(image: Wikimedia Commons, 1979 International Women’s Day protests in Tehran – Mohammad Sayyad – Tehran Mosavvar)
Capitalism brings us endless wars, chronic increases in the cost of healthcare and reproductive care, unaffordable and scarce childcare, lower wages and fewer benefits, and severely weakened union rights. The ongoing crisis of capitalism disproportionately affects women with declining living standards for the vast majority of working people. This year, we need to turn to the socialist roots of International Women’s Day more than ever.
In 1909 in NYC, socialists organized the first Woman’s Day, calling for women’s suffrage and the need for socialism. This annual tradition was then adopted by an international convening of women socialists in Europe the following year. Since then, International Women’s Day has been commemorated around the world through protests, rallies, and strikes. Today, around 676 million women and girls live 50 kilometers from areas of armed conflict (17%, the highest since the 1990s). An estimated 70% of those killed in Gaza since 2023 have been women or children. The US-backed wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Venezuela, and now Iran, have had a devastating effect on women. Over 60 million women and girls who have been displaced also face risk of gender-based violence. When these refugees seek shelter in the US, they are attacked by ICE in their workplaces and communities. Revolutionary socialist demands and tactics can again play a crucial role in winning immediate improvements in the everyday lives of working women in the US and around the world.
Trump and his regime have ramped up attacks on working-class women. They have withheld funding for life-saving programs for working women and single mothers, including cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, WIC, and TANF. Trump has threatened to cut funding to HeadStart, the only nationwide program providing some free childcare and other important services to low-income families. Under capitalist hyper-exploitation, US women make up two-thirds of low-wage workers. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” also mandated additional work requirements for families receiving some of these services, creating an impossible situation for parents who cannot work without child care.
Four years since the removal of Roe V. Wade, the health risks to women in the US due to lack of access to reproductive care have worsened. Abortion bans exist in 20 states, with varying degrees of restriction. As of the summer of 2025, states with abortion bans have seen over 22,000 additional births, 478 excess infant deaths, and at least 59 excess pregnancy-associated deaths. Women experiencing miscarriages have been denied medical support and have been arrested with charges including ‘abuse of a corpse’ and ‘concealment of a dead body.’ All of this has been done while non-discrimination laws such as Title IX are used to attack trans people under the guise of ‘protecting women.’
In the 1960s and 1970s, mass protest movements of working people and youth, not the corporate political parties, won protections for women. These included the right to reproductive healthcare, union rights, higher wages, and workplace health and safety measures. Republicans and Democrats have no interest in protecting working class women. The Democratic Party, while claiming to support reproductive rights, refused to codify Roe into law despite having control of the presidency, House, and Senate multiple times. Biden eliminated COVID-era expanded healthcare and other benefits from millions of working-class families.
True women’s liberation will not be possible under the capitalist system. Capitalism relies on the oppression of women, immigrants, and all marginalized groups. This International Women’s Day, we need to fight using the socialist strategies of the first “Woman’s Day” for the things that working class women really need – affordable housing, universal healthcare, free childcare, and much more.
The Independent Socialist Group (ISG) organizes for:
- Bring back Roe and make it law! Reproductive rights for all
- Free, universal healthcare and childcare
- Raise the minimum wage to $30/hr
- One year of federal paid parental leave
- At least three weeks of paid sick time per year
- An independent workers’ party that can give working people political power against the two corporate parties and the capitalist system
- A socialist world where working people can democratically run society together to meet the needs of women and win equality for all
Independent Socialist Group 