XVII — Much Better — Gender, Privilege and More

bell hooks labeled our system: white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

We can win reforms from this system. It’ll take a strong committed radical response. We won our right to abortions free safe legal on demand for all in 1973 by organizing and building militantly with millions around the world.

But governments can also again and again can chip away our rights like they’re doing it now and abolish those rights like they want to now. It will take a workers/allies social revolution with us fighting for that to guarantee all our rights and freedom for all workers and all women.

And where were we — the M e n?

I can’t seem to find how many women were in Congress in 1973, though this was the last time Margaret Chase Smith was a senator, and I believe she was the only woman in the senate then.

Nicknamed “Battling Bella”,[17][15] in 1970 she challenged the 14-year incumbent Leonard Farbstein in the Democratic primary for a congressional district on Manhattan’s West Side. She defeated Farbstein in a considerable upset and then defeated talk show host Barry Farber in the gIeneral election. In 1972, her district was eliminated via redistricting and she chose to run against William Fitts Ryan, who also represented part of the West Side, in the Democratic primary. Ryan, although seriously ill, defeated Abzug. However, Ryan died before the general election and Abzug defeated his widow, Priscilla, at the party’s convention to choose the new…