Report on the ICOR Women’s Event in Paris: Women Confront Imperialism

Written by: ICOR on 23 July 2026

 

Under the title “Women Confront Imperialism,” the initiative for a women’s coordination, launched at the Second ICOR Women’s Conference in Nepal, brought together younger and older women as well as representatives of various political organizations from different countries.

The aim of the event, held recently in July,  was to strengthen ICOR’s profile on women’s issues, promote exchange between women and organizations, and contribute to unleashing the revolutionary potential of the women’s movement. The ICOR women’s meeting marked the beginning of a series of events of this kind.

The event took place at ACTIT, an association of the Confederation of Oppressed Migrants in Europe (AVEG-KON), and brought together nearly 40 women from France, Germany, Cuba, Peru, Turkey and Kurdistan. Women from Palestine, Tunisia and Cameroon also participated online.

In keeping with ICOR tradition, the event was opened with a cultural performance, this time by the Anka Women’s Choir.

On behalf of the ICOR Women’s Coordination, an opening speech emphasized that imperialism condemns women to poverty, double exploitation, hunger and violence. Referring to the Epstein case, it was stressed that the imperialist-capitalist system not only produces economic and social devastation for working people, but also turns women and children into targets of brutal sexual violence, contributing to the overall brutalization of society.

“Contrary to patriarchal bourgeois historiography, it was those courageous women who turned the wheel of history toward women’s liberation: Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Inessa Armand, Alexandra Kollontai, the socialist women’s movement, and all courageous women.”

The speech saluted the women fighting from Palestine and Kurdistan to Bolivia.

The women were called upon: “Let us learn together and expand the revolutionary struggle against imperialism for the liberation of women and of all humanity.”

Greetings from Gaza

Joining online, Palestinian women’s representative and active participant in the World Women’s Conference of Grassroots Women, Mariam Abu Daqqa, explained that the people of Gaza continue to live under the siege imposed by Zionist Israel. She drew attention to the systematic use of sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and called for solidarity with the Palestinian people. More than 9,000 Palestinians are currently imprisoned in Israel, including 190 women, three of whom are pregnant.

Mariam Abu Daqqa stated:

“All humanity must become part of the struggle against these colonial attacks. This is necessary to stop this genocide. There is only one way to confront imperialism and Zionism: unite our struggle. The Palestinian people are fighting to defend their land. We salute all those who struggle and resist imperialism.”

Also participating online from Gaza was Suhair Khader, Coordinator of the Palestinian Women’s Committees.

She explained that Palestinian women had consciously and politically decided to remain in Gaza as an act of resistance against colonialism. She warned that a women’s movement that ignores colonialism weakens itself.

“The struggle of women must, on an anti-imperialist basis, also be directed against colonialism.”

Khader emphasized that Palestinian women stand in solidarity with women around the world:

“The unity of women is of great importance. Let us develop the instruments of our common struggle. Let us organize campaigns with international impact. Let us envision a socialist future and fight for it. If we want to build a new world, women will be a decisive part of that process.”

A speech on behalf of the Latifa Tamalaah Women’s Committee of the Patriotic Democratic Socialist Party (PPDS) of Tunisia also stressed that the struggle of women must be part of the struggle of the entire working class and of the fight against racism.

It declared: “The freedom of women in Palestine and Kurdistan is part of the national liberation struggle of these countries. If we unite our forces and fight together, we will win.”

The European Coordinator of the World Women’s Conference of Grassroots Women presented the conference and called for preparations for the next European Conference of Grassroots Women in Paris in January 2027, as well as the next World Conference in Latin America in September 2027.

A message of greeting from ICOR’s Principal Coordinator Monika Gärtner-Engel was also read out. It stated:

“Women’s consciousness has awakened on a broad front and is growing stronger in the struggle against fascist forces and governments, against imperialist wars, environmental destruction, and above all against intensified exploitation, poverty and sexist violence against women.”

Monika Gärtner-Engel further explained that journalist Eva Maria Michelmann had regained her freedom through the joint struggle.

“Now the struggle continues for journalist Ahmed Polat.”

She also emphasized that reactionary fascists seek to confine women to the roles of “mother” and “protector of the family.”

Her message continued:

“Against every intensification of women’s oppression, we develop broad alliances across all currents of the women’s movement. At the ideological level, however, we also engage in debate with petty-bourgeois feminist forces which, by placing the gender struggle at the center, distance themselves from and isolate themselves from revolutionary movements. ICOR is a revolutionary world organization. We encourage women to stand up for the revolutionary perspective of socialism as the path to women’s liberation and to organize themselves accordingly.”

“Give Every Anti-Imperialist Struggle a Women’s Liberation Character”

In a speech by the magazine Socialist Woman, attention was drawn to the multiple crises of the capitalist system:

“This is a crisis of existence. For the bourgeoisie it is becoming increasingly difficult even to find temporary solutions or generate social consent. It can promise people neither social security, nor peace, nor a future worth living.”

