Workers International League - Women and Marxism

The question of Marxism and Women is of vital importance in the struggle for socialism. Due to their status as second-class citizens, women are one of the most revolutionary sectors of society. As Marxists we oppose and actively fight against all forms of discrimination and oppression, but we completely reject bourgeois and petty-bourgeois feminism. We stand on a class basis and take a class perspective on this as in all issues. Workers of all genders, races and nationalities, and must unite against the ruling class of all genders, races, and nationalities!

The Origins of Women's Oppression
While middle class feminists regard the oppression of women as an inherent biological trait of men, Marxism explains that the root of women's oppression lies not in biology, but in social conditions.(September 13, 2001)

Marxism versus feminism - The class struggle and the emancipation of women
For Marxists, the root cause of all forms of oppression consists in the division of society into classes. For many feminists, on the other hand, the oppression of women is rooted in the nature of men. It is not a social but a biological phenomenon. This is an entirely static, unscientific and undialectical conception of the human race. It is an unhistorical vision of the human condition, from which profoundly pessimistic conclusions must flow. For if we accept that there is something inherent in men which causes them to oppress women, it is difficult to see how the present situation will ever be remedied. The conclusion must be that the oppression of women by men has always existed and therefore, presumably, will always exist. (By Alan Woods, July 19, 2001.)

Women and the Suffrage
This article looks at the history of the struggle of women to win the right to vote. Barbara Humphries looks at this issue and how it relates to the development of the class struggle. (June 23, 2001)

Marxism and the Emancipation of Women
This document outlines the first steps given by Marxism to fight for women's rights, what the first successful revolution meant for the emancipation of women, conditions of women under capitalism both in advanced and Third World countries and pose the question of how to eliminate inequality between men and women for good. Ana Muñoz and Alan Woods. (March 8, 2000)

Women in the Soviet Union
We reproduce here an article from 1988 which examines the position of women in the former USSR. It exposes the Stalinist caricature of the question of women and the family, and explains the real attitude of Marxism towards the emancipation of women as expressed in the writings of Lenin and Trotsky. By Jen Pickard.