International Working Women's Day: Unite, Defend and Fight for Working and Oppressed Women’s Rights!
The International Women's Alliance (IWA) celebrates International Working Women's Day as an important day to uplift women's struggles for equality and emancipation; and contributions to struggles for national liberation, and revolutionary change. The first International Working Women's Day was celebrated in 1911, in honor of women from Germany who marched in 1848 to demand their rights. In 1913 Russian women led strikes against WWI and Fascism and 4 years later the calls of Russian women textile workers for "Bread and Peace" contributed significantly to the fall of the Tsar and paved the way for the October Revolution. In 1921 March 8 was reaffirmed as International Working Women's Day to honor women's pivotal role in the Russian Revolution, and in workers struggles all over the world. IWA Salutes the women around the world who continue to agitate, organize, and mobilize one another and recognizes the significant role women are playing in the fight against fascism, US imperialism, and all reaction.
Around the globe more women are facing precarious conditions due to the growth of both neoliberalism and neofascism, which expose them to increased exploitation in workplaces, intensified land grabbing and displacement in the countryside, and heightened repression when fighting back for their rights. This growth of neoliberalism comes from the global imperialist system in order to delay it's inevitable decay, and uses institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) to administer these policies. In the face of these extreme conditions, we recognize women are often the most impacted due to their double burden of exploitation and social oppression.
The majority of women today come from the exploited classes and are oppressed by society. Many of these women till the land, grow food for export, and often struggle to feed their families due to economic systems which fail to meet their daily needs. Landless peasant women who work in agriculture and live in rural areas are often victims to predatory land grabbing schemes, acquisitive loans causing severe debt, militarized displacement from land, casualties to land reclamation projects sponsored by corrupt governments and multinational corporations, and malnourishment and hunger even as they till the land. Furthermore, due to climate change and increasing calamities in the global south, many more women and their families are being forcibly displaced when land becomes untenable, unsafe, or destroyed. When these women move to urban areas to seek work, there are often little to no reliable jobs - so they are forced to turn to informal, contractual or precarious work, many make the impossible choice to leave their families and migrate to find work abroad to provide for their families.
Women in the urban areas and industrialized countries also face the burden of exploitation and oppression. As the global economy faces escalating sluggish growth, the majority of people experience outsized inflation but stagnant incomes. The growing gap between cost of goods and the daily wage in every country is leaving more women and their families hungry, overworked, and unable to dig themselves out of poverty. The crisis of access to pro-people healthcare, education, and social service programs also exacerbates the crisis of the majority of women who are unable to address their needs for health, housing, education, and livelihood. Commonly, the IMF and WB are the ones imposing austerity measures, generating more debt, and sweeping away state-owned enterprises that births more privatization, creating a lot of this economic and social insecurity that eats away at the peoples sovereignty across the globe.
In the midst of the social and economic crises facing the majority of women around the world - global powers continue to beat the drums of war! The US is carrying out multiple full-scale military exercises throughout the Asia Pacific in the coming months - including in the Philippines and South Korea - as it continues to escalate economic tensions with China and continues to prepare for war in the Pacific. The last several months have seen significant shifts in the alignment of West Asia - with Syria now being controlled by Turkish-Backed Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) who are formalizing oppressive policies against women, the continued Zionist genocide against Palestine, and the constantly shifting alliances of Gulf States in the region. As these shifts in the region continue it is the people on the ground - the workers and tillers of the land - who are most impacted by economic and military schemes. In the last few weeks the proxy wars in Sudan and the Congo have escalated, using rape on women as a tool of war, causing more systematic forms of violence against women in particular landless and working women. The United States - under re-elected President Trump - is forcing governments to choose alignment with the US or to face outsized tariffs, sanctions, and military action. This is especially devastating to countries in Latin America who are already facing crises of safety, economic hardship, and government corruption. All over the world women face terrifying conditions of repression, fascism. But instead of being afraid these women turn their fear into fight and come together!
As more grassroots organizations form and seek to organize women in their numbers, more campaigns and fights are being waged all over the globe. IWA members all over the world are mobilizing in militant actions, facilitating teach ins, conducting film screenings and carrying out demonstrations which emphasize the burning issues the majority of women are facing. March 8 is just one day of action for many of our member organizations who are organizing year round to expose and oppose state neglect, repression, exploitation and oppression of women.
