Anti-Imperialism & Women's Liberation

What is holding back progress for women in the poorer nations? In many countries there have been important periods of progress bringing women into the public sphere and integrating them into society. At the same time, all manner of backward precapitalist practices against women persist and often, decades of progress are reversed in the span of a few years.

In Afghanistan, the Soviet-allied People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) regime enacted radical social reforms, but in so doing, fueled an Islamist backlash that rode to power with the backing of the U.S. Later, when the U.S. bombed Afghanistan in 2001, it installed the Karzai puppet regime which enacted some pro-women measures, but the Taliban rallied its forces in opposition to imperialism. Now in power, it has forced women back into the home.

In Iran, after a period of social modernization where women’s rights were advanced, the coming to power of the mullahs in 1979 threw them back, forcing women under the veil. India is home to one of the largest pools of women in work and education, an objectively good thing, yet they live under an openly Hindu-chauvinist regime that upholds traditional conservative family values and resents the notion of women becoming independent. In Argentina, despite strong feminist movements in the last period, today women are confronting devastating attacks by Milei including on abortion rights.

There are countless other examples that show this dynamic of advance and reversal time and time again. Why does progress hit this limit? How do we break out of this dynamic and chart a course to take women’s struggles forward? These are decisive questions. We present this article as a contribution to elaborating answers with the aim of provoking a much-needed debate in the women’s movement and the left.

The Woman Question and Imperialism

The woman question cannot be understood independently from social development. The conditions and rights of women in a given society are a reflection of the degree of social and economic development of that society. As Marx explained: “Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development which this determines” (Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1891). In order to understand the limits to progress for women in oppressed countries, we must understand the factors that act as a brake on the overall development of such countries.

Colonial expansion imposed capitalist social relations upon hitherto precapitalist societies. This process undermined the material basis of the old societies by introducing elements of modernization, such as new technology. This led to some industrialization and urbanization, which prepared the ground for the integration of women into the proletariat and chipped away at old prejudices about women remaining in the home. Examples of women workers in textile mills and factories can be found throughout colonial South and Southeast Asia.

At the same time, colonialism was naked plunder. Any socially progressive developments were by-products of a reactionary process whereby raw materials and wealth were pillaged and transferred to the metropolises. This not only choked and impoverished the colonies, but in so doing, encouraged the persistence of archaic social structures and practices. Even when these structures became economically anachronistic, the colonial masters fomented them as a mechanism of social control. Throughout Africa, traditional chiefs were integrated into colonial administrations, while in India the British fostered a class of parasitical aristocrats.

Though colonial empires are gone, the plunder of the former colonies continues through their economic strangulation by Wall Street and U.S.-dominated institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, all of which are backed by the military might of U.S. imperialism. Justified as a means of job creation and development, the export of imperialist finance capital to all corners of the earth is carried out for the express purpose of extracting superprofits which keeps the poor countries impoverished. The complete economic collapse of Sri Lanka in 2022 is a recent graphic illustration of such strangulation and impoverishment.

Like colonialism, modern imperialist oppression puts fundamental limits on the level of development of poor nations and reproduces daily all kinds of precapitalist muck. This results in a permanent reservoir of conservative social forces and attendant reactionary practices that can be rallied at any moment to defend traditional values, forming the spearhead of attacks against women. To combat conservative social reaction that strives to roll back gains for women, it is necessary to attack the material foundations that give rise to it: the imperialist oppression of the nation. This means that the fight for the advancement of women must be part of fighting for the overall development of society in opposition to imperialist subjugation.

The Woman Question and the National Bourgeoisie

One of the main agents to which women turn to demand improvements in their conditions is the national bourgeoisie. Whether it is the Congress Party in India, the Kemalist parties in Türkiye or the left-populist parties of Latin America, the ruling classes of oppressed countries can sometimes present themselves as a modernizing and secular force for social progress.

However, no matter how radical or progressive they may appear, they seek to tackle the problems of underdevelopment and social backwardness within the strict limits imposed by their propertied class interests. They have an interest in developing and modernizing their countries to increase their own power and in so doing they must push back against the imperialist pillage of their countries. But at the same time, they fear more than anything the revolutionary potential of the masses. As such the reforms they enact are imposed bureaucratically in ways which limit the direct involvement of the masses and leave intact the economic roots of underdevelopment and women’s oppression.

To understand the dynamic fueling the reactionary cycles which keep women downtrodden, we must return to Marx: the meaningful extension and exercise of legal rights requires a sufficient economic basis. Modernizing or pro-women reforms enacted by the “progressive” bourgeoisie can provide short-term relief for women, but without attacking the social roots of backwardness they ultimately lay the basis for the growth of reaction. Without a broader radical democratic and social revolution which can free the nation from imperialist strangulation, solve the underdevelopment of the countryside and provide real social development, any democratic progress or improvement in the condition of women will be temporary and reversible. Ultimately what is needed to address the burning needs of the masses, including women toilers, is to raise the level of development of the nation as a whole. But this can only go forward by rejecting any form of reliance on the national bourgeoisie.

