Stop Patriarchy

If you hate the way that women are not only raped but then blamed and shamed for being raped…

If your blood boils at the knowledge of millions of women bought and sold and abused and degraded in the global sex industry…

If you want to puke when you hear Christian fascists moralizing that women should “keep their legs closed” and you want to scream when you hear of another abortion clinic being attacked, another doctor being stalked, another law restricting women’s right to birth control or abortion being passed…

If you are infuriated by how pornography has become more violent, more degrading, more cruel, and more humiliating towards women even as it has become more and more mainstream…

If you are sick of the way women have been trained to hold their tongues, suppress their rage, and remain silent in the face of this all out war against their lives and their humanity…

You need to be part of the August 4 - 14th intensive effort to

TAKE PATRIARCHY BY STORM.


For ten days in New York volunteers from around the country and all over the city will work closely together to launch an all-out counteroffensive against patriarchy and to strategize together to figure out how we are going to go forward to win.

We will:

• hold flash protests outside of strip clubs and anti-abortion institutions (like fake clinics and the Catholic church)
• stage positively confrontational “social interventions” (like going into crowds at outdoor concerts with big signs which read, “Stop Watching Porn! Start Fighting Patriarchy!”) and stand our ground in the mass debate this provokes
• get out in the oppressed neighborhoods throughout the city with a beautiful “War on Women” display
• do street theater in crowded areas
• hold public programs on women’s liberation
• organize a cultural talent show against patriarchy
• and discuss and strategize every day as to how to really kick out the jams and take the movement to End Porn & Patriarchy to a whole societal level, particularly making plans for the campuses and high schools in the fall

From our work thus far with this initiative we have found incredible receptivity. Yes, some people are hostile (which is only to be expected in a society where so many have been indoctrinated for so long in such bone-deep misogyny), but there are also many who have been choking on their rage and hungry for an outlet. And there are many who begin by dismissing or even attacking us who, through sharp arguments and political struggle, open up about how much turmoil they have been in over these very questions and express the desire to get involved in the movement to end patriarchy.

But until now we have not found the ways to fully tap into this, to bring it to the surface, to sustain this and to fan it even further. This is what we will do in these ten days. This will be a forging ground for all who attend, a chance to work together with other like minded people to try new things out and figure out what works, to get into deep discussion about all this and strategize about going forward, to project this movement to thousands of people in one of the most trend-setting cities in the world, and to draw in and actively organized hundreds as we do.

GET IN TOUCH WITH US.

stoppatriarchy@gmail.com

Revolution #271, June 10, 2012

On May 31, 2009, Dr. George Tiller was assassinated as he acted as an usher in his Wichita, Kansas church on a Sunday morning. Dr. George Tiller was a hero. Dr. Tiller’s commitment to women went far beyond merely providing abortions to women, as essential as that is. Dr. Tiller withstood years and years of targeted harassment, threats, and terror directed at him and his family. When his clinic was firebombed, he posted a sign outside during its reconstruction which read, “Hell No, We Won’t Go!” When he was shot in both arms during a previous assassination attempt, he went immediately back to work.

Not only did he provide abortions, he provided late-term abortions. These types of abortions make up only 2% of all abortions but are some of the most essential; women who seek them tend to be those who discover a life-threatening problem late in the pregnancy or women who were unable to get abortions earlier due to being extremely young and/or extremely poor and/or in places with extreme restrictions to abortion access. Women traveled from around the world seeking out his services.


Not only did he provide these late-term abortions at great risk to himself, he did it with extraordinary compassion. Once, Dr. Tiller heard that a woman who was driving up from the South to visit his clinic was sleeping in her car because she couldn’t afford a motel. Despite the fact that he had already offered to provide her abortion for free, he instructed his staff to pay for her hotel and her meals during her travels. When he heard that an extremely young woman who had been impregnated through rape was traveling from another city to his clinic, he had his entire staff dressed in T-shirts which read, “Friends of Annie” [the young woman’s name] when she arrived! When I attended his memorial three years ago, many women from Wichita told me the stories of their own abortions, adding, “Dr. Tiller gave me my life back.”

