The PCUSA honors the contributions working women have made internationally to our society; not just as white or blue collar workers, but also as agricultural workers, homemakers and mothers. We use this day to affirm our commitment to fighting capitalist exploitation. From the dawn of the industrial revolution, women were forced to work longer hours for less pay just because they were women. In many cases, locked inside the factories they worked in with little to no safety regulations. In fact, March 25th commemorates the deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911, where 146 garment workers, nearly all women died because they were locked inside the building, which was then common. As early as 1857, women in the garment industry were demanding shorter work hours, equal pay, and safer and better work conditions.

Today in 2015, little has changed. Women still are not paid equally for equal work and many women around the world still work in factories with little or no safety regulations. For example, the 2012 on the sweatshop fire in Dhaka, Bangladesh, over 111 female garment workers died from being locked in an unsafe factory.

Although many important and crucial gains were made during the late 1960’s and 1970’s in the US because of the militancy of the women’s rights movement, such as the right to enter the workforce, the rights of women to control their bodies and reproduction; the movement did not completely liberate women. Everyone has heard the expression: “A woman’s work is never done”. This statement is true in the US now more than ever. Whereas before women had one job, now they were saddled with two. One paid outside the home and the other unpaid inside the home after and before work; taking care of housework, the children, and often also their elderly parents.

Many American households consist of single women with children who receive no child support, so issues of low pay, long hours, chronic under and unemployment and lack of social services, such as child care are especially critical. To this day, women only earn 77 cents for every $1 a man makes.

Although children are tomorrow’s wage slaves in a capitalist society, Capitalism does everything possible to make the labor behind childcare and housework invisible in order to get this labor for free. It does the same when it extracts labor from workers when they take care of sick relatives and parents, which should be a burden to the government. Women, rather than being respected and assisted, are heavily penalized in our society. They generally are delegated to what are considered “women’s work”: jobs in such fields as domestic work, home healthcare, as cashiers, store clerks, etc. These jobs usually pay little more than minimum wage.

Even when they do work in jobs that are not considered “women’s jobs”, they earn less than men for the same work and therefore receive less social security when they retire because they earned less. They are also doubly exploited because, unlike most men, women tend to be the primary caregivers in our society. If they did not work, because they were tending to sick children or parents, they are disqualified from receiving social security. If they did work, they receive less social security, because of the time they may have taken time off working on these unpaid jobs.

Women also tend to be discriminated against by the lack of legislation requiring paid sick days in order to take care of sick children or relatives. Women should not be penalized for being mothers or caregivers. Moreover, there should be nothing more dignified in any society than being a caregiver or helping others. This has always been a primordial instinct in man. There is no reason why being a home healthcare aide should be a woman’s job, except that women are paid less than men, so women are hired instead of men for these jobs. There is also no reason why men should not take paternity leave or sick days to take care of children, except that they will be fired later for doing so. There is also no reason why war is glorified rather than taking care of your sick neighbor, except that capitalism profits from war, but not from taking of the elderly or disabled.

We need to fight not only for equal pay for equal work; but most importantly for Socialism. Only under Socialism will everyone be entitled to a job, equal pay, and most importantly be respected for taking care of the family as a social function.