International Women’s Day
By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / March 5, 2012
SAN ANTONIO — For the third year I traveled south from Austin to San Antonio to take part in their International Women’s Day march with others from CodePink Austin. It was the twenty-second annual Women’s Day celebration in that city, which has kept the faith better than any city I know of.
The march did not disappoint. A blustery wind whipped against our banner, “Women say no to war,” when we left from the Grand Hyatt on Saturday, March 3. But the wind died down as we made the now familiar trek to Milam Park and the Plaza del Zacate. CodePink Austin invoked various “Supershero powers” as the contingent marched in costumes, adorned with capes and crowns, and accompanied by a prison-garbed and shackled “war criminal.”
The celebration was organized by a coalition of “fierce mujeres” from community and social justice organizations — union organizers for nurses, hotel workers, and domestic workers, advocates for reproductive choice and LBGTQ rights.
Graciela Sanchez of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, her mother, Isabel Sanchez, two women from Fuerza Unida, and a former councilwoman carried the leadoff banner for the march. Other banners and signs displayed the diversity of causes and issues, calling for and end to NAFTA and to war, defending immigrant rights and decrying the border wall.
The generations ranged from Girl Scout participants and the youth of the Martinez Street Women’s Center to the elders like Graciela Sanchez who have kept this tradition alive for more than two decades. Indigenous dancers and a calavera (skeleton) -clad duo were reminders of the Native American and Mexican ancestry of south Texas.
San Antonio displayed once again its ease with crossing boundaries of race, age, class, national origin, and sexual orientation. The call for the march proclaimed:
We, like women and girls all over the world, are the voices of conscience, the roots of change, and the leaders of local and global movements. We seek healthcare, housing, education, environmental justice and fair wages, not just as women, but also as people of color, as youth and elders, as immigrants and indigenous people, as lesbian, bisexual, intersex, two-spirit, transgender, and queer women, and as poor and working class people.
We oppose all forms of violence. We advocate for reproductive choice. We call for an end to war, genocide, and occupation. We claim our own voices and come together to share them in public space. We march in solidarity with women and social justice movements around the world.
I hope that we in Austin will again see such a diverse coalition of fierce women. As the Republican primary candidates attempt to dial us back to the 50s, as women’s basic healthcare comes under attack, as women are advised to “hold an aspirin between their knees” as cheap birth control, as Rush Limbaugh hurls accusations of “slut” and “prostitute” at a college student defending access to birth control, the need for outrage and ferocity grows.
Austin musician Marcia Ball is “seeing red” and calling for women (and men) to join her wearing red on the Capitol steps each of the next three Tuesdays, March 6, 13, and 20, from noon until 2 p.m. On March 9 at 7 p.m., a presentation at Austin’s feminist bookstore, BookWoman, will remind us of the beginnings of the women’s movement, with clips from an upcoming movie, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry.
Time to let the rage out of the bottle, sisters. I guess it’s the only thing Rush and the two Ricks can understand.
[Alice Embree is a long-time Austin activist, organizer, and member of the Texas State Employees Union. A former staff member of underground papers, The Rag in Austin and RAT in New York, and a veteran of SDS and the women’s liberation movement, she is now active with CodePink Austin and Under the Hood Café. Embree is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog and is treasurer of the New Journalism Project. Read more articles by Alice Embree on The Rag Blog.]
Also see “San Antonio: Thousands Rally for International Women’s Day,” by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / March 8, 2010
Photos by Carlos Lowry:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlos/sets/72157629141475946/with/6950632055/
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