Socialist Struggle India

As International Women’s Day approaches, we face a world where the forces of misogynistic reaction are sharpening their knives. 

With Trump back in power, the most openly sexist, racist, and authoritarian administration in modern U.S. history has started an all-round assault on women, LGBTQI+ generally and in particular trans people, migrants, People of Colour, those with disabilities, and the oppressed in general. 

This is both a symptom and an accelerator of an emboldened far right that is on the offensive across many other parts of the world. It is out to shore up the same rotten system of capitalist exploitation that has division, oppression, violence, colonial subjugation and genocide in its backbone.

“Our country faces the return of the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes,” Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, said when addressing the ‘March for Life’, the nation’s largest anti-abortion gathering in Washington in January. 

This “pro-life” rhetoric is aimed at stripping away women’s control over their own bodies and lives, going hand-in-hand with championing policies that destroy lives at every turn. 

It shamelessly promotes ethnic cleansing in Gaza, ramps up immigration crackdowns that tear families apart and leave migrants to die at the border, while slashing USAID funding which threatens the lives of millions of people living with HIV across Africa. 

Meanwhile it imposes economic decisions that will cut healthcare, education, food assistance, and social services essential for working class people —and women, children and marginalised communities most of all. 

Protecting women—or controlling them?

Trump himself has declared that he will “protect women whether they like it or not” —a chilling statement that lays bare the patriarchal, authoritarian core of his rule. This is a pretext for domination and control, a refusal to see women as autonomous individuals capable of determining their own lives. 

And from whom, exactly, does Trump claim to protect women? His own administration is stacked with abusers, including himself, men accused of sexual misconduct, assault, rape, and even sex trafficking of minors.

Within weeks of his return to office, Trump reinstated the deadly ‘Global Gag Rule,’ cutting off funding to any organization that so much as provides information about abortion overseas. 

This is not just an attack on abortion access—it is a direct assault on reproductive healthcare, contraception, and maternal health, putting countless lives at risk.

Trump feeds reactionary trolls… 

While Trump drapes himself in the language of “defending women,” he weaponizes it to ramp up attacks on trans and queer people. In the process he reinforces reactionary gender roles that assign women a subordinate place in society. 

In a similar vein, the government of Hungarian President Viktor Orban recently cited “child protection” as a pretext to ban the public Pride march —which has been running in the country for almost three decades.

As it stands, Trump and his allies are not only echoing but amplifying the queerphobia of the far right globally, providing it with new momentum and legitimacy. 

They have already undertaken brutal attacks on trans rights: attempts to curb gender-affirming care, bans on trans women’s and girls’ participation in female sports, and the effective criminalization of trans identities. 

This is a deliberate strategy of social erasure and forced conformity. 

Trump’s so-called war on ‘woke’ isn’t about merit. It is about entrenching structural oppression and dismantling any policies that give ordinary people even a fighting chance. 

It is about using bigotry to turn workers against each other all while his billionaire buddies hoard even more obscene wealth at everyone else’s expense. 

…while workers pay for tariffs

As for the mounting tariff and trade war, though it is mostly framed as an economic conflict between major powers, its real burden will fall on millions of working-class people. 

Rising prices on imported goods, layoffs, and harsher exploitation at work will be among the consequences, as bosses shift the costs onto workers and working class families. 

Women will be among the hardest hit both as workers —earning less on average and overrepresented in precarious and low-wage jobs— and as the gender carrying the heaviest load of unpaid work in the family.

However, these attacks transcend one man, or one election. They are the product of a deeper disease—one rooted in capitalism itself. 

When the system enters crisis, it takes off its mask, exposing and magnifying its most brutal, violent, oppressive and exploitative tendencies. 

This is why attacks on the rights of women and marginalised genders, bodily autonomy, and democratic freedoms are escalating across the board. 

Global war on women 

Nowhere is this more obvious than in Gaza, where the Israeli state’s genocide has massacred tens of thousands. It has subjected Palestinian women to unbearable conditions of suffering. 