In Asia Pacific IWA members are conducting political education, including carrying out the One Billion Rising campaign - a global movement to draw attention to Violence Against Women. This year One Billion Rising's theme is Rise for Freedom, Rise Against Fascism, and our members in Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, India and many other countries in the Asia Pacific Region participated in days of action highlighting the role that women play in exposing and confronting violence against women in all its forms.
In the Philippines IWA members GABRIELA, along with women from unions, the peasant sector, youth and students and more are carrying out a week of action to draw attention to the economic crisis impacting women in the cities and the rural areas as costs of basic goods skyrocket but wages lag behind. Women in the Philippines have also been part of the militant struggle against US military expansion in the archipelago - directly confronting the agents of plunder and calling for an end to US military presence and funding as the US escalates war against China.
IWA members in Europe are utilizing International Working Women's Day to deepen the unity in the fight against NATO, US-led war, and to uplift the many issues working women are facing in their communities. IWA members in Europe are united in participating in the Resist Nato Campaign - which continues the decades long legacy of women's imperative role in the anti-war movement around the globe.
As Fascism continues to rise around the world - IWA members based in the imperialist core are taking seriously their task to strengthen the militant women's movement and to build international solidarity across movements. In Canada - IWA member Women of Diverse Origins will lead the Mobilization for March 8 for the 23rd year in a row - uniting women from across the world and political spectrum in taking action under the banner "Women Taking Back Our Power, Taking Back Our World: Resisting Wars of Aggression, Colonialism, and Violence."
In the United States - as IWA members continue to confront and oppose the fascist politics of US president Donald Trump - members will mount mobilizations across the country, uniting with women's organizations, unions, nonprofits, national liberation movements, and more to show the strength and significance of the women's movement in the belly of the imperialist beast.
With high regard and revolutionary appreciation, we uplift the countless actions our members are carrying out in March - knowing that women in their thousands will be mobilized, agitated, and organized and the vibrancy of the women's movement will continue to grow.
IWA salutes the militant struggle of women all over the globe - from women in Palestine who continue to steadfastly and resolutely resist genocide, displacement and imprisonment; to women in Kurdistan who are seeking just and lasting peace and a solution to the Kurdish Question; to the indigenous women in Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, and all across the global south who are mobilizing together and protecting their ancestral domain; to the working women in unions who have wage strikes and marched in picket lines demanding better wages and working conditions; to the women who have taken up arms in India, Palestine, and the Philippines as a means to truly fight and win a new society in the face of imperialist aggression and plunder - we uplift, honor, and amplify your struggles for equality, peace, and justice!
On this 8th of March, International Working Women's day - IWA reiterates our general thrusts from the General Program of Action (GPOA) - as united on at our 3rd International Assembly in 2024 - and calls on all members to continue to carry these out to the fullest extent possible to advance the fighting international women's movement:
Build and develop a broad international anti-imperialist women’s movement that is deeply rooted among the masses of women peasants and workers of all nationalities, indigenous, youth, and other democratic forces and sectors, to transform women into an organized political force in the struggle for national and social liberation and gender equality;
Resist imperialist plunder and war as it intensifies the climate crisis and environmental degradation;
Expose and oppose imperialist neoliberal policies, structures and discourses;
Fight to end all forms of violence against women;
Conduct political education among our members on the root causes of women’s oppression and exploitation;
Build and strengthen international cooperation, mutual support and sharing of strategies of resistance among activists, women’s organizations, institutions, and social movements.
We bring forth the historic legacy of International Working Women's Day and call upon all working and oppressed women and peoples across the world to turn fear into fight and to boldly grow the militant women’s movement! To the women who continue to struggle to provide for their families and communities, garner the strength from the long line of women who continued the revolutionary traditions of March 8th. Look to your left and find inspiration from the women all over the world who are involved in different forms of struggle at the picket lines, street demonstrations, and in the countrysides engaged in people’s war for liberation!
Unite, Defend and Fight for Working and Oppressed Women’s Rights!
Preserve in the struggle against imperialism and all its reaction!
Long live the militant women’s movement!