While Dr. Tiller was assassinated by one man, his death was the result of a whole nationwide campaign over many years to demonize, isolate, criminalize and stop—by any means—abortion providers from giving women the ability to terminate a pregnancy. Every time someone—whether a Christian fascist, a “pro-choice” Democrat, or a television drama—refers to abortion as “killing a baby” they are contributing to an atmosphere where providers are seen as people with “blood on their hands” who “deserve” violence and retribution. In reality, fetuses are NOT babies and abortion is NOT murder!

Further, every time lawmakers restrict abortion access, they commit an act every bit as illegitimate, immoral, and violent towards women as the assassination of George Tiller was. The question is not whether these attacks are carried out “by individuals” acting “outside the law” or by a fascist movement acting through the power of the state. Forcing women to have children against their will is enslavement. It is an act of violence against women every bit as damaging as rape.

This is something that many providers understand, and this is why they risk so much to provide abortion services to women.

In the three years since George Tiller’s assassination, lawmakers have passed an unprecedented level of restrictions to abortion nationwide and violence against clinics and threats to providers have continued unabated.

On this anniversary, let us never forget the life of commitment to women lived by Dr. George Tiller. Let us never forgive the movement which took his life and which threatens the lives and futures of the half of the population who have been born female. Finally, let us redouble our determination to protect and defend those who risk everything to provide abortions to women and let us fight for a world where providing abortions no longer requires such risk and abortion and birth control are available to all women all the time on demand and without apology!

To get involved in the fight for Abortion on Demand & Without Apology as well as the fight to End Patriarchy and Pornography: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women altogether, contact:stoppatriarchy@gmail.com.

There is absolutely nothing wrong, tragic, unfortunate, or sad about a woman choosing to get an abortion. Nothing.

Why?

Because being forced to have a child against your will is enslavement. Period.

Why else?

Because fetuses are NOT babies. Fetuses have the potential to become babies, but until they are born they have no independent social or biological existence. They are a subordinate part of a woman’s body. Any state, religious, or family intervention which forces – or even pressures – a woman into subordinating her life, dreams and health to incubating that fetus against her will is completely unjust and illegitimate. It is immoral and it is enslaving.

But what about her responsibility? If she didn’t want a baby, shouldn’t she have thought of that before she “opened her legs”?

This argument is wrong on at least four levels. First, this suggests that it is wrong for women to have sex and that they must be punished for doing so (while applying a totally different standard to men). Second, this approach treats children – who should be wanted and well cared for – like nothing more than a punishment to women. Third, this ignores the fact that getting an abortion when one is not ready or eager to have a child is taking responsibility. Finally, this ignores the fact that it is the very Christian fascists who are criminalizing abortion who are responsible for denying increasing numbers of women access to birth control and sex education (which makes it enormously harder for them to protect themselves from pregnancy during sex in the first place).

But what about when a woman is raped? Or if she really wanted to have a baby but there is something wrong with the fetus or a danger to her own life? Doesn’t that make the abortion sad?

Again, fuck no!

If a woman is impregnated because of being raped, it is the rape that is the horrific crime – the abortion which prevents her from being forced to bear the child of her rapist is positive and liberating.

If a woman really wants a child but something goes wrong with the pregnancy, it is the medical problems that are the tragedy – the abortion that eliminates those dangers is positive and liberating.

*************************

Women are human beings, not incubators. A woman who cannot decide for herself when and whether she will have a child has no more freedom than a slave. Abortion is not something to apologize for, it is something to celebrate and defend. 1 in 3 women will have an abortion in her life, she is not wrong for doing so. It is time to declare loudly and boldly:

ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY!!!

