FOR THE LIFE OF WOMEN! BOLSONARO NEVER AGAIN!
For a Brazil without sexism, racism and hunger.
Throughout history, working women have always been at the forefront of popular struggles for rights and better living conditions. We carry the burden of all capitalist, patriarchal and racist exploitation that oppresses us as women responsible for families, black, indigenous, quilombola, LBTs, young, elderly and people with disabilities, in the fields, in the waters, forests and cities.
We live in a political and economic system that uses the exploitation of our workforce and our bodies to sustain itself. We produce a large part of all the world's wealth. We are fundamental for social reproduction, through domestic and care work, as well as for what is considered productive. Yet we are 70% of the poorest people in the world.
Since the historic mobilization of Russian revolutionary women on March 8, 1917 , the date has been consolidated as the International Day of Struggle for Working Women. We claim this tradition of mobilizing women against capitalist exploitation and oppression and, in this way, we will place ourselves in the face of all forms of violence that we experience today in our country.
The deepening of the economic crisis in Brazil and in the world, added to the policy of hunger, unemployment and death carried out by the Bolsonaro government, has made people's lives even more difficult, affecting mainly working-class women. The unemployment rate among women hit a record last year, reaching 16.8%, and for black women, this rate was 19.8% , according to Dieese . The number of unemployed women in our country already reaches 8.6 million. Nearly 51 million people live below the poverty line in the last two years and more than 10 million are hungry.
Even before Bolsonaro took power, we women were already occupying the streets against the tragedy that his project represented for the lives of the Brazilian people. In 2015, Marcha das Margaridas already denounced the threat of a bourgeois and misogynist coup that the first female president elected in Brazil , Dilma Rousseff, would suffer in 2016. The coup was and continues to be a threat to democracy and women's lives, against which we continue to fight. That same year, the Black Women's March against violence, racism and for good living was a fundamental moment in the strengthening of our resistance.
In 2018, “Ele Não” was an expression of our strength and mobilization power. With demonstrations in all Brazilian states, we prevented Bolsonaro from being elected in the first round. We present to the country a mass and unified opposition, mobilized by working women and the feminist struggle in the streets . Since then, we have continued to face the worst and most nefarious government in this country since redemocratization. The indignation of “Ele Não” was also present in the Tsunami of Education, in all the struggles against the neoliberal reforms imposed by that government and in the anti-racist revolt that took to the streets of the country. No wonder we women are the majority who call for #ForaBolsonaro.
It is due to the actions of the Bolsonaro government that the economic crisis has worsened in the country. The destruction of policies to combat poverty deepened the situation of hunger among families, especially in households headed by black women. The nefarious neoliberal policy adopted by the president, his economy minister Paulo Guedes, their allies, and supported by the military, guarantees profits to the Brazilian bourgeoisie while aggravating the humanitarian crisis faced by most of the working people. Such groups took advantage of the pandemic to pursue an agenda of advancing capital to the detriment of decent living conditions, with counter-reforms, privatizations, debt forgiveness for large companies and millionaire incentives for private banks.
The scarcity spread through the homes of Brazilian families. The price of food, gas, water and energy keeps rising and we see more and more people looking for food in the trash and fighting for bones and carcasses in butcher shops to feed their families. The stoppage of programs aimed at the people of the countryside, waters and forests is yet another demonstration of Bolsonaro's partnership with agribusiness, which further aggravates the scenario of food insecurity, destruction of nature and surrender of our sovereignty. Therefore, we continue to defend and strengthen agroecology as a strategy of resistance and struggle!
As denounced in the CPI on COVID, Bolsonaro, allied with sectors of the Brazilian bourgeoisie, acted intentionally to spread the Coronavirus by denying scientific evidence, boycotting policies to control the pandemic, encouraging the use of ineffective medicines and delaying the acquisition of vaccines, in a clear extermination policy. Criminally, it spread lies to attack childhood vaccination and neglected policies to assist indigenous populations in confronting and combating COVID-19.
More than 640,000 Brazilian men and women lost their lives. Brazil is the country with the highest number of maternal deaths caused by COVID-19. It was us, working and poor women, especially black women, who were most affected by unemployment, burdened by taking care of children, the elderly and those who fell ill. We were the first to die. When a black woman dies, who did not have the right to isolate herself so as not to lose her job, we all die!
Violence against women and girls increases every day, as Bolsonaro's hate speech spreads and makes us a preferential target of sexists, racists and LGBTQIA+phobics. A woman is murdered every two hours in our country, 66% of which are black women. We are also the country that most kills trans and transvestite women in the world and 6 lesbian women are raped a day. Violence against women with disabilities grew by 67.9% during the pandemic. Obstetric violence, that is, all types of violence that occur during prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum and abortion – affects one in four women in our country; of these, 65.9% are black. Faced with so much violence, we cry out: we are not numbers, we are lives!
In this precarious scenario of our lives, Minister Damares Alves is an agent of Bolsonaro's misogynistic policy and all conservatives. She and her Ministry work to dismantle public policies for women, do not apply the tiny budget destined to combat violence, persecute victims of sexual violence who seek to interrupt unwanted pregnancies, propagate sexist and transphobic discourses of revictimization of girls and women.
In a country with such deeply racist roots, Bolsonarism has found fertile ground to amplify hate politics and speech. The brutal massacres in the outskirts and slums of our cities are part of the genocide of the black population in our country, where 75% of homicides are against blacks and browns. By Kathlen Romeu, Moïse Kabagambe, Durval Filho and so many others victimized by this murderous policy, women will continue to fight against racism and this genocidal government.
The deepening of misogyny, racism and LGBTQIA+phobia in our country is also demonstrated in the increase in political gender violence, which has its greatest example in the execution of Rio de Janeiro councilor Marielle Franco in 2018 – which completes 4 years without a response about who ordered her to be killed. Since then, we have seen part of the population mobilized to strengthen the struggle of black women and expand their representation in institutional politics, but we have also witnessed the intensification of the criminal reaction of sexists, racists and fascists.
For all this, we women call on each and every one who is committed to the fight against sexism, the fight against the feminization of poverty, racism, LGBTQIA+phobia and all actions that worsen the situation of women in the world. Brazil, taking to the streets on March 8th.
The struggle to overthrow Bolsonaro from power is necessarily a feminist, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, democratic, anti-racist and anti-LGBTQIA+phobic struggle. It is a struggle in defense of women's lives, against hunger, high prices, violence, for health, for our sexual rights, reproductive rights and reproductive justice. It is a fight in defense of the SUS and public services, which are free and of good quality. It is a struggle with the majority who have suffered from hunger, the loss of loved ones, violence and unemployment.
We reaffirm feminism as a path for women's self-organization, in alliance with social movements, in resistance and construction of a just and egalitarian society. We are millions and from every corner of this country! We never leave the streets against Bolsonaro and we will continue to defend our lives.
That's why we scream: BOLSONARO NEVER AGAIN! No more oppression and exploitation!
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Text taken from the National Manifesto FOR WOMEN'S LIFE | March 8, 2022.
