In the Next Issue

The next issue will be devoted to reproduction – and we want your views. We already have some of the copy lined up – but we need more papers, reports of conferences, workshops, articles, etc. In the report on the Northern region you will find more about this – recent developments in the region around this issue has given us the impetus to plan this special issue (which obviously won’t be the last to discuss reproduction!) Please try and send things for publication by Christmas.

 

SCARLET WOMEN – an internal paper or open circulation?

We have had several requests from left bookshops (not specifically feminist), from libraries, research organisations (‘left’), universities etc. for Scarlet Women. We don’t think we as a collective have the right to make Scarlet Women available for general circulation without asking both contributors and readers what they think. There is a point-of-view which says our views should reach the widest circulation possible. The opposing view says that what we write is subversive, and that our present internal disagreements should be kept to ourselves. We won’t make a decision about this until the National SOCFEM conference in January, and we want groups and regions to come prepared with some sort of view already thrashed out, so that there can be a constructive discussion and hopefully a decision at the conference.

 

Subscriptions

At last we’ve got it together to have Scarlet Women printed – at the fifth attempt! (There’s still a lot of typing though). This means that costs have risen slightly and the charge of 20p per issue doesn’t quite cover costs. We are therefore putting the price for NEW subscribers up to £1 for 3 issues instead of £1 for 5. Present subscribers of course will get SW at the old price until their sub. runs out. If your subscription runs out with this issue there will be a tick in the box below.

 

Editors Introduction to SW5

The main theme of this issue revolves around questions of theory and, specifically the differences in theory between those sisters who call themselves revolutionary feminists and those, like us, who call themselves socialist feminists. We are reprinting here several papers from the Revolutionary Feminists’ Conference held in Edinburgh last summer because we feel that many of the questions they raise are of great importance to us as well.

 

There are also two papers by socialist feminists. The first, by a group of women in South London, it is a critique of Sheila Jeffreys’ papers, two of which are reprinted here. A third paper by her, ‘Worker Control of Reproduction’ can be obtained from Catcall* – we didn’t include it because it is quite long and seems to have had quite a wide circulation already. The second socialist feminist paper ‘some notes on sex and class’ is an outline of theoretical position which differs in important respects from both the usual marxist analysis of women and revolutionary feminist analysis.

 

We hope the papers will stimulate discussion and development of the ideas contained in them. As Sheila Jeffreys argues in her paper ‘the need for Feminist Theory’, we lack theory and thus also strategy in the WLM and both are vitally necessary if we are to achieve our objective. So, we look forward to receiving lots of comments from both groups and individuals and hope to be able to continue the discussion on theory in future issues of Scarlet Women through your contributions.

 

 

Papers from the Feminism and Ireland Workshop June 1977

 

These papers form a collection of essential background reading for an understanding of the position of women in Ireland today. They cover, in brief: the history of British Imperialism in Ireland, the Republican struggles in the South and the effect of partition in the North, the influence of the Catholic Church and its effects on women, the position of women today in both the SOUth and North, and account of the origins and development of Derry Women’s Group, and several other contributions, including one by Big Flame on the way in which women’s involvement in the current struggles in Northern Ireland is forcing changes on their traditional role in relation to men.

Taken as a whole they provide a basis upon which we in England can develop a strategy for action in solidarity with our Irish sisters and in aiding their struggle, aid our own in this country.

 

PAPERS FROM REVOLUTIONARY FEMINISTS

Feminism and Socialism – Finella McKenzie

(Note: We wrote to Finella at the only address we had for her, asking permission to print her paper. As she hasn’t replied, we assume she’s moved, and hope that since the paper was printed for the Edinburgh conference in July, she welcomes it’s wider circulation!)

 

There has always been some sort of minority tradition in the left which questioned the position of women. This has been linked through the ages with people such as Mary Wollstonecraft, William Thompson, Robert Owen, Saint Simon and Fourier, and with ideas ranging from the need for a female Messiah to Fourier’s belief that the position of women was an important indicator of the level of civilisation achieved by different societies. But though Fourier’s ideas were relatively some of the most developed of the early socialists (over economics and women’s oppression) they remained at a Utopian level – he believed that somehow, by mere goodwill, the existing social inequalities would cease and thus an egalitarian society would evolve.

