The Socialist Party USA occupies a unique place in labor history and US politics as an explicitly socialist feminist party. As socialist feminists, we understand our struggle must be waged simultaneously on many fronts. The foundation of any successful revolutionary movement is steadfast working-class solidarity across the many intersections of oppression. Our interdependent struggles are each a vital piece of a greater movement, working together to realize our shared goal of a more free, fair, and just society for all.
Socialism, as economic democracy, and feminism, as liberation from gender-based oppression, go hand in hand, and the fight for an egalitarian world beyond capitalist exploitation cannot be successful without class consciousness and an understanding of patriarchy. It is for this reason we reject versions of socialism that focus exclusively on class-based oppression rather than class-conscious movements for liberation across many intersections of oppression. Likewise, we reject the hypocritical contradictions of liberal ‘identity politics’ feminism. The feminism of the ruling class has a long, pathetic history that privileges the perspective of wealthy cis-het white women and pushes a vision of a diversified oppression rather than real economic justice and class struggle, maintaining the status quo rather than fighting
The exploitation of class-based societies was built and continues to rely on the unpaid, undervalued, and often invisible domestic, caretaking, reproductive, parenting, and even emotional labor of women; dividing working people of all genders against themselves, mandating adherence to strict gender stereotypes, punishing those who refuse to fully conform to them, and subjecting those who defy the gender binary itself.
The owning classes maintain their grip on power by keeping us divided. They pit one group of workers against another, using bigotry as a weapon in attempts to defeat worker solidarity and shift blame for the actions of the powerful onto the powerless. The wealthy and powerful will have always sought to appropriate and corrupt the message of revolutionary movements into serving the status quo, and continue to co-opt and deradicalize our message and our struggle to build a better world through peaceful means.
Today we see it clearly: patriarchy, oppressive gender roles and hateful gender stereotypes, white supremacy, ultranationalism, religious bigotry, and transphobia, are woven together to tear working class communities apart. The mouthpieces of the owning classes have fabricated
A culture war to prevent workers from uniting and overthrowing their oppressors through class warfare. Reproductive rights, men’s mental health and emotional wellbeing, the human rights of migrants, the ancestral lands and livelihood of indigenous people, the health and safety of black and brown communities, the privacy, bodily sovereignty, and basic human rights of trans people: all of these are things the owning classes will attack to scare us into compliance at home, while funding and committing heinous acts of unprovoked aggression, violence, and genocide against any who are inconvenient or threaten US hegemony abroad.
Successful revolutions are ones that unite the oppressed against their oppressors, built on solidarity across all working-class communities, irrespective of borders and nations, and led by the most marginalized. All working people lose when bigotry wins, yet the owning classes know the temptation to hold on to whatever perceived power and privilege we can when the majority of us have so little We will only be free when we stand shoulder to shoulder and back to back with people of all genders, nationalities, religions, sexual orientations, backgrounds and identities.
Today we extend both a message of hope and a call to action: call to revolution to all the working class on International Working Women’s day, that across all borders languages and identities, those marginalized across all intersections of oppression will unite and join us in the one and only fight: to end ALL forms of injustice by ending the economic system that perpetuates and profits off our pain and suffering: join the SP-USA and the Stodden-Cholensky campaign, and we can build a better, freer, fairer, sustainable, peaceful, more democratic future, together!
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