Readers’ Views on: This Society’s Ingrained Violence; After the Murder of Tyre Nichols; Women and Girls Face Oppression; Church Sexism and Hypocrisy; Fundamentalism vs. Women; Call to Action; Censorship Here and Now; Brexit Catastrophe; China’s Workers and U.S.; Iran Revolt Continues; Azadkar, In Memoriam
Terry Moon
Woman as Reason: Valenti’s ‘Abortion Every Day’
March 17, 2023So much is happening regarding abortion—since the reactionary U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, trashing women’s right to abortion, a human right we’ve had for 50 years—that it is almost impossible to keep track of. For help, you can turn to the splendid blog of Jessica Valenti, “Abortion Every Day.”
The revolution in Iran continues to develop
March 16, 2023The revolution in Iran has been continuous since the funeral of Jina (Mahsa) Amini on Sept. 17, 2022. To the dismay of the Iranian rulers, new strata of the population keep joining the revolt, which was already tremendously diverse.
Woman as Reason: Church survives on sexism & hypocrisy
January 25, 2023Misogyny is ingrained in society, as are disdain, discrimination and abuse. Sexism works for the Catholic Church and they are determined to keep it.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2023, Part One
January 24, 2023Readers’ Views on: Women’s Struggles for Freedom; Open Season on Lgbtq+ ; Healthcare Workers on Strike; Lois Curtis; Immigrant Solidarity Needed; Putin vs. Ukraine; U.S. Right vs. Ukraine; Water and Humanity’s Future
Readers’ Views: January-February 2023, Part Two
Readers’ Views on: Iran and Philosophy of Revolution; Corruption of ‘Justice’; Prisoner Unity; Voices from Behind Bars
Editorial: Iranian masses deepen their revolution
January 22, 2023Since Sept. 16, 2022, protesters in Iran have carried out remarkable revolutionary protests. The women remain both numerous and radical in the constant demonstrations and actions, and have drawn in many layers of the masses while explicitly calling for the revolutionary downfall of the Islamic Republic’s regime.
El régimen iraní teme la revolución, las mujeres lideran el camino
December 15, 2022El régimen iraní debería tener mucho miedo. Los gritos de: “¡Mujeres, vida y libertad!” “¡Muerte al hijab!” “¡Muerte al dictador!” llenan las calles. Las mujeres iraníes han inspirado al mundo y han advertido a los oligarcas de Irán que su régimen represivo está en grave peligro.
Readers’ Views: November-December 2022, Part One
November 11, 2022Readers’ Views on: Iran: Woman, Life, Freedom; Election Threats and Battles; Women’s Marches and Enemies; Sexist Supreme Court; Ukrainians Fight for Freedom; Para-Transit Disservice; Mike Davis; Labor Struggles, from Amazon…to the Bank.
Election shows women feel the hate
It wasn’t alone the question of abortion rights that helped Democrats do so well in the midterm elections, but also what made women and so many others furious was the extreme cruelty and sickening glee with which Republicans imposed their draconian abortion laws and bans. Women could feel the hate.
‘Exceptions’ are a lie
November 8, 2022So-called “exceptions” for rape, incest, and the health or life of the women to draconian abortion bans are a cruel joke, and a means to make rabid anti-abortion Republicans appear “reasonable.” These laws are purposely written to make using these “exceptions” almost impossible.
Iranian regime fears revolution while women lead the way to total change
October 22, 2022The Iranian hard-line regime should be very afraid. The cries of: “Women, life and freedom!” “Death to the head scarf!” “Death to the dictator!” fill the streets. Iranian women have inspired the world and put Iran’s oligarchs on notice that their repressive regime is in grave danger.
‘Women, Life, Freedom!’ The transformation of Iran
September 28, 2022The Iranian hardline regime should be very afraid. The cries of: “Women, life and freedom!” “Death to the head scarf!” “Death to the dictator!” fill the streets. Iranian women have inspired the world and put Iran’s oligarchs on notice that their repressive regime is in grave danger.
Woman as Reason: Fighting against forced veiling
September 24, 2022Forced veiling is a cruel means of controlling women, used by totalitarians to distract citizens from leaders’ failures like rising prices and disasters like floods, droughts, and wildfires from the heating climate.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2022: Kei Utsumi (Basho), 1935-2022
September 13, 2022What a loss we feel with the passing of Kei Utsumi. Several readers and writers share their remembrances.
Women, youth fight back as horror of abortion bans unfolds
September 6, 2022Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has overturned women’s right to abortion, the profound ramifications of that unprecedented decision are becoming known. Women are fighting back, from the Women’s March, to Black women, to Teens for Reproductive Rights, women will reclaim the right to control our own bodies.