 

Marx was to use Fourier’s ideas about Women’s Liberation in his earlier writings – accepting the concept of the position of women as being an index of general social advance. But in doing so he transformed them by making their application more diffuse – hence women’s position was not solely an index of general social advance, but am index in the more basic sense of the progress of the human over the animal, the cultural over the natural. So it became something of universal importance at the cost of obscuring its substance in relation to women.

 

This same generalised approach to women appears in his later writings. In his analysis of the family, women as such, their position within the family (in any other than a totally economic sense), are totally ignored. He saw the family as part of the productive forces, and made the connection between the worker’s sale of labour power as a commodity and the women’s sale of her body (in family and out – “Prostitution is only a specific expression of the universal prostitution of the worker”), and said that once women had become part of the labour force, as she became increasingly independent financially her body would no longer be the property of men, and she would be on the same footing as workers in public industry. However it has not been shown to be so as more and more women are becoming workers. He sought to establish this view historically through studying pre-capitalist societies – and came to the conclusion that the family was the result of the “first incipient loosing of the tribal bonds” (some sort of primitive communism).

 

Engels developed these ideas in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State after Marx’s death. He sees the inequality of the sexes as probably the first antagonism within the human species. It is an economist account, based around inheritance. Originally inheritance was matrilineal (through the female line), but with increasing wealth and the appearance of private ownership of property it became patrilineal. The wife’s fidelity became essential – to produce children of undisputed paternity – and monogamy was established. Thus she became a private servant, as opposed to a public one in the communistic patriarchal family – and the subordination of women results. Men had appropriated women as private property. So the first class oppression is that of women by men. The primary cause is her physiological weakness. He ends by reducing the problem of women to her capacity to work. So in conclusion the ability to work would liberate her by making private domestic labour public (reintroduction of the female sex into public industry) and mean that the family as an economic unit in society would be abolished.

 

However, contrary to these views, the absorption of women into the labour force has merely resulted in women having work both inside and outside the home. And rather than abolishing the family as an economic unit, the consequent reduction in family size has made the continuation of the individual nucleus of the family possible. Further, we should be wary of the analogy of female oppression with class exploitation. The notion of women as a class, the Proletarians in marriage, means that only the economic aspects of women’s oppression are discussed. The sexual difference between men and women is obscured, as are the sexual relations which are part of (because reflected in) a whole human relationship to the society they are present in.

 

Nor can we really think of sexes as class, for individuals are able to move from one to another, but women cannot because men. The victory of the proletariat means the abolition of classes, but the victory of women doesn’t mean the abolition of sexes via the abolition of men. It is a confusing analogy. The family too seems to have a more complicated connection to production and ownership of property. It does not necessarily change neatly or predictably as these are transformed.

 

Further, the anthropological material he used to base his analysis on came from one source only – Morgan, part of the evolutionary school, which is concerned with tracing back the origins of human society. They regard the development of human society as a kind of childhood in which children grew up in the same way. Certain characteristics are present at certain defined stages of society only (i.e. private property in capitalism). They talk about a prehistoric period – using existing primitive societies and myths. But you cannot with any certainty recreate the earliest societies from abstractions about existing ones – it has to remain a hypothesis. And it is by no means certain what functions myths have -whether they are descriptions of specific historical happenings, or a means to understand a reality that remains hidden, or as a means to bolster the claims of one group against another. So myths about an age in which women were not subordinate (Engels’ universal primitive communism) in no way prove that such societies existed. There is even disagreement among anthropologists about whether there ever was a universal stage of communal ownership that preceded that of private ownership. And finally there is not necessarily a connection between a system of inheritance (i.e. Engels’ matrilineal account) and the political, social, economic dominance of women.

 

Unfortunately, until recently, since the evolutionist method was attacked by later anthropologists, they’ve neglected to ask the kinds of questions Engels felt were important about ownership and women’s position in society. And since the 1920’s too many Marxists have neglected the role of the family in historical development and have contented themselves with a return to Engel’s system. But Marx and Engels on the position of women suffer the same charge as the earlier socialists on economics. They don’t really understand how the social injustice of sexism has evolved, maintained itself, or how it could be eliminated. They only recognise sexual class where it overlaps their economic analysis. They are unable to evaluate it in its own right. And neither was able to show how socialism would change women’s condition. Given that they were obviously trapped in the cultural bias of their time, it seems dangerous to try and squeeze feminism into an orthodox Marxist framework, and accept their narrow interpretations of sex-class as dogma.

