Women In Red: The Surprising History Of International Women's Day

In honor of International Women’s Day, allow me to quote the statement made by Vladimir Lenin, who presided over the first official March 8th celebration of this day in Russia:

“For under capitalism the female half of the human race is doubly oppressed. The working woman and the peasant woman are oppressed by capital, but over and above that—they remain in ‘household bondage,’ they continue to be ‘household slaves,’ for they are overburdened with the drudgery of the most squalid, backbreaking and stultifying toil in the kitchen and the family household.”

“The second and most important step is the abolition of the private ownership of land and the factories. This and this alone opens up the way towards a complete and actual emancipation of woman, her liberation from ‘household bondage’ through transition from petty individual housekeeping to large-scale socialised domestic services.”

Oh? That wasn’t what you expected him to say about International Women’s Day?