Women Toilers, Look to the Proletariat!

We have established a basic materialist premise regarding the woman question in oppressed countries: it is tied to the overall level of social development which is arrested by imperialist oppression and which the national bourgeoisie is unable to decisively confront. Thus, the women’s movement must reject these forces. But where should it turn? Who are its allies in the struggle to achieve social development? The answer is simple: the proletariat. The same national oppression and social backwardness that bears down on women crushes the proletariat. It has no interest whatsoever in conciliating either imperialism or the national bourgeoisie and every interest in joining its own emancipation to that of women—not least because women form a crucial part of the working class.

While the proletariat has an objective interest in championing the fight for women’s liberation, this does not mean it is a willing ally or automatically has socially progressive ideas on the woman question. The reality is that often men from the working class and the poor peasantry will have very regressive views towards women. For example, machismo is rampant in many countries of Latin America, and in many Muslim countries, there is an expectation that women will cover themselves to maintain their modesty outside the home. Such backward views act as an obstacle to building lasting unity between men and women workers. It makes women workers wary of their natural ally and instead turns them toward other political avenues, such as liberal NGOs, or into the open arms of imperialists who use women’s oppression as a weapon with which to further penetrate and squeeze poor nations.

Nonetheless, it is possible to forge unity. The key to uniting the toilers of the poor nations is to oppose imperialism and any forces that conciliate it, and base the struggles of women toilers on the historic interests of the proletariat. Women workers and toilers of the world, unite against imperialism!

Women Toilers, Beware of the Liberals!

We have sought to provide a perspective that can break through the cycle of reaction and advance the struggles of women in the oppressed countries. The current state of rollbacks for women across the world, including in the Global South, is the clearest proof that women’s struggles have not been on the right course. In fact, they have been on the entirely wrong track of either looking to imperialism, or accommodating it. Let us illustrate the danger of these trends through concrete examples, and motivate our perspective in counterposition.

Liberal Imperialist Preaching

In pushing back against their oppression, many women look to Western NGOs as allies in tackling anti-woman bigotry. At the heart of NGO work is the ideology of carrying out missionary work and civilizing the wretched nations and their people…on behalf of those forces that are responsible for keeping them in a state of wretchedness. Nothing could be more dangerous.

In many parts of Africa, NGOs carry out campaigns to end backward practices. The methods of liberals and NGOs are based on preaching against such backwardness since, by design they are neither intended nor able to attack the material basis of underdevelopment which maintains such practices. There are certainly all manner of anti-women practices, but opposition to them is used in a hypocritical way by the liberal imperialist bourgeoisie to enhance its own ideological influence in, and economic domination of, poor nations. As a result, liberal preaching fuels a reaction by traditional forces who want to defend such practices as part of defending their “cultural values” from Western liberal influence.

Many liberals and NGOs in South Africa oppose the amakhosi, or traditional chieftaincy, on the basis that it enshrines practices like lobola (bride price). The liberal feminist argument is that since men pay for their brides, the practice of lobola empowers them to treat women as their property and thus fuels the maltreatment of women. This view evokes the ire of a wing of the petty-bourgeois black nationalists who defend amakhosi and attendant practices as part of defending the nation. For example, in responding to the liberals and feminists who opposed the Traditional Courts Bill—a bill that granted more power to the chieftaincy—former president Jacob Zuma lashed out saying: “Let us solve African problems the African way, not the white man’s way” (our emphasis).

Such grandstanding against liberals strikes a chord with broad social layers because it is viewed as an expression of standing up to those who pillage the entire continent. Liberalism ends up binding the oppressed ever more to the black nationalist elites who themselves conciliate imperialism and play an overall reactionary role by blocking social development. That the fight to end backwardness against women stays in the loop of liberal and nationalist reaction polarizes the masses on the basis of who has liberal versus who has backward ideas—preventing their revolutionary unity in struggle against imperialism and its local agents.

The real question is: what is a proletarian approach to ending backward practices? As we have explained, the persistence of such practices is itself a result of imperialist subjugation of the poor nations and the inability of the local bourgeoisies to resolve basic democratic tasks. Thus an attempt to eliminate them necessitates a struggle against the entire social order that maintains such practices. Against liberal preaching, fighters against backward anti-women practices must win working men to their struggle by linking it with their own national and social emancipation (see Lenin, “The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion,”).

Imperialist Bombs Against Women’s and National Oppression

One of the main ideological justifications for the U.S. bombardment of Afghanistan was the defense of women. Modern Afghanistan shows most graphically how the woman question is trapped between two reactionary poles; in this case it is between pro-imperialist liberalism and anti-imperialist Islamic fundamentalist reaction.

That the imperialists’ concern for Afghan women was worse than a lie and a sham is plain for everyone to see: the U.S. fled in 2021 after a 20-year war and the Taliban now oppresses women even more. It is simply reactionary to think for even one fraction of a second that U.S. imperialism—the main force responsible for havoc in the entire Muslim world—is capable of delivering social progress for the oppressed. Whatever pro-women social reforms are made by U.S.-backed regimes are undermined and attacked by the coming to power of Islamist reaction, which uses the defense of the nation in order to rally conservative social forces. The very presence of U.S. imperialism in the region thus prevents any prospect of lasting social development.

