March is Women’s History Month, and March 8th is International Women’s Day globally. International Women’s Day has a history directly connected to the movement for socialism in the U.S. and the world.

After the Socialist Party of America held demonstrations for a women’s day in support of women workers in 1909, Clara Zetkin of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) led the successful campaign to have March 8 established as International Women’s Day at the 1910 Congress of the Socialist or Second International, which had earlier established May Day at the beginning of the 1890s. After the Soviet Revolution, International Women’s Day was declared an official holiday in the USSR and advanced by communist parties throughout the world. It was subsequently established in the socialist countries which came into existence after World War II. In the U.S. International Women’s Day was advanced by the National Organization for Women (NOW) after its formation in 1967 and other feminist groups. It was officially recognized by the United Nations as a global holiday in 1977.

After the last four years of crude and vulgar sexism/male chauvinism advanced by the Trump administration, celebrating and learning from International Women’s Day and Women’s history is of special importance today.

1. For Marxists and Communists, the struggle to achieve gender equality is foremost a question of

a. defending the sanctity of the home.
b. both uniting the working class to eliminate the super profits the capitalist class gains by paying female workers significantly less than male workers and fighting against male chauvinism, which, like white chauvinism, divides the working class.
c. preparing women to serve the state in the military.
d. enabling women to become high corporate and governmental leaders.

2. In 1968, the CPUSA, after decades of repression which saw its leadership imprisoned and its members subjected to police state harassment, ran its first presidential candidate since 1940. She also was an African American woman. Who was she?

a. Claudia Jones
b. Dorothy Burnham
c. Charlene Mitchell
d. Angela Davis

3. Since the destruction of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Treaty Allies in Eastern Europe in the name of “freedom and democracy” at the beginning of the 1990s, virtually all sociological studies show that the status of women in these countries has

a. remained essentially the same.
b. has improved tremendously thanks to vacuum cleaners, microwaves, and other labor-saving household appliances.
c. has improved because of the significant role of women in the new capitalist classes.
d. has plunged as the percentage of women in leading positions in all areas of life has dropped very sharply and women have been major victims of the elimination of socialist full employment policies along with the repeal of long-established reproductive rights in law and an increase in sexual harassment.

4. While women have made important gains over the last half century, including advances in the arts, sciences, and various professions, these gains have often been contradictory. Which of the following are examples of these contradictions?

a. The loss of social benefits to single-parent households and the growing representation of women among low-income workers (58%).
b. The pandemic-induced exodus of women from the workforce. Often paid less than their partners, women workers have been forced to quit their jobs to do the unpaid labor of caring for children and supervising their children’s online education.
c. The “glass ceiling” effect, preventing women from advancing through promotions in fields where they previously had no positions
d. The undermining of legislation and policy to establish equal pay for equal work
e. All of the above

5. Woman members of the Communist Party, USA have made major contributions to a wide variety of people’s struggles and victories in American history. Which one of the following was not a woman who made major contributions to people’s struggles as a CPUSA activist?

a. Esther Jackson
b. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
c. Florence Harding
d. Angela Davis

Answers here.

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