#widf

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April 7, 1930: Birthday of Comrade Vilma Espín, Cuban revolutionary, anti-imperialist guerrilla fighter, founder of the Federation of Cuban Women - Federación de Mujeres Cubanas. She made a crucial contribution as an early champion of queer rights in socialist Cuba.

Last year I learned from her daughter, Mariela Castro Espín, that Vilma initiated what would eventually become Cenesex under the auspices of the women’s federation. She was responsible for importing and publishing scientific and political materials from the German Democratic Republic on LGBTQ rights, contributing to Cuba becoming a leading example of queer and trans rights today.

Vilma also rescued the records of the Women's International Democratic Federation - Federación Democrática Internacional de Mujeres during the counterrevolution in Eastern Europe in 1990, and made sure Cuba undertook keeping the global women’s organization alive. Today Women In Struggle - Mujeres En Lucha is a proud member of the WIDF.

-redguard

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Women’s Int’l Democratic Federation: End the U.S. blockade against Cuba! #NoMasBloqueo

The Women’s International Democratic Federation Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean calls on women’s organizations throughout the world, as well as international public opinion, to speak out against this new, brutal and infamous outrage against Cuba with strong solidarity actions that demonstrate recognition of Cuba’s efforts and resistance to the frequent and unsuccessful onslaught of the imperialist power against this enterprising country.

We also urge them to remain alert to the actions of the counter-revolution in the countries, which are being unscrupulously demanded by the current U.S. government and its acolytes, and financed with U.S. taxpayers’ money.  

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Revolutionary feminism

Talk given at the Women’s Assembly at the European Forum, Nov. 24, 2020.

By Lizz Toledo

The fight against the oppression of women is not only women’s work but it is the work of all revolutionaries no matter the gender.

It is difficult to separate the women’s struggle from any other struggle since all the struggles are intricately connected because our oppression, whether it is racism, homophobia, transphobia or sexism, stems from the class struggle, or the fight to end capitalism and imperialism.

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The status of women in the USA

Report by Lizz Toledo to the World Steering Committee of Women’s International Democratic Federation/Federación Democrática Internacional de Mujeres in Windhoek, Namibia: 

The status of women in the United States continues to be one of struggle. Women have been and continue to be in the frontlines of all people’s fights for liberation. We are union workers fighting to raise the minimum wage to $15 and fighting for equal pay. We are in the Im/migrant Rights movement demanding that family separations end and to abolish the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) police.

While in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, communities buried their dead from racist mass shootings, the U.S. government arrested 800 workers at their jobs in Mississippi chicken processing factories. Their children were left without their parents on their first day of school, but the racist billionaire owners exploiting these workers were not arrested for hiring undocumented workers.

We are in the streets demanding an end to mass incarceration and to abolish the oppressive police system that only serves the rich and powerful, who continue to kill Black and Brown youth at will and with impunity.

We are among the fighters for LGBTQ2S liberation. Stonewall 50 was celebrated this past June 30 in New York City, as delegates from around the world came to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the birth of the modern-day LGBTQ2S movement.

We organize and fight to end sexual and domestic violence of any kind directed at women and young girls. We are anti-war and anti-imperialist. Even with the boot of U.S. imperialism on our necks, we continue to defend Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Palestine, Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea against U.S. aggression. End Imperialist wars! Long live the international working class!

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History of the Women’s International

It is not accidental that very little is known in the U.S. about the Women’s International Democratic Federation, which was born to fight against the same imperialism that the U.S. leads. On Dec. 1…

By Berta Joubert-Ceci

It is not accidental that very little is known in the U.S. about the Women’s International Democratic Federation, which was born to fight against the same imperialism that the U.S. leads. On Dec. 1, 1945, right after World War II, women from 41 countries met in France to create the WIDF (FDIM in Spanish). Many of these women had suffered directly from the bloody effects of the war and many had struggled against fascism. ...

The WIDF was especially hard-hit during the 1990s, when the disintegration of the USSR and the Eastern and Central European socialist countries meant that material support and great theoretical and practical contributions so instrumental for the functioning of the federation suddenly stopped.

Vilma Espín — one of four WIDF vice presidents, a combatant in the Cuban Revolution, a member of the Central Committee and the Political Bureau of the Cuban Communist Party and president of the Cuban Women’s Federation — played a decisive role in the enormous task of ensuring the survival and development of the WIDF. Thanks to Cuban action, the federation not only survived but thrived as a space of struggle and promotion of women.

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Federación Democrática Internacional de Mujeres (FDIM) Resolución de Solidaridad

Las 69 organizaciones afiliadas y asociadas a la Federación Democrática Internacional de Mujeres, en América y el Caribe, conscientes de que la paz es un bien supremo y constituye un anhelo legítimo de todos los pueblos y que su preservación es un elemento imprescindible para la integración de América Latina y el Caribe, denuncian enérgicamente las violaciones de los derechos humanos de las mujeres del mundo, en particular las de América y el Caribe, conscientes de que hoy la escalada imperialista ha rebasado sus límites, asesinan, invaden, violan derechos, saquean, hacen su voluntad. El gobierno norteamericano en sus ansias de poder y de saqueo, apela a cualquier forma sucia, criminal y terrorista, para hacerse de riquezas y expandir su imperio.

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Women’s International meets in Namibia, prepares for upcoming congress

First in a series

By Lizz Toledo

Windhoek, Namibia: The friendship and love shown between comrades Sam Nujoma and Fidel Castro continues in the solidarity between the Cuban and the Namibian peoples. Their revolutionary energy is intoxicating. 

On this sacred ground, the World Steering Committee of the Women’s International Democratic Federation/Federación Democrática Internacional de Mujeres (WIDF/FDIM) met in Windhoek, Namibia, from Aug. 9 to Aug. 12, to draft resolutions for our upcoming congress to ratify and spread worldwide. 

Representatives from Asia, Africa, the Arab world, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean presented their resolutions from their respective regions. Cuba demanded an end to the U.S. blockade and for U.S. imperialism to stop pressuring Cuba to withdraw their support for Venezuela in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against Cuba. As Alicia Campos, representing the Federation of Cuban Women, put it, “We will never sacrifice our principles.” 

Christina, representing the Organization of Argentinian Women, shared her joy as news that the Front for Victory, which is an alliance of several progressive groups in Argentina, had won their primary election, which preceded the national election in November. This was a great blow to the right-leaning opposition. Besides this, Argentina, as well as many other countries, demanded an end to U.S. sanctions on Venezuela and recognition of the duly elected government led by President Nicolás Maduro. 

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Women’s Federation declares solidarity with Puerto Rico’s fight for independence

Resolution on Puerto Rico passed at the XVII Congress of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (FDIM/WIDF) in Caracas, Venezuela

Until Puerto Rican sisters live in a free country, women in the United States will not enjoy full freedom. Women in Puerto Rico have been under the colonial yoke imposed by the United States since its invasion in 1898, so their struggles and victories against the oppression of the patriarchy are limited by the nature of a failed colonial state that, not being sovereign, obeys an imperial and hegemonic power that does not recognize women’s rights even in their 50 states.