Women & Marxism

Sarah Palin: A Choice for Women?
By Shane Jones in the USA
Friday, 17 October 2008
Many in the US corporate media have hailed “progressive” the choice of Sarah Palin by John McCain as his vice presidential running mate. Women workers are being told that they “finally have someone to vote for!” But even the most cursory glance at Palin’s politics is enough to show that she stands for big business interests, and is only using the gender question as a fig leaf.

International Women’s Day: Is “affirmative action” the answer to discrimination against women?
By Miriam Martin in Vancouver
Friday, 07 March 2008
The idea of guaranteed quotas for women on trade union and party committees has become fashionable. But there are no shortcut solutions to this problem. Inequality exists because of capitalism and will continue to exist as long as capitalism exists. This inequality can only be fought by a united struggle of the whole labour movement. Only when capitalism is abolished and a system of democratic planning introduced will we be able to create the material basis for all inequality and prejudice to whither away once and for all.

Remembering International Women’s Day 1917 - The gains made for women by the Russian Revolution
By Miriam Martin
Thursday, 08 March 2007
Today is International Working Women’s Day – originally instituted not as a day to celebrate, but as a day for militancy and action. Now many liberal institutions and feminist organizations recognize International Women’s Day, but few acknowledge its roots or its historical significance. They have in fact attempted to remove the class content of this day of struggle.

International Working Women's Day - By V.I. Lenin
By V.I. Lenin
Wednesday, 08 March 2006
"The working woman and the peasant woman are oppressed by capital, but over and above that, even in the most democratic of the bourgeois republics, they remain, firstly, deprived of some rights because the law does not give them equality with men; and secondly - and this is the main thing - they remain in "household bondage", they continue to be “household slaves", for they are overburdened with the drudgery of the most squalid, backbreaking and stultifying toil in the kitchen and the family household." V.I.Lenin, March 4, 1921

International Women's Day for Sel-Fex textile workers in Caracas
By Jorge Martín
Wednesday, 08 March 2006
The early origins of International Women’s Day are closely linked to the struggle of women textile workers. This year’s International Women’s Day finds 240 textile workers, mainly women, occupying the premises of the Sel-Fex company in Caracas. Their struggle is no longer just a struggle against the bosses for concrete demands, but a struggle to defend the Bolivarian revolution and to build a better future for Venezuelan working women and all working people in general.

Women and Revolution - On International Working Women's Day 2005
By Miriam Martin in Vancouver
Tuesday, 08 March 2005
Mainstream feminism has attempted to reduce March 8th to a vague and depoliticised celebration of the female sex as a homogenous group, but to socialists and working class women the world over, it is a day for mobilizing, a day of class struggle. It was in fact first launched by Clara Zetkin at the second International Conference of Women Socialists, held in Copenhagen in 1910, with the aim of mobilizing women for the struggle against bourgeois domination.


The Emancipation of Women in Russia before and after the Russian Revolution - Part Two
By Elisabetta Rossi
Tuesday, 30 March 2004
On March 8, International Working Women’s Day, we published the first part of this article. The second part deals with the negative effects of the Stalinist degeneration of the soviet state and how this led to the undoing of all the work the Bolsheviks had started in their attempts to achieve a genuine emancipation of women.

Pakistan: March 8 - International Working Women's Day
By PTUDC
Monday, 08 March 2004
International Working Women’s day was celebrated in Lahore. It was organized by the Pakistan Trade Union Defense Campaign (PTUDC), Youth For International Socialism (YFIS) and the People’s Youth Organization (PYO). The seminar was on International Working Women’s Day and the inauguration of the book specially published for this occasion ‘Natasha—A Bolshevik Woman Organizer”.

Britain: Women enter battle
By Pat Reet
Monday, 08 March 2004
The key role played by women in the 1984-1985 miners' strike has been an inspiration to working class women everywhere. Many other issues affecting women have yet to be fought. Cuts in education, housing, transport and health just to name a few. Originally published in 1986.

The Emancipation of Women in Russia before and after the Russian Revolution - Part One
By Elisabetta Rossi
Monday, 08 March 2004
To celebrate International Working Women's Day we are publishing an article on women and the Russian Revolution. It shows how that single event did more for women than any other struggle that had come before it and indeed after as well. First published (July 18, 2002) in issue Number 5 of 'In difesa del marxismo', the theoretical magazine of the Italian Marxist journal FalceMartello.

Mexico - Genocide against women workers
By Norma Edith Ramírez H, Militante - México
Monday, 24 November 2003
On the occasion of the International Day against Violence against women we are publishing this article on the murders of women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. More than 4,000 women, young workers and students, have disappeared since 1993 in this Mexican city in the US border. Recent investigations have uncovered a network linking these disappearances to drugs, smuggling, political corruption, etc.