Woman as Reason: Their target: women’s freedom
July 9, 2022The overturning of abortion rights is worse than before it was legal because of the hatred of women for creating a movement that challenged men’s ownership of our bodies, lives and minds, and many are determined to get that power and control back no matter what the body count.
Nationwide marches for abortion rights
July 5, 2022March participants report on the thousands of women, men and gender diverse people who demonstrated across the U.S., including Chicago and the Bay Area. They were protesting the Supreme Court decision that decimated women’s right to an abortion and thus to control over their own bodies.
Editorial: Abortion bans show need for new society
With the gutting of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court has taken away a human right and stripped bodily autonomy from half the population. It is a giant step towards fascism. What is the answer to such an outrage? It is not the Democratic Party, who couldn’t even rid us of the Hyde Amendment.
Chicago marches for abortion rights
June 25, 2022Well over 3,000 women and men overran downtown Federal Plaza in Chicago, spilling into the streets demanding abortion rights and castigating a U.S. Supreme Court whose legitimacy is no longer recognized by the citizens it oppresses.
Abortion bans upheld: Our task–a new human society
June 24, 2022With the gutting of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court has taken away a human right and stripped bodily autonomy from half the population. It is a giant step towards fascism. What is the answer to such an outrage? It is not the Democratic Party, who couldn’t even rid us of the Hyde Amendment.
Film review: ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’
June 18, 2022Review of ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,’ states that it missed a great chance to be political in a meaningful way. Writer Katy Brand left out the hard part, creating characters who live in a safe world that doesn’t exist. You can’t comprehend prostitution, sex work and sex workers without talking about capitalism and how it alienates and destroys human relationships.
Readers’ Views: May-June 2022, part one
May 19, 2022Readers’ Views on: Abortion Bans vs. Women and Freedom; Anti-War, Pro-Democracy Voices from Russia; Patriarchy Attacked; Putin’s Brutal War
Reactionary Supreme Court attacks freedom
May 17, 2022Having control over what happens to your own body is the difference between fascism and freedom. A woman’s right to control her own body is inherently a fight for a universal freedom. Contempt and hate have worked so well for Republicans that they will go after birth control and LGBTQ+ people.
U of Illinois faculty threaten strike
May 11, 2022University of Illinois, Springfield, faculty members have been working since Aug. 16, 2021, without a contract and on April 21 filed an intent-to-strike-notice.
Turkish women challenge Erdoğan
In April Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, had his public prosecutors demand that We Will Stop Femicide, Turkey’s largest women’s rights group, be disbanded for “activity against law and morals.” Protests immediately broke out across the country with hundreds marching in Istanbul and Ankara.
Women demonstrate against Erdoğan’s closing of WWSF
April 30, 2022In April Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, had his public prosecutors demand that We Will Stop Femicide, Turkey’s largest women’s rights group, be disbanded for “activity against law and morals.” Protests immediately broke out across the country with hundreds marching in Istanbul and Ankara.
Freedom vs. the war against women
April 27, 2022The Republican attack against women won’t stop with trashing our right to control our bodies. Hate has worked so well for them that they will also come down harder on LGBTQ+ people, especially Trans people who trample every notion the Right has of “how things are supposed to be.”
Readers’ Views: March-April 2022, Part One
March 19, 2022Readers’ Views on: Putin’s Brutal War on Ukraine; War on Yemen; Canadian Convoy; Trucks and Tribes; and Abortion Politics.
For revolutionary women’s history explore the Archives of Raya Dunayevskaya
Ad for the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection showing just a few examples of the many entries and correspondence relating to women’s relationships to revolution that can be found there.
Woman as Reason: Sudanese women deepen fight
March 15, 2022Women have remained a vital part of the revolution in Sudan that began three years ago when mostly youth, women and men, took to the streets and forced Omar al-Bashir from power. Women have the most to gain because their conditions are so dire.
Editorial: Attack on abortion harms democracy
February 3, 2022The raging attack on abortion rights is an attack on freedom by fascist leaders and their followers who want to undermine democracy and save a decrepit, unworkable, exploitative, racist-patriarchal capitalism.
Woman as Reason: The abortion pill is not magic
January 29, 2022While the U.S. Supreme Court is set to either gut or overturn Roe V. Wade, women cannot depend on the abortion pill alone. The fight for women to control our own bodies is a fight for freedom and should be waged as such. It is time to make that luminously clear.
Attacking abortion rights undermines democracy
December 14, 2021The raging attack on abortion rights is an attack on freedom by fascist leaders and their followers who want to undermine democracy and save a decrepit, unworkable, exploitative, racist-patriarchal capitalism.
