On International Women’s Day in 2025, women and feminists worldwide are asking urgent questions about what can be done to stop the seemingly relentless setbacks we’re facing. Thankfully, these questions have answers. It is entirely possible to not just defend against reactionary attacks on women and girls, but to actually advance our position, and ultimately liberate the international working class from all forms of gender oppression. Understanding the roots of our current situation, and who our real enemies are, shows why our feminism needs to be connected to the struggle for socialism, more than ever before.
Obvious hallmarks of the bleak picture women face today include attacks from unabashedly sexist, right-wing regimes around the world. The most prominent example is, of course, Donald Trump in the U.S. Trump’s administration is pursuing continued attacks on reproductive healthcare, attempting to elevate rapists and sex traffickers to powerful cabinet positions, and forcing a return to traditional gender roles and norms by waging war against trans people. But this trend is not at all limited to Trump. In the past few years we’ve seen countless regimes make feminist and women’s movements into primary targets for undemocratic, anti-working class repression. This has been especially striking in places like South Korea, Poland, and Pakistan, but is playing out in nearly every corner of the globe.
Beyond overt attacks by the ruling class, the very conditions of global capitalism continue to be marked by crisis and instability, circumstances which tend to throw women into ever more precarious and vulnerable positions. Heightening inter-imperialist conflict, driving the world towards increased war and militarization, for example, increases the unique dangers faced by women in war zones like Gaza and Sudan. Women are disproportionately affected by collateral consequences of war, like family displacement and interruption of children’s education, and are of course most often the victims of the horrific use of sexual violence as a tactic of warfare. War, and the associated disruptions in healthcare, also tends to cause a skyrocketing of maternal death rates during pregnancy and childbirth, which is part of why women have made up a disproportionate size of the death toll in Gaza.
Outside of explicit war zones, the cost-of-living crisis and economic instability throughout the world continue to threaten women’s freedom and independence, which, in the best of times, are already limited. As just one illustration of this, there is no evidence that global rates of domestic violence, which skyrocketed by 25-33% during the COVID pandemic, have returned to “normal” as the health crisis has ebbed. This new “normal” under capitalism means many even more women are unable to escape dangerous living situations for economic reasons.
A final, and potentially most toxic, aspect of today’s picture is the increasing spread of brazen sexism, and reactionary ideas among working-class men. This trend, while very real and legitimately dangerous for the women who coexist in daily life with radicalizing young men, is far from universal or permanent. All the same, many women reasonably feel betrayed, and threatened, by members of our own class who we should be able to struggle alongside.
Many of these developments have been met with some level of public outrage and fightback. But in general, the level of feminist struggle we are seeing on our streets, in our workplaces, and on our campuses, does not meet the moment. Where are our movements, and how can we reverse this horrifying course of events playing out around the world?
WHY ARE WOMEN OPPRESSED & HOW HAS SEXISM BEEN FOUGHT IN THE PAST?
Sexism, like all forms of oppression, has its roots in class society and thus will never be eradicated—for good—until capitalism is destroyed. Oppression is a tool of the ruling class, used to heighten the exploitation of one group of workers while, at the same time, dividing and weakening our class as a whole. The fact that oppression is a tool of the capitalists does not mean, however, that working-class people don’t oppress one another. The ideas of the ruling class, which are used to back up their laws and oppressive regimes, can and do seep into our own lives. Sexism has been fermenting in all layers of society for centuries upon centuries, and is a very real force to this day.
In the case of gender-based oppression specifically, it is intricately tied to the emergence of class society in ancient civilizations. For the first time, there was a need to control the flow of private property and inheritance, which created the need to regulate our social structures and relationships. This led to the emergence of the “family” as we think of it today, although a “traditional family” in the eyes of the ruling classes has meant many different things across time and place. As the family became a way to pass down and control private property, women and children essentially became the property of men; this is why, to this day, family and domestic life remains one of the primary arenas for women’s oppression and gender inequality.
