As of July 21, according to the New York Times, more than 600,000 workers worldwide have been killed by the coronavirus pandemic. In the U.S. alone, more than 140,000 workers have died and more than 58,000 are hospitalized with Covid-19 (COVID Tracking Project, 7/21). In the midst of this deadly siege, as the capitalist rulers push to “reopen” their economy and sacrifice our class for their profit, the burden of supporting and safeguarding workers has fallen primarily on women—and especially upon Black, Latin, Asian, indigenous, and immigrant women.
The profit system creates a stark division between paid and unpaid labor like housekeeping and childrearing, and between the status accorded to “women’s work” and jobs mostly reserved for men. With Covid-19 intensifying every toxic aspect of capitalism, woman workers are the most economically and socially vulnerable and the most physically exposed to the lasting effects of Covid-19.
Capitalism cannot exist without sexism, the super-exploitation and special oppression of women. According to a 2018 report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, which considered both wage differentials and the gap in responsibility for childcare, women earned just 49 cents for every dollar earned by men over a 15-year period (Vox, 4/2/19). When the capitalists pay women less, they’re able to use sexist inequality to lower wages for men workers as well. Long before the pandemic surfaced, sexism infected our class through the objectification of women and gender discrimination against gay and trans workers. Most of all, sexism divides women and men workers and fractures our fightback.
Only under communism, when we abolish money and smash for-profit labor, will we see egalitarian, collectivized living. Only then will we break ourselves free from our sexist and racist chains.
While working men are dying from Covid-19 at even higher rates, women “make up more than half of low-wage workers in every state, leaving them in particularly vulnerable positions as the economy sheds jobs at an unprecedented rate. Almost 90 percent of nurses are women, as are the majority of child care workers, housekeepers, cleaners, maids, nursing assistants and home health aids in elder care and rehabilitation facilities” (NBC News, 4/20).
Internationally, women workers have been hit hardest by sexist and racist inequality and violence, the bosses’ deadliest weapon against our class. Thousands of women working in nursing homes and hospitals are perishing from capitalist neglect and the lack of protective gear. Millions more are unemployed after working in industries shuttered by the pandemic or needing to stay home with school-aged children. In the U.S., women account for 55 percent of the 20.5 million thrown into unemployment, with the highest jobless rates among Black and Latin women (NPR, 5/9). In India, women are more likely to lose their jobs and to be pushed into arranged marriages, which limit their future autonomy (NYT, 7/15). In Britain, Black and Asian working women reported struggling to feed their families (fawcettsociety.org). From the U.S. to Mexico to South Africa, reports of domestic violence have spiked.
Globally, women workers carry out 12.5 billion hours of unpaid care work every day. If valued at minimum wage, this would represent a contribution of at least $10.9 trillion a year, more than three times the size of the global tech industry (OxFam International).
Under capitalism, health care is not only abysmal but also notoriously sexist and racist. Studies have shown that women are more likely to be inadequately treated for pain or dementia (Guardian, 11/20/17) and suffer a higher death rate after heart attacks (MedCity News, 5/4/19). Two of three pregnancy-related maternal deaths would be preventable with adequate medical care (NYT, 7/13).
Even before Covid-19, Black women in the U.S. were bearing the brunt of the healthcare system’s sexism and racism. They were 243 percent more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, 22 percent more likely to die from heart disease, and 71 percent more likely to die from cervical cancer (npr.org, 12/7/17). This criminal situation has only gotten worse during the pandemic. In April, Deborah Gatewood, a Black nurse who worked for 31 years in a Detroit hospital, was denied treatment by hospital doctors four times before eventually dying from Covid-19. Murderous neglect is par for the course in a system that “routinely treat[s] black people’s pain and suffering far less seriously than that of other patients. It is the result of preposterous, anti-science assumptions [doctors] hold about black people, which their medical schools and hospitals still have not forced them to unlearn” (Guardian, 5/4).
As Black and Latin workers confront police violence and are killed by kkkops, it is often the mothers and sisters of these lost workers who march to the front and lead us in the fightback. They are the warriors and leaders we need against sexism and racism!
Since December 2019, the family of Alex Flores, who was murdered by the Los Angeles Police Department, has been fighting back. The political leadership of their marches and organizing is largely led by the women of Alex’s family. Many of their husbands stay home with the children, a great example of what life will be like under communism, when all labor will be collective.
In Brooklyn, the family of Shantel Davis, murdered by the New York Police Department in 2012, continues to lead antiracist fightback in the name of Shantel and so many others killed by capitalism. And this past week, we remembered and continued to fight for Kyam Livingston, a 37-year-old mother killed by medical neglect in Brooklyn Central Booking in 2013. For seven years now, Kyam’s family, led by her mother, have been calling the bosses to account.
Only a mass working-class revolution, led by a revolutionary communist party, will free our class. Workers must be wary of the rise of women politicians who have risen to serve the capitalist class. They have been handed “power” only to use it against us.
Hillary Clinton’s shameful career as a racist misleader who championed mass incarceration and the deeper impoverishment of welfare recipients, made it clear that feminism and liberal identity politics are dead ends for the working class. Calls to break the corporate world’s “glass ceiling” are supported by the capitalist rulers for a reason. These backward ideas are designed to confuse women workers’ class loyalties and to funnel their anti-sexist anger into individualism and empty electoral reform.
Is that antisexist? No!
Michelle Obama, often touted as the feminist pinnacle of “Black excellence,” encouraged workers to vote for Clinton, saying: "The best qualified candidate in this last race was a woman…and she wasn't perfect, but she was way more perfect than many of the alternatives” (Newsweek, 4/5/18).
Is that antisexist? No!
In 2019, Lori Lightfoot, former assistant U.S. attorney, became Chicago's first Black woman mayor and the city's first to identify as lesbian. She then fought against a citywide education strike, arguing against increased school funding and staffing while handing out over a billion dollars in workers’ taxes to finance private real estate developments (see CHALLENGE, 2/20). By attacking the mostly women workers, Lightfoot also attacked those who will get hurt the most—students.
Is that antisexist? No!
The Progressive Labor Party fights against sexism and capitalist feminism. It is crucial to attack sexist practices and understand how capitalist crises heighten the sexist and racist super-exploitation of sections of the working class.
As women workers internationally fight to keep themselves and our class brothers and sisters alive, we must continue to fight for a world that follows their leadership. Above all, we must stay vigilant against liberal misleaders who try to pacify our calls for revolution with reformist crumbs and the promise of seats at the bosses’ table.
Workers of the world, unite to smash the whole damn profit system!