With hospitals systematically bombed and maternity wards obliterated, pregnant women have been forced to give birth in rubble-strewn streets without medical assistance. Newborns have perished in incubators due to fuel shortages caused by Israel’s siege. 

Cases of miscarriages and stillbirths have skyrocketed due to starvation, stress, and injuries inflicted by relentless bombings. Women searching for food or water for their families have risked being gunned down by Israeli snipers. 

The very fabric of Palestinian society has been shattered, with women left to grieve for their murdered children, struggling to feed the living, and surviving in a landscape where Israel has systematically targeted civilian infrastructure. 

The ceasefire is practically collapsing in front of our eyes as the Israeli regime tightens its stranglehold. Once again, it is blocking all humanitarian aid into the Strip. An increasing number of babies are freezing to death.

While Gaza has been subjected to an all-out genocidal war, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank now face an escalating campaign of terror as well. 

The Israeli army, hand-in-hand with settlers, has been ramping up attacks, invading homes, terrorizing communities, and sexually harassing and humiliating women with impunity. 

This gendered violence is not incidental—it is part of a broader strategy of colonial domination, aimed at breaking the resistance of an entire people. 

Warfare over welfare

War is not an aberration—it is politics by bloodier means. It does not operate outside of the political and social dynamics—it is an extension of them through violent force. 

War and militarisation enhance all the oppressive and unequal features built into capitalist society generally. Patriarchy, misogyny, hyper-masculinity and rape culture are all parts of that. 

Arms production and imperialist wars also devour vast societal resources while starving sectors essential for women. 

This is exemplified by Starmer’s so-called ‘Labour’ government in Britain slashing international aid and planning huge welfare cuts to fund military spending hikes. 

Just this week, the Chinese regime announced a 7.2% increase of its “defence” budget.

President of the European Commission von der Leyen unveiled an €800 billion EU rearmament plan —which would come partly by loosening the same fiscal rules used for years to impose punishing austerity on millions of people. 

The message is clear: when it comes to war and repression, there is always money to spare. Even though workers and the poor have to tighten their belts as healthcare, education, pensions—sectors that disproportionately employ and benefit women—are drained to feed the arms industry. 

Militarization deepens every form of social violence, with women bearing the brunt—as victims of austerity at one end, as primary targets of the brutalities war unleashes on the other.

Sexual violence as a weapon of war

In Sudan, since fighting broke out between rival military factions in April 2023, the country has descended into a nightmare of war crimes, with women and girls paying a particularly horrific price. 

The United Nations has warned of an “epidemic” of sexual violence, as both the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese military have used rape, abductions of women and girls and sexual slavery to terrorize communities. 

Women seeking safety are met with more dangers: refugee camps have become sites of further exploitation, with food and aid often exchanged for sexual favors.

This is not the first time Sudanese women have faced such brutality. Rape was similarly weaponized during the Darfur genocide in the early 2000s and in the now warring generals’ joint suppression of the 2019 revolution. 

Yet women have remained at the forefront of struggle, from the mass uprising that toppled Omar al-Bashir to ongoing grassroots mobilizations to demand justice and an end to the war. 

Today, as the war rages on, Sudanese women continue to resist, organizing underground networks to support survivors and document crimes —even as the world media look away.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the longstanding crisis of sexual violence as a weapon of war has been exacerbated by the new M23 offensive in Kivu. 

Behind this horror is the logic of capitalist plunder: Congo’s vast mineral wealth has fueled warlordism and imperialist interventions, turning the country into a perpetual, lucrative battlefield. 

Toll of war on Ukrainian women

While much international attention has focused on the clash between Trump and Zelenskyy in the White House, less has been said —in the past three years— about the Ukraine war’s devastating impact on women.

Far away from all the political and diplomatic shenanigans, Ukrainian women have suffered mass displacement, with millions fleeing to other countries. There many face sexual exploitation, human trafficking, and precarious labor conditions. 

