Pimps target incarcerated women in the U.S. for prostitution; the death of Maria Isabel Chorobik de Mariani, a founder of Argentina’s Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo; the organization World Without Exploitation; nurses at the University of Vermont Medical Center strike for themselves and their non-union coworkers as well.
Rape
Review: How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics
September 27, 2018Adele reviews “How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosures to Trump,” by Laura Briggs, which discusses “reproductive labor,” “the work necessary to the reproduction of human life.”
Editorial: Catholic Church’s sins laid bare
September 17, 2018Editorial that takes up the evil that the Catholic Church has imposed on children and women; how movements from below, especially by women, have challenged it; and how future church crimes will be revealed, signaling the beginning of the end of the Catholic Church.
Rapists freed in Spain
July 24, 2018Massive demonstrations in 30 major cities of Spain occurred after the five rapists in the La Manada case were set free from prison on June 22.
Millions denounce Trump’s heinous immigration abuses
July 19, 2018Marxist-Humanist analysis of the nature of President Donald Trump’s inhuman immigration policy, the damage it is causing and the outcry against it, including from his own base.
SF walk against rape
May 5, 2018Many survivors of rape, and their supporters including youth from City College of San Francisco, and Transgender people took part in the 13th annual San Francisco A Walk Against Rape.
Women Worldwide: May-June 2018
May 2, 2018A roundup of women’s news including: the Boston Women’s Health Collective will no longer update the iconic Our Bodies Ourselves; Maxine Hammond is fundraising to preserve the Suppressed History of Archives of women resisting oppression; protests against the murder of Black Lesbian Brazilian feminist Marielle Franco; and Belfast Feminist Network’s protest outside an Ulster Rugby team match after players were acquitted of rape.
MSU students rally against Larry Nassar
March 10, 2018While over 200 girls and women gymnasts testified against long-time sexual abuser Dr. Larry Nassar, less has been heard of the hundreds of MSU students who marched against their university.
Women WorldWide: March-April 2018
March 8, 2018Women WorldWide takes up women posting videos on #NoHijab Day in support of Iranian women; Sherry Johnson’s struggle to have the state of Florida ban underage marriage; and a new study showing that the rate of self-harm among girls soared 68% in the last three years.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2018, Part II
February 1, 2018Readers’ Views on Women’s Liberation struggle continue and voices from behind bars.
Women Worldwide, November-December 2017
November 15, 2017Women Worldwide Column on: the Black Women’s March on Washington; Meltem Cumbul in Turkey refusing to shake the hand of a director who supported right-wing President Erdogan; and a class-action lawsuit against coerced sterilization procedures in Canada against indigenous women.
Woman as Reason, November-December 2017: #MeToo
November 14, 2017Terry Moon joins the #MeToo campaign, sharing her experience of sexual harrasment when she was 23. .
Wisconsin Transgender prisoner traumatized
I’m a Transgender person at Waupun Correctional Institution, who has been sexually degraded and humiliated for speaking out about being raped, for being Transsexual, who refused to call herself a male and for being a “problem inmate.”
Readers’ Views: November-December 2017, Part 1
November 12, 2017Readers’ Views on: Puerto Rico:Trump’s Katrina; LGBTQ in Australia; Transgender in Texas; Women’s Liberation; Racism in Canada; Detroit and “Detroit”; Labor and Robots; Haitian Revolt; Why Read N&L?; and a Correction.
Editorial: Save the Rohingya, stop the genocide!
The genocide against the Rohingya in Burma (Myanmar) by the Buddhist majority is egged on by the military as well as by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. .
#MeToo
October 22, 2017Women’s liberationist and managing editor of News & Letters Terry Moon writes about why she posted #MeToo on social media and how women’s experiences must impact what revolution has to mean.
World in View: Chile abortion rights
September 3, 2017Chilean women won a limited but important victory Aug. 21., when the Constitutional Tribunal ruled to legalize abortion in three situations: rape, incest, and when the woman’s life is in danger.
Women take the lead against world retrogression
March 8, 2017An in-depth Marxist-Humanist view of the state of the women’s movement in the U.S. and worldwide as it responds to the rising fascism of U.S. President Trump and other world leaders.
Woman as Reason: Syrian women as force and revolutionary Reason
January 26, 2017Women’s Liberationist Terry Moon writes about the revolutionary force and reason of Syrian women including those in Raqqa fighting ISIS, in East Aleppo fighting Bashar al-Assad, in Salamiya and Daraya–documenting the forms they chose to fight for freedom.
Women WorldWide: November-December 2016
November 26, 2016Women’s news worldwide including a march against rape culture in cities in Canada; a march across Israel for peace by Israeli and Palestinian women; and South African teenagers challenging health clinics to give young women contraceptive information.
