AT the International Socialist Women’s Conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in August 1910, the resolution on International Women’s Day (IWD), moved by Clara Zetkin, was clear in its class nature, political aim, socialist perspective, and international character. Today, there is a concerted effort to obscure the legacy of IWD, its socialist roots, and its class origins, reducing it to a commercialised event, especially in our country.

While many social issues and forms of discrimination faced by women are discussed on IWD, the fundamental class questions and the structural changes necessary for women’s equality and emancipation are often ignored. As we celebrate IWD this year amidst a systemic crisis of the neoliberal capitalist order, it is crucial for the working women’s movement to not only address the immediate issues faced by women, particularly working women, but also to orient our discussions and struggles towards transcending this exploitative and discriminatory system.

ROOTS OF WOMEN’S OPPRESSION

Friedrich Engels, in his seminal work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, provided a scientific explanation for women’s oppression by linking it to the development of private property and the monogamous family. He debunked theories that justified women’s subordination on biological or psychological grounds, stating, “The emancipation of woman will only be possible when woman can take part in production on a large, social scale, and domestic work no longer claims anything but an insignificant amount of her time.”

Under capitalism, the cost of reproducing labour power is largely borne by women’s unpaid domestic and care work within the family. This unpaid labour subsidises the capitalist system. Patriarchal norms, especially in countries like ours, reinforce women’s roles within the family, which aligns perfectly with the needs of neoliberal capitalism. However, this also restricts women from actively participating in the production process.

Yet, capitalism requires an uninterrupted supply of cheap labour. As the Communist Manifesto notes, “The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.” For capitalists, women’s labour is attractive not only because it is cheaper but also because of their perceived submissiveness, as Clara Zetkin observed.

UNPAID WORK AND UNEMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN

In India, women’s labour force participation rate is alarmingly low. During the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, it plummeted to just 16 per cent. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data, there has been a 12 per cent increase in women’s work participation from 2017-18 to 2021-22 (from 24.6 per cent to 36.6 per cent) (Female Labour Utilisation in India – Report by Ministry of Labour and Employment). However, this increase includes ‘unpaid family helpers’ (women engaged in family work) as part of the workforce. Even with this inclusion, nearly 70 per cent of women in India remain outside the formal workforce, often engaged in precarious, unpaid jobs merely for survival. 

This low participation rate is a significant concern for policymakers and contributes to India’s high Gender Gap Index. It is particularly troubling that 74.5 per cent of women with secondary or higher education are outside the labour force. Among women who are not working, 44.5 per cent cite childcare and domestic responsibilities as the primary reasons for their absence from the workforce.

In India, over 80 per cent of women are estimated to be engaged in unpaid domestic and care work. On average, Indian women spend around six hours a day on unpaid labour. A study by the State Bank of India (SBI) estimates that the value of unpaid domestic and care work performed by women in India amounts to a staggering Rs 22 lakh crore annually. When the work of public service scheme workers, such as anganwadi, ASHA, and mid-day meal workers, is included, this figure becomes even higher. The ideology propagated by the RSS and other religious fundamentalist forces, which confines women’s roles to the family, conveniently justifies this massive exploitation of women’s labour.

Under neoliberalism, there is a push for Indian women to enter the labour force as a source of cheap labour with limited bargaining power. Simultaneously, the system expects these women to continue subsidising the reproduction of labour power by performing unpaid domestic and care work without complaint. Recently, there has been much discussion in India about women’s workforce participation, unpaid care work, ‘care jobs,’ and the ‘care economy.’ However, these discussions often revolve around personalised care services, including those provided through digital platforms like Urban Company, which are commodified for massive profits using the cheapest available labour.

These debates on the ‘care economy’ and ‘care jobs’ rarely address the social responsibility for maternity, childbirth, childcare, and elderly care, or the need for public provisioning of quality services. There is also a glaring silence on the regularisation of scheme workers, who provide essential care services to the poor. Similarly, these discussions remain mute when public services like the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) are withdrawn or privatised.

The working women’s movement, led by CITU, has made significant strides in bringing these issues to the forefront. Through consistent and relentless struggles, particularly by scheme workers, the movement has successfully highlighted the right to basic services and the recognition of care work in mainstream debates. These efforts have compelled governments to improve wages and working conditions for unrecognised care workers, such as scheme workers. The movement could also stall the privatisation or closure of public service schemes like ICDS, Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS), and the National Health Mission (NHM). Issues like the service conditions of domestic workers and the recognition of unpaid care and domestic work are now being discussed in mainstream discourse, thanks to these efforts.

DEMOCRATISATION OF FAMILY

A 2024 UN report on femicides reveals that the deadliest place for women worldwide is their own home. Globally, 140 women are killed every day by an intimate partner or a close relative. In India, 89 per cent of all rape cases involve perpetrators known to the victim, often family members. One-third of women in India experience domestic violence, and every six hours, a young married woman is beaten to death, burned, or driven to suicide. In 2021, an average of 372 cases per day were registered for cruelty by husbands or their relatives. Female foeticide remains rampant, with approximately five lakh girl children killed annually before birth.

The family is not only a site of exploitation through unpaid labour but also a space where women face extreme violence and abuse. Patriarchal values, combined with neoliberal consumerist culture, create a hostile environment for women and girls both within the family and in society at large. The RSS and other fundamentalist forces reinforce rigid gender roles, confining women within the ‘Lakshman Rekha’ and basing their ideological and political agenda on patriarchal principles rooted in texts like the Manusmriti. Even in cases of extreme violence, such as marital rape leading to murder, the BJP-RSS and other religious fundamentalist forces refuse to acknowledge marital rape as a crime.

Even in working-class families and among social activists or trade unionists, the situation is not significantly different. Men often enjoy the privileges of the system and do not share the burden of work necessary for reproduction of labour power. As Friedrich Engels noted, “the modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife, and modern society is a mass composed of these individual families as its molecules.” In this context, Engels described the family dynamic as one where “the husband is the bourgeois, and the wife represents the proletariat.”

It is not only important for class-oriented trade unions and the working women’s movement to combat violence within the family, but it is also essential to expose the exploitation, undemocratic practices, and male privileges that persist in familial structures. We must strive to create an alternative working-class culture in society, one that addresses the role of men in sharing household responsibilities. This is also a crucial aspect of the struggle against communal forces led by the RSS.

The CITU constitution states, “CITU believes that the exploitation of the working class can be ended only by socialising all means of production, distribution, and exchange and establishing a Socialist State.” Friedrich Engels further elaborates that this will eliminate the material basis for the patriarchal monogamous family as it exists today. He writes, “the single family ceases to be an economic unit of society. Private housekeeping is transformed into a social industry, the care and education of children becomes a public affair…” This vision was realised in the socialist USSR under Lenin, where significant strides were made to emancipate women after the revolution.

Therefore, it is imperative for the working women’s movement to intensify struggles for quality employment, public provisioning for care (both childcare and elderly care), and the recognition of domestic work. We must fight for the acknowledgment of the contributions made by women workers delivering public services and for their rights. Only by addressing these issues can women be liberated from ‘domestic slavery’ and enabled to participate fully in the production process, which is a precondition for their emancipation.

At the same time, we must not overlook the fight against workplace exploitation, where more and more women are being brought in as a source of cheap labour. With one of the world’s highest wage disparities, Indian women earn only around 40 per cent of what men earn for equal work. Alongside addressing workplace issues, it is our responsibility to advance the movement toward a more egalitarian society, free from violence and discrimination.