Socialist Students members
Attacks on women and women’s rights are being met with protest and mass resistance.
The dismantling of Roe v Wade in the US, which saw the removal of abortion rights from millions of women, was met with protests. A mass movement led by young women followed the murder of Mahsa Amini by the ‘morality police’ in Iran. Mass movements in Latin America have forced governments to legalise or relax restrictions on abortion.
Women and girls face sexism, sexual harassment and violence. In all zones of war and conflict, there is escalating violence against women and girls. Working-class people are struggling under the cost-of-living crisis, from low pay and growing debt, and women are more likely to have childcare responsibilities and be in low-paid or precarious work.
Tory policies have put a decent education out of reach. We are crammed into overcrowded campuses, our staff are run ragged, and there is little extra support.
The capitalist establishment wants to divide working-class people against each other to divert the anger against them and their brutal, failing system.
But they also fear a new generation of women fighting for our rights!
A general election is coming. But Keir Starmer’s Labour government will offer no route to genuinely challenge sexism or falling living standards. He says his government will halve violence against women and girls – but this is an empty promise from a party siding with big business.
Starmer’s ‘tough choices’ won’t allow for investment in street lighting, free public transport, childcare facilities and support services – unless we organise to fight for what we need!
We need to organise on campus, to oppose sexual harassment and sexism and fight to improve our conditions. University managements can’t be trusted – students and university workers need democratic oversight over all policies relating to sexism and violence, and provision of support.
Young people need to link up with trade unions, which have led a massive strike wave over the last 18 months. The Socialist Party campaigns for a new mass workers’ party that would fight to protect the rights of women and the whole working class. We want workers and young people to stand as candidates – maybe that could include you!
To liberate us all from oppression and exploitation, we have to fight for socialist change: to take the wealth and power out of the hands of the capitalists so society can be democratically organised for the good of us all.
