Aurora Women’s Club: What do women desire?

Donetsk, DPR

We have often been asked and asked about why we have a women’s communist organization and what we are fighting for.

Here’s our answer.

1. We WANT a world without exploitation and oppression.

Women are the majority of the world’s poorest and most oppressed. Every day we are robbed, exploited and killed. Capitalism destroys our planet and dehumanizes us, turning everything into a commodity. It cultivates and reproduces patriarchal prejudices and imposes a war between the sexes. We believe that this must be done away with, and working-class women must be at the forefront.

2. We WANT an end to all imperialist, predatory and unjust wars.

War exacerbates exploitation and oppression. The interest of capitalism is war and regression, our interest is peace and progress. They send workers to die and conduct stupid, chauvinistic propaganda so that they voluntarily want to die for the interests of capital. They lie to us that a woman can free herself by killing her class brothers and sisters.

We believe that only a war of liberation can be just.

3. We WANT decent conditions, pay and job security.

Women are increasingly involved in all aspects of production. And this process is irreversible. At the same time, we still provide for family life, and the costs of giving birth and raising children under capitalism are passed on to each of us. We are not allowed to work in so-called hazardous industries, ostensibly to protect our maternal health. But throughout the world, working conditions deteriorate and become unbearable in all spheres of production. They lie to us that non-standard forms of employment like freelancing will bring us freedom. In fact, this brings us only greater exploitation and enslavement.

Our bodies are turned into goods. Liberals of all stripes lie that prostitution and surrogacy are women’s choices. We do not need a world in which objectification is elevated to a virtue, and the sale of children is considered not just normal, but also beneficial for women.

We believe that labor should be the basis of development, not something that kills us and destroys us as individuals. Labor should humanize, not turn us into a function.

4. We WANT liberation from kitchen slavery.

We are told that women have long been equal with men, that all our problems are the result of our sinful nature and unwillingness to work. But we do most of the work that goes unnoticed. We prepare the home, create comfort, raise children — we are directly involved in the reproduction of the labor force. But this work in the individual household is a vicious circle. We are obliged to work the second shift, but this is taken for granted. They lie to us that the woman is by nature the keeper of the home.

The socialization of home life will bring us liberation.

5. We WANT universal free, quality education.

There is no access to quality education for children from working-class families. The teacher’s work is demeaned and discounted. Quality education has become an elite service, and for most children only a second-class education is available.

They lie to us that a woman cannot become a fully developed person. For example, they say that girls, because of their nature, cannot grasp the technical sciences.

We believe that it is necessary to radically change conditions so that everyone, regardless of gender and nationality, can rediscover all the richness of human culture.

6. We WANT health care to be a social guarantee, the inalienable right of every person.

Over the past thirty years, we have begun to perceive health care not as part of the inalienable right to life, but as an expensive service. Denial of free medical care equals intentional homicide.

They lie to us that “expensive service = quality service.” But in countries where health care is expensive, women die from illegal abortions just the same as in countries where it is forbidden to terminate a pregnancy. Even if it is proclaimed that medicine is free, hospitals, clinics and pharmacies will take our shirt. Under capitalism, disease follows poverty and suffering.

We believe that everyone should have the right to be treated and maintain their health.

7. We WANT every person to be provided with decent housing.

Every day, due to the feminization of poverty, hundreds of thousands of women around the world find themselves on the street. Every day, the majority of employed women workers of the world fear losing their jobs and losing their rental housing, for which we have to pay most of our honest earnings. Housing affordability is one of the most important issues for women’s emancipation. Without affordable and safe housing, we cannot be sure that we have the opportunity to raise children and protect our lives and health from domestic tyrants.

They lie to us that a homeless person is a lazy person. Capitalism deprives us and our sisters and brothers of housing and jobs every day. We are told that the poor are superfluous people who are to blame for their own troubles.

We believe that only those who shamelessly arrogate to themselves society’s wealth are superfluous, taking the last penny from the roof over our heads. Every working-class person needs decent living conditions, and together we are fighting for everyone to have warm, comfortable and safe housing.

8. We WANT to protect everyone from violence.

Most men are killed in the street, most women in the home. Domestic violence has become the norm because capitalism enshrines the right of the strong. They lie to us that aggression is men’s nature, so responsibility for beatings, harassment and rape lies with the victims. 

Women are subject to violence, including sexual violence, in the workplace. This is part of the operation. But male workers, having fallen under the influence of the dominant ideology, often associate themselves with male capitalists, and do not support their class sisters. Violence becomes an instrument of disunity of the working class. We think this needs to end. W

e should not be afraid to return home, we should not be afraid of our husbands, fathers, brothers, or any passer-by in a dark street. We should not be afraid that bosses will consider themselves entitled to degrade our dignity. We do not believe that male workers are lustful animals, they are our comrades.

9. We WANT the whole breadth of reproductive rights for women.

Now all the costs of birth and raising children are shifted to each of us. From the moment of conception, a lot of health, effort, time and money are spent on a child, and the capitalist state declines responsibility. A woman as a mother strives to bring up a comprehensively developed personality, but now she can only bring up labor that wants to sell itself more expensively. They lie to us that children are our individual whims, and the guarantee of our comfortable old age. In fact, all of society needs the continuation of the human race.

If we do not want to be mothers, we are shamed for being selfish. If we become mothers, we are shamed for asking for help and pressured with a sense of personal responsibility. Under capitalism, motherhood becomes suffering. We must deny ourselves, lose our skills. Exploiters use this vulnerable position in every way. We believe that we have the right to raise children in decent conditions. We must have access to sex education, quality contraception, good gynecological care and obstetrics. But no one can force motherhood on us. We must have access to free and safe abortions.

10. We WANT international solidarity.

Nationalist propaganda is a powerful weapon against the unity of working class women. An ideology of national exclusivity and bourgeois patriotism is imposed on us.

We must support any struggle against capitalist exploitation, patriarchal and national oppression anywhere in the world. We have the same interests. Anti-fascism is everyone’s business.

11. We WANT the full emancipation of women. Without a free woman there is no socialism.

Translated by Greg Butterfield