Referring to the rise of fascism and religious reaction, the speech continued:

“These phenomena are all different expressions of the same systemic crisis. The historic bankruptcy of the bourgeois order is drawing ever closer.
At the center of this crisis also lies the contradiction of gender relations. Here the decisive question arises: How can revolutionary organizations strengthen both the struggle for women’s liberation and the struggle against imperialism? Our answer is clear: liberation from imperialism is only possible if the struggle against exploitation and every form of oppression is waged as a whole and succeeds through the struggle for socialism. The program of women’s revolution is an inseparable part of every social revolution and possesses a consistently anti-imperialist character. As long as capitalist and imperialist relations of domination exist, women’s liberation cannot be achieved. Likewise, no social revolution can realize its truly liberating potential if it does not place women’s liberation at the center of its program. Therefore, it is the task of revolutionary organizations and parties to give every anti-imperialist struggle a women’s liberation character.”

At the invitation of the ICOR Women’s Coordination, which had shared the solidarity statement with Cuba, the assistant to the Cuban Ambassador to France attended the event and expressed support for the resistance of the Palestinian people.

She pointed to the devastating consequences of U.S. imperialist policy against the Cuban people:

“Power outages in Cuba have reached dramatic proportions. They affect every aspect of daily life. The entire technological infrastructure has become a target of attack. There are severe shortages of medicines. In oncology and pathology there is no access to life-saving medicines. As a result, children are dying. We call on all our friends to oppose this imperialist aggression.”

The French ICOR member organization, the Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Union (UPML), also participated in the event. Its spokesperson, who is also an active organizer within the World Women’s Conference of Grassroots Women, delivered a speech emphasizing the strength of women and the necessity of resisting imperialist aggression.

Michele Abe of UPC-Manidem, participating online from Cameroon, also welcomed the conference.

During a joint discussion session, numerous questions were raised about ICOR’s work. Young participants in particular, who were not yet familiar with ICOR, showed great interest in its overall practice. Particular attention was drawn to the Al-Awda Solidarity Campaign.

It was emphasized that ICOR is a coordinating organization that enables people with differing positions to unite on the basis of common principles in the struggle against imperialism and for socialism.

The event concluded with a solidarity video dedicated to the victims of the earthquake in Venezuela.

 

International Working Women’s Day spotlights dangerous women on opposite sides

Written by: Louisa L. on 8 March 2026

 

(Supplied)

What a difference five years make. 

When Grace Tame became 2021 Australian of the Year, it was on the back of giant struggles against child sexual abuse. She was not tame. She showed the strength and intelligence that allowed her to stand against the patriarchy as a teenager, had educated her on other forms of oppression. 

On International Working Women’s Day, we honour those ‘difficult women’ like Tame, who are anything but grateful to the ruling class for oppression. We honour those women who stand with the people, who understand their collective power, who fight for justice.

Above all we honour the masses of women who struggle day to day to survive to create justice and hope in a world where US imperialism and Zionism rampage, and here, where Australian parliaments and the monopoly capitalist state apparatus of violent suppression are under US domination. 

Despite her intelligence, this year’s Australian of the Year, Katherine Bennell-Pegg, is almost Tame’s opposite. She serves the US war machine. She stands for US imperialism. Her appointment shows US imperialist demands that all cracks of possible resistance be blocked.

Many have pointed out this contrast.

Nick G wrote on January 26, with space ‘the new military frontier’, that Bennell-Pegg is part of the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue alongside Raytheon, BHP, Lockhead Martin, Microsoft, Thales and the Australian Government. She declares she’ll promote STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in schools and universities. 

Nick G suggests she’ll encourage other states to follow South Australia’s transformation of “a working-class high school into a ‘Secondary College’ with an attached ‘Space Academy’”. An expensive photo shoot shows beaming young people, with school uniforms displaying both the US and colonial Australian flags. 

The military has run some US schools for decades, syphoning young people into its war machine, its brutality, trauma and body bags. Young African Americans often chose the military, saying Afghanistan and Iraq were safer than the USA. Their life expectancy was longer and at least the military would pay for their burial. Young Hawaiians also joined the military because their economic prospects were so low in this US state.

Bennell-Pegg will make women’s work harder. She will target children. She will target their education.

Facing outwards, towards the masses

Against this, women are life givers, care givers. Overwhelmingly they nourish life. They are educators.

The richest private schools have major STEM programmes housed in high end architecture, and trips overseas. But they also have music and drama centres, sporting fields, swimming pools with cameras, and everything to create a rich and well-rounded education (undermined by propaganda and lies) for the future managers and CEOs. All with massive public funding and huge fees. 

State schools will get none of that. Staff – mostly female – hold the system together, just as they do in public hospitals, facing crushing workloads. 