From the rice fields to the modern day call centers - Marxism vs. Feminism. Part two.
By Sonia Previato
Thursday, 10 October 2002
Following on from our publication of Part One of this article to commemorate March 8, International Working Women’s Day, we are publishing Part Two, which starts with the role of women in the Italian resistance movement and then goes on to analyse the Italian feminist movement from the Second World War up until today.

From the rice fields to the modern day call centers - Marxism vs. Feminism. Part one.
By Sonia Previato
Thursday, 10 October 2002
Tomorrow, March 8, is International Working Women’s Day, and to mark this important event we are publishing this article. It was first printed in issue Number 5 of ‘In difesa del marxismo’, the theoretical magazine of the Italian Marxist journal FalceMartello. Although originally written for an Italian audience we believe it is of interest to labour movement activists and youth around the world.

Rape cases highlight terrible plight of women in Pakistan
By Sadaf Zahra
Wednesday, 10 July 2002
Sadaf Zahra looks at the terrible situation in Pakistan where rapes and killings are done in the name of family honour, and are rarely investigated by the police. In areas where tribal customs still prevail, it is not uncommon for public punishment to be inflicted on women as a form of retaliation against their families. Such a case occurred recently in the village of Meerwala where a woman was subjected to gang-rape under the decision of a tribal council.

The role of women in the trade unions and the struggle of the PTUDC
By Rukhsana Manzoor
Friday, 19 April 2002
This is a report from Pakistan on the conditions of women workers and the activities and programme of the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign on this question.

Equal Value in the NHS: Fight for equal pay!
By Peter Doyle
Wednesday, 17 April 2002
Peter Doyle, an organiser for the public sector union Unison in Cumbria, Northern England, reports on the Equal Value claims that his union region is submitting to the government to get women workers in traditional "women's jobs" in the health service the same levels of pay as workers in traditional "men's jobs". They are on the verge of an important victory.

The Abortion Referendum in Ireland
By Phil Mitchinson
Friday, 08 March 2002
The Irish population in a referendum has just rejected a government move to further restrict women's limited access to abortions. This is a blow for the reactionaries but the right to abortion is still out of reach for most Irish women, being available only to those who can afford to travel to Britain.

Female immigration - Maximum Surplus Value
By Marina Kosara, from the YS, Vienna
Friday, 08 March 2002
We are publishing a letter about the conditions of female immigrants to Europe written by Marina Kosara, a member of the Young Socialists in Vienna who works with immigrants.

Understanding a sister's struggle: "In The Name Of Tradition"
By Gaye D. C.
Tuesday, 05 February 2002
This is a short article about the terrible conditions women face in Nigeria.

The origins of women's oppression
By Rob Sewell
Wednesday, 05 September 2001
While middle class feminists regard the oppression of women as an inherent biological trait of men, Marxism explains that the root of women's oppression lies not in biology, but in social conditions. Marxism sees the liberation of working class women as a part of the struggle for the liberation of the working class as a whole. While feminists set women against men, the socialist movement attempts to forge solidarity between male and female workers in a common struggle against capitalist exploitation.

Marxism versus feminism - The class struggle and the emancipation of women
By Alan Woods
Thursday, 19 July 2001
For Marxists, the root cause of all forms of oppression consists in the division of society into classes. For many feminists, on the other hand, the oppression of women is rooted in the nature of men. It is not a social but a biological phenomenon. This is an entirely static, unscientific and undialectical conception of the human race. It is an unhistorical vision of the human condition, from which profoundly pessimistic conclusions must flow. For if we accept that there is something inherent in men which causes them to oppress women, it is difficult to see how the present situation will ever be remedied. The conclusion must be that the oppression of women by men has always existed and therefore, presumably, will always exist.

Marxism and the emancipation of women
By Ana Muñoz and Alan Woods
Wednesday, 08 March 2000
Marxism has always been at the forefront of the cause of women's emancipation. The 8th of March (International Women's Day) is a red letter day for us as it symbolises the struggle of working class women against capitalism, oppression and discrimination throughout the world. We are publishing an updated version of the document we published last year on March 8, where we outline the first steps given by Marxism to fight for women's rights, what the first successful revolution meant for the emancipation of women, conditions of women under capitalism both in advanced and Third World countries and pose the question of how to eliminate inequality between men and women for good.

Sylvia Pankhurst - Suffragette and class fighter
By Jen Pickard
Saturday, 01 May 1982
The life of Sylvia Pankhurst is rich in experience for all activists in the labour movement. The names of the Pankhurst family are synonymous with the struggle to win the vote for women, but what distinguished Sylvia Pankhurst's approach from that of her mother Emmeline and her sister Christabel were class issues. It resulted in the 1920s, after nearly twenty years of struggle, with Emmeline standing as Tory Parliamentary candidate and Sylvia becoming a founder member of the British Communist Party. The seeds of such a divide were there from the early days of the suffragette organisation.