In commemoration of International Working Women’s Day (IWWD), all revolutionary mass organizations must take up the task of creating a militant, class-conscious women’s movement. In the face of deepening fascistization and militarization, the task of mobilizing proletarian women around their demands grows ever more urgent. Women of our class are subjected to all kinds of exploitation, oppression, humiliation and degradation in the service of maintaining the current system of U.S. imperialism. In addition to the ongoing issues of prostitution/sexual commodification, domestic violence, rape, sex pests, wage disparity, and austerity measures against our families, women of our class face increasingly more open and direct violence from the state.
In order to move forward in casting off oppressive patriarchal relations reproduced by the current system of U.S. Imperialism, we must fully understand the indisputable truth that the subjugation of women begins with the development of class relations and the emergence of property rights. In recognizing the undeniable primacy of class in the struggle for the emancipation of women, we must rectify the errors from the previous period of work that have been detrimental towards materially advancing the struggle of the female masses. We must insist upon demarcating ourselves from reactionary bourgeois “feminist” efforts, which do not align with our class interests.
As the bourgeois state unleashes more terroristic means by which the old ruling class struggles to cling to its position within the decaying empire, and the process of fascistization accelerates, the already precarious position of exploited and oppressed women of the world deteriorates further. This is particularly true for the nationally oppressed women who face a double or triple oppression. International Working Women’s Day this year falls at a time when the bloodthirsty imperialist system is increasing its attacks against women of the global south in oppressed nations such as Palestine, Venezuela, Lebanon, and Iran. We salute the national resistance efforts in all nations facing such imperialist attacks, and unequivocally support their right to defense and full national self-determination. We affirm our support for the struggle of the oppressed nations against any and all capitulationist actors making concessions to the American empire and its Zionist outpost.
Domestically, within the belly of the beast, some of the most prominent attacks against women currently are the life-threatening restrictions or outright prohibitions on reproductive healthcare, such as abortion. The consequences of this fall heaviest on poor and proletarian women whose health needs are often ignored or outright criminalized, and who, unlike the bourgeois woman, lack the resources to either travel to other more lenient jurisdictions or pay their way out of legal repercussions. They do this to put working women in a more precarious position, to control their bodies, to pressure them to accept their own oppression and exploitation, for if you must feed a child you are willing to negotiate for less. This allows for the reproduction of the bourgeois family system, which exists for the sake of private property. We must propagate far and wide the reality that attacks on abortion are attacks against the working class. Women of the ruling class have always found loopholes due to their wealth. We must fight against these attacks on our reproductive rights uncompromisingly.
In a similar vein, the state is carrying out increasingly targeted attacks against necessary healthcare for transgender people, and furthering this through tightening legal restrictions on legal change of gender. Furthermore, we must consider the targeting of transgender people more broadly: not just in the form of legal and policy restrictions, but also as well as overt violence enacted by reactionaries. This terror manifests as threats, doxxing campaigns, physical attacks/abuse, and murder. These kinds of targeted attacks from the ruling class have grave implications for all women of our class, who already face severe repression and oppression at the hands of the capitalist state. They disregard or ignore the truth that gender is principally social, and the reality of natural variation in human appearance and self expression. Reactionary attacks against working-class LGBT people originate in patriarchal social relations, which in turn originate from class society. As such, working-class LGBT people share a common class interest for the emancipation of all proletarian women.
While the state rolls back demands we have already fought for and won around basic rights to healthcare, women continue to face horrific violence at home and in the streets. It is a grim reality that nearly 50% of women have been the victim of some kind of domestic abuse, sexual violence, or stalking. Likewise, sexual exploitation and trafficking in the forms of pornography and prostitution remain to be scourges upon poor and working women. These issues, too, are colored by class and national oppression. Domestic violence is nearly three times more common in the poorest 25% of American neighborhoods than the richest 25%, and an overwhelming majority of women engaged in prostitution report doing so due to poverty. We must fight and resist all attacks on women, and organize both working men and women to eliminate such acts in our communities.
The economic root of these social conditions is the capitalist system itself. As capitalism enters into periods of crisis, as we presently see, wages decrease, unemployment increases, and the burden of social reproduction is shifted on to working class families. We see in real time how these trends are being carried out, and are especially targeting the most vulnerable and socially oppressed sections of the U.S. population. The targeting of immigrants in the ongoing ICE raids is one example of this, as has been pointed out by The Partisan. So, too, is the declining economic condition of women in this country. The revolutionary women’s publication La Obrera, has recently called attention to the fact that the gender pay-gap has increased for two consecutive years. December 2025 statistics show that 91,000 women ages 20 and older left the workplace that month, while unemployment rates of Black and Latina women continued to rise to 7.3% and 4.5%, respectively, compared to the national average of 4.4%. This all occurs as the ruling class laments over slow population growth resulting in “strained economic growth,” attacks on our reproductive rights, and assaults on workplace protections for women. These are not bugs of capitalism, but features. These crises will recur and deepen as long as imperialism exists, thus casting the lowest and deepest sections of women further into poverty, and in turn making us more prone to domestic violence, sexual exploitation, etc.
In order to elevate the class consciousness of proletarian women and take a principled stance for their class interests against all oppressive and exploitative social relations, it is necessary to take up the cause of women’s emancipation in all sectors of struggle. The revolutionary mass organizations, such as New Labor Organizing Committee, Revolutionary Student Union, and the People’s Defense Committee, must creatively and forcefully develop campaigns that mobilize, politicize, and organize women in their respective sectors around their demands, in particular working, poor and nationally oppressed women, all in service of the struggle for political Power for our class. We must formalize and strengthen departmental work within our organizations, pay special attention to training up women leaders, and struggle against errors such as subjectivism, liberalism, and amateurism as they manifest themselves within the women’s movement.
This cause can only be furthered by uniting with the broadest and deepest of the proletarian female masses to mobilize in class struggle based on shared principles. We must resist co-optation by the counter-insurgent liberal feminist ploys which divert any progressive momentum into the machine of reformism and revisionism. Repeating this mistake will only work to the detriment of the exploited and oppressed masses of women who face daily hardship at the hands of bourgeois dictatorship.
If our goal is to mobilize the female masses against a common class enemy, we cannot allow ourselves to cede ground to that enemy. As revolutionaries-in formation, it is essential for us to remain steadfast in our commitment towards waging tireless struggle for women’s emancipation as part of the greater struggle for socialist revolution. The People’s Defense Committee, New Labor Organizing Committee, and Revolutionary Student Union, honor the struggle of the oppressed women of the world by taking up this historic task for the advancement of proletarian women as part of a greater socialist future. This is the only way we can, and will win!
LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL WORKING WOMEN’S DAY!
FORGE A REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN’S MOVEMENT!
UNLEASH THE FURY OF WOMEN AS A MIGHTY FORCE FOR REVOLUTION!
People’s Defense Committee
New Labor Organizing Committee
Revolutionary Student Union