“Care” of the mentally ill, including children, is a revolving emergency department door. In NSW mentally ill people who say they’ll harm themselves and others, can wait days in emergency departments, and leave without treatment. One waited 72 hours. There are just four public beds in drug treatment programs in Sydney! 

Care falls upon families, especially women. 

We celebrate First Peoples' women and women standing against all aspects of oppression. We know many of us carry the double load of oppression, paid and unpaid work, without which capitalism would sink into its stinking swamp of lies, theft and war.

But much has changed in 50 years too.

In the 1970s Glen Tomasetti sang, ‘Don’t be too polite girls’. Today Australian women take our place in the world. We demand it. But oppression continues. We refuse to be silent to do as we’re told.

From Knitting Nana’s to girls wearing keffiyehs to school day in day out, refusing to be compliant, we’ll make mistakes and learn from them. Facing outwards towards the masses, chains still bind us. 

But we refuse to comply to US monopoly capitalism and its wars. We will never give up. United, we have always been dangerous.

 

Picketing the International Women’s Day breakfast

Written by: Liz M on 6 March 2026

 

(Supplied)

For many years now, women in South Australia have been able to attend an IWD breakfast as a prologue to celebrations of women’s achievements and protests about ongoing exploitation and discrimination.

This year’s event, held at the Adelaide Convention Centre, was a little different.

For the first time, a number of women and their supporters picketed the event to object to the role of the host, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, in failing to support the women of Gaza.

Organised by the Australian Friends of Palestine (AFOPA), the picket began at 6am as the first of more than 3000 attendees entered the building.
AFOPA made its objections to Wong’s hosting of the event clear: 

“Since October 2023, over 28,000 women and girls have reportedly been killed in Gaza. Nearly 250,000 women and girls face starvation. More than one million women and girls have been forcibly displaced. In 2024, 70% of women killed in conflict globally were from Gaza.

“As Foreign Minister, Penny Wong represents Australia’s foreign policy, which has provided diplomatic cover and material support that enable these atrocities to continue. She has misled the public about Australia’s weapons exports to Israel and has been referred to the International Criminal Court for aiding and abetting genocide.”

IWD began as a protest against capitalism and its oppression of women. The first Day was organised by the American Socialist Party in 1909. In 1911, Communists Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg started Women’s Day in Europe. In March 1917, women textile workers in Russia used the event to call for Bread and Peace. The revolution later that year saw the culmination of their demands, and March 8 was decided upon by the leaders of the new Soviet Union as the day for a national holiday and international celebration.

For many years, IWD was celebrated as International Working Women’s Day, but there were very few working women in evidence among the $60 per head ticketed entrants to this morning’s breakfast.

It has become an increasingly corporatised event: the class dynamics were gobsmacking. There wasn't even any attempt to fig leaf it by inviting First People's women like they did a few years back. Just the business set, power suits, designer dresses etc. And many blazered private school girls -at least 6-8 private schools.  There was one small group of public school kids.

We carried effigies of dead babies and held corflutes about Wong’s position on Gaza and the disproportionate effect of the genocide on women and children. It was a silent protest asking the participants not to cross the picket line, but to my knowledge no-one changed their mind.

Nevertheless, it was the first real challenge to the event, and it was a challenge to Wong.

No doubt she will whisper something to Albanese about the bloody difficult women who picketed the event.

 

Indonesian women in struggle

 

Written by: Priscilla on 27 February, 2026

 

Women from many countries are currently sending in reports for the ICOR United Front webinar on March 8, 2026.  As our close neighbour, Indonesia has recently been convulsed in struggles with women playing a major role.  We publish this report from Priscilla, an Indonesian woman, with a pledge to support our close neighbours in their struggles – eds.

Every day in this country, the oppressed are in a state of mourning over deaths. Of democracy, of integrity, and of the people.

The flood in Sumatra that had taken more than a thousand lives from November 2025 to December 2025 was not declared a national emergency. Women and children were starved of basic necessities because the fascist government denied international access to aid, personal arrogance clouding reason, thinking that our sovereignty will be “under attack” if we allow help when it already is under attack—by the hands of a war criminal, the bourgeoisie and elites elected as President.

Institutions became more and more mistrustful. Even more so for survivors of sexual violence. Despite existing protection laws, the survivors are still vilified, left and right. The government didn’t care that the laws weren’t working properly in society. They didn’t even care to perform; they didn’t even hide their lack of empathy anymore. They danced in the legislative house over salary raises, 10 times higher than the minimum wage applied in Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta. And only scratched away the raise once the death toll over people’s protests rose significantly, killing an online driver passing by the street, Affan. 

Elected representatives were not for the people. And certainly not when the President’s singlehanded decision to join the “Board of Peace” was supported by the elites. The Board, consisting of actors of genocide in Palestine, the imperialist warmonger, the United States of America. The people rejected—but are we surprised that we are still not heard? A fascist establishment was never for the people.

