Category: History & Theory

From Bread Riots to #Girlbosses: The Liberal Bastardisation of International Working Women’s Day

Posted on by CYM Committee

The socialist roots of International Working Women’s Day have been consigned to the history books, supplanted by a liberal feminist celebration devoid of a class character. Gone are the days of mobilisation for women’s liberation; in their place are shallow displays of white feminism – the alienation of exploited, marginalised women and the upholding of the patriarchal capitalist system. This is a call to reclaim the origins of a celebration, a day recognising the power of working women from all backgrounds to change the world as they have done in the past and will do again.

Remember the Fenians

Posted on by CYM Committee

The best way to remember the Fenians – and every other republican – is to make their ambitions a reality. Fight against the apathy that is so prevalent; agitate for a better future. Educate people on what the cause of societies problems are and what can be done about them. Organise in your workplace, in your community, and in your college to make the Republican ideal a reality.

Imperialism Is On Your Plate

Posted on by CYM Committee

When the word imperialism is evoked, it seems strange to equivocate the term with a contemporary form of food production and this is what makes modern imperialism so effective. That is its ability to remain invisible or to go undetected. For the modern superpowers, and in the era of Pax Americana, this is largely how they operate, by using less direct methods in order to advance their nation’s particular geopolitical interests and to disguise these actions by using modern political or economic jargon such as “development”, “liberalisation” or “investment”.

¡No Pasarán!

Posted on by CYM Committee

85 years ago today a war began that would result in the working men and women of the world leaving the comfort of their homes and travelling to the Iberian Peninsula where many sacrificed their lives in the fight to uphold the ideals of the Second Spanish Republic. The Spanish Civil War is often described as a warm-up for the Second World War; this is not only disingenuous but completely false. The conflict deserves its own place in history as a worker’s struggle, of solidarity and sacrifice against a foe whose interests lay at the antipode from that our class.

An Argument for Socialist-Republicanism

Posted on by CYM Committee

“In Ireland, one cannot have socialism without republicanism. The socialist-republican cause is both the cause of labour and the cause of country. The liberation of the working people of this Island can only be achieved through anti-imperialism and active class struggle. But first we must analyse what is to be done, understand the flaws in non-republican socialism and pseudo-republicanism.”

Selling Sickness: Capitalism and Health (Part II)

Posted on by CYM Committee

“Capitalism has had a transformative effect on our society’s approach to health. To say that health is an unchanging aspect of all cultures or historical epochs is simply not true. For example, there is a lot to be said about how capitalism fosters and promotes physical health. Under capitalism, it is usually done for purely individualistic aesthetic purposes. In the hands of companies, these become powerful ideological forces which grant advertisers a worrying degree of influence over us, as they can essentially control the images we think we should have of ourselves. Health becomes almost domineering and transforms into its opposite, a sickness. Women are still generally promoted as sex objects for consumption and men are also presented by companies in the same narrow manner.”

Women: Takers of Shit

Posted on by CYM Committee

“Have you ever heard of the “Warm Bath Theory”? It was an idea published by Talcott Parsons, a sociologist who created this idea that the nuclear family prevents its adult members from behaving in dysfunctional ways and encourages them to conform to social norms. The warm bath theory suggests that a man could come home from a stressful day at work and relax into his family/wife, like a warm bath, relieving his stress.

However, as communists, we know that this theory is outdated and quite frankly, full of shit. Fran Ansley, a Marxist-Feminist rephrased it as women being “takers of shit”, in other words when men come home and try to relieve their stress from working in a capitalist system, they do so by taking their frustrations out on their wives.”