten for the International Women's Day program.
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