This year we celebrate March 8, International Women’s Day under circumstances where the Iranian women with their wide participations in the mass protests of the latest months showed their undeniable role in the political and social upheavals and transformations in the society more than ever.

Iranian brave women have for long known the way and means of imposing their political presence through their uncompromising fight against the whole backward Islamic regime in Iran. Today the Iranian freedom-loving women allied with the working class, allied with the fighting and equality-seeking students, along with the street protests, as the protesting mothers of the political prisoners and those who have lost their lives, in the revolutionary movement in Kurdistan and on many other fields have been fighting at the frontline and have been a symbol of bravery and revolutionary resistance in pursuing their rightful demands.

When the Islamic regime observed women’s massive and active presence in the latest mass protests, it took all kinds of inhumane and criminal actions like imprisoning, torturing and even raping a number female detainees and later publishing its news in an attempt to frighten the women, but women through their massive participations showed that the Iranian women have taken up the fight for their humane and rightful demands and the regime’s criminal acts will not shake their will and resolution.

The current political crisis and the situation in the society leave the Iranian women movement and the society with only two different political alternatives. One is the liberal and capitalistic alternative which is pretending that people’s protests were only against the rigged elections and for reforms within the regime, with a soft and velvet revolution on the horizon, trying to reshuffle the enslaving capitalist system and thus the continuation of the people’s rights violation; and the other alternative is the worker’s revolution and a socialist system where the human emancipation from the enslaving salary work, and end to all kinds of discriminations and a society of free, equal and prosperous people is the horizon.

If the women’s movement doesn’t want its massive social force to become the reserve force in service of the Iranian liberalism for reforming the Islamic regime and wants to save its basic demands from being compromised by liberalist groups, it has no other choice but to embrace the socialist strategy and ally with the labor movement. The women’s movement by adopting the socialistic policy can set back the regime and make political openings in the society in favor of its advancement realizing its demands.

One of the pillars of the socialistic strategy concerning the women’s movement and a prerequisite for its advancement is the alliance with the labor movement and involvement of the masses in its struggles. In order for the women’s movement to take its struggles into the grassroots, it has to involve the working and toiling women in these struggles. Currently only 17% of the Iranian women have found their way to the labor market. This means that the majority of the Iranian women are working outside the labor market as housewives in the family with no salaries or on the farms. These women which are in millions suffer from economic dependency and cannot live on their own even one day. This lack of economic independence is one main factor why the backward religious laws and the patriarchic culture supported by the Islamic laws against the women have been able to survive and daily contempt against women to be exercised. Thus in order to be able to do fundamental work against these laws and cultures inside the society, the first vital prerequisite is ensuring economic independence and a welfare life for women.

The socialist activists within the Iranian women’s movement have to focus their activities on the lives of this massive part of working and toiling women. They should address these women and show them that socialism is the most practical way for them to achieve their rights and demands. In order to do this, they need to shed light on the fact that oppression against women has a class background, they need to enter the women’s working and living environments and make it clear for them that in order to carry on an effective struggle against the patriarchic culture and anti-women Islamic laws, they need to fight the whole capitalistic system with a socialistic alternative on the horizon.

The gender inequalities within the society and inside the family stem from the production system in the society. To end these inequalities, the economic background for it should be provided and the only way to do this is to attack the capitalistic conditions in the society. The first step is to make the capitalists and their state to financially ensure the equality in rights between men and women, to force them to spend part of the surplus value they get from exploiting the working class for insuring unemployed women and thus ensure women’s economic independence.

Providing the economic and material backgrounds for ensuring gender equality requires direct attack on the private property. This is why the Iranian bourgeois liberalism and all the bourgeois parties and forces in the opposition that cherish privet property and the existing production system cannot guarantee this equality which they sometimes have on their agenda and election campaigns.

It is these fundamental realities of the capitalistic system that drive the women towards a strategic alliance with labor movement in its fight for its demands and uprooting all the inequalities and oppressions enforced against them. The Iranian women on this year’s International Women’s Day not only should pursue their rightful and freedom-loving demands relentlessly but also should unite with the labor movement and involve the masses in its fights on a wide social scale.

March 8, International Women’s Day has always been an opportunity for the women’s emancipation movement to fight the religious and anti-women dictatorship by the Islamic regime and this year’s celebrations will also be a cry at the discriminating policies and actions by both the wings in the regime. The reformists within the government have already declared that they recognize the women’s rights and freedom only within the limits of the Islamic institutional laws. During all these years, they have never expressed a word against the attacks of the regime’s oppressive forces and Basij groups on the women who have expressed their voices in favor of their human rights and demands.

The Iranian regime is trying to prevent the commemoration of International Women’s Day by imprisoning the women activists ahead of this day or force them hold their celebrations and actions dispersed and away from the public eyes. Under this situation, it is vital to cherish this day in the heart of the big cities. The socialist leaders and radical and freedom-loving activists within the women movement need to work together hand in hand, despite all their differences, in order to have a successful and glorious commemoration of March 8. The labor leaders, activists and organizations need to cherish March 8 hand in hand with the activists and leaders in the women’s movement.

Long Live March 8 International Women’s Day

Long Live Freedom, Equality and Workers’ State

Long Live Socialism

Central Committee of the Communist Party of Iran

March 2010