Saturday, April 21, 2018

MFPR ITALY DECLARATION - 8th of March… and Beyond

On March 8 this year we witnessed the reconfirmation of the strike of women in our country, in unity/connection with a broad range of many countries in the world in which the strike has spread, has become the watchword and a practice of millions of women, has reached extraordinary peaks, as in Spain, and where the International Women’s Day was enlightened by the light of the revolutionary struggle of many women, both in Europe and in most of the countries of Latin America from Brazil to Peru, Chile, etc., as well as in U.S., Canada, India, Turkey, Philippines, etc.

The women’s strike, in the current increasingly reactionary conditions of advancing modern fascism, raises more vigorously the issue of the double oppression, class and gender oppression, that in this society weighs on the majority of women, workers, precarious, unemployed women, girls, students, housewives, immigrants ... Since the beginning of this year already too many and hideous femicides took place in Italy, femicides that are the most rotten and hateful fruit of this capitalist society; as there have been layoffs, discrimination related to motherhood, new attacks on the right to abortion, etc.

The Women's strike is a weapon in this phase, because it affects all aspects of women's oppression: job, family, sexual, cultural, ideological speres. Therefore, the strike embodies in itself, the whole revolutionary potential of the struggle of women who, to achieve a true emancipation and liberation, are called to fight to overthrow of this society in which we have nothing to lose but all the chains and to construct a new world, the socialist society, towards communism.

The bourgeois reforms can not change the lives of women, so we can not and do not want to rely on the parties in the bourgeois parliament, or delegate the defense our lives to a State that with all its apparatuses (judicial, military, repressive, media etc.) every day tries to impose social more control on the lives of women. For this capitalist system, the majority of women must be exploited in the jobs for the profit of the masters, they are the first to be fired, increasingly precarious, the first to pay the cost of "their crises", and at the same time they must provide the reproductive and care work to give the world new arms and take care of them to be put at the service of the system of capitalist exploitation.

On March 8th in the demonstrations in many cities of our country, in the many initiatives put in place this year, the denunciation of all the social issues, of the working and living conditions of the working women, of the most exploited and oppressed proletarian women, has advanced; this year in amidst the electoral campaign, the women's movement has said a clear NO to the electoral manipulation, because we do not want small reforms but a radical transformation of society and the overthrow of power relationships; this year the girls, young comrades were at the front row in the and anti-fascist and anti-racist demonstrations and struggles, they brought their anger and determination to fight, leading to the healthy kicking-out of the demonstrations of members of parties such as the Lega, as happened for example in Bologna. All this has added a new important element to the path of struggle of women in our country.

Important signals came from the workers and precarious women. Again it was in the sectors in which women have actually striked, deserted the workplace, as education, some branches of the third sector, services, commerce, public employment, that we had the highest and wider participation, from the North to the South, to the strike. But the significant fact has been the strike of factory workers, the heart of the class of exploited and oppressed proletarian women. Beside the good and positive confirmation of factories where already in the previous years the workers had defied blackmails, threats, official unions boycotts - and nothing and no one can stop them - this year other workers have gone on strike for the first time, as the immigrant workers in Montello, a large factory for waste treatment near Bergamo. The workers' strike, even if it is still a minority, is strategic because it brings the class perspective inside the women's strike.

Of course, the path is still long and open. Several positions, views and practices must change, and revolutionary proletarian feminism has still to advance.
Women's strike is an important weapon, we do not want to make it a routine once a year, with the risk of becoming crystallized. If this is enough for the feminists of the petty and middle-bourgeoisie, it is definitely not so for the majority of women who every day are under attack in their work and life conditions. The class and revolutionary line and practice can not wait for the next 8th of March, but it must transform the needs and dreams expressed by women in their strike into a struggle, a daily rebellion. These needs and dreams are not a "platform" of requests for reforms made in round-tables and submitted to the government, to the ministries, increasingly imbued with fascism-populism, but are "war weapons" of women against the government, institutions, masters.
This year thee understanding of the value of women's strikes has spread to a large part of the revolutionary, communist organizations in many countries. However, this understanding has also to lead to overcome an only propaganda way to state the importance of women's struggle, as well as it must overcome an old and stereotypical view of contradictions.

There is a great revolutionary perspective ahead, and the battle of women brings the "extra gear" to the whole of the struggle movement.

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