Nationwide Black-led revolt and white supremacist backlash, class struggles and the ravages of a pandemic and economic collapse are taking place amid election battles and attacks on democracy.
sexism
Women’s movements reach for new global stage
March 6, 2020What has become clear in 2020 is the global nature of the women’s movements. It is a new stage which has announced itself by the international fight against femicide; the Women’s Marches; and by the National Women’s Meetings in Latin America, also called Encuentros.
Letter from Mexico: Women fight violence
November 17, 2019Women who demonstrated against the escalating gender violence in Mexico City are aiming for a society where being a woman would no longer mean being an object.
Sexism, racism and incarceration in Brazil
A report on a forum with Brazilian Black women activists in San Francisco on sexism, racism and incarceration in Brazil.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2019, Part 2
September 1, 2019Readers’ Views on What is socialism?; Surviving the prison system; Women fight back; and Exploiting prisoners
Women as reason: Women, terrorism and misogyny
August 31, 2019Terry Moon traces the connection between mass shootings and the misogynistic, racist U.S. society. Hatred against women is so woven into the very fabric of our society that to get rid of it will take a revolution.
Editorial: Freedom=control of our own bodies
June 27, 2019Editorial on the struggle women have in the U.S. to keep abortion legal and accessible, how the Left has mostly given lip service to the struggle, and how today when socialism is again on the agenda, it also has to mean women have control of their own bodies.
Review: ‘Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men’
Adele reviews Caroline Criado Perez’s book, “Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men,” which explains how the notion that all of humanity can be represented as “man” or “mankind” has caused devastating, worldwide harm to all women and all of society.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2018: Part 1
September 29, 2018Readers’ Views takes up: attacks on immigrants; Syria and the Left’s failure; Democratic Party’s selling out women; Women’s Liberation; Serena Williams; ending money bail the right way; Trump-Kim “peace”; genocide and war heroes; and a discussion on sex crimes and their fallout.
Woman as Reason, July-August 2018: Bulwark against reaction
July 24, 2018What is bringing all reactionary forces together at this moment is the recognition by creatures like Donald Trump that women are the implacable enemy of emerging fascism.
Women Worldwide, July-August 2018
Women Worldwide column on Equal Playing Field organization; 30,000 women marching in South Korea against “molka”; and forced marriage in Sudan.
II. Spreading revolt opens new doors
May 3, 2018We look at the true opposition to Trumpism: mass revolt worldwide of women, youth, Black people, labor…–the context to work for new beginnings.
#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.
Rising U.S. racism challenges all freedom movements
September 2, 2017A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the history and meaning of the rising of the right-wing neo-Nazi white supremacist movement, its relationship to President Donald Trump and his administration, and its challenge to the freedom forces arrayed against it who are fighting for a humanist world. .
Readers’ Views: July-August 2017, Part 1
July 2, 2017Readers’ Views on Philosophy and Revolt vs. Trumpism; Trump and the Left; Injustice to Immigrants; Anti-Woman, Anti-Labor Uber; ACT UP; From Iran; To Mexico; Why Read News & Letters?
I. Trumpism as an excrescence of world capitalism’s crises
May 17, 2017Trumpism’s self-perpetuating disorder is based on negation of social movements, trying to stifle the positive in their negation of this exploitative society. His deceit and power grabs express capitalism’s disintegration, exuding racism, sexism, and fascism.
Youth In Action: May-June 2017
May 2, 2017Students in Puerto Rico agitate against government slashing funds to higher education; classmates and parents of high school student Hunter Bailey, who committed suicide, protest memorials to him being destroyed by his high school’s superintendent; students of North Carolina’s Salem College sit in demanding diversity training; students of the University of North Texas successfully rallied for the university to become a sanctuary campus.
Trump won’t smash Assad’s genocidal regime—support the Syrian Revolution!
April 9, 2017Assad’s chemical attack on civilians reveals the lie the world has been living. Trump’s limited counterstrike was a response to the unprecedented mass opposition to him, not an abandonment of his counter-revolutionary agenda. It is crucial to take the living freedom struggles in Syria and globally as our basis, to oppose the lie that “there is no alternative,” and to clarify what we are for, not just against.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2017, Part I
January 31, 2017Readers’ Views on: environmental and social crises; Martin Luther King Day; healthcare crisis, Donald Trump and the election; brutal “justice”; and who reads News & Letters.
Inauguration of neo-fascism faces widespread revolt
January 23, 2017The lightning move by Republicans in Congress to prepare to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare—before Donald Trump even took office, with only the vaguest idea of what is to replace it, and with full knowledge that a large majority of Americans oppose the repeal of its most important provisions—gave a sign of how far the new single-party government intends to roll the clock back, with dizzying speed.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2016, Part 1
November 27, 2016Readers’ Views on Election Stirs Battles in Thought and in Life; Deep Racism in the USA; Women Fight Back; Indigenous Struggles; Global (In)Humanity; Why Read N&L?
