Fundamental to any revolutionary organization and conscious social movement is the absolute economic, political, and social self-determination of raza women. Revolutionary examples from people’s struggles in Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, México, Nicaragua, and Vietnam educate us that women’s liberation is an essential part of national and class liberation. Unión del Barrio insists that without the full participation and leadership of revolutionary women, there will be no victory in revolutionary struggle.

In its current form, the capitalist and colonial imperialist global order survives on a pedestal of unrestrained patriarchy and misogyny. As a result, women across the globe experience the most terrible repression imaginable. Rape and other forms of gendered violence are deployed as weapons and commodities to impose psychological control over communities through terror, fear, and trauma. On an unprecedented global scale, women workers in hospitality, janitorial, agricultural, and manufacturing industries experience some of the highest levels of sexual harassment, assault, and labor exploitation. Within the United States gendered repression of raza women is most clearly seen when employers terrorize undocumented women with threats of deportation when these mujeres resist their exploitation.

We must work to crush all forms of oppression and reactionary tendencies. We must defend ourselves and our communities from white supremacist attacks. We will not allow anyone to inflict more trauma upon our community. We will challenge pervasive patriarchal tendencies in our communities that are rooted in backward cultural and religious traditions. Sexism and male chauvinism are bourgeois traits that must be completely rejected and overturned for any of us to win freedom. We must actively combat sexism in all its forms and manifestations, both within our movement and throughout our communities.

Our struggle is part of a global struggle of bold and resilient mujeres who are leading the charge to dismantle and destroy the source of our collective subjugation – capitalist imperialist white supremacy, and its exploitation of our bodies and of our land. As militantes of Unión del Barrio, we are working to build a revolutionary party that advances our interests of justice, self-determination, and freedom. We affirm that all people deserve the right to make dignified decisions over one’s body, sexuality, and the health of our families and communities. We demand absolute economic, political, cultural, and social equality because true liberation cannot take place until all sectors of La Raza are free. At the center of our struggle for self-determination is the ability of women to self-determine their own futures, and we measure our success towards achieving liberation by how much women can make autonomous decisions over their bodies.

GO TO WHAT WE WANT, POINT IV: “The Struggle For LGBTQ+ Comradeship.“