International Women’s Day 2026: Women’s Liberation Requires the Defeat of Imperialism and Patriarchy
We commemorate International Women's Day on March 8 to remember its anti-imperialist roots and the revolutionary struggle of working-class women against exploitation. The day was born from the militancy of New York garment workers, who rose against sweatshop conditions, child labor, and political disenfranchisement. These fights were inseparable from the broader socialist and anti-colonial movements of the early twentieth century, as these women understood that the exploitation of their labor and bodies was directly tied to the imperialist domination of their nations. Their fight for “Bread and Roses”—for better pay, dignified living and working conditions, and gender equality—was therefore a fight against a global system. This legacy demands we view the struggles of women today through the same lens.
Today, U.S. imperialism, often in concert with allies like Israel, is waging war across the Global South. We see its bloody footprint from the genocidal violence in Palestine to the bombing of Nigeria, Somalia, Iran, and Venezuela. We see its bloody footprint in the economic warfare against Haiti, the destabilization of Lebanon, and the resource wars plaguing Sudan and Congo. We see this patriarchal, white supremacist, capitalist-colonialist violence also in the kidnapping of Cilia Flores alongside her husband Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as well as in the murder of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s children, grandchildren and family members beside him in Iran. In every instance, it is women and children who disproportionately pay the price, facing displacement, starvation, and the collapse of entire communities under the weight of unilateral sanctions and military aggression.
In this context, U.S. imperialism stands as the single greatest threat to the sovereignty of nations and the welfare of the world's peoples. It is the main enemy, the engine driving the wars, the economic plunder, and the humanitarian catastrophes that rob women of their futures. The fight for "Bread and Roses" cannot be won as long as this system of plunder exists.
As US and Israeli Imperialists continue their assaults on the Women and Children of oppressed peoples we must ask “What is being done to hold them accountable?” For BAP, this accountability must come from the people’s organized resistance to imperialist-zionist impunity on the world stage. We call on all people of conscience to join two immediate calls to challenge this imperialist impunity:
Just as the international sporting community banned apartheid South Africa from sport, we demand FIFA and the IOC now ban the U.S and Israel from hosting or participating in international sporting events for their systematic violence against the women and children of the global south and oppressed peoples within its borders — a show of solidarity in the continued fight for bread and roses. [Public Petition | Organizational endorsement of Anti-Fascist Football Coalition]
The people of the United States must oppose their government’s lawlessness that destroys families and livelihoods domestically and globally. Join the mobilizations against the kidnapping, detention, and kangaroo trial of Venezuelan First Combatant Cilia Flores and President Nicolas Maduro on March 26th at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center and solidarity actions throughout the world.
The task of anti-imperialists today is clear: we must unite and build our collective struggle to defeat US imperialism. We must reject the "sanitized" neoliberal feminism that celebrates individual achievement while ignoring the collective suffering caused by empire. True solidarity means mobilizing in the heart of the empire to dismantle its war machine, supporting national liberation struggles abroad, and recognizing that our liberation is bound to the liberation of women in Palestine, Haiti, Venezuela, Iran, and everywhere they resist. Only by defeating imperialism can we clear the path for a world where all women have dignity.