Breaking Our Chains: Women, Marxism and the Path to Liberation
Your book is coming out in time for International Women’s Day (IWD). Where did IWD originate?
Judy IWD has been turned into a consumer fest to flog flowers, chocolates and prosecco.
For lots of mainstream commentators, IWD is about celebrating individual women who have “made it”—scientists, engineers, politicians. It’s all about individual success.
But in the shadow of Jeffrey Epstein and Gaza, we need something much more militant—something more like the original IWD.
In February 1909, women socialists in the United States organised huge demonstrations and meetings all over the country demanding political rights for working class women.
They were in the midst of a wave of mass strikes by women textile workers in New York. This was the first “Woman’s Day”.
In 1910, socialists from around the world gathered at a conference of working class women. The German revolutionary Clara Zetkin raised the idea of organising an International Working Women’s Day every year, in every country, to campaign for the vote for working class women.
The first International Women’s Day took place in 1911. Its success exceeded all expectations. Women left their children at home with their husbands, went to meetings and battled with the police.
In 1913, IWD was transferred to the 8 March. In 1917, Russian women marched to celebrate IWD and sparked the Russian Revolution. Clara must have been ecstatic that her idea had actually sparked a revolution.
During the First World War, the idea of internationalism was really important. It is still important to stand with women across the world against a global system that wrecks our lives and threatens the whole planet.
Can you outline the relevance of the Marxist theory of women’s oppression to understanding the Epstein scandal?
Sarah When it comes to the Epstein scandal, we can’t underestimate the level of anger people feel. Horror permeates every pixel on every photo and every word of every email.
Epstein’s network is the world’s largest grooming gang—well funded and protected. We knew how rich, powerful men think about women and girls—and children—we knew, but now it is out there in public.
The scandal shines a light on how they act when they are all together.
But this is the system behaving as it should. It went on for decades and it only came to light because of the bravery of the survivors. Epstein’s vast social networks, his abuse of women is part of the hypocrisy of personal relationships.
They say one thing and do another.
In modern capitalism, the nuclear family is contradictory. There are deeply reactionary individuals who want to bolster the traditional family but they also think women are there to be bought and sold, used and discarded.
Judy And let’s not forget, Epstein was happy when fascist Tommy Robinson got out of jail in 2018.
Elon Musk, a big pal of Robinson and Nigel Farage, was trying to get invited to Epstein’s parties. And Donald Trump is cut from the same sleazy, sexist cloth as Epstein. The far right are up to their necks in Epstein’s vile abuse.
Sarah Boris Johnson comes from the same section of society where these abusers flourish and accept each other. Police were called to Johnson’s then partner’s home after hearing her screaming. Johnson refused to answer questions, saying what went on in the home is a private matter.
It is not all men, but violence does happen at the hands of men and these men were protected by social wealth, by power, by their business networks.
How does the book address the challenge posed by the rise of the far right and their reassertion of traditional gender roles?
Judy The far right is a danger to all women. Farage wants to roll back abortion rights for women in this country.
Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin wants to tax women who don’t have babies. This is the Great Replacement Theory in action—scapegoat migrants and try to make white women have babies to fill the labour gap.
The far right pose as protectors of women but they are lying. They want to control women, not protect them.
Fascist organisations have always managed to recruit some women, and the far right today are using the same tactics—pretending to care about women’s safety, and to support motherhood and the family.
That’s why Women Against the Far Right is so brilliant and so necessary.
How do economic crises, austerity and the cost of living crisis impact on women’s lives?
Sarah It affects working class women’s lives in every way. Look at how wages go down, but childcare costs soar. This pushes women out of the workplace and into the home. It makes the juggle experienced by working class women impossible.
Combining working life with childcare, even if you have a partner—it can become impossible.
Life is getting harder for working class women. All while a tiny minority of women and men at the top of the system continue to enjoy fortunes made off the backs of the rest of us.
This runs through our daily reality. Whether you are forking out for bus or train tickets, whether you are replacing wellies or a lunch box—poverty robs ordinary people of dignity and choice.
Your book has a chapter on challenges to Marxism, including theories of patriarchy and intersectionality? How do you respond to those challenges?
Judy It is important to stand with all those who want to fight back against sexism. But strategies do matter. I remember being told that we were all equal now and we didn’t need to worry about sexism anymore.
We were told that the key was a few women winning individual success who would then “feminise” or “humanise” the boardroom. These ideas have proved to be disastrously wrong.
Lots of people are attracted to Marxism, but they think it needs adding to or building on to explain women’s oppression properly. I am absolutely for developing Marxism to address new ways of thinking about the world.
But actually I think Marxism, when it is properly understood, can explain the world and point to effective strategies for change. So, I welcome any engagement with Marxism, but I think Marxism is the theory of women’s liberation.
We are Marxists, not feminists or socialist feminists. That’s because we see women’s liberation as inextricably linked to overthrowing the whole system.
I want to smash the sexist system, and I understand it is in the interests of men to smash that system too. As a class, we have power when we are united.
From the Gaza protests to Minneapolis, women are fighting back. What is the best way to win against the capitalist system?
Judy The incredible Palestine protests were largely led and organised by young women. And it is not a coincidence that Renee Good was murdered by Ice in Minneapolis. Women are central to organising resistance to Trump.
People rightly got very excited when the trade unions got involved in the Minneapolis Black Out Day on 23 January, because we have to consider where our power lies.
It can’t just be about closing businesses for a day—it has to be about making cities ungovernable and turning off the profits the bosses depend on.
Sarah Firstly, you have to fight back in any way you can against imperialism and the tightening grip of reactionary and bigoted regimes, such as Trump’s. We fight back any way we can.
In Minneapolis today, that means throwing back tear gas canisters fired by Ice, setting up checkpoints to keep Ice agents out and all the brilliant community organising going on.
But we do not want to always be reacting to the most violent expressions of a violent and painful system—we want to fundamentally challenge systemic oppression.
Part of that means not just organising when you come under attack but organising for tomorrow. That means fighting with others at work against small stuff today and having conversations about the big stuff for the future.
Not everyone is going to become a revolutionary socialist, but many will understand the problems you are talking about. We can win people who want to fight sexism now to organise with us against the whole system.
What can we learn from the revolutions of the past?
Judy This is not just a historical question—revolutions happened in Sudan and across the Middle East in the past ten or 15 years.
Every revolution has its own dynamic and character, but there are common themes. You see people change rapidly, embracing new ideas and a new sense of power.
Women always come to the fore in revolutions—they begin to raise their own demands. Collective ways of caring for children develop spontaneously as women get involved.
But for revolutions to win, there has to be organisation, built in advance. Women have to lead that process.
The Epstein Files and the Gaza genocide have exposed the sickness at the heart of capitalism. Politicians promise change but deliver nothing. We have to believe that we can create a better world and act like we believe it.
- Breaking Our Chains—Women, Marxism and the Path to Liberation, by Sarah Bates, Judy Cox and Sally Campbell, £10, Bookmarks Bookshop