Woman as Reason: Polish women show path forward
As women in the U.S. face a bleak future when it comes to abortion rights, they can learn from Polish women who recently stopped anti-abortion legislation in its tracks, showing the need for revolutionary thought and activity.
How can we, once and for all, end sexism?
September 17, 2016From the September-October 2016 issue of News & Letters
Art by Paul Tanzawa
Women have been fighting for our freedom for centuries and yet we are still raped, beaten, enslaved–treated as less than human. We will never be free under capitalism, which has only made women’s lives worse and now threatens our existence [=>]
Slutwalk nixes shame
September 12, 2016Women and men showed their opposition to rape culture and support for victims of sexual harassment, assault and rape by marching in the annual Slut Walk, in Chicago.
Turkey’s Erdoğan – the pious dictator
September 7, 2016A view of what the failed coup in Turkey has wrought, including mass arrests of teachers, trade unionists, doctors, medical personnel, and others as Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, makes a grab for total power.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2016, Part 1
July 7, 2016Readers’ Views on Hate: Orlando to Brexit; Black Lives Matter; Muhammad Ali and Dr. King; Duterte in the Philippines; News & Letters Readers Unite!; and Deadly Assault on Women From the U.S. to Israel.
Woman As Reason: Will Stanford rape be a turning point?
July 2, 2016Terry Moon explores how the rape of a woman by a Stanford University student can become a turning point, rather than a stopping point, in the struggle to end rape culture, and the necessity for revolution to be total from the start and to be permanent.
Women WorldWide: July-August 2016
Stanford University students protest the light sentence given to the rapist of a woman student; Nepalese girls and the charity WaterAid create a photo exhibit documenting unjust restrictions during menstruation and childbirth; Amina Zioual and her feminist organization, The Voice of the Amazigh Woman, fight against patriarchal customs and sharia law.
II. The worldwide war against women
May 7, 2016Part II of the Draft Perspectives 2016: The worldwide war against women includes attacks on abortion rights, counter-revolution in Egypt, attacks on women by UN troops. Women celebrated International Women’s day in Turkey and other countries.
The need for new beginnings in thought and in action
April 25, 2016Contents: Introduction; I. Discontent, revolt and reaction in the U.S.; II. The worldwide war against women; III. Chinese labor in revolt; IV. Counter-revolution and revolution in the Middle East and North Africa; V. Toward organizational new beginnings. The fact that the old, crumbling order will not go away quietly explains why we print the Marxist-Humanist Draft Perspectives in the pages of the paper of News and Letters Committees. It is an open window onto the needed philosophy of revolution, without which all revolutions and freedom movements remain incomplete.
Program on ‘(in)Justice System’ leaves out ‘the heart’ of the issue
March 13, 2016An article by a formerly incarcerated person who gives a critical review of a conference on the criminal (in)justice system that leaves out the heart of the issue because it leaves out those most impacted by incarceration.
Call for Convention 2016
February 28, 2016Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2016-2017
‘Comfort’ women dispute agreement
January 23, 2016Article outlining the seriously flawed agreement between the governments of Japan and South Korea regarding the so-called “comfort women,” actually women kidnapped into sexual slavery to serve Japanese Soldiers during World War II. The article includes the list of demands of the surviving women who were left out of the agreement’s negotiations.
Readers’ Views, Sept.-Oct. 2015, Part 1
August 31, 2015Readers’ thoughts on “Srebrenica, Bosnia, 1995; Europe and the World, 2015”; “Struggles against Racism”; “After Cecil, People Are Next”; “Teachers and Children”; “Workers, Customers Pay.”
200 at Trans meeting in New York
August 30, 2015Report of a meeting of over 200 Transgender people, their allies and a handful of elected officials who came together at Hostos College in the Bronx in late July for a city- wide conference on the status and situation of Transgender people in New York City.
Counter-revolution in Middle East shows crisis of humanity
August 28, 2015From the signing of a nuclear weapons agreement by the U.S. and Iran, to the ongoing war in Syria including the roles of Turkey and of the Left, this wide-ranging article delves into the Middle East situation with an emphasis on the forces fighting for genuine freedom and a multi-ethnic society.
Editorial: Black Lives Matter NOW!
June 28, 2015The video of Cpl. Eric Casebolt’s June 5 attack on Dejerria Becton and other kids at a pool party in McKinney, Texas, went viral because it was simultaneously shocking and commonplace. In 2015 USA, protests were inevitable and were heard around the world.
Woman as Reason: Twenty years after Srebrenica: A Women’s Court demands justice
Now there is the convening in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on May 7 of the Women’s Court on war crimes against women during the war in the 1990s. Women came together from all corners of the former Yugoslavia to demand justice for the crimes committed against them during the wars and the suffering that followed.
