This time, women demonstrated for their particular demands, against sexist violence and femicides, for non-compliance with public policies that should assist sexual and reproductive health, for attacks on comprehensive sexual education or the disregard for care tasks.
But in addition, they transformed the mobilization into a megaphone that amplified the voice of a growing social unrest with salaries depressed, inflation that continues to grow, factory closures that leave entire families on the streets, impossible rents and a beginning of classes that unites teachers and families in a unanimous demand. It can’t be done anymore. And the women used this commemorative date to go out and shout it from the rooftops.
It was a massive statement, in the open and with flags displayed, against a government that has just imposed, with transversal agreements and negotiations with the CGT, a slave labor reform that, on women, falls like a hammer blow that breaks even the slightest possibility of reconciling family responsibilities with labor exploitation. It was a collective anger, which was felt in the posters, the songs and the conversations during the march.
And above all, it was the stage for many girls to take to the streets and the collective joy of the struggle. A new generation that got tired of repeating, to whoever wanted to listen to them, “it’s my first march.”
The socialist feminists of Pan y Rosas marched behind a flag that denounced the imperialist attack against Iran. Because we know that no liberation for women can come from the bombings of Trump and Netanyahu.
And we ended the day in Diagonal Norte, meters from the Plaza de Mayo with more than two thousand girls, workers, entire families who wanted to stay, despite their fatigue, to listen to our colleague Myriam Bregman.
In front of everything, were the columns of the unions. It is seen that after hearing throughout the summer “where is that traitorous CGT not seen”, while the police brutally repressed the mobilizations against the labor reform, the union leaderships took this International Women’s Day to improve their worn-out image. They warned that their own bases were fed up with so much dedication. And those from the most opposition unions also realized that they no longer convince only with speeches that are not accompanied by the body, with forceful measures and serious fighting plans.
The discontent with these directions and with the political opposition that intends to channel the repudiation of the government in future scorched earth elections was felt on Sunday the 8th, when a thousand self-convened women chose to commemorate International Women’s Day on the corresponding date. Their most repeated complaint was against the assembly of feminist, political and union organizations that has been organizing the 8M mobilizations for a decade and that, this time, agreed to march on Monday the 9th. They feel that it no longer represents them.
The most important thing is that hundreds of workers, unionized or not, with increasingly precarious lives, hundreds of young people who do not resign themselves to having no future, both on Sunday and this Monday, demonstrated that, from the bases, there are forces to confront the government. What is missing are truly democratic, unitary, forceful calls with serious fighting plans. They are what we have to build, organizing ourselves in our places of work and study, removing the bureaucracy from the unions and transforming them into tools for the struggle of the entire working class, winning the student centers so that they are a lever of organization for a combative student movement and not a photocopy business and a factory of resignation. Organize ourselves now and not accept that they ask us to stay still until the next elections, when someone will come to save us.
As Myriam Bregman said, we call on you to build an enormous socialist feminist force, so that Pan y Rosas – which marched in fifteen countries – is in every company, in every school, in every neighborhood, in every university, in every factory.
Today we once again showed that women are here, taking to the streets again and with all the rage against those who want us to be complicit or subjugated. But also all the strength to continue fighting our battles. For the bread, but also for the roses.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