Sunsara Taylor writes for Revolution newspaper and is on the Advisory Board of World Can’t Wait. Follow her on twitter @sunsarataylor, friend her on facebook and add sunsarataylor.blogspot.com to your blogroll

There is absolutely nothing wrong, tragic, unfortunate, or sad about a woman choosing to get an abortion. Nothing.

Why?

Because being forced to have a child against your will is enslavement. Period.

Why else?

Because fetuses are NOT babies. Fetuses have the potential to become babies, but until they are born they have no independent social or biological existence. They are a subordinate part of a woman’s body. Any state, religious, or family intervention which forces – or even pressures – a woman into subordinating her life, dreams and health to incubating that fetus against her will is completely unjust and illegitimate. It is immoral and it is enslaving.

But what about her responsibility? If she didn’t want a baby, shouldn’t she have thought of that before she “opened her legs”?

This argument is wrong on at least four levels. First, this suggests that it is wrong for women to have sex and that they must be punished for doing so (while applying a totally different standard to men). Second, this approach treats children – who should be wanted and well cared for – like nothing more than a punishment to women. Third, this ignores the fact that getting an abortion when one is not ready or eager to have a child is taking responsibility. Finally, this ignores the fact that it is the very Christian fascists who are criminalizing abortion who are responsible for denying increasing numbers of women access to birth control and sex education (which makes it enormously harder for them to protect themselves from pregnancy during sex in the first place).

But what about when a woman is raped? Or if she really wanted to have a baby but there is something wrong with the fetus or a danger to her own life? Doesn’t that make the abortion sad?

If a woman is impregnated because of being raped, it is the rape that is the horrific crime – the abortion which prevents her from being forced to bear the child of her rapist is positive and liberating.

If a woman really wants a child but something goes wrong with the pregnancy, it is the medical problems that are the tragedy – the abortion that eliminates those dangers is positive and liberating.

*************************

Women are human beings, not incubators. A woman who cannot decide for herself when and whether she will have a child has no more freedom than a slave. Abortion is not something to apologize for, it is something to celebrate and defend. 1 in 3 women will have an abortion in her life, she is not wrong for doing so. It is time to declare loudly and boldly:

ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY!!!

Sunsara Taylor writes for Revolution Newspaper, is on the Advisory Board of World Can’t Wait, and is a co-host on Equal Time for Freethought on WBAI 99.5 in NYC. Follow her on Twitter @sunsarataylor, friend her on facebook, and add sunsara.blogspot.com to your blogroll. 

Join us in Washington DC
in front of the Supreme Court
on January 23rd
(to counter the “March for Life”)
starting at 11am

IT IS TIME!
January 22 and 23, on the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Decision which legalized abortion, come to DC to:

Stand up for Abortion and Birth Control

39 years after women won the right to abortion, this fundamental right is hanging by a thread.

• Nearly 90% of U.S. counties have no abortion provider.
• 2011 saw the greatest number of restrictions passed at the state level – parental notification laws, mandatory waiting periods, gestational bans, etc. – restricting this access even further.
• Doctors who provide abortions are hunted, terrorized and killed.
• And the stigma and shame cast on women who get abortions is greater than ever.

But that is not all.

Read More

The second in a series of talks by Sunsara Taylor for the new movement of resistance to End Pornography and Patriarchy; the Enslavement and Degradation of Women.

A huge wave of extremely dangerous, utterly heartless, and profoundly anti-woman legislation has swept through state legislatures this year and there have been new threats to abortion providers. 

• What is behind this assault on women’s lives? 
• What’s wrong with seeking “common ground” with anti-abortionists?
• What’s wrong with the notion that abortion should be “legal, but rare”?  

Sunsara will bring out the positive morality of the right to abortion, the immorality of those who oppose this right and the need for stepped-up resistance!  

at Revolution Books, 146 West 26th Street, NYC  212-691-3345

Between 6th-7th Aves, NYC

$5-10 donation requested at the door

Upcoming on Wed. Nov. 30, Sunsara Taylor on
“Why and How the Future Revolutionary Society Will End Pornography, Prostitution, and Patriarchy”