While all spare resources in Ukraine have been prioritised towards bolstering the military, feminist and LGBTQI+ organizations have seen their demands pushed to the margins.

As Trump considers taking action to remove temporary visa status from the 240,000 Ukrainian refugees in the US, Starmer’s decision to halve foreign aid in favour of the military threatens to drastically cut support for Ukrainian refugees in Britain. 

Putin’s reactionary war on gender

In Russia, Putin has banned gender-affirming treatment in state hospitals and forced all official documents to define gender at birth. 

Even as his regime laments the country’s demographic crisis, it has sent hundreds of thousands of young men to be slaughtered or disabled in the war —yet, as always, women are blamed.

Putin has openly stated that Russia needs to return to the time when it was “normal” for families to have seven or nine children. The State Duma last year passed a law banning “childfree” propaganda.

Both in Russia and Ukraine, the war and occupation have reinforced reactionary gender roles and led to a spike in domestic violence. 

This is a pattern observed in nearly all militarized societies where heightened brutality on the front lines spills over into the domestic sphere. 

Today, Trump and Putin are laying the groundwork for a ‘grand bargain’ on the back of the Ukrainian people. 

Ordinary Ukrainians are discovering that NATO’s cynical involvement was not driven by the need to protect their lives. 

They are now meant to pay the price for imperialist maneuvering and rivalry, just as countless others have before them. 

Neither imperialist bombs, nor fundamentalist chains

This is the same imperialist logic that has left Afghanistan in ruins. 

After two decades of US-led occupation —justified in part by hollow rhetoric about “saving Afghan women”— Washington was forced to withdraw as its corrupt puppet regime disintegrated, handing the country back to the Taliban. 

The net result has been a rapid descent into the most extreme gender apartheid regime on earth. 

Last August, its ‘Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Propagation of Virtue’ formally codified a sweeping set of new rules which includes requiring women to wear attire that fully covers their bodies and faces. 

They have to lower their voices in public, drivers of vehicles are instructed not to transport women without a male guardian, and more. 

This obsessive drive to erase women from society has gone to such absurdities as banning the construction of windows in residential buildings that overlook areas used by women. Existing ones are to be blocked, claiming that seeing women could “lead to obscene acts”. 

Countless Afghan women who once supported their families are now barred from work. Girls have been denied education beyond the age of twelve. 

The increased economic hardships for families and decline in education has fueled a surge in child labor and forced marriages in a country that already had some of the world’s highest rates of child marriage.

Woman, Life, Freedom: Iranian women defying regime

In Iran, despite President Masoud Pezeshkian’s earlier pledges to end ‘hijab patrols’. authorities have only expanded their surveillance —including the use of drones— to enforce hijab compliance. 

In December 2024, the Guardian Council formally approved the ‘Hijab and Chastity Bill,’ imposing even harsher penalties on those who defy the mandatory dress code.

Meanwhile, the regime has intensified its use of capital punishment against female prisoners—2024 saw the highest recorded number of women executed in Iran since documentation began in 2008. 

This is no coincidence. The regime fears women’s defiance, knowing it could once again ignite mass rebellion.

Indeed, despite the counter-revolutionary crackdown, the fire of resistance has not been extinguished. 

Though mass protests have subsided for now, a rebellious mood finds daily and various expressions —every uncovered strand of hair, every act of disobedience, is a challenge to the regime’s authority. 

On September 15, 2024, 34 women political prisoners in Evin Prison launched a hunger strike to mark two years since the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ uprising. 

Even in places designed to break their will, women refuse to be silenced.

Syria: new threats emerge

Many Syrians have rightly celebrated the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime. 

Horrifying evidence continues to emerge of the vile crimes committed in his dungeons, including the widespread rape of female prisoners by their prison guards, some of whom gave birth while still imprisoned. 

