One hundred years ago Sylvia Pankhurst was expelled from the Women's Social and Political Union because she insisted on linking the struggle for the emancipation of women with that for the emancipation of the whole working class.

More specifically, she had devoted precious time to speaking alongside the great Irish socialist James Connolly at the Albert Hall, London, in solidarity with the workers of the Dublin Lockout.

The two had something else in common, which strikes a poignant note today on the centenary of the imperialist Great War of 1914-18.

Both had opposed the mass slaughter of working-class soldiers by one another, on behalf of rulers seeking a bigger share of the spoils of empire at each others' expense.

Connolly was later martyred following the 1916 Easter Rising against Britain's occupation of Ireland, while Pankhurst became a communist and then a campaigner against fascism, especially in her adopted Abyssinia (now Ethiopia).

Can there be a more inspirational figure to remember and emulate today, on International Women's Day, than Sylvia Pankhurst?

There have been substantial advances over the past century, for women as well as for the working class generally.

Equal and universal suffrage, equal pay, equal rights in many important areas ... and yet. Much of the equality is found more on the statute book than in real life, especially for those women who fill most of the low-paid jobs, head most of the single-parent families and deliver most of the care for sick or elderly relatives and friends.

In a society based on the exploitation of one class by another, prejudice and inequality will always be utilised by the owners of capital in order to maximise profit.

That's why, as both Pankhurst and Connolly understood, the fight for improvements and reforms - while necessary - will never abolish women's oppression completely for as long as capitalism continues.

Yet it is also a precondition for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of a socialist society that women and men unite to challenge all aspects of inequality and oppression.

This means not only striving to resist austerity cuts - which have a disproportionate impact on women in terms of income and domestic violence - and to secure equality in practice.

It must also include confronting and exposing those spheres in society where big business cynically profits from the commodification and sexualisation of women.

Countless books, magazines, films and television programmes purvey the terrorisation of women as "entertainment."

Together with the sex, fashion, cosmetic and advertising industries, they propagate the notion that a woman's worth is best measured by her looks.

Women are portrayed primarily as sex objects, while sex itself is a commodity to be sold or used to sell other commodities.

Sexual and other forms of violence against women continue to be downplayed and even joked about - when not disregarded altogether.

Yet the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights finds that one-third of women in Europe have experienced some form of sexual or physical violence at male hands. Britain's record is among the worst.

This underlines the need for control over sexist profiteering and more effective educational approaches to tackling prejudice and discrimination.

Above all, it demonstrates why a mass movement of women should be built, not only to fight for their own liberation but to do so as a vital part the worldwide struggle for the liberation of humanity.