President Tokayev Greets Women on March 8: Why This Speech is an Insult
While the Akorda praises "female wisdom," we see a mandate for exploitation. A leftist critique of President Tokayev’s March 8th address and the myth of "resilient" unpaid labor.
Мақаланың қазақша нұсқасын осы жерде оқыңыз. Прочитать статью на русском можно здесь.
Every year on March 8, the Akorda (Presidential Palace) releases a text that, in any fair society, would be called a "manual for exploitation." While state media repeats sugary words about "wisdom and beauty," we at Qazleft say it clearly: Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has insulted the women of Kazakhstan. He is trying to hide systemic oppression behind "flower-power" paternalism.
Behind the poetry about "female nature" lies a cold economic calculation: how to keep women working for free to cover the failures of a neoliberal economy. Here are the facts.
The Insult of "Resilience": Glorifying Unpaid Labor
The Quote: "Many burdens lie on your shoulders... women always remain the embodiment of resilience."
The Reality: The President is praising us for surviving the very conditions the state created. What he calls "burdens," leftist economics calls the crisis of social reproduction. In Kazakhstan, women spend 3 to 4 hours more per day on unpaid domestic work than men.
The state saves trillions of tenge on nurseries, hospitals, and elderly care because women do this work—"resiliently" and for free.
- Qazleft’s Position: We don’t need compliments on our endurance. We demand a 7-hour workday and public investment in social infrastructure so that the "second shift" at home is no longer a mandatory gender punishment.
The Biological Cage: Personal Agency vs. "Female Nature"
The Quote: "This is the main secret and the natural essence of the feminine — to stop wars and affirm peace."
The Reality: This is a direct attempt to strip women of their political agency. We are being reduced to a biological function, a "natural force" meant to soothe and inspire everyone. It’s a convenient lie: why build working institutions for human rights if you can just blame women for not "inspiring" peace?
- Qazleft’s Position: Justice is not a "natural instinct." Justice is a radical law against domestic violence and full legal rights for the LGBTQ+ community. A woman is not a "peacekeeper" by birth; she is a political subject with the right to anger and struggle.
Economic Hypocrisy: "Success" Built on Poverty
The Quote: "Kazakhstani women successfully prove themselves in various fields—from education and medicine to science and business."
The Reality: This is pure cynicism. Education and medicine in Kazakhstan are the lowest-paid sectors, and they are dominated by women. The President praises women for "success" in fields where the state has set poverty-level wages. Meanwhile, the gender pay gap in our country remains around 30-35%.
- Qazleft’s Position: While the National Bank chokes the economy with high interest rates, women’s real income is falling. We demand a progressive tax (up to 55% for top earners) and wages for teachers and doctors at 300-500% of the median.
The Constitution as a Trap
The Quote: "The project of the Basic Law is intended to strengthen the protection of motherhood, childhood, and the institution of marriage."
The Reality: This rhetoric treats a woman only as an attachment to the "institution of marriage." They try to "protect" us by tightening patriarchal ties, not by giving us economic freedom.
- Qazleft’s Position: Real protection means a minimum wage of 300,000 tenge and democratization of property. We need the nationalization of strategic industries and 50% management by workers' councils. Only by owning the country's resources will women truly be free.
Tokayev’s greeting is an "ideological sedative." We are asked to be "honest, energetic, and law-abiding" in a country where assets belong to oligarchs and violence against women is treated as a "family matter."
We at Qazleft refuse your flowers. We demand:
- Confiscation of oligarchic assets (50 trillion tenge) for social needs.
- Elimination of the "motherhood penalty" through mandatory paternity leave.
- Direct democracy and the abolition of the presidency.
March 8 is not a spring holiday. It is a day of struggle for liberation from your "inspiring" oppression.
Join Qazleft! Together, we will take back what is rightfully ours.