Yet, while the new regime of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has been forced, under pressure, to offer token assurances about respecting women’s and minority rights in the ‘new Syria’, its agenda remains deeply reactionary. 

Recent reports describe public spaces in Damascus plastered with posters of a fully veiled woman dictating the “conditions of the Shariah-compliant hijab.” 

Women-led protests have already erupted in response to the looming threat of major rollbacks on their rights. This was the case when an HTS spokesman claimed that women are biologically incapable of certain leadership roles, like in defense and military affairs. 

Breaking down misogynistic claims

The YPJ (Women’s Protection Units), the all-female fighting force in the predominantly Kurdish northeast (Rojava), stands as a direct refutation of this misogynistic claim.

These women not only fought on the frontlines against Daesh/ISIS, one of the most brutal reactionary forces in modern history, but also challenged deeply entrenched patriarchal norms in the process. 

The close relationship between the new right-wing Islamist rulers in Damascus and the Turkish government, however, heightens the danger of further military aggressions against Rojava. 

This poses a grave danger not only to Kurdish self-determination but also to the aspirations and gains of women and minorities in the region. 

Yet, no enclave can achieve full and lasting liberation within the confines of a hostile capitalist and imperialist order. 

As long as reactionary forces and regional powers remain locked in their battle for dominance, the rights of the oppressed will always hang by a thread. 

The only path to women’s emancipation and the defeat of all forms of oppression lies in a united, multi-ethnic, multi-faith struggle of workers and the oppressed to overturn this system.

Every ten minutes…

The war on women is not only waged by the rich and powerful who divide and rule the world —it is integrated in all social relations including the most intimate relations. 

Gender-based violence, overwhelmingly, men’s violence against women and children, is a violence that sets the boundaries for the gender binary. It limits women’s sexual and reproductive freedom, which impacts the lives of all women.

The lives of at least 85,000 women and girls were lost to femicide —gender-based murder— in 2024 alone according to the United Nations. In most cases, their murderers were the men closest to them. 

On average every ten minutes, a woman or girl is killed by her intimate partner or by close relatives. These recorded femicides are the tip of an iceberg.

Many deaths go unaccounted for, and they are only the most extreme form of a cycle of violence against women that carries innumerable costs to women’s lives, health and roles in society.

Gender-based violence in turn forms part of a spectrum of broader techniques of oppression such as silencing and harassment —which have in common the function to disempower, control, objectify and dehumanise. 

This oppression, perpetrated overwhelmingly by the people closest to us —lovers, partners, fathers, brothers, co-workers, community members— is central to the functioning of the capitalist system that exploits and oppresses us all to various degrees.

System depends on the subjugation of women

As this system has ensnared itself in crisis upon crisis, its ruling elites hold a material interest in intensifying the subjugation of women. 

Their normalisation, justification and glorification of it, and the violence it entails —through for example the ideological war against ‘wokeism’— has real, bloody impacts.

They increase the levels of gender-based violence (alongside interconnected factors such as militarisation, nationalism, austerity, the destabilisation of the climate and ecosystems, and so on). 

One of the clearest signs of this intensification of gender-based violence was the universal increase in calls for help to women’s shelters during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the isolation within the family sphere that it entailed.

Amongst the various forms of gender-based violence, sexual violence has been shown to be the single most harmful. Its deeply intimate nature inflicts lifelong trauma.

For warlords and for ordinary men alike, it is seen as a key weapon to “break” women. It is also extremely common. 

A recent study in Sweden, for example, showed that one in four young women aged 16-29 had been raped. 

Globally, the UN reports that one in three women in their lifetimes report being “subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both”. 

“Shame must change sides”

Gender-based violence generally, and sexual violence especially, is also enabled by a systematic culture or silence and invisibility. 

Globally, less than 40 percent of women ever speak about their GBV experiences, and only one in ten report it to the police. This is, of course, closely tied to the fact that when they do, they are overwhelmingly disbelieved, shamed and blamed.

