This March 8, International Working Women’s Day, takes places amid a reactionary offensive by the far-right in many parts of the world. Simultaneously, there are strong expressions of struggle and mobilization in response to that offensive. ISL women take to the streets this March 8 to fight for the rights we have achieved and we organize with a clear strategy against patriarchy and capital, for a revolutionary, internationalist and socialist feminism!
Reactionary offensive of the far-right against gender rights
The far-right advances with a global offensive directed against women and LGBTQIA+ rights. This is part of a broader anti-social and anti-democratic agenda. Led by Donald Trump in the United States and followed by Javier Milei in Argentina to that of Giorgia Meloni in Italy, their goal is one and the same: to attack rights achieved with decades of struggle. Policies against gender-based violence are cut back, comprehensive sexual education is persecuted, the right to abortion is criminalized and the LGBTQIA+ community is stigmatized.
These governments and movements do not act in isolation: they are an expression of a capitalist system in crisis. They attack care infrastructures with their cutbacks and promote “traditional” family values in order to unload austerity on the working majorities and reinforce the patriarchal order as a cornerstone of social control.
The answer is in the streets!
This offensive ignites the flame of the struggle. With every attack comes a response. In their every attempt to make us retreat, organization grows. Women and the LGBTQIA+ community rise up to defend the rights we have achieved and go for more, articulating our demands with the struggles of the working class and oppressed peoples.
The struggle for a free Palestine and against the genocide perpetrated by Zionism and supported by US and European imperialism; the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people against the Russian invasion without ceasing to fight against NATO and its imperialist plans in Eastern Europe; the solidarity of the peoples with the Venezuelan people against imperialist intervention and against the criminal US blockade of Cuba, or the growing mobilizations against Trump and ICE, are examples of this response that keep on growing. Similarly, the mass protests in Iran against the repressive regime as well as in defense of their independence against US and Israeli attacks, the defense of Rojava in Kurdistan or the struggle of the Saharawi people for their self-determination show how, in the face of violence and state reaction, women are at the forefront of the struggle for their rights, their freedom and their lives.
For a revolutionary and internationalist solution
The emancipation of women and the LGBTQIA+ community will not be the result of partial reforms or concessions from above. It requires a socialist and revolutionary orientation that starts at the recognition that gender oppression, although deeply intertwined with class exploitation, has its own dynamics. Integrating both dimensions into a common strategy is a necessary condition for a real transformation of society.
The struggle against femicides, for the right to legal and free abortion, for wage equality, for the full recognition of LGBTQIA+ identities and against all forms of violence cannot be isolated or fragmented. They need to be articulated, aimed to dismantle the material bases that sustain patriarchy and capitalism. It is not only a matter of achieving rights within the system, but of questioning the system that reproduces inequality, violence and oppression.
Confronting this structure implies comprehensively fighting capitalism in crisis, the patriarchal order that runs through it, structural racism, the colonial legacy and heteronormative imposition. These are not disconnected oppressions: they are part of a network that organizes exploitation and hierarchizes lives. Therefore, our response cannot be fragmented or merely defensive.
For struggles not to be diluted or absorbed by institutional projects that administer what already exists, it is necessary to build a revolutionary political tool, organized on a national and international scale. Only a conscious leadership, with a program and strategy, can carry the fight for a society without exploiters and oppressed.
That is why we say: let us not only fight to defend the crumbs from their table, let us fight to conquer the whole world, for all of us.
We say no to all cuts in social infrastructure, because it is women, migrants and the LGBTQIA+ community who are forced to absorb the crisis, and we demand massive public investment financed by expropriation of the rich and subject to democratic control by workers.
We say no to layoffs, wage cuts and increased work rates that affect working men and women first; instead, we fight for equal pay, shorter working hours with full wage compensation and redistribution of work among all.
We say no to the endless burden of unpaid care, upbringing and housework that falls on women; instead, we fight for the socialization of reproductive work, for collective childcare, medical care, kitchens and for care and upbringing structures to be organized socially and collectively, so that it is recognized as essential social work and ceases to be a private obligation of women.
The reformist variants that hope to humanize capitalism end up colliding with their own limits. History shows that it is not possible to eradicate gender oppression without attacking the social relations that sustain it. Nor is it possible to end capitalism without the active and organized participation of women and dissidents as the central political subject of the transformation.
This 8M we reaffirm that perspective. We mobilize not only to resist the attacks of the far-right, but to strengthen a revolutionary and internationalist alternative. Our struggle is for a deep reorganization of society, for a world where life is worth more than profit and to put an end to oppression, exploitation and violence.
Women’s and LGBTQIA+ Commission of the International Socialist League
