In the lead up to International Womens Day on March 8 we share here a discussion between three young organisers with the Party for Socialism and Liberation in the USA on the link between imperialism and women’s oppression. It was first posted in April, 2024 but resonates still.

The speakers discuss their personal reactions to bourgeois feminism personified by people like Kamala Harris, Hilary Clinton or Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Bourgeois feminism aims to raise some women up the corporate ladder so they can become oppressors too. The superficiality of these high-status feminists has been laid bare by the genocide in Gaza.

That genocide means that while it continues all discussions of women’s liberation must talk about Palestine. US leaders have a record of mouthing platitudes about women in poor countries to justify wars against those countries.

“The US doesn’t want to see anyone exercise sovereignty over their own land, their own future, their own being across the world,” they say.

The majority of women are workers, living payday to payday. The three speakers talk about building working class feminism and unity of all women workers across all divides, such as immigrant workers or other differences.

The speakers celebrate the wave of young women coming into political action in the United States. There are many “militant, politically clear and firm” young women moving forward. Through political organising they are “coming into themselves” and “that’s feminism right there.”