This March 8 the third international women’s strike will take place. The parties and groups that are part of Anticapitalist Network, in unity with the Turkish SEP, have deployed an international campaign for the strike and mobilizations of 8M with a revolutionary, socialist and class perspective.
Soon after his inauguration as president of Brazil, ultra-reactionary Bolsonaro has already shows his misogynist and homophobic face: he eliminated the LGBT+ community from state human rights programs, he wants to eliminate the right to abortion in cases of pregnancy by rape, and also to increase the pension age for men and women by two years (while continuing to deny the unpaid domestic work we do). undoubtedly, the massive Ele Nao movement and its allies won’t stop in the face of these retrograde attacks.
Bolsonaro’s offensive is very similar to those of other right-wing governments, such as Trump against the right to abortion or Putin against the LGBT+ community, but also of those who, in the name of progressivism or socialism, repress and apply austerity measures against their people, like Ortega or Maduro. The European Parliament itself has recognized, in a special resolution on February 13, that “there is a global offensive against gender rights”.
However, for the third consecutive year, this March 8, international day of working women, an important class action will shake the whole world: strikes, demonstrations and all kinds of combative actions will come together during the third international women’s strike. While last year actions were carried out in around 60 countries, this time it is expected that there will be actions in more than 80.
If this fourth world feminist wave does not stop and moves forward, it is precisely because the anti-rights offensive has deepened. This 8M will find us taking our fight to the streets in each country, in unity, fighting for the rights that we have already conquered and that they want to take away and to attain rights that we still lack: against sexist violence and femicides, for legal abortion, sex education, contraception, wage equality, secular states. In short, fighting against this capitalist and patriarchal system, which is the father of all violence across the globe.
Some examples of struggle
- The Spanish State is a land where the feminist fight stands strong. on January 15 there were protests of women in many cities for two reasons: 1) supporting their Andalucian sisters on the inauguration of the new right wing government of Vox-PP-Ciudadanos, and 2) uniting forces towards the 8M strike. Though the main unions (CCOO, UGT, USO) called for partial strikes, others (CGT, CNT) called for a general strike. Meaning, the movement broadens.
- In Argentina, another pillar of the feminist wave, thanks to the initiative of the anticapitalist left, the assemblies for 8M have demanded the main unions, the CGT and CTAs, for a general strike. Even before, in several public speeches, dozens of organizations -including reformist sectors- have expressed the political radicalization of the movement: “patriarchy and capitalism will not fall, we must overthrow them”. Though former president Cristina Kirchner has called to unify green (pro-choice) and blue (anti-rights) hankerchiefs, the feminist movement below, with the youth at the vanguard, ratifies its struggle, is clearly anti-church and includes the LGBT+ movement.
- In Chile, the feminist 8M coordination calls for a general strike with a program with labor, reproductive, healthcare and sexual rights demands. This comes on the heels of the 2018 feminist May actions, with occupations of universities across the country, that pushed sexual education onto the public agenda. in July, the green wave mobilized thousands on the streets. And the year ended with over a thousand women participating in the first Pluri-national Meeting of Women in Struggle. That articulation mobilizes workers of the public and private sectors, despite the brake of the bureaucratic union leadership.
- In Ireland, one of the most Catholic countries in Europe, through a referendum, women and the people scored an important victory last May, eliminating the prohibition of the right to abortion that had been imposed on the Constitution by the Catholic Church. the yes vote was overwhelming: over 66%. And the feminist mobilization hasn´t stopped, so in December both houses of the Congress, despite conservative pressures, approved a legal abortion law.
- In the United States, cradle of the Me Too movement, women lead teachers’ strikes, Black and Latina mobilizations against racism and in defense of immigrants, and there is a political turn to the left. It isn’t casual that the Feminism for the 99% manifesto, by Nancy Fraser, Cinzia Arruzza and Tithi Batthacharya was authored there. In in, they affirm: “feminism must not begin or end at seeing women at the top of society. It must begin with those below and fight for the world they deserve, and that means targeting capitalism. Feminism must be anti-capitalist, eco-socialist and anti-racism”.
In other countries, with their own rhythms and intensities, women, youth and LGBT+ movement, resist and confront similar attacks, which are part of a more general offensive with which the capitalist class tries to reverse their crisis.
New old debates
In the heat of the feminist revolution that crosses the world, not a few political debates have reactivated. Feminist organization of liberal and reformist nature seek to dilute the most advanced claims, the questioning the institutions of the bourgeois state and, above all, the class contradictions. For this reason, for example, they propose “strikes and mobilizations only of women” on 8M, without criticizing bourgeois opposition or the Catholic Church and its evangelical allies.
Other currents hold similar positions, such autonomist feminism or the new radical feminism that reedits its version of half a century ago. The previous is anti-parties, an anarchist conception that is functional to bourgeois political power. The latter is trans-excluding, almost biologicist. And both place men, instead of the prevailing economic-social system: capitalism, as the main enemy. In fact, like the reformists, they share a poli-classicist and divisive approach to struggles.
Unlike them, Juntas y a la Izquierda and our parties across the world, raise the flags of our classist and revolutionary feminism.
We work towards the greatest possible unity of action of women and the LGBT+ movement to mobilize on the streets, while we frame the feminist struggle in the strategic struggle of the working class as a whole, the youth and other sectors to defeat the father of exploitation and oppression: the capitalist and patriarchal system.
In the remaining days until 8M, we call for a general strike with mobilization in all countries. We demand the trade unions call for active general strikes, to massify the demonstrations, flood the streets and make the world tremble. We fight for each and every one of our gender rights and also against the economic austerity plans that the IMF, the World Bank, the G20, the European Union and other imperialist groups discharge on us and our peoples through the different bourgeois governments .
We are anti-patriarchal because we want to put an end to all gender inequality. We are sexual dissidents because those allied identities are also discriminated and oppressed. We are anti-clerical because we demand secular states and reject all fundamentalism and religious interference in public life. We are anti-capitalist because this system is the father of all violence. We are internationalists because our struggle has no borders and is the same throughout the planet. And because our struggle is not only social and cultural but also political, we organize and build national parties and an international current because our destination is the revolution and socialism.
Juntas y a a Izquierda