Women fight – March 8, International Day of working women

Some journalists qualify the twentieth century as the women “discovery” century and the “women peaceful revolution” century.

The twenty-first century, they add, will be the true female century, by the fact that more and more women are highlighted every day in science, art, economics, politics and many areas previously reserved for men only.

Being so, in the vicinity of a new March 8th, we should celebrate the improvements in the women life quality around the world.

Nothing is further from reality and nothing is nearer to the women current conditions than their conditions at the beginnings of capitalism, when the employers’ brutality at Cotton factory put fire to the plant while rebelled women workers were inside it, as a warning to their claims (according to the most publicized version – translator’s note). Later, in 1910, the Socialist Women’s Conference held in Copenhagen, accepted Clara Zetkin’s proposal, leader of the Second International, to set up an International Day for the working woman, a day of combat and a day to honor those martyrs.

As time went by, the bourgeoisie and imperialism, accompanied by fake socialists, distorted the meaning of this day, taking away its class character and forwarding it as a day to celebrate the “sisterhood of women”.

With misleading tributes the UN, the governments, the media and the companies point at women oppression as an overcome matter. They highlight as women’s triumphs the President Cristina Kirchner of Argentina, Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica or Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s successor. Not to mention those who reached the summit of international politics, for example, Angela Merkel, German chancellor or Hillary Clinton, her counterpart in the U.S.

All of them participate or lead governments and, at best, award small reforms and never solve the fundamental problems of workers and peoples. They do not differ from other governments run by men, because in both cases they defend a social class that derives its profits from the exploitation of our own lives: the capitalists.

In this unfair system there is no way out for working women. The current global crisis starkly shows this unfair system in Europe, in Arab nations and in the Middle East. There will not be women’s liberation without triumphant socialist revolutions. Furthermore, these triumphs will not be possible without incorporating in the fight half of the world working class, that is to say: the working women. This is the only way to build a new society free of oppression, exploitation and inequality: a socialist society.

Source: Lucha Socialista nº 217, March 2011

Translation: Wilma Olmo Correa