Today is a day of solidarity. Across the globe women of all nationalities, races, and creeds find themselves being massively exploited and abused at the hand of ruling class values. On International Women’s Day, we must recognize the continued oppression of women. Century after century passes and women continue to be under the boot of patriarchal ruling class oppression. Year after year we continue to suffer while the ruling class divides us and destroys our movements with the enforcement of ruling class ideology and values.

In oppressed countries, the capitalists both domestic and foreign abuse women on a scale unforeseen. In sweatshops women and children are worked to the bone for almost no pay, producing a surplus value of over 350% on average. While working as near slaves to capitalist production, women are constantly and openly sexually abused and assaulted without hope for justice. In some countries working women in who are raped are often forced to marry their rapist or suffer jail time for speaking out against a man. Sex trade and slavery are at an all-time high. The term “women’s rights” can hardly be uttered. Between the never-ending drive for higher and higher profits and an unrestricted brutal patriarchy, our sisters in the international working class need our solidarity more than words can describe.

Here in the developed capitalist countries, women continue to face exploitation and abuse as well. Women continue to make less than men for equal work. The rise of the fascist right-wing, the “alt-right,” has targeted women as an enemy that has made too much progress. Toxic masculinity, machismo, etc., which is cultivated and culturally distributed by the ruling class, continues to drive misery into the life of women. Domestic abuse, sexual assault, and high levels of exploitation go on without justice. Representation is on the terms of the ruling class and only accepted when in line with ruling class values. The relative freedom of women in the developed world is tied to the tether of ruling class patriarchy.

Yet, in the face of these oppressions, the ruling class continue to interfere with the women’s movement. Liberal feminism drives a stake into the heart of the women’s liberation. Symbolism and money are seen as the means of liberation. The protest is reduced to standing naked in public, covered in paint, to be mocked at by the misogynists that are supposed to be protested. Freedom is seen as the image of the woman capitalist, who abuses women in the same way that male capitalists have. The liberal feminist movement is often found to be exclusive to upper-middle-class white women. Women of color time and time again are ignored. The fact that women of color are often exploited and abused at higher levels than white women are ignored by the liberal “feminists.”

The time for a real movement of working women is needed. The hypocritical symbolism of liberalism as deterred the women’s movement. It has replaced action with symbols, representation for a check, and freedom for the right to exploit as ruling class men do. We emphasis today on Working Women’s Day because it is labor that unites us. While in different parts of the world women may face harder conditions, it is labor that allows us to connect. While women of color are in a more destitute position than white women, it is labor that unites us. It is also labor that unites us with the advanced elements among working men, it unites us with the struggles of the LGBTQ+ community. Wage-slavery is the uniting force amongst all strata of oppressed people. It is by uniting against the capitalist-imperialists that we will see true liberation. The division and exploitation created and distributed to the population by the ruling class, these capitalist-imperialists, have been created and distributed to maintain their power while keeping us powerless. To defeat sexism, misogyny, toxic masculinity, and inequality we must defeat their parent: capitalism.

Working women unite! Working people unite! Death to capitalism! Death to the imperialists! We have nothing to lose but our chains!

Categories: U.S. News, Women and LGBTQIA+