‘Pussy grabs back!’
November 26, 2016Report by a participant of the “Pussy grabs back!” demonstration in Chicago at Trump Towers against Trumps sexism, racism, and everythingism on Oct. 18, 2016.
Lead-Editorial: No to Trump’s counter-revolution! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!
Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.
No to Trump! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!
November 12, 2016Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.
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 [=>]
Help keep News & Letters going and growing
September 7, 2016An appeal for funds to help keep the paper, News & Letters, going and growing; and to help us expand our subscriptions to prisoners.
Review: We were feminists once
September 6, 2016Review by feminist Adele of Andi Zeisler’s book, We Were Feminists Once: from Riot Grrrl to Covergirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement, exploring how a once revolutionary feminism is being taken over by “marketplace feminism.”
In 1995 Andi Zeisler
Letter from Mexico: On ‘Life’ and feminism
May 18, 2016The late Revolutionary Olga Domanski is remembered for reminding us that Absolute Method is the only way for feminism, as part of a totally new society built on truly human foundations, to be completely realized.
I. Discontent, revolt and reaction in the U.S.
May 6, 2016Part I of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Discontent is seething in the U.S. among workers, youth, Blacks, women, LGBTQ, including elements of the new society. Fear of revolution is powering neo-fascism opposing the revolt.
Women WorldWide: March-April 2016
March 11, 2016A look at women’s activity and thought worldwide including women comics acting against harassment in their industry; the Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club coming out strongly against violence against women; and Filipina women used as sexual slaves by Japan in WWII demanding that government acknowledge and apologize for what they had done.
Review: Headscarves and Hymens
March 10, 2016A Review of “Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution” by Mona Eltahawy, reviewed by Adele an expert on the theocratic Right.
Witnessing revolution in Rojava
January 26, 2016Eyewitness report of a trip to Rojava in Syria in mid-2015.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2016, Part 1
January 25, 2016California prisoners battle barbaric ‘justice’ system; Against ISIS attacks; Women under attack; Support Maati Monjib; The Burmese Way; Race, class & politics.
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.”
Women WorldWide, July-August 2015
June 28, 2015A roundup of women’s actions and events worldwide; this one taking up the film “India’s Daughter,” an update on the five feminists jailed in China, and the opening of the All-Options Pregnancy Resource Center in Bloomington, Ind.
30 Years Later: AIDS activism and ACT UP Chicago
May 9, 2015ACT UP Chicago grew out of an organization that began in 1984 of Dykes and Gay Men Against Racism and Repression. We became an AIDS activism organization, first called Chicago For Our Rights, then by spring Chicago for AIDS Rights. We pushed for lowering the prices of AIDS drugs, and the release of more of them. By October and the national action in Washington, D.C., we had become ACT UP Chicago. AIDS is a global issue today. This time around, I’d like to see an AIDS activist movement that’s organized by poor, working-class, mostly people of color.
Things fall apart
May 6, 2015In the absence of successful social revolution, today’s total crisis is shown in a world capitalist order that is falling apart economically, politically, environmentally, and in thought. That does not mean that we can wait for capitalism to collapse and step aside for a new society. On the contrary. Its desperation makes it that much more vicious, and it threatens to doom all of humanity with it.
Women WorldWide, May-June 2015
April 30, 2015A roundup of women’s actions worldwide including: feminists jailed in China before International Women’s Day; the unfair and punitive jailing of Purvi Patel for having a miscarriage; the fightback against the increase in sexist, racist, homophobic and classist harassment in Sci-Fi fandom; and the women’s hunger and work strike against terrible conditions at the Karnes Detention Center in Texas for migrant women and children.
Readers’ Views, March-April 2015, Part 1
March 8, 2015Revolt and Counter-Revolution, from Greece to Syria; Here Come the Reformers; Women’s Freedom; Against Racism
60 Years of News & Letters (Readers’ Views, March-April 2015)
Readers’ Views on the 60th anniversary of News & Letters and Terry Moon’s column on it.
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, 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.)…
Women WorldWide September-October 2014
August 29, 2014Protect Aminetou Mint El-Moctar in Mauritania; female genital mutilation in the U.S.; Maryam Mirzakhani is the first woman to win “Nobel Prize of mathematics.”
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.
‘Generation Roe’
July 7, 2014Review of “Generation Roe: Inside the Future of the Pro-Choice Movement” by Sarah Erdreich
Women WorldWide, July-August 2014
July 6, 2014Oppression of women in tech industry; El Salvador demonstrations over miscarriage jailings; Brazilian Stop the Catcalls project.
Readers’ Views, May-June 2014
May 25, 2014LABOR AND IMMIGRATION
On April 8, about 100 people, the majority young Latinas/os, gathered in front of Los Angeles City Hall to protest the deportation of immigrants. Obama’s administration has aggressively deported 2,000,000 immigrants. We held signs reading: “Not Even One More!” and “No Separation of Family!” Separation of family members has serious adverse effects [=>]