March is Women’s History Month; many have taken this month to assess the status of women in society.
There’s nothing that shows the status of women more clearly than their economic status and democratic rights.
On the economic front, women still earn only 76.2 percent of what men earn and 87.9 percent of women live above poverty. (Report on Dec 28, 2020)
On the democratic rights front, this year we’re celebrating International Women’s Month without the protection of reproductive freedom for the first time in over fifty years; this is a result of Roe v. Wade being overturned in 2022 stripping bodily autonomy away from tens of millions of women.
Women rising a threat to the powerful
In January 2017 women’s marches were organized in the United States in response to Trump winning the presidency. The rallying cry, “We won’t go back!” of the Women’s March gathered momentum for the #MeToo Movement going viral in October 2017 which led heads of companies and public figures to be held accountable for crimes against women.
The voices of the #MeToo Movement broke beyond the walls of Hollywood and pulled into their ranks workers across industries, race, and class.
For example, Monica Ramirez at Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, an organization of farmworker women and those from farmworker families, wrote a letter that started with, “Dear Sisters, Even though we work in very different environments, we share a common experience of being preyed upon by individuals who have the power to hire, fire, blacklist and otherwise threaten our economic, physical and emotional security” (Tribuno del Pueblo).
Then came the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by the police in Minnesota. People took to the streets, and in most cases, women led the rebellion of 22 million strong.
The Women’s Marches, the MeToo Movement, and the rebellion against not only Floyd’s murder by the police but other victims like Bryona Williams brought together a perfect storm to soundly defeat Trump in November of 2020. Thousands demanded the defunding and abolition of the police and protested the mishandling of the pandemic, including its disproportionate impact on African Americans and Latinx workers.
The fight for women’s rights and democracy is becoming a battle for everything. A fact that endangers the corporate empire of the 1%.
The Empire Strikes Back
In 2022 the Empire Strikes Back. In one fell swoop with the decision to overturn Roe, v. Wade, the rights of women to have an abortion and their autonomy over their bodies were denied. This was a frontal assault on women and their families. Women are the heart of the family, and as a result, an attack on women is an attack on families.
The Roe v. Wade unleashed a blatant attack on women. Today doctors feel they cannot even tell women that their pregnancy complications necessitate an abortion, thinking that could lead to conviction. Doctors in Texas and other states cannot provide health care without fearing disbarment, huge fines and decades if not life in prison. In essence, medical doctors and professionals can no longer provide healthcare.
The awful stories are just beginning. One Texas woman needed the removal of one of her twin fetuses which had an abnormality likely leading to its death, to help ensure her health and the survival of the other twin. She had to leave the state. Another woman was refused an abortion until her life was in imminent danger. She went into sepsis, and then the procedure was performed. Many women seeking abortions already have children, so the law threatens a family with the loss of the mother. Abortions are part of routine medical care that everyone has a right to.
The attack on reproductive rights, and the attack on transgender, non-conforming, and gender-expansive people, is a “useful tool” of the religious right, funded and driven by the 1 percent – the class of mega-donors and corporations that control both major political parties. The goal of these ruling corporate interests is to cultivate a bloc of voters, weaponizing religion in service to the corporate state, and making economic rights, civil rights, and democratic participation unattainable. And if women stand in the way they must be dealt a blow to “keep them in their place.”
But, women are not sitting back and just taking the blows. They are in the trenches in this war leading the struggle for women’s rights and revolutionary change. The pandemic woke them like so many others. The pandemic laid bare the inequality, inefficiency, and heartlessness of capitalism.
It brought into focus that while essential workers, the majority women—health care workers, teachers, and service workers worked overtime and suffered significant losses in life, the owners of mega-corporations like Amazon, Google, and Tesla got wealthier, while they got poorer.
Today women are fighting for everything a human being needs — and their deserved place at the table.
El Tribuno del Pueblo brings you articles written by individuals or organizations, along with our own reporting. Bylined articles reflect the views of the authors. Unsigned articles reflect the views of the editorial board. Please credit the source when sharing: tribunodelpueblo.org. We’re all volunteers, no paid staff. Please donate at http://tribunodelpueblo.org to keep bringing you the voices of the movement because no human being is illegal.