 

Bebel provided a slight advance on this analysis incorporating the maternal function as one of the fundamental conditions that made women economically dependent on men. But even he believed that sexual equality was impossible without achieving socialism first.

 

So overall there is no revolutionary theory that accords a direct place to women’s oppression and liberation. It’s been traditionally held among reformist groups who are happy with the existing system of capitalism and want legal and economic equality within it, and among socialist groups, that women can achieve equal rights under capitalism. In the case of the socialists, this leads on to the idea that, since no-one can hope for more than this idea of equality until after the achievement of socialism, the political demands that women make can be accommodated within the prevailing system, and hence are reformist and therefore secondary to the primary revolution. This is a reflection of how women’s issues are seen within capitalist society itself. It is a serious error for the left to regard tokenism as evidence of the weakness of demands and not of the strength of the system.

 

Reforms can have an important role in revolutionary politics so long as the demand for them is made in the context of their wider implications – with a consciousness beyond the single issue reform, as part of the whole revolutionary struggle for feminism and socialism.

 

The extent of the absence of women in socialist theory and practice is enormous. Where analysis has been offered it’s been on the whole inadequate, for the resulting practice has seriously failed to match it.

 

Many women however continue to work within the existing leftist analysis Some (feminist politicos) realise the inadequacy of past socialist theory of women’s position, believing that he theory is not limited in itself and such an analysis (where women’s issues are central to a larger revolutionary struggle for changing the mode of production from feminist to socialist) can be provided and incorporated; others feel their primary loyalty to the left rather than to WL. They regard WL as an important wing of the left to radicalise as yet apolitical women into the larger struggle. Feminism is only a side issue to “real” radical politics (male created) and mist fit into it, instead of being seen as central and radical in itself; and yet others are much more middle of the road. They see the enemy as the system solely, and shift the burden of responsibility to the institutions. Many groups also form women’s caucuses to agitate against male chauvinism within the organisation. These are reformist in the worst sense in that they are trying to improve their position within the limited area of leftist politics.

 

The feminist politicos while recognising that women must organise around their own oppression, try to fit these activities into the existing leftist analysis and framework of priorities – in which women never come first. Both the other groups won’t even go this far. They ignore the need to organise around their own oppression the need for the end of power relations and leadership; and the need for a mass base of feminist women. It seems that all the most important principles of radical politics just don’t apply to women.

 

They will never be able to evolve a comprehensive politics, because they have not confronted their oppression as women – hence their inability to put their own needs first; and their need for male political approval (although anti-establishment approval) by accepting that their issues are secondary to the primary struggle. It is sadly very easy for radical women to accept their own exploitation in the name of some larger justice which excludes half the world because as women we are conditioned from childhood to consider ourselves second.

 

Perhaps the most blinkered view is that which blames the system and its institutions – without realising that men created the system and that the institutions are their tools to preserve it. It implies that men and women are equally oppressed – denying the fact that men benefit from the oppression of women in many ways. And worst, it gives men the excuse that they cannot do anything about it.

 

This evasive attitude of the male left is prevalent in many spheres, e.g. their condescending attitudes when talking about their women’s caucuses. They really only see WL as something for their girlfriends to do with other women. They cannot conceive that they too should be taking responsibility, dealing with their own oppression and actively combating the sexism in male caucuses; meeting for just that purpose. In the final analysis it just isn’t that important to them – their fellow man, so long as he is a worker, is far more important than their fellow woman. For socialist women t accept such an attitude is complete indulgence. It is all very well to realise that men are oppressed by sex-roles and have been damaged by the society that damaged us. But we should be violently angry that these men are not prepared to do anything about it, and have created within the movement a microcosm of that oppression in society and are proud of it.

 

WL groups attempting to work within the pre-existent leftist movement haven’t a chance. All they do – their analysis, tactics, values, etc., are shaped and dictated from above by men – whose male supremacist power they are protesting against as WL. If such a male dominated socialist revolution were to occur tomorrow, it would be no revolution, only a coup d’etat amongst men.

