WORLD WORLDWIDE SOUTH AMERICA - BRAZIL - news journal UPDATE - (en) Brazil, OSL: March 8: Long live the struggle of working women! (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 In many parts of the world, International Women's Day is a day to

reaffirm the struggle of working women for equality and to denounce the
precarious living conditions that we have been facing for over a hundred
years. Even today, sexist violence, work overload and state policies are
especially brutal against working women; an intensification of
patriarchal ideology adjusted to the current dynamics of the
capitalist-statist system. ---- Sexist violence ---- In Brazil, there
are many reasons to fight. Last year, 1,438 femicides were recorded in
the country, which corresponds to four murders of women per day.
Meanwhile, Ligue 180 registered 573 thousand complaints last year,
including 101 thousand cases of psychological violence, more than 78
thousand of physical violence and 10.2 thousand cases of sexual
violence, among others. In the majority of cases, those reported were
people known to the victims, such as partners or ex-partners. This
reality highlights the importance of women protecting themselves
collectively, but also the need for men to recognize the reproduction of
machismo and combat these attitudes, whether in themselves or in those
close to them.

Women are more exploited

Economic data also show the extent to which working women are even more
exploited, in a structural way. Even with the growth in GDP and job
creation in the last year, inequalities between men and women have
barely changed. Women's income is 22% lower than men's, and black women
earn less than half the income of non-black men, according to the IBGE.
Furthermore, in terms of household chores, women spend the equivalent of
21 more days than men per year.

The unemployment rate among black women is 9.3%, more than double that
recorded among non-black men (4.4%). Thirteen million women do not look
for work because they have to take care of housework, childcare or
relatives. Among those who are employed, almost 40% earn the minimum
wage or less. Even in higher positions, women have lower salaries than
men in the same positions.

The precariousness of work is another factor that weighs more heavily on
women, who are in lower-paid and more invisible occupations, such as
cleaning and caregiving. Neoliberal policies contribute to this scenario
through outsourcing, precarious work, and cuts in public spending - such
as those implemented by the Lula-Alckmin government through the Fiscal
Framework. In addition, the 6x1 scale deepens the exploitation and
oppression of millions of women, who, amid so many tasks and double
shifts, do not have enough time for studies, leisure, and socializing,
or even to fight and organize politically.

Conservatism attacks women's rights

Another important attack by the Patriarchy occurs through religious
fundamentalism, with restrictions on reproductive rights. Different
levels of government have been restricting rights, whether in education,
with ideological policing of sexual education for children and
adolescents, or in health services themselves, with the
bureaucratization of legal abortion processes, or simply by closing the
procedure in referral hospitals. There is also the offensive in the
National Congress, with the threat of the Rape Bill, which equates
abortion after the 22nd week of pregnancy with homicide. Fearing loss of
popularity, the Lula-Alckmin government and its base in Congress do
little to contain these attacks, and instead sell off fundamental rights
to maintain relations with more conservative leaders. In this way, it
paves the way for the rise of the extreme right and its misogynistic and
violent discourse against women and sexual minorities.

Struggle is the way

As anarchists, we highlight the importance of March 8 as a date not only
to demand policies, but to reaffirm the direct action of working women,
independent of governments and employers. We do not believe that simply
adopting specific policies or including a few women in the upper
echelons of power will achieve gender equality, whether in Brazil or
anywhere else in the world. It is the collective struggle that can wrest
victories from the powerful and move towards the destruction of the
Patriarchy and the capitalist-statist system.

For over a hundred years, anarchist and socialist women in general have
advocated the need for popular struggle to transform the structure of
society and social relations. Much progress has been made in over a
century, but it is not enough. Inspired by the example of these
revolutionaries, we reinforce the call for collective organization in
the workplace, study and housing spaces. It is through social struggle
that we can achieve the world we desire, without social classes, where
work is shared equally, and where genders are just ways of being in the
world, without oppressive relationships!

Long live March 8th!
Long live the Women's Struggle!

Libertarian Socialist Organization
March 2025

https://socialismolibertario.net/2025/03/07/8-de-marco-viva-a-luta-das-mulheres-trabalhadoras/
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