It is a disgrace to Indonesian history, in which Palestine was one of the first countries to recognize Indonesian sovereignty, back in 1945, when we had only just declared our independence from the Dutch East Indies government.

I come here in grief to say that every day, there is new thing to mourn. But at the same time, every day, our spirit does not falter. The women in the rural areas of Sumatra are fearlessly fighting the military posts and landlords, the women in the urban areas are speaking out against sexual predators occupying safe spaces, the brave Indonesian queers are fighting for visibility and recognition, in every way we are capable.

We are in a desperate time, but we are not giving up. And with this, I ask for the solidarity from my comrades overseas. Please include Indonesia in your spirit, action, and voice. We see what’s been happening in Europe, and we are with you in this fight for the liberation of the oppressed. The women, the queers, the working class, the farmers, and the small folks.

Long live Indonesian Women’s Liberation!

Down to imperialism, feudalism, and colonialism of the American government!

 

CPA (M-L) report to the Second Women's Conference of ICOR

 Written by: Louisa L. on 9 November 2025

 

SA nurses and midwives on strike October 2025

The Second Women’s Conference of the International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organisations (ICOR) will be held this month in Kathmandu, Nepal.  The following is a report for the Conference from our Party – eds.

Contribution to ICOR’s women’s conference by CPA (M-L)

Louisa L.

Like all comrades worldwide, our women comrades are deeply involved in struggle. 

Ruling class attacks intensify daily. US imperialism, the greatest driver of war and aggression in the world, holds state power here. 50 years ago on November 11, using the British colonial relic of the Governor General, Australia’s elected government was overthrown in a bloodless CIA coup. It sent a silent message to all incoming governments, to adhere to US domination of Australia across the board. Of course, that has always been met with resistance by our peoples. 

US imperialism dominates the commanding heights of our economy and dominates its daily culture. Australian governments organise and often subsidise unfettered corporate plunder of the land and water and widening suppression of the people. Australia’s land is dotted with US military bases, and our armed forces are now a wing of the US war machine. 

The deepening economic crisis of US capitalism means subservient Australia governments ensure Australian taxpayers fund economic and military development of the US and its major allies like Japan through unjust and unequal treaties and arrangements, like AUKUS and the Quad. Our leaders portray our actual situation as US imperialism’s quarry for resources below cost price, as a victory for Australia. Labor politicians remember what happened 50 years ago and ensure it will not happen to them. 

The First Peoples of this continent and its islands pay the heaviest price for the wealth of their lands. Their children are the most incarcerated on earth. On every level, health, education, life expectancy, poverty, suicide, incarceration, child removals, First Peoples are made to suffer by deliberate policy which demonises children as out of control and disempowers Elders and all those who have not been bought off.  It undermines what evidence has again and again showed are the policies that improve their lives. Despite this, and despite a 25- year program by the Business Council of Australia (set up as a “union” for the biggest, overwhelmingly foreign controlled corporations operating here) to systematically divide and conquer First Peoples in order to get access to their lands and waters, First Peoples – especially women – have continued to organise and struggle.

The reality of women’s lives is affected by deepening economic crisis. Huge cost of living increases, especially necessities of housing, health, education, transport fall on all people, but disproportionately on women, who still provide most caring duties and who earn much lower lifetime wages. Older women are the fastest growing group of homeless. Single parents, mostly women, fear children will be removed if they become homeless. Instead of being assisted, their lives are destroyed.

Across Australia, house prices and especially rents have increased astronomically. Sydney has the second most costly housing in the world, while the real estate, development and construction industries make record profits. All rules and restrictions that hinder the industry (or mining and resource industries) in any way are targeted for removal.

While profits have been at record levels for decades, intensity and hours of work have increased dramatically, wages and conditions have deteriorated. Childcare fees are sky high in an increasingly unsafe privatised system. Australia has some of the most unequal education and health care systems in the developed world, as government funded private schools, universities, and for-profit medical centres and hospitals flourish, while state schools enrol all those who private schools reject on the class or income base of the parents, (without using such “nasty”, truthful words) as too poor, too disabled or not ‘talented’ enough.

Just as the private education cherry picks the best “crop” of students, the private hospital system is designed to cherry pick those with the most profitable operations and procedures. Australia has the highest proportion of hip and knee replacements in the world, quick, straightforward, churned out every day, day after day. Private hospitals don’t want sick people. 

Worst is mental health care. A mass resignation of public hospital psychiatric doctors this year in NSW – many of them women – occurred not primarily because of shocking wages and conditions. The main concern was that there are almost no public rehabilitation hospitals. Critically ill patients, threatening self-harm or harm to others have waited 70 hours in waiting rooms, and left without being seen. Many are homeless. Many are in jails, which are otherwise mostly full of First Peoples and those the education system has failed.

