10/01/2026
ARE WOMEN FREE IN AMERICA?
We are told that American women are free.
But are they?
When a woman is sexually assaulted, who is expected to carry the burden?
She is.
She must report it. She must recount what happened, sometimes again and again. She may undergo an invasive forensic examination. Her body is examined. Her memory is questioned. Her behavior and credibility are picked apart.
Meanwhile, we hear the excuses.
"He's a young man."
"He made a mistake."
"Why ruin his life?"
What about hers?
Sexual violence is not a mistake. It is a deliberate, horrific act. It is not "boys being boys." It is the violation of another human being's body and autonomy.
And perpetrators do not always stand alone.
They can hide behind institutions, family connections, churches, workplaces, schools, money, status, and communities more interested in protecting their reputations than protecting women and children.
When an institution shields an abuser, silences victims, buries accusations, or places its reputation above human safety, it has forfeited any claim to our deference.
Every structure that provides cover for sexual violence deserves to be exposed and dismantled until it can no longer pose a danger to women and children.
No institution is more sacred than the people it is supposed to protect.
And if sexual violence results in pregnancy, the violation may not end with the attacker. Across parts of this country, the state can severely restrict the survivor's ability to terminate that pregnancy.
First her attacker takes control of her body. Then the state tells her what she may do with it.
Do not call that freedom.
If you cannot safely escape your abuser, you are not free.
If reporting your boss for sexual harassment can cost you your livelihood, you are not free.
If justice depends upon how much money or institutional power you possess, you are not free.
If the state denies you control over your reproductive future, you are not free.
Capitalism did not invent sexual violence or patriarchy. But capitalism preserves enormous inequalities of wealth and power that abusers can exploit. Dependence upon an employer, landlord, spouse, healthcare system, or wealthy family can become another instrument of coercion.
Liberation therefore requires more than punishment after the violence has already occurred.
Housing is freedom.
Healthcare is freedom.
Economic independence is freedom.
Bodily autonomy is freedom.
Justice is freedom.
Mao Zedong famously declared:
"Women hold up half the sky."
Then there can be no liberation of the working class while half the working class remains subjected to violence, coercion, and domination.
There is no liberation while survivors are asked what they wore, why they drank, why they stayed, why they trusted him, or why they did not fight harder while institutions close ranks around those accused of harming them.
Women's liberation is not a footnote to class struggle.
It is class struggle.
And until women are free, none of us are free.
In solidarity
🌹 KNOX SOCIALIST LEAGUE 🌹
