For Women’s Freedom, For Communism! – International Working Women’s Day

International Working Women’s Day is a tradition that dates back to 1911. Proposed by Clara Zetkin to the Women’s International Secretariat of the Socialist International, it was intended to be a day of demands for the rights of working women. More than a century later, Women’s Day has been completely stripped of its revolutionary content.

Under the pressure of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas, March 8 has become a festival of anecdotes, where we celebrate the achievements of some “exceptional” women to warm the hearts of liberal moralists! The bourgeois media bombard us with portraits of women who succeed in traditionally male circles or hold CEO positions. They try to get us excited about parity in governments or the increase in female representatives in parliaments. In reality, a victory for a bourgeois woman is by no means a victory for all women, much less for women of the working class. These “exceptional” women are only asking for the same exploitative power as their male counterparts, that is, the power to harness the labor power of both women and men.

Shattering the glass ceiling for a few privileged women does not help improve conditions for women in general. In fact, the wages of working women are almost always lower than those of working men, and they occupy more precarious jobs. The organizations of the working class must therefore put forward the demands of working women, since their poor conditions have an impact on the whole proletariat. From the onset of big industry, capitalists used women to drive wages down, to the detriment of all workers. It is through the union and revolutionary struggle that women have been able to improve their lot and obtain the same treatment as men. The unity of the whole proletariat is therefore essential for the emancipation of women – and all of humanity.

The current pandemic has only made the problem worse. Women everywhere are responsible for homeschooling, for childcare, for ensuring that the whole family has the necessary resources, and for taking care of elderly family members. The pandemic exposes yet again what the communists have been saying for nearly two centuries: domestic chores must be socialized. The emancipation of women will not be possible without the destruction of the bourgeois family, in which the woman has the role of first servant. The bourgeois family is an essential tool for the defense of the capitalist system and the private ownership of the means of production.

The feminist movement is vast and diverse. The struggle should not be dominated by the bourgeoisie and its representatives. The reforms granted by capitalists are nothing but sweets given out by the left hand, to be taken back by the right hand as soon as they judge that the economic or social situation no longer allows it. The first enemy of women is not men in themselves: it is capital which exploits them doubly and which sucks the labor force of all workers. Bourgeois feminism turns its weapons against men in general instead of inciting working women to unite against the capitalist class.

Comrades, workers, it is high time to restore the communist and revolutionary character of International Working Women’s Day! Working women have always been at the forefront of revolutionary struggles, as the heroic experiences of the Paris Commune and the Russian Revolution have shown! The revolutionary struggle must continue until the final victory: the dictatorship of the proletariat. Only the proletarian revolution can really ensure the emancipation of working women and all of humanity from capital!