Yet education and health care workers – mainly women – are the biggest unions in the country. Unions are generally compliant. Independent organisation is key here, not usually as secret factions, but as open and active in struggle. This section of the working class flares up in struggle, with financial increases won quickly eaten away in price rises. Most new teachers leave the public system within five years, predominantly because of shocking workload, much of it compliance form-filling, totally at odds with educational needs. Corporate run mass testing of students has systematically brought narrowed curriculum, taking the joy from teaching and learning. 

In the face of deepening crisis and class divisions, ruling class attempts to divide people by race, immigration status, age, sex, sexual orientation, where they live (especially city versus country, inner suburbs against outer suburbs, city versus country, political and religious beliefs, etc, etc abound. Alongside this, democratic rights are legislated away, police powers reinforced, jails expanded.

Individual rather than collective causes and blames are emphasised, or governments rather than those they rule for are blamed. While mass struggle brought increased action against domestic violence, and coercive control which is the cause of most homicides of women by men is now acted against, analysis of the brutal reality that underpins capitalism is largely hidden. Bad men are blamed in shockingly regular news items of yet another murdered woman. Though contested, it too often remains an individual not collective response.

In the face of all this, we are a very small, but active and growing party. Women are in key leadership roles, and often have relatively high public profiles among the ‘left’. More men are drawn to join than women, but as struggle intensifies women are also joining. The more we build intermediate organisations, between ourselves and the masses, the more we are able to take initiative in building and leading united front organisations, the stronger we will become.
Because of the genocide in Palestine, US imperialism and Zionism are more widely exposed than ever. Women have been front and centre in this struggle. The Australian Education Union, especially in NSW, has been the most forthright in supporting Palestine, and supporting staff targeted for wearing Palestinian insignia.

Australia spends hundreds of billions on war and war preparations. This glaring contradiction with unmet needs is a latent strength for those struggling for change.

Our greatest strength as a party, and as women comrades, are our mass connections, built through decades of struggle. People learn from their own experience. Right now, many are learning pessimism and powerlessness, because despite massive worldwide struggle, Palestine is off the front pages, despite ongoing land theft and genocide. But alongside that, the strength of protests around the country like the March for Humanity across the Sydney Harbour Bridge is still fresh.

How can we convince women, and women workers particularly?  We start from where we are strong, our mass connections, and organise from there. We can convince them by the strength of our organisation and action to build struggle to understand their own collective strength, to analyse contradictions and target our main enemy, by our ability in struggle by promote clear strategy and tactics and to find the key link that cannot be ripped from our hands.

Organisation in struggle based on unity of all our Peoples is our key link.

Our key target is US imperialism. 

Our goal is Australian independence and socialism. US imperialism out now!

 

Book Review: The New Age of Sexism

 Written by: Duncan B. on 3 October 2025

 

Every day brings us new developments in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Many of these are beneficial, leading to great advances in medicine and science. However, there is a dark side to many innovations in AI.

The New Age of Sexism. How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny, by Laura Bates, shows how new AI-driven technologies are endangering the rights and safety of women. The author is the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project which fights against gender inequality, harassment, discrimination and abuse. 

She discusses how Artificial Intelligence has allowed the development of Deep Fake pornography which has led to fake pornographic images of innocent women and girls being circulated on the Internet. She examines robot sex dolls, AI-powered chatbot girlfriends and on-line stalking in the Metaverse. She shows how AI-based algorithms used by social media sites such as You Tube and X continually steer men to sexist and misogynistic content. All of this is contributing the regression in women’s rights occurring in many countries, including the US under Trump. 

Artificial Intelligence is being developed by companies controlled by men like Zuckerberg and Musk. They are rushing ahead with little concern for the effects of AI on the lives of people. They prioritise the rapid growth of AI over ethics and safety.

Governments around the world are trying to legislate on the use of AI, but the tech billionaires don’t want to be subject to any form of government legislation, restrictions or penalties. They are supported by Trump, who threatens economic retaliation against any country which tries to take any form of action against his techbro mates. 

Artificial Intelligence must be taken out of the hands of the billionaires and placed in the service of the people. AI should not just be a way for tech billionaires to become trillionaires!

8th March - International Women’s Day - Salute Women’s Struggle

Written by: Mary P. and Alice M. on 7 March 2025

 

(Above: artwork by Hollie Moly)

On this International Working Women’s Day the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) extends our warm and militant solidarity to the women of the world in their struggles against oppression, exploitation and imperialist wars.  Women of Australia stand in solidarity with our international sisters in our common struggles to end injustices, inequality and the violence of capitalism against women.   Like all working women around the world, women in Australia are fighting dual battle in the workplaces and in the social sphere!

The history of IWWD is the history of working women’s liberation movements struggling against capitalist and imperialist exploitation and wars, and in the fight for socialism. 

International Working Women’s Day grew out of working class women’s struggles for decent wages and conditions, equality and against exploitation and imperialist war.  Its communist roots have been obscured through its more recent appropriation by bourgeois political sectors with their long corporate breakfasts and high teas.

