January 20, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
One year after the inauguration of Trump/Pence, people took to the streets again for Women’s Marches in hundreds of cities across the U.S. and around the world. In the slide show on this page, we are presenting just a sampling of pictures of protesters who were out in the streets from the largest cities in the U.S. to the smallest. Over 500,000 marched in Los Angeles; 125,000 in New York City; 300,000 in Chicago, and tens of thousands in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Philadelphia, Washington, DC., and Denver, Colorado. And people in hundreds and thousands marched in, just to name some of the other smaller cities, Juneau, Alaska; Riverside, Sacramento, Orange County, and San Jose, California; Augusta, Georgia; Iowa City, Iowa; Indianapolis, Indiana; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Annapolis, Maryland; St. Louis, Missouri; Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina; Morristown, New Jersey; Albany and Seneca Falls, New York; Cincinnati, Ohio; Tulsa, Oklahoma; State College, Pennsylvania; Providence, Rhode Island; Sioux City, South Dakota; Nashville, Tennessee; Austin and Ft. Worth, Texas; Richmond, Virginia; Bellingham, Washington…and others too many to name.
New York, New York.
Los Angeles, California. Credit: Twitter/@Rshehee
Madrid, Spain. Credit: Twitter/#womensmarch
Los Angeles, California. Credit: Twitter/@baby_boomster
Boston, Massachusetts. Credit: Twitter/@_redheadmeg
Kolkata, India. Credit: Twitter/#womensmarch
New York City, New York. Credit: Special to revcom.us
Seneca Falls, New York. Special to revcom.us
Los Angeles, Revolution Club. Credit: Special to revcom.us
Helsinki, Finland. Credit: Twitter/#womensmarch
Asheville, North Carolina. Credit: Twitter/@EdKrassen
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Credit: Twitter/@USseriously
Houston, Texas. Credit: Special to revcom.us
Los Angeles, California. Credit: Twitter/@refusefascismLA
Washington, DC. Credit: Twitter/@gimomma65
Austin, Texas. Credit: Twitter/@sirbabsalot
Chicago, Illinois. Chicago Revolution Club organized a speakout on the spot. Credit: Special to revcom.us
San Francisco Bay Area. Credit: Revolution Books Berkeley Instagram
New York, NY
San Francisco, California. Credit: Special to revcom.us
Indianapolis, Indiana. Credit: Twitter/@warvvely
Albany, New York. Credit: Twitter/@michaelOstevens
Greenville, South Carolina. Credit: Twitter/@Teddifish
San Francisco, California. Credit: Special to revcom.us
There were a wide range of signs, calling out Trump and the regime on their attacks on women as well as on immigrants, Black people, and others. In a number of cities, revcom.us banners with “Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution” attracted the attention of many people. Some of the signs carried by people, to give a very small sample: “Our Rights Are Not Up for Grabs, Neither Are We”; “Public Cervix Announcement: Fuck You”; “I’m Not Mindlessly Marching to the Polls, I’m Fighting for Real Change”; “Get the White ’Hole Out of the Shithouse”; “Terrible Racist Unfit Misogynist Pussy-grabber” (with the initial capital letters highlighted); “Destroy the Patriarchy, Not the Planet”; “Mother Earth Says #MeToo.”
The marches last year were an expression of people’s deep horror at what Trump and his whole regime would bring down on women and broad sections of people here and around the world. In this urgent situation, the outpouring on the streets today is welcome—and a glimpse of the importance and potential for millions to take to the streets and resist. The energy and creativity of people in denouncing Trump and the whole regime are being expressed in thousands of ways.
The last year has shown even more clearly how sharp and dire a threat the Trump/Pence regime is to humanity. This regime is working furiously to lock down a fascist form of rule in the U.S. It is preparing to bring down even greater horrors that could well mean the end of humanity and that would, in any case, foreclose the possibility for any change for the better for a long time to come.