An important part of the feminist struggle has always been about shining a light and putting words on the hidden reality of women’s oppression. 

This 8 March, we pay tribute to how this was powerfully done in France by Gisèle Pelicot, in the trial which saw her ex-husband and 50 other men convicted for raping her, and by so many other survivors who have spoken out. 

“Shame must change sides”, as she repeatedly said. 

Her courageous stance has inspired women and survivors across the globe, and will be a factor fueling struggles against men’s violence and the entire, violent system that enables and profits from it.

A burning planet is a feminist issue

The violence faced by women is not separate from the broader crises of our time—it is deepened by them. 

Among these crises, the intensifying environmental and climate crisis stand out as yet another force multiplier of gender oppression. 

As millions are thrown into life-threatening insecurity, it is working-class women, Indigenous communities, and the most marginalized who bear the brunt. 

A recent study has provided alarming evidence linking rising temperatures to surges in intimate partner violence across South Asia, underscoring how environmental collapse exacerbates existing forms of gender-based violence.

From droughts and floods displacing millions in the ‘Global South’ to the destruction of entire communities by wildfires and hurricanes in the Americas, climate catastrophe is deepening the violence and economic instability that fuel gender oppression.

Women in affected regions face increased risks of exploitation, domestic violence, and loss of autonomy as food and water shortages, forced migration, and economic breakdown push them into more vulnerable positions. 

The same ruling elites responsible for this crisis—the fossil fuel corporations, agribusiness monopolies, and imperialist states plundering the planet—are the ones attacking reproductive rights, enforcing reactionary gender norms, and suppressing movements that challenge their power. 

The destruction of the planet and the oppression of women are deeply intertwined, driven by the same system of profit-driven exploitation. 

But as capitalism’s decay sharpens on every front —economic, political, social— while the independent political organization of the working class remains elusive, another force surges forward: the reactionary, authoritarian far right.

Like scavengers feeding on rot, reactionary movements and authoritarian regimes thrive in moments of crisis. They weaponize fear and despair to fortify the rule of capital, and channel rage away from the system and toward the oppressed themselves.  

Far-right and misogyny go hand-in-hand

Narendra Modi postures as a champion of Hindu women’s rights to stoke anti-Muslim hate, while the Spanish Vox party blames “robberies, machete attacks or rapes” on immigrants from North Africa. 

Everywhere the far-right tries to cynically “co-opt” women’s rights and manipulate data about gender-based violence as a conduit for stigmatising oppressed communities. Doing so, they are fueling racism, xenophobia, islamophobia, anti-immigration and white supremacy. 

In reality, these forces have no interest in combating gender-based violence or improving women’s lives. 

Their selective outrage disappears when the perpetrators are their own. BJP politicians in India shield rapists linked to Hindu nationalist groups. Far-right movements across Europe downplay domestic violence and femicide when white men are to blame. 

Their agenda is not about protecting women, but about weaponizing their suffering to scapegoat racialized communities. 

They push policies that are inherently anti-women: eroding reproductive rights, gutting protections for survivors, and reinforcing patriarchal control. 

Demographic crises

Across the West especially, many right-wing and nationalist parties and movements, steeped in the so-called “great replacement theory”, frame declining birth rates as a civilizational crisis. 

They whip up panic about demographic change to promote both anti-immigrant and anti-women policies.

Women are told they must return to “traditional roles” to save the nation while immigrants and people of colour are vilified as a threat to the “native” population. 

While they disguise their rhetoric as a pretense to protect “our women”, these forces see women’s bodies as nothing more than battlegrounds for their agenda of racial and national purity. 

Yet this demographic argument isn’t exclusive to Europe or North America, nor even to the far-right. 

As seen in the Chinese regime’s “pro-birth” shift of recent years, many other capitalist regimes use declining national birth rates as justification for rolling back reproductive rights and promoting pro-natalist policies. They emphasize traditional family roles and encourage women to prioritize childbearing. 