 IWWD was first proposed by German Marxist Clara Zetkin at the International Socialist Women’s Conference in 1910, which brought together burgeoning women’s movements from various countries concerned with universal suffrage, women’s labour rights and gender equality in all aspects of life. Later Zetkin and her women comrades, including socialist leaders Rosa Luxemburg in Germany and Sylvia Pankhurst in England, were at the forefront of the fight against the imperialist slaughter of WW1 and its ruthless conscription of young working-class boys and men as cannon fodder.

Capitalism, Exploitation and Oppression of Women

 The CPA (ML) views the contemporary oppression of women as stemming from capitalism; its exploitation of all workers for profit, and its requirement that (largely) women perform unpaid labour to sustain the current, and reproduce the future, generation of workers, necessary for continued capitalist exploitation. This means that as well as being exploited in their workplaces, performing some of the lowest paid, insecure work, women labour for the capitalist class for no wages in housekeeping, child-raising, and fulfilling the social needs of family and community, like volunteering. This is the ‘hidden engine’ of capitalism necessary for the creation of profit for the entire capitalist class. To pull off such a swindle as getting women to work for no wages, the capitalist system is constantly generating its ideology, culture and media which serves to reinforce their role in the labour force, social reproduction and the nuclear family, socialising and conditioning women and men to comply with their designated roles as wage slave labourers, creators of surplus value and profits for the capitalist class.  

So, when capital demands female and feminised labour it’s all ‘girl power” and when they aren’t required it’s ‘look after your family’. Often, it’s both at the same time. In the process the system exploits women’s genuine love and commitment to their children, partners, their extended families and communities. We recognise that while the family under capitalism is structurally a site of inequality and additional burden carried by women, it is often too a site of refuge and selfless care, nurturing and love in a heartless world.

Despite this, women involved in class struggle in their workplaces and communities, can loosen their chains and overcome the obstacles of capitalist and imperialist oppression.  It is in the struggle for socialism that women find the path to women’s liberation, and the liberation of all humanity.

Working women shoulder the heavy costs of capitalist economic crises and imperialist wars

The world today is in deep capitalist economic and social crisis.  This crisis is intensifying the economic and political competition between imperialist powers redividing the world amongst themselves.  This is leading to military conflicts and wars in all corners of the world. Fascism and state  repression by ruling classes is on the rise worldwide. 

Throughout history women have always fought and led struggles against the ruling classes shifting the economic crisis onto the shoulders of working people. Women are the nurturers and fighters for life.  We are the unacknowledged engine powering the day to day running of society.

Women are always at the forefront of liberation struggles against colonialism, imperialism and imperialist wars.  We are indispensable in the fight for socialism and building a socialist society.

Women in Australia 

In Australia today economic conditions for working people are deteriorating.  The rising cost of living crisis and the struggle to make ends meet is putting extra burdens on working class women juggling family budgets, their jobs and trying to keep their heads above water.  Over 50% of working women are in low paid, insecure and part time work.  Most single parent women and their children live below the poverty line.  The rising prices of food, utilities, healthcare, housing, education, childcare, the basic needs of life, are creating more hardship in the day to day struggle of working class women. 

In the family it is more often women who must balance the budget and try to make it stretch to meet everyone’s food, health and educational needs. In a cost-of-living crisis this puts even more strains on women than usual.

Poverty and homelessness amongst working class women, especially amongst elderly single women, makes them the fastest increasing demographic experiencing this.

The housing crisis and housing debt hits women hard.

Exploitation of women in the workplace intensifies.  

All workers are exploited in a capitalist society.  This exploitation is intensified with women earning 22% less than men annually, including significantly less superannuation. Women earn 78 cents in every dollar men earn overall. In Australia this means on average women earn $28,428 annually less than men. And that’s an overestimated figure for the majority of lowest paid women workers who are the majority of low paid workers.   The disparities between the cost of living and lower wages hit women hardest.

First Nations Women

For Australia’s Indigenous women the oppression and exploitation is doubled and far worse.  For 237 years, from the first day of brutal colonial occupation, dispossession and racism, Indigenous women have refused to succumb to the devastating effects of colonialism on their people and communities. First nations women are pillars of strength, keeping their communities together, instilling pride in their culture and heritage.  The countless deaths in custody of their children, families and community only strengthens their resolve to continue the fight against oppression, racism and for self-determination and sovereignty. A new generation of young Indigenous women are stepping up, leading militant First Peoples struggles, teaching and inspiring the non-Indigenous young people.

Women and imperialist wars 

Just as women for centuries have fought against brutal colonial occupations and imperialist wars, today women continue to mobilise and lead the anti-war and anti-imperialist struggles and movements for justice and peace.  Globally, women are at the sharp end of the wars mainly generated by imperialist powers, fleeing the devastation, poverty, displacement and persecution to protect their children and families.

As control of Australia’s economy, politics and military is tightened in US hands it is harder for women to fight for higher wages, more social services and a redistribution of wealth.

