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Women Lead The Struggle

By LaVonna Varnado-Brown

Since the start of capitalism, women have led the struggle against it. Women have set the foundation to transcend dismal conditions, doing the invisible work of educating workers to organize unions and birthing the next generation of fighters. In New Orleans so many boast of our first elected female Black mayor. She ran on a platform to support fully funded relocation for Gordon Plaza residents, hold the Sewerage and Water Board accountable, and improve the infrastructure. But are we better off as women in this city? Cantrell only allocated $120,000 to healthcare initiatives for hospitality workers in 2019, while tax revenue from the hospitality industry is about $200 million. Only $1.5 million out of $709 million city budget goes to early childhood education.

In New Orleans, the hospitality industry generates $8.7 billion per year, according to a report commissioned by the city in 2018. Hospitality workers are the lowest paid workers in the city, and 57% are women. Hospitality workers in New Orleans make an average of $22,069 annually, including tips, while qualifying income for Medicaid is cut off at $16,764. Infant care in Louisiana costs almost as much as in-state tuition for 4-year public college.
Louisiana has the 7th highest rate of imprisoned women in the world and 80 percent of women in Louisiana jails are mothers. Most are the primary caretakers of their children. We see the federal and state budget mirror this misogyny. They prioritize jails and reactionary tactics and declare war on Black people and women. With women being paid less and disproportionately jailed with no money for healthcare and education, we must stop to analyze this issue.

We must remember that the rich ruling class will never allow the powerful work force to vote away their wealth. We must recognize the contradictions that exist around us and educate ourselves to organize and fight back. Move away from reform and concessions and establish self-determination. Break the illusions of “that’s just how it is” we so easily consume from media and society. The Center for American Progress reports, “Women, on average nationally, fare the best in Maryland and the worst in Louisiana. Over 22 percent of women in Louisiana are in poverty, compared to 11 percent of women in Maryland.” Louisiana has the worst in pay inequity between men and women in America. In Louisiana 35% of employed women work in low or minimum-wage jobs and poverty rates for single-mother families with children is 15% higher in New Orleans (56%) than in the United States (41%).

New Orleans Peoples Assembly meets every first Wednesday to break bread with working women in the city. Join us to celebrate our contributions to this city through the work that drives us. Join us to intentionally discuss the ways our solidarity will empower us to reclaim our stolen tax dollars and declare as one, “NO MORE.” We have the power to organize ourselves.

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Working Women, Unite and Fight Back!

By Tiffany McCulley

When we look at the world around us, it is so easy to feel despair. Open fascism is on the rise, the right to bodily autonomy is being ripped from the folks it affects the most. These attacks are led by members of both major parties and funded by the super-rich who profit off our oppression. Our trans community’s rights are constantly under attack, and Black trans women are being murdered at alarming rates without consequence. Social programs are being defunded to increase funding for imperialist war. Our school system is held ransom by charter school companies only interested in profits instead of nurturing the brilliance of our children.

Women everywhere are disproportionately affected by the oppression and violence of capitalist society. Capitalism is a boot on our backs, demanding every ounce of our time, our energy, our resources, and our unquestioning obedience to its illegitimate authority. Working women are pushed to the edge. We are feeling the pressure all around us.

We need to know what is at the root of these oppressions and injustices. We need to say its name: capitalism. The capitalist class has always imposed the policy of “divide and rule” on grounds of race, sexual orientation, gender, nationality, and whatever else they can find in order to exploit the working class. Capitalism lays the foundation for the unequal economic and social relationship between the labor of men and women. We once lived in societies where all genders and sexualities were equal. Only when societies became about power and control, about private property, did this change. The ruling class began dividing us and controlling us because they knew we outnumbered them. Today, capitalism is the great divider, and our greatest weapon against capitalism is revolutionary unity.

There are women all over the globe fighting back: working women in Palestine, Puerto Rico, Spain, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Uganda, South Africa, just to name a few. Our sisters across the globe are engaging in militant fights against gender-based violence, unequal pay, discrimination in the workplace, criminalization of sex workers, education access, reproductive rights, and more. In India, women formed a human chain hundreds of miles long with millions of women coming together in resistance. In Puerto Rico, women led the protests that brought the resignation of their governor. Closer to home, indigenous women and Two Spirit people have been at the heart of the struggle against the oil pipelines. Chicago teachers and school staff are striking. Working women are not taking the bullshit anymore. We’re uniting to say, “Hands Off! Hands off our bodies, our paychecks, our lands!”

We are building a working women’s movement. We are clear who our enemy is, and we know that the only way forward is together, united in revolutionary struggle. We are not free while any other woman is unfree. There is strength in numbers and a mass movement of revolutionary working-class women would be a force to be reckoned with.

Are you ready to demand the world we deserve? Then come fight with us; come build with us. In March of 2020, we will be honoring International Working Women’s Day with militant protest and action, and we need you to be a part of it.