International Working Women’s Day: Only communism can eradicate sexism

Under capitalism the education system is driven by individualism, identity politics, and a fractured way of learning. Once a year during International Women’s Month, students learn about women artists, scientists, politicians and millionaires. International Working Women’s Day (March 8) is a holiday originally born from the working class as an antisexist celebration of women in the class struggle.
Yet, without communist analysis or leadershipthis holiday has been reduced to celebrating our oppressors of a different gender—women who are a part of and a proponent of the ruling class and their sexist ideas.
The Black communist Angela Davis says to be radical simply means “grasping at the root” and at the root of every worker’s struggle, especially a woman’s struggle, is capitalism. In other words, a network of global bosses committing crimes against workers for the sake of ridiculous amounts of profit. To keep this profit flowing, capitalist-driven schools are designed to train the next generation to be obedient  workers or join the ranks of militaries to fight overseas in imperialist wars. Under capitalism students will never learn what it means to be a revolutionary—it is only through confidence in the working class and struggle that our Party will grow.
One of the pillars of capitalism is the sexist ideology that family and household responsibilities are “women’s work.” For many women workers around the world this work is unpaid and is expected ON TOP OF the work that is required at a paying job. Women workers internationally  experience the contradiction of a system that tells workers it’s designed to be equal while simultaneously robbing or hiding their labor value from them. Capitalist bosses pump sexist ideology into mass media, schooling and laws to successfully isolate mothers and women caregivers from other workers and their potential to build working-class power.
This same system perpetuates the lie that women’s power is attained by becoming a better capitalist, maybe a manager or boss or by voting for a woman  politician who will somehow represent their collective interests.
Progressive Labor Party declares that in a fight for a world where sexism, racism and exploitation is completely SMASHED, workers need to unite—of all genders— to reject sexist and liberal ideas and resolve these contradictions through communism. A boss—regardless of gender—is still a boss. It is only as a united working-class that we will break our chains.
A woman's place is in the class struggle
Revolutionary women grow through  struggle and the contradictions that working-class women learn become sharper when they unite with other workers around the world. For example, housekeeping for hotels and business offices is one of the hardest jobs in any industry (they have more injuries than coal miners). In 2018, to demand better working conditions, thousands of housekeepers from 26 hotels throughout Chicago went on strike for a whole year! One woman worker stated that while she worked at the Hyatt Regency, out of the 200 housekeepers there, a third  were Mexican, a third  were Chinese, and most of the women with the highest seniority were Black. Bosses began to divide the department by race, paying the Chinese women to clean extra rooms above the cleaning quote of $5 per room. At first the Black and Mexican women were angry toward the Chinese women but instead of turning on each other, the women organized against the bosses!
“We could win a lower room quota with an hourly raise for everyone if we stayed together” (CPUSA, 3/20). The more workers fight back, the more we learn that we need all workers - Black, Latin, Asian, indigenous and white to win.
In the 1960s, women of the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican revolutionary group, sought to challenge sexist ideologies and practices within Latin American culture and demanded that their male leaders make smashing sexism a priority. Members, such as Connie Cruz and Gloria Rodriguez understood that ‘machismo’ (overly aggressive masculinity) was a result of capitalism and emphasized that to fight it, this capitalist system must be destroyed.
In 1917, Latin workers were ordered to accept toxic “baths” as they crossed the Mexican-American border. Inspectors attempted to pull women off of a trolley on their way to work but the brave fighters refused, knowing some of the workers were photographed nude or previously set on fire. 17-year old Carmelita Torres led the fight with other women domestic workers, demanding a refund of their trolley fare and convinced hundreds more women and men to protest the racist, sexist terror.
All of these women workers were catapulted into their revolutionary potential by making a decision to build a base and fight-back against their rotten living and working conditions.  Their leadership shows that sustainable change cannot be done alone but manifests when workers organize with other workers who agree that ‘enough is enough.’
Women will lead an international communist revolution
Women workers should be communists because mainstream feminism often fails to consider class analysis and race. PLP is anti-sexist and recognizes that in our fight for communist revolution it is the most super-exploited members of our class that have the sharpest analysis and ability to lead. Women workers internationally who have fought racism, sexism, and capitalism are at the front lines of our fight, united with every member of our class.
The Progressive Labor Party is, and has always been committed to communist revolution and struggling with men and women to fight against deceitful bosses around racism, sexism and all forms of exploitation. PLP understands that sexism is one of the exploitative tools utilized by the bosses to divide men and women workers, and to justify assaults, verbal attacks or paying women less.
Organizing with all workers, especially Black and Latin women workers who see these contradictions the sharpest is paramount to smash this system that has us all in a wretched bind. The more hands we can turn into fists in favor of an international working class, the more we can work towards a society free of exploitation and terror. Fight for communism!