WALL STREET IS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN! DISMANTLE IT!!!
From: http://www.af3irm.org/2011/11/wall-street-violence-against-women-dismantle-it
On Nov. 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the CLAW (Clear Action for/by Women) coalition will hold an all-women assembly, speak-out and rally at Battery Park, starting at 1pm, to be followed by a march to Liberty (Zuccotti) Park on Wall Street. CLAW is calling for the dismantling of the immoral and unethical economy of Wall Street, whose ingrained allegiance to racism and the patriarchy compounds class war against the 99% with a race war against people of color and a War against Women.
Wall Street’s war against women has created 21 million impoverished women in the US, a 500% increase in the number of jailed women, 3⁄4 of whom have children, and has resulted in 43% of the nation’s children living in households on the brink of impoverishment, with 15 million children in actual poverty. That single women with no dependents are 26% of all poor women shows the all-encompassing War against Women launched by Wall Street.
This denigration of women’s worth has translated into the impunity with which women are physically and sexually assaulted. More than 200,000 women suffer attempted/completed rapes each year, with women aged 24 and under suffering the highest rates of assault. Domestic violence correlates directly to families’ income level with women in the lowest income category being six times more vulnerable to physical violence. Wives comprise 81% of all persons killed by spouses.
Overseas, Wall Street’s globalization practices wields the same horrendous race and gender exploitation so that women of color comprise 70% of the global poor.
It is with the voice of women and of the global poor that we speak out and demand the dismantling of the unspeakable horror of class, race and gender exploitation that Wall Street has unleashed upon us. We demand a more ethical and equitable economy and an end to the deliberate victimization of women and of communities and even nations of color.
The Crimes of Wall Street:
- Women continue to suffer huge income disparity under the patriarchal system of gender and race discrimination. White women workers earn only $0.77 to every dollar a white male worker makes; black women, $0.64 and Latinas, $0.52. This wage discrepancy leads to a loss of $300,000 to a woman worker over her work life.
- Women constitute 64% of minimum wage workers in the US. 1 Single mothers of color are the hardest hit in the current mortgage crisis, because banks had targeted communities of color for high cost subprime. 35% of current subprime loans actually qualify for lower-interest prime loans, which would have saved many homes from foreclosure.
- Women are both consumers and commodity in corporate culture, urged to shop even as images of women are used to sell products, from electronics to beer. Women’s bodies are the main merchandise of both the sex and labor trafficking markets.
- Multinational corporations derive 68% of their global profits from women workers who are paid the equivalent of $2 a day while creating products sold for hundreds of dollars in the US and European markets: electronics, garments, toys. In labor camps stretching from Honduras to Mexico to Cambodia to the Philippines, these corporations, whose stocks are traded on Wall Street, defy labor laws and anti-pollution laws. They take out 100% of their profits from the underdeveloped countries, creating economic catastrophes. Some of these corporations ignore sexual harassment and the victimization of women workers; some sterilize women workers to save on maternity benefits and to keep plants running 24/7.
- 200,000 women are in the US military; half are deployed overseas, leaving 230,000 children motherless. 30,000 single mothers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in wars to enable multinational corporations to takeover other countries’ resources.
- The right to suffrage of women, particularly women of color and female senior citizens, is under attack, with Wall Street’s puppet politicians imposing ever stricter requirements on voting. Districts where people of color predominate are divided and re-divided, to water down the communities’ already limited power within the electoral process.
Race and gender discrimination permeates Capitalist Patriarchy and is enhanced by corporatism which categorizes women and women of color in particular as both cheap labor and cheap commodity, as both producers of goods and extreme consumers, as subject to both sexual objectification and sexual repression. The one in 15 people living in extreme poverty in the US today is likely to be a female of color, carrying the triple burden of class, race and gender exploitation.
We say enough and say:
Black Friday Black-out! March instead of shop! Assemble at Battery Park on the 25th of November, 2011, 1:00 pm.
WALL STREET IS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN. Dismantle it!
Sponsored by: CLEAR ACTION FOR/BY WOMEN (CLAW) *AF3IRM/GabNet *ANSWER* PARTY FOR SOCIALISM & LIBERATION*BLACK WOMEN’S BLUEPRINT*FEMINISM NOW PODCAST*SISTER SONG NYC*TRUST BLACK WOMEN
*Trans and gender-varient women are encouraged and welcome to attend
Contact to endorse this statement and action: nynj@af3irm.org
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