The situation is somewhat more complicated a few borders away in the Kurdish region which experienced the national democratic uprising by Kurds in 2012 known as the Rojava Revolution. Kurdish women played a central role in this uprising, taking up arms in the cause of their national and social emancipation. These events had tremendous potential to become a beacon for broader democratic struggles in the region.

The problem, however, is that this “revolution” has completely subordinated itself to the interests of U.S. imperialism in the region. This alliance alienates and isolates the cause of Kurdish national liberation from other nationalities and groups in the region that are being crushed by U.S. imperialism and its allies. As we wrote in our press following the fall of Assad in Syria:

When heroic women take up arms, they are driven by a desire to fight for their national liberation. But the ultimate danger is to think that this can be advanced by relying on imperialism. The sights of armed Kurdish women are impressive and certainly show their empowerment in relation to those who face far more oppressive conditions. But guns alone cannot address their oppression; only a strategy based on proletarian anti-imperialism can break down the barriers between Kurdish and other peoples in the region.

Colonial empires and imperialism carved up whole regions, dividing entire peoples but in the process intertwining their destinies. In a region such as the Middle East, one nation cannot go forward in isolation from others and without trampling on the rights of another. The future of the Middle East lies in a united struggle against imperialism, based on championing the democratic rights of women, minority religions, and oppressed nations. For Kurdish women fighters to advance their struggle against their national and social oppression, they must emerge as true champions of the liberation of all toilers in the region. This necessitates that they break their alliance with U.S. imperialism.

Woman, Life, Freedom

In 2022, Jina Amini was accused of violating the reactionary codes of modesty imposed by the Iranian mullahs—by showing some hair under her veil. She was taken into custody by the regime’s morality police and later died under extremely suspicious circumstances. This state-sanctioned murder was the spark that ignited the Woman, Life, Freedom mass movement which brought into the streets those fed up with the clerical regime. One of the main demands of the movement was against the imposition of the veil and for secularism.

The resentment against the mullahs drew in all layers and political trends from Iranian society and the diaspora. Support ranged from those on the left, to the oppressed Kurdish and Baluchi national minorities, to liberal human rights activists, feminists of all stripes, and openly reactionary pro-imperialist elements like Reza Pahlavi, the exiled Crown Prince of Iran, and his cabal of monarchist supporters and of course, U.S. imperialism itself.

Though the movement had left-wing and anti-monarchist elements as well, they were subordinate to the liberals who took the leadership of the movement based on the fight for human and gender rights. This objectively aligned it with the aims of monarchist and imperialist reaction which used the movement to push an anti-Iran agenda under the guise of secularism and democracy. Thus, in a keynote address at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy in February 2025, Reza Pahlavi stated that:

Even senile Biden, on the first anniversary of Jina Amini’s death, had the audacity to state:

The democratic demands of the movement reflected in some deformed manner the aspirations of the masses, especially women. However, in the hands of the monarchists and imperialists, the same demands are used as a spearhead to oppress Iran and crush its resistance to U.S. imperialism. These demands and the oppression of women are therefore wielded for utterly reactionary aims. As a result, the struggles of Iranian women were alienated from layers of the conservative Shia masses who see the Iranian regime as a fighter against U.S. imperialism. The inability of the movement to pierce the nationalist and anti-imperialist consciousness of the Shia working class meant the movement in fact pushed certain layers further into the arms of the mullahs and isolated itself on the road to a gradual defeat.

What should the movement have done? It was necessary to stand against the regime and use the economic and democratic grievances of the masses, but this was not sufficient. In order to effectively undermine the regime without conceding one inch to imperialism, it was necessary to win over those layers in the working class who are loyal to the regime and see it as a reflection of their resistance against imperialist pillage. To do so, it is crucial to undermine the regime’s strongest argument: that it stands as a beacon of Muslim resistance against Western aggression. The way to do this is by showing that by alienating national and religious minorities, youth, women and workers, this regime actually undermines the unity of the masses against imperialism, and thus acts as a huge obstacle to advancing the anti-imperialist struggle. By fusing the struggle for democratic and social liberation, this would have allowed the movement to use the anti-imperialist impulse of the Shia working class against the regime itself, opening the road to a struggle against both imperialism and the mullahs.

This movement was the clearest example of how the fight against women’s oppression and for democratic rights is a powerful motor force for the Iranian revolution, but also how it cannot succeed without a proletarian anti-imperialist perspective.

Through examining some popular examples and trends, we have sought to show how the various programs and methods of women’s struggles end up blocking the road to their own liberation. Central to our thesis has been the need for an unconditional opposition to imperialism and all its conciliators. To insist on this one last time, we leave our readers with a word from Comrade Trotsky:

To this list of camouflages of imperialism, we must add “the fight for women’s rights.” Forward to an anti-imperialist internationalist women’s movement!