Women have been silenced for centuries, and now as feminists are under severe attack, and 10 years of Reagan/Bush has set the clock back on women’s rights; we don’t have time to sit back and “encourage change” (like good little girls)!

This year, our rights have been threatened by sexism, from the government in the newly written abortion parental consent law from minors which denies younger women rights to privacy, and threatens pregnant teens with jail sentences, to the growing trend in our public schools to seek out and fire lesbians.

In Montreal, the killing of 14 women by one man who shouted, “You’re all a bunch of feminists,” led to such incidents as the writing of anti-woman slogans on memorial service fliers, the vandalization of anti-rape posters (from “if she says no it’s rape” to “if she says no, kick her in the head”), and the public harassment of known feminist leaders who tried to connect killings to a societal problem of sexism.

This kind of activity also happens here in DeKalb. At a recent gay rights protest sponsored by the Ban ROTC Immediately Coalition, Feminist Front members were brutalized by police.

One of our members was the first to be grabbed and thrown to the ground by an unidentified undercover cop. She was arrested and now faces university judicial charges (a point the press has ignored).

Some men have since written to the Star applauding, police brutality against the feminists who are taking a stand. While the ROTC calls any action taken against them for their homophobic policy “discrimination against ROTC,” men are claiming that women who stand up for their rights are sexist.

What we see are a lot of men who, rather than struggling to rid themselves of their own prejudices, quickly jump to blaming the victims of discrimination for the ills of society.

Recently a Feminist Front member who was appointed to be a Student Association senator was interrogated in front of the SA for being a feminist. She was told by one senator that because she was not submissive to his accusations against her a few months before when she had been involved in a pro-choice protest, she was not fit to be a senator.

Despite attacks against us, the Feminist Front continues to fight for women’s rights, viewing our movement as connected to all people’s struggles for freedom.

We are women and men, lesbian, gay, straight, mothers, NIU students, high school students from DeKalb, Sycamore and St. Charles, working and on public aid. We are fighting to reclaim our bodies, our minds and our vision.

Members of the Feminist Front