These structures were and are materially beneficial for ruling classes throughout history. But they also had to be underpinned with ideas, sold to the poor, feudal and working classes, about what women were “naturally” suited to: namely housework, childcare, and sexual subjugation. Clearly, variations on these themes are far from extinguished today.
Looking back at the material roots of women’s oppression shows that women’s oppression shares its roots with the oppression of trans and queer people. This exposes the political bankruptcy and futility of ideas like “TERFism” which seek to divide our struggles. Capitalism will always seek to enforce, for its own gain, narrow definitions of gender, family, and sexuality. Because of this, capitalism is the common enemy of all working people living under the thumb of these forms of oppression.
As long as gender oppression has existed, it has been resisted. One of the watershed moments in the history of feminist struggle takes us back to the very reason International Women’s Day is observed on March 8. On this date in 1917, women workers in St. Petersburg led a strike for an end to imperialist war, the food shortages crushing Russia’s poor and working people, and Tsarist rule. These women led the strike to factories across the city, eventually bringing tens of thousands out into the streets in what would become one of the catalysts for the Russian Revolution.
The early years of the Soviet Union, the result of the only successful working-class socialist revolution in history, saw gains for women’s rights far beyond what had been achieved in the wealthiest capitalist countries of the time—and even beyond what the U.S. and other countries have achieved today, over 100 years later! This was not at all a coincidence; a workers’ democracy, operating in the interest of the proletariat and peasantry and with the explicit goal of remedying the inequalities of Tsarism, combined with the shifts in attitudes among working people which came out of the mass, revolutionary struggle itself, opened up possibilities for women’s liberation far greater than what was possible in the most “advanced,” “democratic” capitalist countries. These gains included universal access to no-fault divorce, free abortion, and paid maternity leave. Additionally, much of the domestic work women had been doing at home was shared out in communal restaurants, daycares, and laundries.
While many of these gains, and the gains of the Russian Revolution in general, were eroded over the years by capitalist counterrevolution, feminists have continued to struggle for our basic rights and against attacks by the billionaire class. One hallmark which many around the world still look to was the women’s movement in the U.S. in the 1960’s and 70’s. The enormous social and political weight of the mass struggle of that era forced a conservative Supreme Court to pass Roe v. Wade in 1973, and also spurred qualitative social shifts on matters as basic as girls being able to wear pants to school without stigma. More modern upsurges of women’s struggle include the historic victories on abortion rights in Latin America through the 2020’s, and the Women, Life, Freedom movement against the sexist and repressive Iranian regime in 2022.
ATTACKS ON WOMEN FROM TODAY’S RISING FAR RIGHT
How did we go from these victories and inspiring struggles to the horrific situation we’re in now? The ascendant far right we see around the world today is a symptom of capitalism’s unsolvable and endlessly repeating crises, coming out of the past period of neoliberalism and globalization. Unfortunately, in much of the world, the left is comparatively weak and unorganized, which leaves the opening for the right wing to capture working people’s disillusionment with the status quo.
Around the world, sexism is a central pillar for these far right forces. Trump won the most gender-polarized election in U.S. history, in part by appealing to and encouraging sexist ideas among young men. One of the most prominent campaign promises of South Korea’s recently ousted president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was the abolition of the country’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. A “return” to traditional gender roles is a theme being utilized by far-right parties across Europe.
Sexism is one of capitalism’s most tried-and-true tools for dividing, weakening, and exploiting our entire class. But today’s material conditions also create specific needs for the world’s ruling classes which are served by gender oppression. Nations around the world, really entire continents, are grappling with severe demographic crises and declining birth rates. The capitalist class is in need of more workers, both for our labor and our money. A reassertion of traditional gender and family roles, combined with attacks on reproductive freedom, is in part a desperate attempt to reverse these trends. Additionally, our current period of increasing inter-imperialist conflict, centered on the struggle for dominance between the U.S. and China, is forcing regimes everywhere to prepare their populations for war. The ideological underpinnings of militarization have always been closely tied with sexism: men must be convinced to fulfill their “duty” to their country, and women must be convinced to hold down the fort at home.