Readers’ Views: November-December 2021, Part One
November 19, 2021Readers’ Views on Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives 2021-2022; Labor shortage?; Workers as reason; Support El Milagro workers!; Detroit women’s march; Chapelle’s sexism; Afghans dead and buried; Betrayal of Haitians; and Which side are you on?
Readers’ Views: November-December 2021, Part Two
November 17, 2021Readers’ Views on Philosopher-revolutionaries; Youth, climate and the freedom idea; Climate crisis; California fires, FDA fails women, and Voices from behind bars.
Woman as Reason: Violence against women on the rise
November 16, 2021After over 50 years of a Women’s Liberation Movement unthinkable numbers of women continue to be brutally raped and murdered worldwide—with the COVID-19 pandemic spiking that number even higher. What can help us gain that needed confidence is to understand the meaning of our own actions and thoughts which is the role of a philosophy of human liberation.
Nationwide marches for reproductive justice
November 11, 2021In Chicago, four to five thousand rallied and marched downtown to make it clear that women in the U.S. are continuing to fight back against the inhuman anti-abortion legislation that has been surging across Republican-dominated statehouses for years.
Tens of thousands march for reproductive justice nationwide
October 3, 2021In Chicago, four to five thousand rallied and marched downtown to make it clear that women in the U.S. are continuing to fight back against the inhuman anti-abortion legislation that has been surging across Republican-dominated statehouses for years—this, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Woman as Reason: Afghan women pay price for U.S. hubris
August 31, 2021In Afghanistan the Taliban are murdering men who helped the U.S., UK, and other forces who fought them; and murdering and beating women and girls who have made even marginally independent lives for themselves. Yet, despite the terror, Afghans, especially women, continue to demonstrate against Taliban rule.
Afghan women pay the price for U.S. hubris
August 21, 2021In Afghanistan the Taliban are murdering men who helped the U.S., UK, and other forces who fought them; and murdering and beating women and girls who have made even marginally independent lives for themselves. Yet, despite the terror, Afghans, especially women, continue to demonstrate against Taliban rule.
Woman as Reason: Abortion rights at crossroads
July 1, 2021Paxton Smith’s valedictorian speech against a new extremist anti-abortion bill signed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott illuminates how this assault on women’s freedom can open the gates for women–especially young women–to flood the streets and demonstrate that control of one’s own body is something so fundamental to being human that they are willing to overthrow a government to create it.
Woman as Reason: U.S. in Afghanistan: 20 years of betrayal
May 8, 2021After the 2001 U.S. invasion Afghanistan had a chance of becoming a place where its citizens could enjoy some freedoms, but at every opportunity the U.S. stopped it. What’s going to happen next is not because the U.S. is leaving, it is because they are leaving after damaging the country and the people’s aspirations in unfathomable and hugely destructive ways.
Readers’ Views: May-June 2021, part one
Readers’ Views on: Atlanta Racist Femicide; Women Rise in Australia; Chauvin and Racist Usa: Guilty!; Attacks on Civil Liberties; Black Lives Matter; Amazon Workers Resist; Berta Presente!; Burmese Masses Revolt; The Empire Strikes Out; Maâti Monjib Released!
Massage parlor killings were a racist femicide
March 17, 2021I’m sure I’m not the only woman who, as soon as she heard about the gunning down of seven women and one man who work at massage centers in Atlanta, suspected they were murdered because they were women, or because they were Asian women. In other words, this was a misogynist hate crime.
Women from India to the USA fight against misogynist violence
March 11, 2021Violence against women has worsened in the era of COVID-19. Sexism, like racism, is systemic to almost every culture. Nevertheless women fight back with creative activism and thought. What is new is the internationalization and deepening of that struggle. This year’s International Women’s Day shows women deepening our fight for full freedom and new human relationships.
Coming soon: ‘What Is Socialism? A Marxist-Humanist Symposium’
Announcement and pre-publication offer for a new publication, ‘What Is Socialism? A Marxist-Humanist Symposium’
Anti-abortion violence
Women needing abortions face violence, from harassment by fanatics to oppressive laws. Countless deaths, misery and increased poverty caused by forced pregnancy have forced some countries to abandon anti-abortion laws.
Woman as Reason: Sarah White (Sarah Hamer) 1958-2020
January 30, 2021The movement lost a powerful voice for workers’ liberty, self-development and freedom when Sarah White died of a heart attack on Oct. 5, 2020.
Editorial: Polish women’s revolutionary moment
November 29, 2020What is happening in Poland is revolutionary as women lead a movement that is protesting the Catholic Church’s inhuman attack on women’s freedom as well mounting a deep challenge to the fascist-leaning Polish government.