Even in Tamil Nadu, a southern state in India where the ruling party, the DMK, historically positioned itself as a progressive force championing women’s equality, the Chief Minister recently urged the couples of the state to “give birth to a child immediately”. 

His reasoning? If parliamentary seat allocation is revised based on population, Tamil Nadu’s success in family planning could lead to reduced representation—implying that this progress should be undone. 

In other words, women’s right to choose is being treated as expendable in the name of state interests and narrow political calculations.

Misogynistic backlash

This renewed, international push to control women’s reproductive choices is part of a broader global assault on women’s autonomy, where reactionary forces seek to reassert patriarchal authority in every sphere of life. 

Close on the heels of the blows that have been dealt to abortion rights in the US, the right to divorce is another target for the ‘men’s rights movement’, spearheaded by a 2024 proposal in the Oklahoma legislature to do away with no-fault-divorce. 

While there is no evidence that abortion bans lead to fewer abortions —they just make them more dangerous for women and pregnant people— this all forms part of an ideological offensive designed to shore up a capitalism in decay. 

Other weapons in this offensive, particularly targeting young people, include the idealisation of the violent, transactional misogyny of the likes of Andrew Tate, who feeds a culture of extreme male entitlement and resentment against women. 

At the same time, the promotion of the “trad-wife” ideal seeks to lure women into submission and reactionary gender roles, whereas OnlyFans serves as window-dressing for the sex industry. 

They are two sides of the same coin, offering glamourous-looking but fake escapes from the double-working rat race that this system imposes on working class women. 

Left-right divisions

A striking impact of this misogynistic offensive is the growing left-right gender divide, with more women moving left while a significant number of men gravitate towards the (far) right, which is particularly clear among the young generations. 

The recent elections in Germany saw 34 percent of women aged 18 and 24 years old vote for Die Linke (the Left party) compared to 15 percent of men the same age. The vote for the far right AfD and the traditional right CDU were in large part male votes. 

Similar trends played out across the electoral landscape of 2024, a ‘super election year’. 

In South Korea, where this trend has perhaps expressed itself most sharply, recent elections have shown that young men and women differ by about 15 to 30 percentage points in their support for the main political parties. 

These electoral snapshots illustrate how young women, who find themselves at the intersection of multiple forms of oppression and exploitation have gained confidence. 

Their confidence has grown as workers, through education, and through wave upon wave of global feminist struggles, and they are seeking out ways to fight back.

Whether under the banner of far-right nationalism, conservative theocracy, neo-colonial occupation, or so-called “democratic” and “progressive” governments, the logic remains the same: women and their bodies are treated as both instruments and targets of capitalist exploitation and state control. 

This shows that what we are up against is not just individual reactionary leaders or policies, but a system that continuously seeks to roll back our rights and divide our class.

Fightback

But women, queer people, workers, and the oppressed are not mere victims. 

In South Korea, ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol, an avowed anti-feminist crusader, was impeached and suspended from office under pressure of a mass protest movement including a general strike, sparked by his failed attempt to impose martial law. 

Analyses show that young women in their teens, 20s and 30s were the biggest demographic group and fuel of that movement. 

As one protester put it, “So many women, including myself, have been waiting for a moment like this for a long time, because we were so sick and tired of all the hate towards us for the past two years.”

In July and August last year, the uprising that toppled dictator Hasina in Bangladesh saw, at its peak, the largest participation of women in street protests in the country’s history. 

In Turkey, the femicide of two young women within 30 minutes of each other in the capital Istanbul sparked protests across the country last autumn. 

“Stop killing women” has been the rallying cry of thousands of protesters who have, since the beginning of last year, taken to the streets in Kenya against a series of brutal murders of women. 

Across Australia and the US, thousands have attended rallies to show solidarity with transgender youth following recent laws restricting gender-affirming healthcare for trans minors. 

