‘Stop U.S. war on women, at home and abroad’

“Stop the U.S. war on women at home and abroad. Money for human needs, not war!”

This was the theme of an International Women’s Day celebration hosted by the Women’s Fightback Network here on March 12.

Kim Rosario: ‘Keep marching, keep organizing, keep fighting.’

“International” aptly described the participants and speakers who came to share their struggles. They included women from Latin America, the Carib bean, Asia, India and the African-American community.

The program was moving, strengthening and uplifting. It was a celebration of the lives of poor and working women.

Speakers, poets, musicians and artists addressed the crowd through their voices and their works about the ongoing struggles against sexism, racism, poverty, lesbian/bi/trans oppression, for human needs and human rights and against war.

Dorothea Peacock of the WFN put it this way: “Is there really a war going on here in the U.S. against women? We don’t see any bombs or fighter jets, do we? But many poor and working women feel under siege, under attack by Bush’s cuts in housing, health care, child care and education.

“The devastation is felt when we can’t find a job, or there is no food in the fridge at the end of the week, or not enough money to pay for our child’s asthma medication, or we want to go to college but there are no funds.

“Instead, the Bush administration’s policy is to give huge bailouts to mega-corporations and billions for an ‘endless war’ in Iraq. Many women of color live under warlike conditions, with police occupying their communities, murdering and brutalizing at will. Immigrant women are besieged by Homeland Security, which can round them up and deport them on a moment’s notice.

“But we won’t shut up,” Peacock vowed. We’ll keep on fighting.”

Kim Rosario’s 19-year-old son is in the military in Iraq. An organizer for the anti-war GI support group SNAFU, Rosario told the crowd: “Women bear the burden of war and budget cuts when our men are sent off to war or incarcerated. Grand mothers are left raising their grandchildren. Military recruiters prey on our sons and daughters. They are stealing our children’s futures.

“But you do have a voice and you do have a choice...don’t give up the struggle. Keep marching, keep organizing, keep fighting.” She called on everyone to attend the March 19 anti-war demonstration in New York City.

Other speakers included LeiLani Dowell of New York’s Queers for Peace and Justice and the youth group FIST—Fight Imperialism-Stand Together; Diane Dujon of Survivors Inc. and the Mas sachusetts Welfare Rights Union; Jenny Rodriguez and her two daughters who spoke on racial profiling; Oslyn Brumant, a shop steward with the Boston school bus drivers’ union, Steel Workers Local 8751; and a representative from the Haitian Women’s Association.

Cultural performers included poets Margaret Campbell, Sharel’le Campbell, Jennifer Badot and Elizabeth Doran, and musician Lisa Doyle. Women artists displayed their work at tables set up in the room.

The meeting was co-chaired by Carol Brown of Dorchester People for Peace and the International Action Center and Maureen Skehan, a leader of the WFN and a Section 8 housing advocate.