“Whilst International Women’s Day must be about highlighting ongoing injustices, it is also about pointing towards the way to overcome. It is about envisaging a future that is boldly and proudly internationalist, anti-racist and socialist.”
By Apsana Begum
International Women’s Day (IWD) is about a history of collective action and in East London, we have a rich history of women’s struggles for social justice.
The teenage girls who led the matchgirls’ strike of 1888, calling for better conditions at a match factory in Bow. The suffragettes in East London, demanding working-class women’s right to vote over a hundred years ago.
Minnie Lansbury who was elected to Poplar Council in 1921 and was jailed – along with five other women – for refusing to charge full rates from her poorest constituents. The women who were energetically involved in the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 where our local Jewish Community and allies stood up to far-right racists.
Women, like my mother, living in Shadwell where I grew up, who had to overcome the racism she faced on a daily basis when first arriving in the UK in the 1960s. Bangladeshi women in Tower Hamlets in the 1970s working tirelessly from home on sewing machines while raising their families and organising to support each other in their communities.
And in 1987 Diane Abbot becoming the first black woman MP and who is now currently the longest serving woman in Parliament. Diane continues to be such an inspiration – teaching me that yes, we face discrimination and injustice, but we have big voices. We stand up for what we believe in, and we are here to represent.
I like to think that it is in this tradition that I became the first hijab wearing Member of Parliament.
Because it is not a question of simply commemorating the past, but about the here and now.
There is no avoiding it: we are still facing discrimination and oppression. There is still so much to be done.
Women still face structural economic inequality throughout their lives, and this intersects with other structures of inequality including race and disability.
Women, particularly Black and Asian women, continue to account for around two thirds of low earners and are more likely to be working on zero hour or part time contracts.
Women are being held back by the cost-of-living crisis after over twelve years of Conservative austerity – exacerbated by punitive social security measures like the two-child benefit cap – and the crisis in care.
The ascendance of the right and assaults on civil liberties explicitly target those of us most at risk: migrants, Black and Asian women, and GRT communities.
The hostile and racist immigration system tightens around migrant women who are facing deportation, unjust detention and are held up by the far right – and indeed the mainstream political establishment – as scapegoats for society’s failures.
Women are dying every day, as violence against women, including transwomen, continues to blight our society while support services continue to be cut, and we are put at risk by the very people who are meant to protect us. I know personally that the impact of domestic abuse can be devastating. I know the many barriers and challenges facing survivors when trying to access help and move on.
There are Sudanese women enduring the ravages of war and humanitarian crisis. Palestinian women and girls slaughtered or starving or suffering sexual violence and gross mistreatment. All while the world’s powerful watches on doing nothing.
Yet, whilst International Women’s Day must be about highlighting ongoing injustices, it is also about pointing towards the way to overcome. It is about envisaging a future that is boldly and proudly internationalist, anti-racist and socialist.
Whether it is standing up against violence or racism, opposing austerity or struggling for better working conditions or demanding equal pay, women have always been at the heart of the struggle for a better world — rallying and organising and – yes – winning against the odds.
- Apsana Begum is the MP for Poplar and Limehouse and a regular contributor to Labour Outlook. You can follow Apsana on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram and Tik Tok.
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