Let’s go forward, in the name of humanity, to build a massive movement united and acting on the demand that “NO! This Nightmare Must End. We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America. The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!”
And we invite everyone to get into the works on this page from Bob Avakian, BA, on the source of the oppression of women, and how this oppression must and can be uprooted and eliminated as part of an all-around revolution.
BA has brought forward a new synthesis of communism that analyzes the truth as it is, digs deep into the underlying dynamics and patterns, and applies this, as he has said, “to reality in general and in particular the revolutionary struggle to overturn and uproot all systems and relations of exploitation and oppression and advance to a communist world.” Nobody else has done the work Bob Avakian has done in further developing the theory on the “crucial role—and the even further heightened role in today’s world—of the struggle for the emancipation of women and its relation to the proletarian revolution and its goal of emancipating all humanity through the advance to a communist world” (from “The New Synthesis of Communism: Fundamental Orientation, Method and Approach, and Core Elements—An Outline”).
It is a striking fact—which is starkly evident in the U.S. now—that, in comparison to what is done to women, there is no other group in society that is so systematically reviled and defiled in a way that has become acceptable (or widely accepted in any case) as a significant part of “mainstream” life and culture, as happens in a concentrated way through pornography and the extremely demeaning and degrading images and messages about women it massively and pervasively purveys (with the Internet a major focus and vehicle for this), including pornography’s extensive portrayal of sadistic and violent sexual domination of women...
I began the “Revolution” talk with “They’re Selling Postcards of the Hanging,” reviewing the ugly history of the lynching of Black people in America and the way in which celebration of this became a cultural phenomenon in the U.S., with the selling of picture postcards of these lynchings a major expression of this—often including smiling and leering crowds of white people surrounding the murdered and mutilated body of a Black man. In a recent exchange, a comrade emphasized this profoundly important and compelling point: Today, the way in which pornography depicts women—the displaying of women in a degraded state for the titillation of viewers—including the grotesque brutality and violence against women which is involved in much of this, is the equivalent of those “Postcards of the Hanging.” It is a means through which all women are demeaned and degraded.
Bob Avakian
Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
Unresolved Contradictions, Driving Forces for Revolution
A Question of Basic Stand and Orientation
By Bob Avakian
SUPPORT AND SPREAD
THE FURY AGAINST SEXUAL ABUSE
The phenomenon of sexual harassment and sexual assault—including (but not limited to) the sexual abuse of women by men who hold positions of power over them—is long-standing and widespread throughout this male supremacist society and is reinforced by the putrid culture it has spawned. The outpouring of outrage against this sexual abuse and the all too commonplace institutional cover-ups and complicity with it, and the demand for a radical change in the culture—which has made a major leap in relation to the accusations against Harvey Weinstein and has now spread far beyond that, involving millions of women, in sphere after sphere throughout this country and in other countries as well—is right, righteous, and long overdue, and should be supported, encouraged, spread, and defended against counter-attack.
In the context of such a long-suppressed outpouring of outrage, there are bound to be some negative aspects, including some excesses, where false or exaggerated accusations are made in particular cases; but these have been (and will almost certainly remain) a very secondary aspect of the phenomenon. If and when it may be necessary to point to some of these shortcomings, this must be done very judiciously, in a way that does not undermine the overwhelmingly positive character of this upsurge, and in fact helps to strengthen it.
This long-suppressed and thoroughly just outpouring of outrage is not the same as any particular accusation. Such particular accusations do have to be approached on the basis of scientifically evaluating the evidence, and this is especially important where the accusations not only allege misconduct but actual criminal action, such as rape or other sexual assault. But this distinction, between particular accusations and the overall phenomenon, should not be allowed to obscure or diminish the righteousness and importance of the massive upsurge against this widespread and deeply-rooted abuse and the tremendous injury it does to women and to humanity as a whole.
