The emancipation of women is inseparable from the emancipation of the working class
The oppression of women is not a natural, eternal condition. It arose with the development of private property and class society. Engels demonstrated in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State that the subordination of women was the "world-historic defeat of the female sex" — coinciding with the rise of patriarchal property relations.
Genuine women's liberation cannot be achieved under capitalism. Bourgeois feminism seeks to give women equal access to exploitation — equal opportunity to be exploited by capital. Marxism-Leninism fights for the abolition of exploitation itself. Only the socialist transformation of society can lay the material foundations for genuine equality.
This does not mean the struggle for women's rights should wait for the revolution. On the contrary: the fight against women's oppression is an integral part of the class struggle. A working class divided by sexism is a weakened working class.
"The degree of emancipation of woman is the natural measure of general emancipation."
— Charles Fourier, quoted by MarxWorking-class women face double exploitation: as workers selling their labour to capital, and as women performing unpaid domestic labour — cooking, cleaning, child-rearing — that reproduces the labour force at no cost to the capitalist.
Women are systematically paid less than men for equivalent work. This is not an accident but a structural feature of capitalism that divides the working class and increases profits by depressing overall wages.
Capitalism reduces women to commodities — their bodies, appearance, and reproductive capacity are exploited for profit through advertising, the beauty industry, and the commercialisation of every aspect of human life.
Liberal feminism fights for women's equality within the capitalist system — more women CEOs, more women in parliament. This does nothing for the working-class woman in the factory, the shop, or the home. It is feminism for the bourgeoisie.
The record of actually existing socialism demonstrates that socialist construction made enormous advances in women's liberation:
The Soviet Union was the first country to grant women full legal equality. Within months of the October Revolution, women won the right to vote, equal pay, the right to divorce, paid maternity leave, and access to education. The USSR established a network of public canteens, laundries, and childcare facilities to socialise domestic labour and free women from household drudgery.
Soviet women became scientists, engineers, doctors, cosmonauts, and political leaders in numbers unimaginable in the capitalist West. Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963 — two decades before the United States sent a woman to space.
In China, the revolution abolished the feudal oppression of women — foot-binding, forced marriage, concubinage — and brought women into production and public life. Cuba achieved some of the most progressive family legislation in the world. Vietnam's revolutionary struggle relied heavily on women fighters and organisers.
These achievements were not gifts from above. They were won through the active participation of women in revolutionary struggle and socialist construction. Wherever socialism retreated or was overthrown, women's rights were among the first casualties.
"In order to achieve the complete emancipation of women and to make them really equal with men, we must have social economy, and the participation of women in general productive labour."
— V.I. Lenin, The Tasks of the Working Women's Movement (1919)The MLPBF fights for:
Engels' foundational work tracing the historical roots of women's oppression to the rise of private property and class society.
A collection of Lenin's writings on the woman question, including his conversations with Clara Zetkin on building the women's movement.
August Bebel's influential work on the relationship between women's liberation and the socialist movement.
Alexandra Kollontai's argument for a proletarian approach to women's liberation, distinct from bourgeois feminism.
The fight for women's liberation is inseparable from the fight for socialism. Learn more, organise, and join the struggle.