Australia’s US puppet governments have committed to spend over $400 billion of public funds on AUKUS, the aggressive US-led military pact to contain the rise of China.  This money will be spent on 8 US nuclear powered submarines over the next 30 years.  That’s more than $30 million a day diverted from the Australian people’s social and economic needs, and the Indigenous people’s sovereignty and land rights, to prepare Australia as a US military base and a proxy in a US- led imperialist war with China. 

Meanwhile these $billions are being denied for critically needed funding for women’s health, homelessness, child care, single parents’ payments, women’s workplace rights and women fleeing domestic violence, amongst other urgently required funds to meet human needs in Australia.  

Domestic and Social Violence against Women

Despite ideology which claims that women are liberated, capitalism still designates women as inferior to men and commodifies our bodies as sexualised objects for male gratification, control, and profit making.  This leads to sexual abuse, harassment, domestic and social violence across the society.

Marxist Feminists argue that violence against women is relatively normalised by the capitalist state, its legal system and commercialised popular culture to subjugate women into accepting their submissive roles.

International Solidarity

On this International Women’s Day we pay tribute to women of Palestine, the Philippines, Myanmar, Rojava, and all other women fighting in their people’s heroic armed struggles for liberation from imperialism, colonial Zionism, capitalism and all reactionary forces.  We pay tribute to women in all corners of the world.  

We recognise the women tirelessly fighting for reforms within the capitalist system to alleviate the burden of oppression and exploitation it employs.  History has taught us that the real and lasting end to the exploitation and oppression of women cannot be achieved without abolishing capitalism and replacing it with a new socialist society where women’s potential is fully liberated.

We fight for:

Funding for decent and secure public housing

Living wages for all

Full and secure employment for all

Properly funded free public health, education and child care

Sovereignty and Liberation of Australia’s First People

Equal pay and end to gender exploitation

Scrap AUKUS and spend $368+billion on people’s needs and the environment

End the US-Australia Alliance 

No imperialist war – peace with justice

For an anti-imperialist independent and socialist Australia

ICOR call for International Women's Day 2025

Written by: ICOR on 4 March 2025

 

International Women's Day on 8 March is inextricably linked with the history of socialist women. In 1910, at the Second International Socialist Women's Conference in Copenhagen, the communist Clara Zetkin launched the initiative to establish a Women's Day on which women would take to the streets for their rights and freedom. 

This day of struggle for women's equality called for women's suffrage, the right to vote, but also for the introduction of the eight-hour working day, adequate protection for mothers and children, the establishment of minimum wages and equal pay for an equal day's work – all of which were groundbreaking achievements for the masses of women. But the struggle could not be separated from the struggle against imperialist warmongering, which would determine the fate of the world only a few years later. 

 

Socialist women took a clear stand against the policies of the imperialist powers that led to the First World War. Rosa Luxemburg summed up the spirit of the times with the slogan “Socialism or Barbarism”. This warning has lost none of its relevance to this day: we are experiencing a new phase of imperialist wars and reactionary preparations for war, of the willful destruction of nature. On the contrary, the rapid developments of our time make the task of saving humankind and the environment from the destructive power of capitalist profit logic even more urgent.

 

The danger of a Third World War is currently greater than ever. The theaters of war in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as war preparations in the South China Sea and South America, are harbingers of that war. With his so-called peace negotiations with Putin and threats of forced deportation of Palestinians from Gaza, US president Trump sharpens his imperialist power plans on the backs of the peoples, as well as the rivalry with other powers. 

 

The aggression against the peoples of the region which are supported by the imperialists and the genocide of Israel's reactionary Zionist government towards the Palestinian people show the unprecedented contempt for humanity and the wanton destruction of the imperialist order. The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria is also exposed to massive threats from the Turkish state; its revolutionary achievements and advances in the liberation of women must be defended. In the reactionary war in Sudan, which is being waged with the support of various imperialist powers, we experience women committing suicide on a massive scale to escape the sexual aggression of anti-people warmongers.

 

Today, too, it is the meaningful duty of all militant and socialist women worldwide to resist imperialist warmongering and oppose psychological war preparation and warfare which try to portray these wars as liberation, humanism and defense. Let us put a stop to this! We women will take to the streets on 8 March with a determined and militant anti-war stance!

 

The living conditions in today's world are particularly painful for women and children. This begins with the low income, lack of child care or, even more intensified in case of flight, hunger, poverty, hardship, violence, misery, also rape and other forms of sexualized violence.

 

Especially working-class women are suffering from ever-increasing unemployment, inflation and a wave of impoverishment. For example the workers in the gold mines of Mali, agricultural workers in Indonesia, the female industrial workers such as the VW workers in Germany who are confronted with threatening job cuts, and the militant trade-unionists in the Netherlands – they are all doubly exploited. Especially the children of the working  class are confronted with great insecurity and fear of the future.

