A New York City march for abortion rights in 2022. Credit: Liberation photo
This year, we celebrate International Women’s Day as Donald Trump unleashes an all-out war against the working class domestically and abroad. This IWD brings a renewed sense of urgency, as women lead the fightback against this onslaught on our most basic of rights. What does this mean for our struggle for liberation?
After just a month and a half of Trump in office, nearly every federally funded program that benefits the working class finds itself on the chopping block, including SNAP, housing and rental assistance, Social Security, and Medicaid. We have to be clear about what the slashing of these social programs truly is — a massive upward wealth transfer to Trump’s billionaire backers by stealing from the poor, robbing us of any social safety net. Poor and working women, in particular, will be the victims of these so-called “budget cuts.” Women comprise 63% of SNAP recipients, and Black women are most at risk of facing evictions and thus rely on housing assistance. Social Security is a vital lifeline for many women in their retirement years, as women face a higher risk of economic insecurity than men. And over 24 million women — many of whom are Black or Latina — rely on Medicaid for health care coverage, and the program is the largest provider of maternity care in the country, covering over 40% of births in the U.S. Medicaid also covers preventative cancer screenings and supports hospitals in rural areas. Cutting Medicaid would eliminate access to these screenings for many and force these hospitals to close. It’s no exaggeration to say that working women will die due to these cuts.
Conservative lawmakers in some states are even trying to repeal “no-fault divorce,” which allows a spouse to divorce their partner without having to prove wrongdoing on their part. If these lawmakers are successful, it would make it even harder for victims of domestic violence to escape abusive marriages, forcing them to undergo a long and byzantine legal process which may not even be successful in the end. It’s not hard to see this would be a major rollback in terms of rights and autonomy for women, a continuation of what was started in the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration cynically invokes the language of protecting women only to advance its own racist right-wing agenda. In response to critics who charged that deporting immigrants en masse would disrupt the U.S. economy, Trump-designated “border czar” Tom Homan retorted in a January NBC News interview, “I think mass deportation and results of mass deportation are more important to this country than anything. I don’t put a price on all these young women who’ve been raped and murdered. I don’t put a price on our national security.”
A few weeks later, Trump signed his first piece of legislation into law: the Laken Riley Act, named after the 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student tragically murdered by a Venezuelan immigrant, whose undocumented status was quickly seized upon by the right-wing to push for a major crackdown on immigration. The law broadens the scope of ICE authorities to take into custody any undocumented immigrant charged with — but not necessarily convicted of — minor petty crimes such as shoplifting. The Trump administration does not care about violence against women — the signing of this act can only be seen as a way to massively expand immigrant detention.
What does it mean to celebrate International Women’s Day amid the gutting of public assistance while our government continues to funnel billions of dollars into militarizing the border, toward facilitating Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, and escalating confrontation with China? What can IWD teach us at a time when our government destroys other countries’ economies through sanctions, yet turns around and deports migrants fleeing those same countries to seek economic opportunity and better lives for their families?
IWD means solidarity with all working women, both within the U.S. and abroad, and honoring it compels us to struggle against the system which gives rise to our oppression in the first place: capitalism. While the ruling capitalist class robs working women of a safety net and protections at home, they wage imperialist wars to line their own pockets abroad. The fight for a dignified life in which we are all guaranteed safety from war and gender-based violence, the right to health care, maternity leave, affordable housing, a decent job, and an education is a struggle against capitalism itself. Only the socialist transformation of society can truly bring women’s liberation. And while women bear the brunt of Trump’s billionaire agenda, all across the country, we are leading the fightback against it.
A socialist future is realizable, but we have to organize for it. Honor the working-class revolutionary legacy of IWD by joining the mass movement to defeat Trump’s billionaire coup! Fight for a world where every woman can lead a dignified life and all rights are guaranteed — fight for socialism!
