International Women’s Day in L.A. Marches to Defeat the Genocide of Womankind

In case you forgot, Sunday was International Women’s Day. Five hundred women who gathered at the doorsteps of LAPD headquarters and marched east to the Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights carrying signs reading “Women’s rights are human rights,” “RIP PATRIARCHY” and “#ovarianpsycos,” didn’t forget.

The special day, spawned by the United Nations in 1975, spotlights a range of issues affecting women, including immigration, abortion rights, violence and rape prevention, poverty, transphobia, and healthcare quality, among others, reported the Los Angeles Times.

According to the UN’s website, the actual first National Woman’s Day was observed in the United States in 1909. The Socialist Party of America created the day in tribute to the 1908 garment workers’ strike in New York, during which women protested against working conditions.

Ashley Franklin came to the rally to fight “state-sponsored violence” toward women. As an organizer for Fight For the Souls of the City, she told the Times that some 70 social justice and women’s advocacy groups showed up, including the Ovarian Psyco-cycles.

For those not familiar with the Ovarian Psyco-Cycles, their website boasts that they have “Ovaries so big we don’t need balls.”

The grassroots organization was established in 2011 to “support young women of colors leadership through a credo that believes in feminist ideals with indigena understanding and an urban/hood mentality.” They aligned themselves in the past with pro immigrant groups such as Corazon del Pueblo, Multicultural Communities for Mobility, Mujeres de Maiz and AF3IRM.

Another theme propagated during the rally aimed to stop the killing of women and girls by police. One organizer stood on a truck calling out the names of the alleged victims, while a group of mariachis played jaranas, Mexican stringed instruments, nearby.

Twenty nine-year-old Irmina Haq, a medical resident at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, held a sign reading “#feministdoctors.” She insisted that the rally was a great place to fight for healthcare equality. “As a female physician, I think it’s my duty to come out here and fight,” she said.

Daniel O’Neil-Ortiz, a 34-year-old social justice attorney, explained that he was there to demonstrate his solidarity with women and call attention to male entitlement. “There’s a lot of privilege that, as men, we have,” he said, “and there’s a lack of accountability for that.”