Again, these are the very same material conditions driving all forms of virulent gender-based oppression in this moment, including the oppression of queer and trans people. Militarization and the hardening of national divisions are also the fundamental basis for the brutal crackdowns on immigrants and their rights which we see from right-wing regimes around the world. Cis women, trans people, and immigrants share an interest, along with the entire working class, in fighting all forms of oppression—and capitalism is our common enemy. That’s why we need to build a socialist feminist fight back!
THE STATE OF WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS TODAY
Women today are facing brutal attacks from the capitalists while also confronting the emboldening of sexism among layers of our own class. Around the world, there are clear signals that workers and young people are ready to fight back. In September, the brutal rape and murder of a medical student in India sparked massive, multi-gender protests across the country, spreading to the Indian diaspora around the world. Thousands poured into the streets last fall in solidarity with Gisèle Pelicot during France’s horrific mass rape trial. Socialist Alternative members joined hundreds of counter-protestors against Boston’s pro-life “Men’s March” following Trump’s election.
But we should be clear: the current moment requires much more, and our movements around the world have been dealt stunning defeats in recent years. The loss of abortion rights in the U.S, for example, was, direct backlash against the feminist struggle which won that right in the first place. It was a response to the wave of protest movements in the 2010s, such as #MeToo and BLM, that shook the ruling class to its core.
But it’s not inevitable that our movements are crushed. The tragic path of the abortion rights struggle in the U.S. illustrates very clearly why our movements can’t have any faith in dead-end institutions of capitalism—like the legal system, NGOs, and above all, the Democratic Party. Beyond abortion rights, or the lack thereof, and even outside of the U.S., bourgeois liberal forces have utterly failed to curb the growth of the sexist far right. Although liberal politicians often support fights against oppression on paper, fighting oppression really means challenging capital: something any capitalist party or politician, liberal or conservative, will only do when forced.
These betrayals and defeats, combined with the seeming lack of alternatives, are leading people to confusion and more doomed strategies. Included in this are ideas like staging a “sex strike,” or the 4B movement originating in South Korea—both of which essentially advocate for women to separate ourselves from men wherever possible and see all men as the enemy. Given the horrific, endemic sexism working-class women around the world are facing, and the lack of forces actually putting up a fight in our interest, it’s no wonder many people are sympathetic to these ideas. But working-class women and feminists can’t afford to give up on actually fighting against sexism. Settling instead for what passes for a tolerable existence under the status quo is, in some ways, the most dangerous path for our current moment.
CHARTING A PATH FORWARD FOR WOMEN & THE GLOBAL WORKING CLASS
The truth is, when we fight, we can win—both against attacks from the ruling class, and against the spread of reactionary ideas among the people we live, work, and go to school with. Sexism works to increase the exploitation of the entire working class, and it is entirely possible for working-class men to realize, especially in the course of struggle, that capitalism and its patriarchal structures are our common enemies.
Multi-gender movements, fighting for women’s liberation and the needs of all working people, can bring women and our entire class forward. Above all, we must be willing to go beyond asking nicely. Leveraging our power as workers and students—our ability to stop the flow of profits and disrupt business as usual—is the only way to force our demands from the capitalist class. We should look to feminist struggles which have utilized the power of the labor movement as especially bright examples. Here in the U.S., McDonald’s workers in 2022 went on strike at locations around the country demanding measures to address rampant sexual harassment and violence, and thousands of Google employees walked off the job in 2018 in solidarity with the #MeToo movement. During this summer’s protest movement in India, a union representing over 300,000 healthcare workers called a nationwide strike over widespread discrimination and harassment faced by women in the industry.
The resistance we’re currently seeing, and the significant support for left political alternatives where they do exist, show that working people around the world are in no way ready to simply follow figures like Donald Trump down the path of right wing reaction and unabashed sexism. There is space to rebuild the kind of fighting movements that have led to our biggest victories throughout history—but this time, we must take it further. Reach out to Socialist Alternative this International Women’s Day to help us build the forces for revolutionary socialism worldwide, and to join the struggle for a society free from all forms of oppression and exploitation.