 

All of this also challenges the fighting spirit of women all over the world. The new US president, too, must and will have to contend with all these women. When the ruling class doubly exploits working women, our conclusion can only be that we must be twice as determined fighting for the socialist revolution. The proletarian women's movement is the backbone of the worldwide militant women's movement. However, with this call, we address all women, all fighters for the liberation of women!

 

The deep crisis of the bourgeois system also means that patriarchal violence has taken on ever greater proportions. In recent years, brutal femicides in Mexico, Bangladesh, Turkey, India, Kenya and many other countries have led to large mass mobilizations. It is our duty to resist the oppression of women!

On 8 March, we also commemorate the Mirabal sisters, who as communist pioneers stood up against the dictatorship in the Dominican Republic and became a symbol in the fight against patriarchal violence. Today too, as women, together with our class alliance partners, we must fight in the front lines against the increasingly reactionary forms of imperialist capitalism and rising fascism. Trump, Modi, Milei, Orban, Erdogan, they all declare themselves enemies of women with their fascist ideology and behave as such!

 

All of these are already more than enough reasons to take to the streets on 8 March! We also declare: the oppression of women and their exploitation, in all its facets, are inherent in the capitalist system. In his groundbreaking work, “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”, Frederick Engels already laid the foundation for this conclusion with his historical-materialistic analysis of the gender relations. We can only achieve a solution through social revolution! Therefore, in the socialist tradition of 8 March, let us continue on the path of great pioneers such as Clara Zetkin, Inessa Armand, Rosa Luxemburg, Alexandra Kollontai, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and many others!

 

The revolutionary world organization ICOR is resolutely committed to the liberation of women, to the coordination and strengthening of their struggles, to the networking and exchange of their forces.

 

In close alliance with the worldwide movements for liberation, especially the grassroots women and revolutionary forces, ICOR calls for demonstrations on 8 March and advocates the slogans:

 

Women against imperialism and fascism!

The road to our liberation is through the struggle for socialism!

Working women, oppressed women of the world, forward in the struggle against im-perialism and for socialism!

 

Status of the signatories 02.03.2025. Further signing possible. Current list of signatories at www.icor.info:

1. ORC   Organisation Révolutionnaire du Congo (Revolutionary Organization of Congo), Democratic Republic of the Congo

2. CPK   Communist Party of Kenya

3. CPSA (ML)   Communist Party of South Africa (Marxist-Leninist)

4. PPDS   Parti Patriotique Démocratique Socialiste (Patriotic Democratic Socialist Party), Tunisia

5. SPB   Socialist Party of Bangladesh

6. NCP (Mashal)   Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)

7. RUFN   Revolutionary United Front of Nepal

8. CPA/ML   Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

9. Krasnyj Klin   Аб'яднання беларускіх камуністаў «Чырвоны Клін» (Association of Belarusian Communists «Red Wedge»), Belarus

10. БКП   Българска Комунистическа Партия (Bulgarian Communist Party)

11. PR-ByH   Partija Rada - ByH (Party of Labor - Bosnia and Herzegovina)

12. MLPD   Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany)

13. UPML   Union Prolétarienne Marxiste-Léniniste (Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Union), France

14. BP (NK-T)   Bolşevik Parti (Kuzey Kürdistan-Türkiye) (Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan-Turkey))

15. KOL   Kommunistische Organisation Luxemburg (Communist Organization of Luxemburg)

16. RM   Rode Morgen (Red Dawn), Netherlands

17. UMLP   União Marxista-Leninista Portuguesa (Portuguese Marxist-Leninist Union)

18. RMP   Российская маоистская партия (Rossijskaya maoistskaya partiya) (Russian Maoist Party)

19. MLGS   Marxistisch-Leninistische Gruppe Schweiz (Marxist-Leninist Group of Switzerland)

20. TKP-ML   Türkiye Komünist Partisi – Marksist-Leninist (Communist Party of Turkey – Marxist-Leninist)

21. MLKP   Marksist Leninist Komünist Parti Türkiye / Kürdistan (Marxist Leninist Communist Party Turkey / Kurdistan)

22. KSRD   Koordinazionnyj Sowjet Rabotschewo Dvizhenija (Coordination Council of the Workers Class Movement), Ukraine

23. UMU   Union of Maoists of the Urals (Union of Maoists of the Urals), Russia

24. PCC-M   Partido Comunista de Colombia – Maoista (Communist Party of Colombia - Maoist)

25. PCP (independiente)   Partido Comunista Paraguayo (independiente) (Paraguayan  Communist Party (independent))

26. PC (ML)   Partido Comunista (Marxista Leninista) (Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)), Dominican Republic

27. SUCI (C)   Socialist Unity Center of India (Communist)

28. CPPDM   Chinese People's Party for the Defense of Mao Zedong

29. Chinese Communists (MLM)   Chinese Communists (Marxist Leninist Maoist)