In the lead-up to Germany’s federal elections, mass protests erupted against the far-right AfD—a party that opposes abortion, denies the gender pay gap, and seeks to reinstate ‘traditional gender roles’ for women. 

All struggles interlinked

In Latin America, women from Indigenous communities have been at the forefront of protecting the Amazon rainforest and the region’s rich biodiversity from various environmental threats. 

El Salvadorian women environmentalists are leading renewed resistance against the recent repeal of a ban on metal mining, due to its devastating impact on local rivers.

While in Kerala, India, tens of thousands of ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activists) women workers have been on strike for nearly a month demanding decent pay, pension rights and job security. They are braving even the insults and slut-shaming remarks of male chauvinist union leaders who have shunned their struggle. 

While this may seem like an extreme case, it serves as a stark reminder that trade unions must do far more to actively take up the struggles of the most oppressed sections of the working class. 

A labor movement that fails to challenge sexism, casteism, racism, and other forms of oppression within its own ranks—or that neglects to organize the most vulnerable parts of our class—weakens itself and undermines working-class unity. 

The fight for “bread and butter” demands and the fight against oppression are not separate—they are one and the same.

Ultimately, the attacks we face all stem from the same fundamental root: a capitalist system that needs and depends on oppression to maintain its rule. 

The right to abortion, bodily autonomy, safety from gender-based violence, economic security, and freedom from war simply cannot be guaranteed under this system, which relies on patriarchal structures, racial hierarchies, and imperialist violence to sustain itself. 

A feminism rooted in the working class

A feminism that only focuses on fairer representation at the top, that does not wage a fight against imperialism and war, that does not change the realities of exploitation for the vast majority, will always be a feminism that leaves most women behind. 

What we need is a global revolutionary, socialist feminism that understands that women’s liberation is inseparable from the liberation of the entire working class and oppressed.

But a movement that fights only against external threats while ignoring, belittling, or excusing the oppression that manifests within its own class or ranks will never be capable of leading the struggle for women’s and queer people’s liberation either. 

Too often, even the Left has failed to take up the fight against gendered oppression and violence seriously, with some organizations going so far as to shield abusers. 

This is not a secondary issue —it is fundamental to the kind of movement we strive to build. 

We broke with our former international, ISA, precisely because we refused to be part of a Left that tolerates such betrayals, brandishes ‘socialist feminism’ as a slogan while failing to embody it in its day-to-day practice, and prioritizes its own reputation over the safety of women and oppressed people. 

The working-class movement and the Left must not only challenge the misogyny of the ruling class but uproot every form of oppression everywhere—including, crucially, within their own organizations.

A call to revolutionary action

International Women’s Day must be a rallying cry not just to resist the current deluge of attacks, but to build a strong and principled revolutionary alternative. 

Our fight is not for mere ‘survival’ but for a future where no woman and no oppressed person is forced to live in fear. 

We must fight not just to defend threatened rights, or reclaim lost rights, but to break free from a system that was never designed to guarantee them in the first place. 

This means organizing in our workplaces, our communities, and in the streets —in reaction to each new attack, but also to build the forces capable of overthrowing this rotten system altogether. 

It means linking the struggle for gender liberation to the fight for workers’ power, to the fight against racism, colonialism, and imperialism —and in pursuit of a socialist world. 

One in which our lives are no longer dictated by the profit motives of a tiny ruling elite which is resorting to ever-more brutal, oppressive and reactionary methods to impose its domination over the rest of the planet.

The Project for a Revolutionary Marxist International was initiated in August 2024 by socialists in 20+ countries as a process towards creating an international, revolutionary socialist organisation grounded in Marxism and with the struggle against sexism, racism, LGBTQI+-phobia at its heart – a necessity to contribute to the mass struggles needed to replace the genocidal, neo-colonial, war-mongering and ecocidal system of capitalism with a world free from all forms of exploitation and oppression. Contact us if you want to know more or join!