SAN JOSE, CA, September 2—“Same enemy same fight, to smash sexism we must unite,” PLP and other anti-sexists at the Santa Clara Hall of Justice where rapist Brock Turner was released.
Turner was convicted of three felonies for sexual assault against an unconscious woman and was sentenced to a mere six months in jail, only serving three. Progressive Labor Party gave leadership across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City to protest the special oppression of women (see LA report on page 3).
Building the Action
We built support for the protest by making posters and selling CHALLENGE at a public university in the Bay Area. We canvassed the day before, too. Eleven people, mainly women, came out to make posters. We also signed up eight students to either come to the protest at the Santa Clara Hall or come to future Party events. Many were angry at the sexist injustice system and one student said, “Revolution is the only way to stop this, I need to be with y’all.” PLP is hosting a “Smash Sexism BBQ & Movie” event to continue our efforts to fight against sexism and build working class unity.
It’s Not Just Persky, It’s Capitalism
Aaron Persky, the judge who served a careless ruling justified his decision by claiming Turner had given up a “hard-earned swimming scholarship” and that prison would be “severe.” Perksy is sending a sexist message: that an elite white man’s future overrides the safety of college women. This sexist judge and the whole injustice system have got to go! To draw this connection, we chanted, “Turner and Persky one and the same, sexist terror is the name of their game.”
Persky is one part of a wide criminal system that serves to protect ruling-class interests and idea, not working-class women. Harassment, intimidation, and abuse from courts and the police are common across the country, which is a large reason why women don’t report rapes and why few perpetrators ever face conviction or jail time.
In the few cases that went to trial, prosecutors could be brutal to the victim and judges extremely lenient to the rapist. In one email exchange, a prosecutor referred to a woman who had reported a sexual assault as a “conniving little whore.” A cop wrote back: “Lmao! I feel the same” (NYT, 8/11). In the Bay Area, 28 police from five districts used a 17-year-old girl as a sex slave (CNN, 7/3).
Sexism’s Twin: Racism
In New York City, we discussed how racism and sexism function together inside the police and the courts. If the judge can admit that prison is harmful for Turner, the millions of working-class Black and Latin working class, who are routinely criminalized? The Turner case is a sharp contrast to the five Black teens from Brownsville, Brooklyn who were wrongly accused of rape. The media instantly demonized and convicted them, while Brock Turner, an actual rapist, got away with a mere three months. In the sexist, dehumanizing profit system, which treats all workers as commodities, rape and sexist violence are rampant.
The San Francisco education club met to discuss the political points prior to publishing the leaflet. A comrade pointed out that state violence against women serves the same purpose as racist state violence against Black workers. These acts of violence create divisions between women, men, Black, and white workers. It breeds the kind of terror aimed to immobilize workers from uniting against oppression and exploitation, guaranteeing billions of super-profits and their rule.
Know Your Enemy
We discussed with friends about naming our enemy: it is capitalism or patriarchy? A patriarchy is a society in which men have systemic power, and women do not. But that analysis leaves out class society, and assumes women in power (i.e., bosses and politicians) will make life better for working women.
In India, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi brutally suppressed striking railway workers and pushed their families out of their homes. In Britain, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher attacked striking miners, closed unprofitable industries and privatized those that remained. Hillary Clinton destroyed the lives of countless women from the U.S. to the Middle East (see page 8). When the occasional woman attains a position of power, the bosses run a victim-blaming campaign against other poor women.
Sexism’s root cause is capitalism, not men. In fact, sexism hurts men—in very material ways. When women’s wages are depressed, the rest of the working class men go down with them. Ever since 1973, though productivity grew by 72 percent, workers wages rose only by 9 percent (ThinkProgress, 9/2/15).
Buying into the bosses’ ideas and practices benefits only the ruling class and destroys our chances of having a successful working class revolution.
Build an Egalitarian Society
PLP is committed to building a communist society where women and men will work side by side to meet the needs of the working class. We saw the beginning of what’s possible last century. In revolutionary China, prostitution was virtually eliminated. In the Soviet Union, educational facilities at all levels granted equal access to men and women. (At the height of the Soviet era, 60 percent of engineers were women.) Maternity leave with full pay was universal; new mothers had no worry about losing their jobs. There were ample kindergartens, day care centers, nurseries, and playgrounds, as well as communal dining rooms. The concept of housekeeping as “women’s work” was abolished.
We can learn from the successes and mistakes of China and the Soviet Union to build a better world under communism. PLP fights directly for communism, abolishing wages at once—the material basis for racist and sexist division.  
We saw the potential for this society during our protest, women and men, Asian, Latin, Black, and white united against the sexist violence of Brock Turner and the capitalist state protection granted by Judge Persky. From Brooklyn to San Francisco to Los Angeles, fight for communism!