Why military service for women is not a feminist demand!
What does conscription mean? Being forced to fight, with weapons and with our own bodies, for Western values and economic interests—and, if it comes to it, to pay with our own lives. The main beneficiaries: arms-industry bosses, tech oligarchs, and politicians who feed off hatred between peoples and an insecure younger generation. One thing is clear to us: we will not allow ourselves to be turned into combat-ready puppets under the guise of feminism. Because extending conscription to women, as the Women’s Union is currently demanding, means sending even more young people to the front as cannon fodder, where they are expected to fight other people who have also been forced to be there!
Conscription or not—in the event of war, we are all affected. Whether in military hospitals, through the loss of our homes, or in the daily struggle to keep our own children from going hungry. Because that, too, is what war means when it becomes reality! You can see it everywhere; the signs are clear: current politics and the economy are preparing all areas of society for war and are ready to make us fight. Don’t let yourselves be fooled! Anyone investing in rearmament also intends to wage war. But it is not their hands they want stained with blood—it is ours.
And war presents us with further challenges: even today, we carry within us the trauma of our mothers and their mothers. Bodies appropriated by soldiers. Bodies that have to be sold in exchange for a safe night and a warm bed. War always means that sexualized violence is used as a weapon—whether on the battlefield or on the home front.
In war reporting, we and our sisters are usually portrayed only as victims. But wherever there is war, there is also feminist resistance. Afghanistan, Sudan, Kurdistan, Western Sahara, and Myanmar are just some of the places where women are fighting against war and for a liberated society.
Sisters! Only by joining together can we prevent war.
Neither housewife nor soldier!
We could build 100 new hospitals!
Instead, €86 billion went into armaments and the military—and that was in 2025 alone. Germany is well on its way to preparing for the next war and playing a major role in current and future military conflicts. This includes not only rearming the Bundeswehr with weapons and personnel, but also providing medical care for soldiers.
Accordingly, intensive care units, emergency services, and surgical departments in hospitals are already being expanded specifically for wartime needs, rather than investing in healthcare for the general population.
War brings nothing but injury and suffering!
Capitalism profits—workers never do!
In war, just as under capitalism, healthcare workers are expected to make sure that people remain fit for deployment, while they themselves usually get the short end of the stick: poor pay, too much overtime, and precarious working conditions.
As if all that were not enough, a healthcare reform was passed a few months ago that places even more obstacles in their way. Pay increases under collective bargaining agreements are no longer covered by statutory health insurance, leading, among other things, to wage cuts and staff reductions. At Freiburg University Medical Center, for example, up to 350 jobs are reportedly set to be cut by 2028.
Migrant women in particular suffer under these conditions, as they are often exploited as cheap labor in the healthcare sector. This creates an especially extreme additional burden for them through care work.
For centuries, women have been expected to perform this work unpaid at home and poorly paid in care professions. In wartime, this work would become even more difficult because of additional pressure at work and the threat of violence, while women would still be expected to take care of everyone and everything.
Another aspect of the reform involves increasing prescription co-payments by a full 50%. In concrete terms, this means that it is not enough for workers to wear themselves out every day—now they are expected to pay even more on top of that!
People who depend on medication will soon have to dig even deeper into their pockets to pay for their monthly prescriptions.
None of this is trivial—it is reality! These decisions and changes affect you! A better world is possible, but we have to fight for it! That is exactly why you should organize!
Rheinmetall Entwaffnen (RME) Camp in Cologne: September 1–6
DGB demonstration against cuts to social services: September 26, 2026 in Stuttgart
School strike against conscription: September 25, 2026 in Tuebingen
