As we mark International Working Women’s Day on March 8, the state of the world seems grim. Imperialist wars fueled by the U.S., Russia and China are intensifying. Capitalist economies are in crisis or on the brink. As always, instability in the profit system means more attacks on working-class women.
In Syria, a civil war manipulated by the U.S. and Russia has displaced millions of women. They are twice as likely to die from shelling or air strikes as men. In refugee camps in countries like Jordan, where women and children compose more than 80 percent of the population, they are at higher risk of sexual assault. Often they lack basic reproductive and sexual health services, resulting in higher death rates.
In the U.S., President Barack Obama is ramping up racist deportations of women and children who fled north to escape pervasive violence in Latin America—a result of two centuries of U.S. imperialism. Women are the majority of immigrants entering the U.S. on the “Train of Death.” An estimated 100,000 women per year are kidnapped into forced labor and, increasingly, sex slavery (Congressional Research Service, 7/29/15). The situation is worsening by the day. Drug cartels are shifting their operations into highly profitable global trafficking networks, while capitalist governments look the other way.
As for the immigrant women who survive the journey to the U.S. and now face deportation, what is waiting for them at home? A Zika virus linked to deadly diseases and birth defects, with capitalist health services promoting abstinence as the only solution.
Feminism vs. Fightback
In reaction to these sexist attacks, some women workers choose feminism and the dead end of identity politics. Millions are rallying behind Hillary Clinton’s campaign slogan: “I’m with her.” They are being won to the dangerous idea that a woman president will somehow make things better for women workers—an echo of Obama’s election in 2008 as a “post-racial” president. Eight years later, Obama’s racist immigration apparatus has deported more workers than all previous presidents combined. His administration has murdered thousands of workers with drone strikes. He continued his Republican predecessor’s policies of forcing workers to bail out the very banks that profited most from the genocidal war in Iraq. These banks also evicted millions of workers, of whom a disproportionate number are Black workers, from their homes.
Here is the hard reality of the profit system: If elected, Clinton will do no more for women workers than Obama did for Black workers.
Internationally, the same trend holds true. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has failed to improve conditions for working women, who are stuck at 78 percent men’s income for comparable work, a ratio unchanged for the past five years (Deutsche Welle, 3/16/15). In India, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi brutally suppressed striking railway workers and pushed their families out of their homes. In Britain, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher attacked striking miners, closed unprofitable industries and privatized those that remained.
Why is it that women politicians don’t make things better for working-class women? Merkel, Clinton, and Gandhi are allied with the capitalist class. The capitalists fund their campaigns and dictate their policies. Sexism means lower pay for everyone, for both men and women, and super-profits for the bosses. Men’s wages are depressed precisely because women’s are even more depressed. Sexism means that working families, and working mothers in particular, are overburdened by childcare and housework. Sexism means that women are a disposable labor force for the bosses. When the occasional woman attains a position of power, the bosses use this exception as another excuse to blame other women for being poor.
Above all, the capitalist bosses need sexism to exploit and divide the working class.
Communism Will Smash Sexism
And so: What is to be done? How can we eliminate sexism? Sexism is inseparable from class society. The only way to end it is to eliminate classes by creating a communist society, where all workers can contribute and have our needs met. Revolutionary victories of the past show us the potential of the future. In socialist China, prostitution was virtually eliminated. In the socialist Soviet Union, educational facilities at all levels granted equal access to men and women. (At the height of the Soviet era, 60 percent of engineers were women.) Maternity leave with full pay was universal; new mothers had no worry about losing their jobs. There were ample kindergartens, day care centers, nurseries, and playgrounds, as well as communal dining rooms. The concept of housekeeping as “women’s work” was abolished.
While the Soviet and Chinese revolutions made progress in many ways, they also had flaws we can learn from. They represent only the beginning of what we, the working class, can achieve in the future! This International Working Women’s Day, we must celebrate women as the holiday’s communist founders intended: for their historical contributions to building society and for their revolutionary strength.
But one day is not enough. We must dedicate ourselves to a lifetime of fighting sexism in our homes, at our jobs, and in the streets. In Pakistan, Progressive Labor Party is advancing the leadership of women in the fight against slave-labor working conditions for men and especially women. In PLP in Brooklyn, women are leading the fight for justice for Kyam Livingston, Shantel Davis, and Kimani Gray, all killed by racist and sexist kkkops. In PLP in Mexico, women comrades are at the forefront of the fight against racist education reforms and fascist state terror.
All around the world, waging anti-sexist battles is a way to put another nail in the bosses’ coffins. Help us bury the bosses and their profit system! Join PLP in the fight against sexism, racism, and capitalism. Let’s work together to create a communist society that meets all workers’ needs and frees us of exploitation. We have a world to win!
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What is International Working Women's Day?
International Women’s Day (IWD) is an international holiday on March 8 that celebrates women and their revolutionary power. It has strong roots in the communist movement. IWD first began in New York as “Women’s Day,” organized by the Socialist Party of America. In 1909, it became a commemoration of the 1908 strike of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. In the 1910 international meeting of communist and socialist leaders, known as the Second International, women members pushed to establish an International Women’s Day. By 1911, more than a million workers were celebrating IWD. Anti-sexist struggle continues to make it an historic day for all workers, women and men.
During Czarist Russia, the struggle for working-class women became synonymous with the open call for overthrowing the government. During World War I, the Russian Bolsheviks made IWD a demonstration of women workers against imperialism. On March 8, 1917, the women of St. Petersburg sparked and led the February Revolution, which in turn paved the way for the October revolution and the first workers’ state.