Joint Statement: International Solidarity – Working Class Women Rise Up!

Women are constantly failed by liberal feminism and its political allies. The feminism we need is not concerned with whether you should shave your legs or not, the feminism we need is concerned with the economical and social oppression of women.

Patriarchy is tied up with class structures and affects every woman across the world. The working class woman lives under double oppression. She does not only have to deal with the economic oppression in a capitalist society, but also the social and political oppression of women. The Bourgeoisie is the class profiting from this oppression, with its private control over the means of production and therefore its incentive to exacerbate patriarchal oppression. That is the greatest enemy of working class women.

Women dominated professions such as child care, medical assistance and teaching are underpaid and underfunded, a problem exacerbated by neoliberal austerity policies.

Another prominent example of patriarchal discrimination by the capitalist system is that women in general get a lower wage for equal or more work than their male counterparts, all by design.

When women are put in a vulnerable financial position, by not being able to afford to live, they are much more vulnerable to coercive or forceful tactics used by pimps and sex traffickers, which is why they commonly target women from exploited countries. The industry of sexual trafficking and pornography is a global multi billion dollar industry that grows every year by exploiting women and girls. The digital sexual exploitation of women through platforms like Onlyfans push the normalisation of the commodification of women’s bodies. This very vulgar form of oppression against women is a child of capitalism and patriarchy.

But even outside of these more organised industries women face violence in their private sphere. Violence against women is a deeply ingrained issue in every part of the world.

The UN estimates that 736 million women, about one in three, have experienced sexual or physical violence at the hands of a partner or stranger at one point in their life.

In war women suffer particularly as they are faced not only with the bullets, the bombs and the effects of war but also gender based violence. Once again this is not a coincidence but a feature of patriarchy.

All of these issues, class oppression, prostitution, sex-trafficing and violence against women are merely symptoms of a patriarchal and capitalist society. All of us can attest to these forms of oppression existing in each of our countries. Women’s liberation will never be given to us. Working class women must fight for our freedom and liberate ourselves. Just as all these struggles and oppressions affect women all over the world, we must be united in the fight - we must be organised! Women's liberation is only possible by crushing patriarchy and capitalism! Together we could reach a truly equal society through socialism! It is time to take action and fight for yourself and all of your sisters around the world!

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY – WORKING CLASS WOMEN RISE UP!