Poor and working-class women have long been at the base of the Bolivarian revolution. The first in the streets to fight back against the U.S. sponsored coup in 2002, they saved the revolution. They saw Hugo Chavez as an extension of their own struggle for survival. Chavez understood, saying: “Socialists must be feminists, or they won’t be complete human beings.”
Today, Venezuelan women continue to lead the way in the struggle to defend the Revolution, the Venezuelan Constitution and their democracy. President Nicolás Maduro was re-elected on Sunday, July 28 with the mass support of the Venezuelan people. The U.S. is determined to topple the Bolivarian revolutionary government and discredit Venezuelan democracy, but the Chavistas have vowed to defend the revolution against an opposition that won’t admit it lost.
Women play a crucial role in Venezuela’s elections. They were the leaders of over 200,000 neighborhood units organized by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) as part of its electoral strategy in the 2024 presidential election. Across the country, they woke up their friends and neighbors early in the morning of July 28, making sure that they voted and brought ten other people with them.
Venezuelan women have good reasons to get out the vote for socialism. The Bolivarian revolution has made securing women’s equality into state policy by establishing a Ministry of People’s Power for Women’s and Gender Equality. One of the tasks of this ministry is ending centuries of patriarchal attitudes and practices.
Article 88 of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, approved by popular referendum in 1999, recognized care work as economically productive. Women, Chavez said, “work so hard raising their children, ironing, washing, preparing food … giving [their children] an orientation … This was never recognized as work yet it is such hard work! … Now the revolution puts you first, you too are workers, you housewives, workers in the home.” Article 88 also enshrined the equality of women and men in exercising the right to work.
The Bolivarian revolution has taken two major steps in combating violence against women. One step is “The Organic Law of the Right of Women to a Life Free of Violence” which was passed in 2007. This law mandates protective measures for victims of gender-based violence. It also extends the period of detention for those accused of committing such violence. A second step is the establishment of communal defenders, women trained to prevent gender-based violence and support victims. Communal defenders organize in their local communes and maintain channels of communication with the Ministry of People’s Power for Women’s and Gender Equality.
Venezuela’s over 3000 communes are central to the building of Bolivarian socialism. These self-organized units are sites of economic production, political participation and community life. Eighty percent of the Venezuelans involved in the commune movement are women. Some of the communes explicitly understand their project as communal feminism — an important contrast to the individualistic liberal feminism promoted by the elite women and backed by US imperialism. According to women from the March 5 Commune, “When we talk about women’s networks, we are talking about the fabric we weave every day, one by one, but which are intertwined with other people’s fabrics, with other people’s threads and yarns, no matter how many kilometers they have between them.”
The 936 sanctions against Venezuela from the US and its allies have had a devastating impact on Venezuelan society, dramatically increasing poverty. Women’s work has been indispensable to the country’s ability to survive these brutal policies. It has even enabled Venezuela to turn adversity into opportunity by ending reliance on foreign food sources and becoming virtually food sovereign. Forced to return to subsistence farming, Venezuelan producers diversified their crops in order to meet basic needs.
Mairen Mendoza of the Born to Triumph with Chavez commune in Apure state described how their communal seed bank “aims to break dependency on the government and the capitalist market.” The project gives them autonomy and security because production is in their own hands. Her commune is part of a communal economic circuit that produces beans, meat, corn and cheese. Mendoza explained, “The blockade has been terrifying at times. The White House is set on toppling our government by any means, and it is no secret that their policies have set us back years in terms of our material well-being. However, it is also true that the hardship has made us more resilient and more committed to the communal project. Chávez wasn’t wrong; the commune is the only way to build a better world.”
On October 25, 2023, President Nicolás Maduro launched the “Great Venezuelan Women’s Mission.” It focuses on women’s health, education, economic independence, freedom from violence, and political participation.
The victory of the Bolivarian revolution is a victory for all poor and working class women. They show that another world is possible – a communal world of solidarity and people’s sovereignty.
