WASHINGTON, D.C.–The African People’s Socialist Party will host a Conference on African Women with the goal of consolidating the African National Women’s Organization (ANWO) which will assume for itself the responsibility of bringing women into political life while attacking the myriad of deep and profound political, social and economic issues which African women have to confront daily.
The conference will be held in March 2015.
ANWO will provide a mass organization, under the leadership of the Party, which will confront the oppression and exploitation of African women as part of an oppressed and colonized African nation.
In addition to the “women’s issues” that most people are familiar with–childcare, unemployment and underemployment, social immobility and poverty–the African Internationalist Conference on African Women will also embrace a host of issues that African women are burdened with as part of an oppressed people.
One major issue that will be discussed is the impact that colonialism has had on the African family unit. In the U.S. nearly 72 percent of African children are born to single parents, with a majority of them being raised by single mothers. Almost half of African children in Britain are being raised by single parents.
These figures are a result of the colonial conditions that prevent African men from fully participating in the lives of their families as a result of the mass incarceration–which robs African families of husbands, brothers and sons–extrajudicial killings carried out by the state, horizontal violence and economic welfare requirements that promote the division of the family.
The conference will also deal with the growing number of African women being pushed into the prison system, an issue that is only now beginning to get public attention.
Ordinarily, topics such as these are discussed in a vacuum, unrelated to our long history as a colonized people. Women as a second class status, we are told, manifested out of some male agenda. This is an incorrect conclusion, one that seeks to obscure the long history of violence and subjugation of a whole people, by reducing it to the whims of men when it is directly related to the attack on Africa which gave birth to the world-wide capitalist system.
Feudal practices divided Africans under the system of capitalism
Prior to Europe’s assault on Africa, the women of feudal Europe were already considered the property of men; the majority of women had little to no rights when compared to their male counterparts. Their children, their inheritance and anything they owned were considered property of a husband, father or brother.
These same practices were imposed on African populations, with Europe’s assault on Africa, destroying centuries old matriarchal customs that preserved the rights of African women in society.
The European occupying force, by undermining the indigenous way of life, eradicated traditional areas of responsibilities, shifting a majority of the workload on to women.
African women found themselves sustaining traditional roles as caregiver, in addition to enduring backbreaking work to sustain themselves and their communities, while African men went off to find colonial jobs just to pay for colonial taxes to avoid imprisonment.
African people under the colonial system of slavery were afforded no rights—not to live, marry, to our own bodies, to our own labor—for centuries, in the “Americas.”
These conditions damaged how we were able to relate to each other, knowing that one day our sister could be sold or our husband could be used to impregnate other women, or our wife and child could be raped by any white man,
The effects of centuries of this normalized assault on African people should be examined in relationship to a system of oppression that impacted the lives of African people.
The Conference on African Women will destroy and build anew
The African Internationalist Conference on African Women: Leaders of the African Revolution, Shapers of Our New Society, will sum up many of these contradictions which stem from centuries of oppression that continues to wreak havoc on our lives.
The objective, however, is not just to have discussion but to translate these discussions into actionable programs that will serve to consolidate the African nation.
The arena for discussing “women’s issues” is currently dominated by bourgeois forces that, for the most part, minimize the role that capitalism plays in the division of oppressed communities. These include people who mistakenly believe that if gender equality is achieved, then all will be right with the world.
They do not understand that capitalism, which is founded on exploitation, is the reason that gender inequality exists.
There will never be equality in a system built on exploitation.
Africa and Africans around the world continue to be exploited, enduring conflict, division and the rape of our lands, mineral resources and people, even though there have been some improvements in the lives of people living in imperialist countries.
We call on everyone, who love freedom and who seek to end oppression, to attend this important conference. We especially call on working class African women to attend and become part of the organization, because it is through our participation in revolutionary movement that we will transform the world.
We are struggling to destroy the barriers that keep African working class women from participating in these types of gatherings and in doing so we look forward to the increased contributions from our sisters. We encourage the participation of men as well as we seek to resolve our divisions and consolidate the African nation.
Register today to be part of this dynamic initiative that will open up new dialogue and actions around the issues of African women.
For more information visit www.apspuhuru.org/aiwomensconference, email us at aiwomensconference@apspuhuru.org or call 202-642-4672 in the US. or 07723-067-486 in Europe.
