Only a few days left before a new March 8th and we already are thousands of women, lesbians, bisexuals, trans, non-binaries, students, employed and unemployed workers who are organizing to take to the streets with our demands. In this framework, the “Agreement for Chile” has an orientation of continuity of the 30 years. We provide some guidelines with the aim of strengthening the mobilization and political independence of our feminist movement.
By Abril C.
Every economic crisis hits women and sexually diverse people harder. We, oppressed by our class and our gender, are the ones who suffer the austerity applied by the capitalist and patriarchal system. Neoliberal capitalism not only does not guarantee the lives of the majority, but also destroys sovereignty over our bodies and territories, generating a historical ecocide and endangering our planet. That is why there are thousands of us all over the world who are rebelling, mobilizations in Iran for the assassination of Mahsa Amini, resistance of the Ukrainian people to the Russian invasion and mobilizations in Peru against the repression of Dina Boluarte.
In our country, feminization of poverty is aggravated along with the wage gap between men and women that is currently 12%, while femicides, the lack of sexual and reproductive rights, the short outlook on life of trans people, sexual harassment, among others, are an expression of the lack of budget to combat and eradicate gender violence, since the budget item of 1% of GDP is far below the needs of women and sexually diverse people to apply emergency measures due to this situation.
The self-declared ‘feminist’ government of the Frente Amplio and the Communist Party has not pushed for the slightest change in relation to the continuity of neoliberal capitalism and the real policies of feminized bodies. Gender parity and the violet electoral mantle are not enough if the orientation is the same as the 30 years, ratifying the constitutional farce with the worst of the Pinochet right, women who respond to that project curb the transformative power of feminism.
Constituent of dinosaurs: the government’s pact with our enemies
It is in this context that the proposal for a new constitution, written by a Constituent Council and supervised by a Commission of experts, both spaces made up of ecclesiastical sectors and the worst of the right, not only throws away the possibility of achieving a floor of law for us, but also encourages anti-rights, misogynistic, anti-women and anti-majority spaces.
The process aimed at giving a new constitutional framework to neoliberalism, as we wrote in previous articles, is a roadmap that aims to change something so that nothing changes since it does not respond to the needs we are going through today: how is the lack of budget to combat gender-based violence solved if we do not touch the economic pillars and allocate resources to this problem?How do we combat the feminization of poverty without solving the economic crisis, the negotiation of the AFP, and fighting for public and free education and health, to also conquer legal, safe and free abortion? How do we end with patriarchal justice if it is not with the democratization of all the complicit institutions of the state?
Not only is it more of the same, but it aggravates the situation of our collective and eliminates any possibility of real changes. That is why we oppose this constitutional farce which is carried out far away from current needs, behind the backs of the majorities and above all at the service of giving legitimacy to the regime beaten up by the rebellion. We denounce this government that sits with dinosaurs and opens the way to hate speeches, that pacts with the right, maintaining the oppression and exploitation of women, sexually diverse people and social majorities.
That is why it is essential to take back the initiative, not delegating our forces as was done in the last Constitutional Convention where sectors such as the Feminist Coordinator 8M relied on institutional limits to the detriment of strengthening the organization in assemblies and pressure in the streets, it is important to strengthen the feminist power in broad unity to face the cost of life, demanding a strike to the trade union and student centers to make the pressure measures effective. The loss of political independence endangers the struggle for our rights.
For a feminism that can keep up with our struggles
The liberal feminists or possibilists not only promulgate the ideas of the conciliation of classes delaying our movement, but they enhance the transformative power that we have built in these years. We have plenty of strength, we show it in every 8M, 25N and pañuelazos. Trusting in a system that is nourished thanks to the double oppression that we live in and in its institutions paves the way and gives more space to those who legislate and govern against us. The enemy is not of gender, it is of class: there is no use in being more people if it is not with an anti-system perspective to transform everything at the service of the majority.
We, anti-capitalist feminists, propose another roadmap: to recover the transformative force of our movement organized in the streets and democratically, without ties, to fight for all our rights so that we are the ones who decide and not the guarantors of capitalism. For this we propose to build a political alternative for those who have never governed, women, dissidents, workers and social majorities to govern and not the same as always. In short, to organize ourselves to transform everything and live free from all oppression and exploitation. That’s why we invite you to participate in this 8M and to build the Anti-Capitalist Movement.
50 years after the military coup, against the impunity of yesterday and today.
Let’s fill the streets with our demands!
Down with the fraudulent Convention, for a free, sovereign and democratic Constituent Assembly.
Not one more victim, we want to live
The State is responsible
Budget to eradicate gender-based violence
Legal abortion now
Stop harassment and violence
Sovereignty over our bodies and territories
Comprehensive trans law