Statement from the Black Autonomy Federation Women’s Commission

Black women must be ensured the autonomy to organize around and address issues of specific concern to them. The purpose of the Black Autonomy Federation (BAF) Women’s Commission is to promote the full equality of women within the BAF and the leadership of women within the organization and any future society.

The BAF Women’s Commission will organize around and address several issues, including:

1. Jobs: Full employment, job training, and livable incomes

2. Housing: Affordable and safe housing

3. Education: High-quality, community-controlled public schools

4. Health: Access to high-quality, affordable health care, including substance abuse and mental health treatment

5. Pre-natal care and care for newborns; reproductive health care for women and teens that does not promote abstinence and is free of“slut shaming,”;treatment for domestic violence and rape

6. Programs to stop the mass imprisonment of women and criminalization of girls, such as the school to prison pipeline; the drug war’s impact on women; state abduction of children into the foster care system and into non-Black households.

7. Programs to stop sexual harassment, violence and gender oppression: Street harassment and safety issues; the commodification of women’s and girls’ bodies; sexual assault and rape culture; the promotion of stereotypical roles that falsely assume all women want to be wives and mothers; government-funded programs that promote marriage as “the answer” to poverty and pressure women to marry in order to get assistance; the negative impact of homophobia and transphobia on LGBTQ people; and framing women’s politics as less serious than those of men.