Refugees risk death fleeing war, terror and climate chaos
Worldwide, the refugee crisis is unprecedented and is fueled by war, terrorism and climate change. The worldwide response is paltry with country after country turning away or deporting frantic and desperate people in search of a safe haven.
Transgender women must fight for rights
April 30, 2015New York—Police here have been told to halt stop-and-frisk policies because they unfairly target Black and Latino youth. But the Transgender community in Jackson Heights, New York, is undergoing its own particular form of stop and frisk. Trans women, especially Trans women of color, are stopped on a daily basis, told that they have to submit to a search (which they don’t) and if they are found in possession of a condom (which is legal) they are arrested for loitering or prostitution.
Review of ‘She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry’
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry is a documentary of the women’s liberation movement (WLM) in the U.S., from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. Filmmaker Mary Dore used a wealth of historical news coverage to give a sense of the breadth of organizations and depth of demands in the explosive growth of the WLM. Activists, identified within archival footage—including women like Fran Beal of the Civil Rights Movement’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Lesbian rights activist Karla Jay, and Judith Arcana of the abortion underground organization Jane—gave contemporary interviews interspersed in the film.
UltraViolet goes live
March 7, 2015UltraViolet, a mostly online petition-generating organization, recently went out into the real world by holding 25 or so “meet and greet” events in 15 different states. The one I went to was on the north side of Chicago.
From Turkey to USA, women as force & reason fight inhumanity
March 5, 2015Another savage sexual assault and murder—this time in Turkey—brought forth thousands of demonstrators, mostly women, throughout the country and beyond. Özgecan Aslan was a student taking a bus home. Worldwide, women are not only railing against sexism and challenging men to change what is often deadly behavior and when not deadly, deeply oppressive; they are as well explicitly extending their critique to the state itself.
Özgecan Aslan: Sexual assault and murder in Turkey spark widespread outrage, demonstrations
February 17, 2015Preview of article on women’s oppression and freedom struggles worldwide for March-April issue. Comment now so that your thoughts can be taken into account in the finished article.
Readers’ Views, January-February 2015, Part 1
January 30, 2015From Ferguson to Staten Island; Revolutionary Rojava; Youth Protest; Violence Against Women; Detroit Solidarity; Paris March; Recalling Mary Jo
Men Explain Things to Me — a review
January 28, 2015“Men Explain Things to Me” by Rebecca Solnit is a book of seven essays that eloquently describe how patriarchy attempts to distract us from the fact that seemingly isolated incidents and seemingly separate oppressions are part of a system of profound and devastating violence.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2014, Part 1
November 23, 2014From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Readers’ Views, Part 1
WOMEN FIGHT RAPE, HARASSMENT AND ABUSE
When I voted, many posters reminded folks that within 100 feet of the polling place you may not “interrupt” a person, nor “harass” nor even speak about your political views. [=>]
Stopping violence
November 22, 2014Thuma and Kaba focused on reviving a strong movement against the imprisonment of women who have defended themselves against violence—who have injured or killed men who raped and/or abused them. They presented as a model the defense of women of color in the 1970s, like the campaigns for Joanne Little, Inez Garcia and Yvonne Wanrow, all prosecuted for killing men who had attacked them or their children. (All three spoke for themselves in News & Letters.)…
Woman as Reason: Indians protest sexual assault
The vicious gang rape and murder of a young student, Jyoti Singh Pandey, on a Delhi, India, bus in December 2012 was the moment when Indian women’s simmering anger boiled over into rage and a determination to transform society…. Now another militant movement against abuse of women has erupted in Kolkata (Calcutta), where over 100,000 people marched on Sept. 20 for women’s freedom and against police violence. This new eruption began on Aug. 28 when a woman student at Jadavpur University was sexually assaulted and the University’s response was worse than insufficient….
Editorial: Islamic State, U.S. both savage Iraq
August 29, 2014The explosive advances of the army of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS), crossing from Syria into northern and central Iraq, have brought deeper miseries to the Iraqi people who might have expected they had already endured the worst, including the effects of U.S. imperialist policy. Atrocities from mass shootings and beheadings to systematic kidnapping and rapes of women—that the world and U.S. foreign policy ignored when IS carried them out against anti-Assad revolutionaries in Syria—in Iraq no longer remained hidden.
Woman as Reason: Fighting rape is in our hands
Since the beginnings of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the early 1960s, we have been fighting rape, and rape culture. Finally, 50 years later, a U.S. president issued some mild recommendations on how to fight rape on college campuses, and two Democratic women have introduced legislation to make colleges more accountable for preventing and dealing with campus rapes.