PLP members in the Bay Area attended a rally for International Working Women’s Day (IWWD), with about 100–150 workers present. Attached is the flyer we distributed and discussed, explaining how the collective action of working-class women led to the creation of this day and contributed to both the 1917 Russian Revolution and the revolution in China.

One new friend met with us and helped distribute the flyer. We also distributed copies of CHALLENGE and gathered a few contacts to follow up with, as well as people interested in joining our May Day celebration. In total, we handed out about 100 flyers, including to people walking by the demonstration.

We don’t think the numbers are the most important aspect of this action. Rather, what matters is the struggle that this flyer represents—the discussions it can spark with friends, family, and comrades.

International Working Women’s Day (IWWD)

Today the media often shortens this to International Women’s Day, but International Working Women’s Day began as a working-class holiday, rooted in the long history of women-led struggles around the world.

The history below highlights collective action, not individuals. Working-class women organized, fought, and led struggles against class oppression. In 1977, the United Nations officially recognized March 8 as International Women’s Day, but the day itself was built through decades of struggle by working women.

These examples show how class consciousness and multi-racial, multi-ethnic unity—among women, men, and all workers—develop through collective struggle, often with leadership from women.

Hidden histories of women’s struggles in the U.S.

Much of the history of women-led struggles has been hidden or erased.

• Women and slave revolts: Historian Rebecca Hall, in Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, documents rebellions on slave ships during the Middle Passage. Through research into slave ship manifests, she shows that enslaved women fought their captors throughout the Americas, though these stories were largely erased from official history.
• Indigenous resistance: There are many untold stories of Indigenous women who fought European colonization and westward expansion in the Americas.
• Women abolitionists: Black and white women organized against the system of slave labor and helped lead the Underground Railroad.
• 1832: Black women founded the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society in Massachusetts. Black women were leading abolitionists in both the North and the South, though many of their stories remain buried.
• 1833: Quaker women founded the Female Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia. In 1838, racist mobs attacked their interracial meetings. The Second Anti-Slavery Convention brought together 175 Black and white abolitionists.
• 1848: These struggles helped lead to the first Women’s Rights Convention in New York.

Women lead labor struggles

Women workers also led major labor battles against capitalist industrialization.

• 1857: On March 8 in New York City, garment workers organized a strike against inhuman working conditions, a 12-hour workday, and poverty wages. Hundreds of women demonstrated across the city.
• 1907–1908: Women on the Lower East Side of New York organized a rent strike that lasted until January 1908.
• 1908: About 15,000 women marched through New York City, demanding shorter hours, better pay, and improved working conditions in the garment industry.
• 1912: The “Bread and Roses” Strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, led largely by immigrant women and children, became one of the most famous labor struggles in U.S. history.

Women workers and revolution

Women’s struggles have also helped spark revolutionary movements.

• February 23, 1917 (March 8 in the Western calendar): After nearly three years of brutal World War I, women textile workers in Petrograd struck over food shortages. Within days:
• 75,000 workers struck
• Then 200,00.0
• Eventually nearly 400,000 workers, including students, teachers, and office workers.
• Their demand for “Bread and Peace” helped ignite the Russian Revolution, forcing the Tsar to abdicate. Later that year, the October Revolution overthrew the Provisional Government and established a workers’ state.
• China’s Revolution: During the Chinese revolutionary movement, the slogan “Women hold up half the sky” reflected the central role women played in building the revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party, even though many individual stories remain untold

Today

Today, March 8, 2026, living conditions for workers are worsening around the world. War, genocide, and economic crisis continue under capitalism and imperialist rivalry.

At the same time, resistance is growing.

Let’s build a movement capable of overthrowing capitalism and creating a communist world based on sharing and collective power.