On May 5, the ABC published an article celebrating a “record-breaking number of women to enter Australian Parliament.” At face value, this seems like a welcome development. In a country where women, especially those from marginalised communities, have long been excluded from political decision-making, greater representation might appear to signal real progress. But for those of us working towards a more just and liberated world, the question is not simply who is in Parliament, but what interests they serve.

Increasing the number of women in positions of power within a capitalist state may offer symbolic victories, but it does little to improve the material conditions of working-class, Indigenous, migrant, and gender-diverse women—those most impacted by exploitation and oppression. If anything, this kind of inclusion often functions to make the status quo more palatable, rather than transform it.

To understand why, we need to look beyond appearances and consider the structure of Australian society and the nature of the political institutions that govern it.

Representation vs Liberation

The women elected to Parliament today are not a cross-section of society. Most are professionals who have risen through party machines, shaped by the same economic and political structures that entrench inequality. Many are part of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), a party that, while historically aligned with the working class, now plays a central role in managing capitalism, enforcing border militarisation, and supporting corporate interests.

This doesn’t mean that individual women MPs are personally malicious. However, the institution within which they operate—Parliament—is not neutral. It exists to preserve a social order based on private ownership, profit, and unequal power. The celebrated increase in women’s representation does not alter this foundation. As Lenin observed in The State and Revolution:

“To decide once every few years which members of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament – this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary-constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics.”

In other words, it’s not simply who holds office, but how power is structured and used.

Why Representation is Not Enough: A Marxist View on Identity Politics

Marxists reject identity politics when it fixates on who holds power rather than how that power is structured and exercised. Focusing solely on individual identities within elite institutions ignores the class foundations of oppression and often legitimises them. While identity politics emerged from legitimate struggles for recognition, it is often severed from the material conditions that structure inequality.

This politics treats representation within ruling class structures as the solution to oppression. Without confronting capitalism’s exploitation or colonialism’s dispossession, representational gains are easily co-opted to serve elite interests. The bourgeois system is systematic in achieving that co-option.

Identity politics can obscure class antagonisms by suggesting that inequality will be solved when the halls of power “look” more diverse. But as long as power is concentrated in the hands of a capitalist elite, swapping who occupies which seats—even if they are from marginalised communities—will not liberate the oppressed.

Just look at recent examples: were UK women less oppressed when Elizabeth Truss was Prime Minister? Did South Asian communities gain material justice under Rishi Sunak? In Australia, Julia Gillard and Tanya Plibersek may personally understand gendered oppression, but their parliamentary presence has not advanced mass organisation for women’s liberation.

The Limits of Parliamentary Feminism

At its core, women’s liberation is about ending the social, economic, and political systems that oppress women. But when feminism is absorbed into elite institutions, stripped of its class content and radical edge, it can reinforce the very systems it once sought to dismantle. This is what Marxist feminists call bourgeois feminism: a politics of inclusion that benefits a few while leaving structural inequalities untouched.

Representation alone does not challenge the root causes of oppression. It does not confront the unpaid labour women perform in the home, the exploitation of migrant women in aged care and cleaning jobs, or the policing and surveillance that target Black and First Nations communities.

Critiquing bourgeois democracy does not mean rejecting parliamentary struggle altogether. In The State and Revolution, Lenin noted:

“Marx knew how to break with anarchism ruthlessly for its inability to make use even of the ‘pigsty’ of bourgeois parliamentarism, especially when the situation was obviously not revolutionary; but at the same time he knew how to subject parliamentarism to genuinely revolutionary proletarian criticism.”

The issue is not participation per se, but how that participation is used, to uphold or to challenge capitalism.

Inclusion as a Tool of Co-option

The pattern of co-option has been obvious since the time of Marx. Across the globe, more women have entered parliaments and corporate boardrooms. Yet inequality persists. The burden of poverty continues to fall most heavily on working-class women, especially those in precarious and undervalued forms of labour. War continues. Austerity deepens. The symbolism of inclusion is rarely matched by transformative change.

In Australia, ALP women have supported welfare cuts, punitive refugee policies, militarisation in the Pacific, and new coal and gas projects. Policies that disproportionately harm working-class, Indigenous, and migrant communities.

This is not a personal failing. It is the outcome of a system that rewards those who manage capitalism efficiently, not those who seek to dismantle it.

What Kind of Power Do We Need?

None of this means that political participation is irrelevant. But we must distinguish between symbolic inclusion and meaningful empowerment. Real power for women, especially the most marginalised, comes from collective organising, not individual advancement within ruling-class institutions.

Across the world, Indigenous and migrant women are building collective power in the face of exploitation, displacement, and environmental destruction. In Bougainville, women have led resistance against the reopening of the Panguna mine. In Ecuador, Indigenous women have mobilised against oil drilling and mining. In the Philippines, peasant women organise against land grabs and repression. In Dhaka’s garment sector, young women continue to strike for living wages despite violent crackdowns.

These movements may not be celebrated in mainstream headlines, but they represent the frontlines of real political struggle. Women are not waiting for permission to lead. They are already reshaping the terrain of resistance.

We want more than representation. We want a society where all people, regardless of gender, have the means and freedom to live with dignity. That means challenging the system that profits from our inequality, not celebrating when a more diverse group of people is put in charge of it.

The Path Ahead

The ABC article reflects a broader ideological trend: celebrating surface-level progress while obscuring structural injustice. Our task is to dig deeper, ask harder questions, and stay focused on the root causes of exploitation.

To be clear, we do not oppose women in leadership. We oppose a system that uses their inclusion to legitimise continued oppression. The inclusion of individual women in leadership positions does not change the structures that exploit the majority of women.

Our feminism is not about better representation in an unjust system. It is about building a new system altogether: one based on solidarity, not competition; on collective care, not private profit; and on freedom from all forms of domination.

A woman’s place is not simply in Parliament. A woman’s place is in the struggle for revolution.