malice in wonderland

The neoliberalist policies of the U.S. and other imperialist countries have brought the lowest wages to women around the world. These policies have made them subject to sexual assault and murder, like the women working in maquiladoras in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, superexploited workers who have been raped and killed in the hundreds on their way to work. It has forced the separation of families across continents just to find work, where they often face harsh and racist anti-immigrant sentiment in the imperialist countries. It has led to atrocities such as the deaths of some 200 mostly women in a Bangladeshi factory, who burned to death after the factory they were locked into by the bosses caught on fire.

What has become clearer than clear is that capitalism has not liberated women. On the contrary, it has only heightened the oppression and exploitation of women through their labor and the commodification of their bodies.

So, as we wage war against imperialism and capitalism, we know that the women’s issues are not incidental or secondary — they are, in fact, a vital and integral component of anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist struggle. In 1868, Karl Marx said that “everyone who knows anything of history also knows that great social revolutions are impossible without the feminine fervent. … Social progress,” Marx said, “may be measured precisely by the social position of the fair sex.”

As women, we fight for women’s rights on a daily basis, as it’s essential to our very survival.