On March 8, women across Europe took to the streets, resisting the forces that are attacking their rights, dismantling public services, and pushing workers into deeper insecurity. Over the past year, women have borne the brunt of these policies, forced further into cycles of exploitation. As a result, trade unions, anti-fascist and feminist groups, and peace movements have used March 8 as a day to come together and build solidarity across struggles and borders.
Social justice and workers’ rights
The Federation of Women of Greece (OGE) has drawn clear connections between March 8 actions and the mass protests sweeping the country, demanding justice for the victims of the Tempi train disaster. Echoing the broader movement’s demand for social justice, OGE describes the current economic system as inherently anti-woman—one that forces women workers into exhausting hours, inadequate wages, and little to no protections for maternity or bodily autonomy.
In Belgium, women workers are particularly exposed to the austerity measures pushed by the Arizona government, which threaten to wreck the pension system and increase labor flexibilization. Activists and left parties warned that such policies will push more women out of the workforce, with devastating long-term impacts. “Women, who already carry the majority of domestic responsibilities, will be forced to cut their working hours or leave their jobs entirely—eroding their financial autonomy and deepening long-term insecurity,” the Workers’ Party of Belgium concluded in its analysis.
Women will pay twice the price of the new government’s policies, agrees Matilde De Cooman from Ghent’s Collectief 8 Maars, a network of trade unions, feminist organizations, and activists preparing March 8 demonstrations. Another key demand, echoed across a dozen events on the day, is recognition of both paid and unpaid reproductive labor, she adds. “Women generally work in low-paid jobs, often in the care sector, while simultaneously caring for children and family members. Yet, they receive little to no support from public services—whether in childcare, elder care, or transportation—where workers are also underpaid,” De Cooman told Peoples Dispatch.
The effects of crumbling social support systems are being felt beyond Western Europe. In Italy, despite March 8 falling on a Saturday, chapters of Non Una di Meno (Not One Less) are calling for a transfeminist strike, supported by grassroots unions.
The strike has multiple objectives, including making women’s often invisible labor visible, according to Lucia Amorosi from Potere al Popolo. This applies to workers in the cultural sector as well as those trapped in precarious contracts, affected by increasing labor flexibilization. “The rights of education workers, especially those in universities, will be a major focus of the mobilization,” Amorosi emphasizes, pointing to recent government plans to cut university funding, which directly threaten the job security of women workers in education.
In Serbia, the feminist collective 8.mart.svaki.dan (March 8 Every Day) circulated a call to action which addresses the combined impact of profit-driven environmental degradation and the erosion of public services on rural women. “Women in these areas are facing the constant deprivation of the basic resources for life, such as land, water, and air,” the group warned, pointing to the government’s failure to ensure basic social protections.
In addition to economic struggles, feminists across Europe are also reiterating demands for safe and free abortion care as part of universal public health systems. In multiple countries, including Croatia, reproductive and sexual health rights remain out of reach due to budget limitations and right-wing attacks, making universal healthcare a central part of this year’s mobilizations.
State repression and the far-right
As European governments stifle social, health, and labor rights, they have also escalated crackdowns on civil liberties and the right to protest. Yet, instead of people backing down, resistance is growing. In Serbia, demonstrations on March 8 will take place alongside a growing student movement, which has been mobilizing for months to demand political accountability and systemic change. Female students, in particular, have been exposed to high risks of harassment and violence during this time, making their presence in Saturday’s protests, side by side with workers, even more significant.
The assault on basic rights has gone hand in hand with the rise of right wing and conservative movements across Europe. The electoral gains of far-right forces have supported their attacks on women, LGBT communities, and migrants. “Right-wing policies, based on patriarchy and capitalism, divide us by gender, age, and origin while simultaneously exploiting us,” 8.mart.svaki.dan stated.
Similar trends are found in other countries. “You can see this stark contradiction in Italy today—our Prime Minister is a woman, yet she is Giorgia Meloni, and the policies she enacts do not support women,” Amorosi points out. “The right-wing government has not only introduced budget cuts that undermine essential services like education and healthcare, but it has also structured the economy in a way that made it dependent on tourism and deepened the housing crisis. At the same time, it is pushing a conservative family model that shifts the burden of care entirely onto women.”
Moreover, the securitization discourse promoted by the right has set deep roots in Italy, where the government is pushing for a stringent reform of the right to protest while expanding policing in poor and working-class neighborhoods—measures that amount to militarization, Amorosi warns. In response, feminists are putting forward an alternative vision of security. “Security means universal social services, fully funded feminist anti-violence centers, free and safe access to abortion, and support for gender affirmation paths,” Non Una di Meno wrote in their strike call.
Women of Europe against militarization
Across the continent, women are also raising their voices against imperialism and militarization, rejecting the political mainstream’s agenda of war and division. From Belgium to Greece, March 8 mobilizations include calls for an end to Europe’s complicity in imperialist wars. “International solidarity will once again be central to the demonstrations, particularly in support of the struggles of women in Palestine and the Congo,” explains Matilde De Cooman. In Italy, feminists will also strike in solidarity with women involved in liberation movements.