“Can This System Do Away With, or Do Without, The Oppression of Women?—
A Fundamental Question,
a Scientific Approach to the Answer”
by Bob Avakian
Through which mode of production will any social problem be addressed?
That is the most fundamental question that must be asked, in regard to changes in society. And the answer to that question will be decisive in determining what must be done to bring about the changes that are understood to be necessary and desirable. Why? Because the mode of production—the basic economic relations and the basic dynamics of the economic system—is the decisive factor in determining what the character of a society, and its dominant social relations, politics, and ideology, will be.
To apply this to the particular question of whether this capitalist-imperialist system can do away with, or do without, the oppression of women, it is necessary to pose, and answer, some essential questions that need to be addressed in determining this, including:
How, under this system and given its fundamental relations and dynamics, would the role of women in childbirth and the rearing of children, the character and role of the family, and the system of commodity production and exchange that characterizes capitalism—how would all this, and the many direct and indirect expressions and manifestations of this in the superstructure of politics and ideology, be radically transformed in a way that would lead to abolishing the oppression of women?
How would the putrid social relations and culture that dominate in this society—which oppress and degrade women in a thousand ways, including the most vicious and violent—be actually transformed, within the confines of this system, in a way that would contribute to doing away with all the oppression and degradation of women?
How would all this be achieved, not only within a particular country, such as the U.S.—and not just for a section of people, particularly the more well-off and privileged—but for human society as a whole, on a global scale, especially given the highly globalized nature of this system, and its fundamental relations and dynamics?
There is much that has already been brought to light which demonstrates how the oppression of women has been historically, and today remains, completely and integrally bound up with the division of society into masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited. At the same time, there is further analysis and synthesis that needs to be done—in regard to the situation of women in the world and how this relates today to the fundamental relations and dynamics of the dominant system in the world, capitalism-imperialism. But this needs to be taken up with a thoroughly and consistently scientific method and approach. And I am firmly convinced that such a scientific analysis and synthesis—including with regard to the basic questions that have been posed here—will reinforce, and further deepen, the fundamental understanding that it is impossible to achieve the emancipation of women under this system, and that this emancipation can only be fully and finally achieved through, and as a key part of, the revolutionary advance to communism throughout the world.
If someone wishes to argue that it could be possible to do away with the oppression of women under this capitalist-imperialist system, then let them make that argument, but that argument must include an answer to the kinds of essential questions I have posed here.
(Published in Break ALL the Chains! Bob Avakian on the Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution)
Excerpt from the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal)
Authored by Bob Avakian
Adopted by the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
Compare this Constitution—both the passage below and the entire document itself—with any other constitution on the planet! And after doing so, tell us why we should not fight for such a society.
Eradicating the Oppression of Women. (Article III. Section 3.)
The oppression of women emerged thousands of years ago in human history together with the splitting of society into exploiting and exploited classes, and this oppression is one of the cornerstones of all societies based on exploitation. For the same reason, the struggle to finally and fully uproot the oppression of women is of profound importance and will be a decisive driving force in carrying forward the revolution toward the final goal of communism, and the eradication of all exploitation and oppression, throughout the world. Based on this understanding, the New Socialist Republic in North America gives the highest priority not only to establishing and giving practical effect to full legal equality for women–and to basic rights and liberties that are essential for the emancipation of women, such as reproductive freedom, including the right to abortion as well as birth control–but also to the increasing, and increasingly unfettered, involvement of women, equally with men, in every sphere of society, and to propagating and popularizing the need for and importance of uprooting and overcoming all remaining expressions and manifestations of patriarchy and male supremacy, in the economic and social relations and in the realms of politics, ideology and culture, and to promote the objective of fully emancipating women and the pivotal role of the struggle for this emancipation in the overall transformation of this society and the world as a whole. This orientation, and policies and laws flowing from it, shall be applied, promoted, encouraged and supported with the full political, legal and moral force, authority and influence of the government, at all levels, in the New Socialist Republic in North America.
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