On March 8, the 50th anniversary of International Women’s Day, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, I participated in the Lazo de Amor Contra la Violencia Machista—the Ribbon of Love Against Sexist Violence. Six hundred people came together to take a loving stand against violence against women and against all forms of violence based in the traditional “machista” masculine gender role. Together, we called for the promotion of education, not the penal system, as the primary way to eradicate it.

The demonstration was organized by a team of seasoned activists, and sponsored by the Teachers’ Association of Puerto Rico (AMPR), the main teachers’ union. It took place on the grounds of the historic El Morro fort, symbol of Spanish colonization. We listened to a series of impassioned speeches from educators, activists, and students, decrying the epidemic of sexist violence in all its forms; calling out the failures of the penal system to rehabilitate offenders and to address the roots of violence; and calling on educators, the school system, and each of us, to take up the challenge of ending sexist violence.

Then we donned purple Lazo de Amor T-shirts, provided by the organizers, and formed the shape of a bow, similar to the ribbons people wear to represent commitment to a cause like AIDS awareness, MIA’s, and cancer survivors. We were photographed from the sky, taking our stand together. The organizers’ announced goal, represented by the Lazo, was to create an ongoing campaign for educating against sexist violence in the schools, to be expressed in yearly demonstrations.

The demonstration provided one of a multitude of potential answers to the core question that we progressive activists face as we work to shift the paradigm from fear to love: How can we use the power of love to transform our violent, fear-based practices and institutions?

Participating in the Lazo was a powerful experience for me. As an elder anti-racist, leftist feminist who has attended many demonstrations organized by many types of progressive movement over the past 50 years, I found it to be unusually empowering, uplifting, and inspiring. A demonstration against violence on the grounds of an historic colonial fort. The act of actually taking a stand together and being photographed doing felt like a work of political art. The presence of many men, also taking a stand against sexist violence. The sponsorship by a teachers’ union and preponderance of teachers and students, embodying the process being advocated for. And the naming, and calling on, of love as the true antidote to violence—rather than the greater violence of the state and the penal system. Fifty years after the declaration of the first International Women’s Day, feminism had come a long way from demonstrations where we marched in the streets to take back the night—without feminist men at our sides as our allies, and calling on the police as the main solution.

I was particularly excited by the naming of our ribbon as a ribbon of love. I am a retired professor of economics whose research has focused on the emergence, alongside of and within capitalism, of the solidarity economy—economic practices and institutions centered in cooperation, equity, democracy, sustainability, and pluralism. These new institutions are part of and require the emergence of a new paradigm of social life which is based on mutuality, unity amidst diversity, and love, within a crisis-ridden, dying paradigm based on competition, separation, violence, and fear.

So many of the metaphors and memes we use on the left to describe our work are conceptualized as a process of fighting against something, a violent activity that brings to mind traditional, macho masculinity. The naming of love as a powerful force, embodied in a purple ribbon against violence, captured my imagination, representing as it did the power of the strong feminine. Women and feminist men standing up for themselves and for others, against all forms of violence, using the power of love, caring, education, good mothering and fathering. The demonstration provided one of a multitude of potential answers to the core question that we progressive activists face as we work to shift the paradigm from fear to love: How can we use the power of love to transform our violent, fear-based practices and institutions?

I was........

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