International Women’s Day was never meant to be a platform for high profile women to build their influence. Its roots lie in the socialist movements of the early twentieth century, when working-class women organised collectively against exploitation, political exclusion and poverty wages. In 1910, the socialist organiser Clara Zetkin proposed an International Day of Action for working women, and in 1917 women textile workers in Petrograd went on strike for “bread and peace”, helping to spark the Russian Revolution and fixing March 8th as the date.
International Women’s Day grew out of strike action, class struggle and a clear understanding that women’s inequality was tied to the economic system they were living under. That history makes the way the day is marked today increasingly hard to recognise.
More and more, International Women’s Day has become something that relatively privileged women use to build their influence rather than something to be seriously engaged with politically. Panels are organised, films are screened, conservative politicians are invited and social media statements are issued, but very little attention is paid to the politics behind the day itself.
Simply placing women on a stage or in leadership roles is often presented as proof of progress, regardless of the policies those women defend or the systems they uphold. The focus shifts from the realities shaping women’s lives to optics and representation. Conversations about empowerment can take place without any real discussion of housing, workers’ rights, austerity or the cost of living. What began as a day rooted in struggle risks becoming little more than a symbolic performance of inclusion.
The contradiction becomes particularly obvious when a film about the Icelandic women’s strike, one of the most powerful moments of collective action by women in modern history is screened alongside speakers from Fianna Fáil and Labour.
The Icelandic strike was not a symbolic event. Women across the country withdrew their labour, both in workplaces and at home, to show how much society depended on their work. It was collective action that challenged economic power directly and exposed how women’s labour underpinned the entire economy. It was exactly the kind of working class politics from which International Women’s Day itself emerged.
Yet in Ireland, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have built a housing system that relies heavily on private developers and institutional investors, leaving renters, many of them women, facing rising costs and constant insecurity. Workers’ rights have not been fundamentally strengthened, and childcare remains among the most expensive in Europe. Labour, during its time in government from 2011 to 2016, implemented austerity budgets that cut public services and supports relied upon by many women, particularly lone parents and carers. During this time, the Labour Minister for Social Protection was a woman.
The issue here isn’t gender. It’s politics.
Celebrating a historic strike rooted in collective power while inviting politicians from parties that have undermined women shows just how far the politics of International Women’s Day has drifted to the right.
The Problem of Identity
At the same time, there has been a shift in how gender is talked about. Much of the public conversation now treats gender mainly as an identity to be recognised and represented, rather than something shaped by work, class and economic power. Visibility and representation dominate the conversation, while far less attention is paid to wages, housing, childcare or public services.
Recognition matters, and identity matters. But when gender is treated mainly as a question of representation within existing institutions, feminism risks becoming about managing the system rather than changing it. Identity politics on its own does not challenge inequality it simply changes who sits at the top. In fact, powerful women get to use their identity to co-opt the struggles of poor and marginalised women for their own gains.
For working-class women, inequality is not experienced primarily as a lack of representation. It is experienced through rising rents, insecure work, expensive childcare, overstretched public services and the continuing reality of gender-based violence across Ireland, North and South. These are the real conditions shaping women’s lives, and they cannot be solved by representation alone.
Representation does not determine whether women’s lives improve. The politics behind that representation does. International Women’s Day was not born from a demand to be recognised within the system. It was born from a demand to change the system.
Looking at recent Irish political history makes this even clearer. Long before Repeal became politically safe, it was the socialist left that repeatedly and publicly challenged Ireland’s abortion laws. Socialist activists and representatives raised the issue when it carried electoral risk and when establishment parties were cautious or silent, organising and campaigning for years to keep the issue in public debate. The Repeal campaign did not succeed because political parties suddenly found their courage. It succeeded because years of grassroots pressure forced the issue onto the national agenda.
Yet once Repeal was achieved, the role of grassroots activists and socialist politics was deliberately marginalised by right-wing politicians who took the credit.
The same pattern can be seen in the response to the far right. When anti-migrant protests and racist rhetoric began to appear in communities, it was People Before Profit that consistently organised counter-mobilisations and defended migrant communities. The mainstream parties speak about inclusion and diversity, but they used the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment to get ahead of Sinn Féin, and they have overseen housing crises, widening inequality and underfunded public services, all of which create the conditions in which reactionary politics thrive.
When housing becomes unaffordable, when services are stretched and when communities feel abandoned, resentment grows. If those problems are not addressed, they can easily be exploited. The dividing line here is not gender. It is class politics.
In the North, increased female representation within Stormont has not protected working-class women from the impact of austerity, welfare reform or public spending cuts. Women have held the most senior roles across parties, yet the economic model shaping life in the North has largely remained the same.
Welfare reforms and benefit caps have left many low-income households facing ongoing financial insecurity, with women heavily represented among lone parents and carers. Funding pressures in community organisations, youth services and domestic violence supports have placed additional strain on services that many women rely on. At the same time, childcare remains underdeveloped and the NHS faces severe pressures, with waiting lists and staffing shortages affecting families across the North.
In working-class communities across Belfast, Derry and beyond, women continue to deal with low wages, insecure jobs and overstretched public services. Representation has increased, but the economic system shaping people’s lives has not fundamentally changed. Gender does not override ruling class priorities.
What Has Been Lost
What has been lost from International Women’s Day is its working class politics. The socialist feminists who helped create the day did not believe that simply placing women in positions of power would bring liberation. They understood that real progress required challenging the economic system that produced inequality in the first place.
If International Women’s Day becomes a platform where establishment parties celebrate representation while defending the same policies that deepen inequality, then the day has lost its most powerful message – that the liberation of women relies on the liberation of the working class.
The real question is not how many women are in positions of power, but what kind of politics they represent. Women across Ireland, North and South continue to face housing insecurity, rising living costs, overstretched public services and the ongoing reality of gender-based violence. These are the realities shaping women’s lives.
If International Women’s Day is to mean anything, it must return to the politics from which it emerged – politics rooted in workers’ rights, public services, economic equality and collective struggle.
International Women’s Day was born from a challenge to ruling class power. Reclaiming that spirit means recognising that real progress will not come simply from putting more women into the existing system, but from building the political movements capable of changing that system altogether.
Without that politics, International Women’s Day becomes little more than a celebration of representation while the conditions shaping women’s lives remain unchanged.