 

Sexism is all-pervasive. Every part of our lives is affected by it – we are exploited as sex-objects, breeders, domestic servants and cheap labour. Oppressed women are found in all exploited minorities; in all social classes, in all radical movements, and at the bottom of the scale of workers. So radical feminism is the first movement that has the potential of cutting across all class, race, age, and geographical barriers since in all these groups women play fundamentally the same role.

 

But despite being the most international of any political group, the oppression of women is experienced in the most minute and isolated area – the home. Women come into the movement full of unspecified frustration and find what they thought was an individual problem is a political problem. But because as women we have so long had a separate world of our own in the home, and because we’ve lived so intimately with our ‘oppressors’, our oppression is hidden from consciousness and appears to be ‘natural’.

 

To overcome this acceptance of the situation, radical feminism uses the ‘politics of experience’ in ‘consciousness-raising’ i.e an analysis of society from the perspective of oneself. (R.D.Laing: “no-one can begin to think, feel or act now except from the starting-point of his or her own alienation”) – thus fusing the personal with the political.

 

This process used in “consciousness raising” can be truly revolutionary. Politics has to be linear – move from the individual to the small (consciousness raising) group to the whole society. It is a tool to develop a politics, not an end to itself. To be a genuine ally of others we have to have fully comprehend our oppression via this method.

 

So the theory of radical feminism comes out of human feeling, not textbook rhetoric. It unites women at the level of their oppression as women – not on a specific level such as class, race, etc., – and so sets itself the task of analysing such divisions that keep us apart as women, and works to close them. It believes that the lack of an understanding of women’s oppression on the left is due to limitations within the leftist theory itself, not just that such analysis is underdeveloped in that sphere. It sees sex-class as fundamental – for unlike economic class it sprang from biological reality. It says that the first division of labour was that between men and women due to women’s reproductive capacities (and no technology to control them at all) and man’s greater physical strength. Women throughout history, before birth control, were at the mercy of their biology – menstruation, menopause, constant childbirth, wet nursing of infants etc, which made them dependant on men, whether father, brother, husband, lover or whatever – depending on the society – be it matriarchy or patriarchy, for physical survival during these times which were constantly recurring. This set up an inherently unequal power distribution within the biological family. This is true of every society, no matter how many tribes anthropology can dig up where the connection of the father to fertility is unknown, no matter how many matrilineages, cases of sex-role reversals or matriarchies. Likewise this is present in every variation on the biological family – such as today’s relatively recent patriarchal nuclear family.

 

But to say it is biological and natural in now way harms our case. We are no longer animals, we have a technology developed (though not easily available) that can control such biological inconveniences. Human society does not passively submit to nature, but takes over control of it for its own behalf. As Marx said, the ‘natural’ is not necessarily the ‘human’ value.

 

However the new technology is often used against us to reinforce our exploitation, so technology alone won’t give us freedom. We have to go further and question the way we all relate to each other – women to women, men to men, women to men and within ourselves; to oust the psychology of power relationships which has by now become an integral part of our psychic make up after thousands of years of playing the roles of dominance/submission.

 

The problem therefore isn’t simply reducible to one agent of our oppression. It is both our biology, lack of technology to control it (until recently), and men who turned the dependency elicited by our biology into the psychological dependency which was reinforced so totally, over such a long period of time, that we came to believe that we were inferior and our treatment justified. Now with the technology to control the natural, the only obstacle is that which men have psychologically induced into us, into them, in culture and society. Because they are not the sole agent in bringing us to the position we are now in doesn’t mean that they can escape blame. We won’t accept their solely economic analyses which ignore their responsibility in our oppression as women. All men dominate and have oppressed women, by virtue of being men within this society; a few men dominate other groups be it economically, racially, imperialistically or whatever.

 

However to say that the division of the sexes was the first oppression that underlies all oppression, and is universal – although no doubt true – is too general and nonspecific a truth. It is important that we don’t stop here and accept this as a complete analysis and theory – that we examine exactly how all aspects of our oppression function in order to overcome them within any specific society.

 

And further we must not fall into the same trap as the economists and ignore all but our own oppression. To understand one’s own oppression doesn’t necessarily mean an automatic comprehension of ways in which other groups are exploited and oppressed. We need to have a wider understanding, a complete and total approach, to have a fully developed political consciousness – which can only comes from knowledge and understanding of the relationships of all classes and divisions in society.

 

Our analysis and politics of our oppression is still at an early stage of development. In time we shall have one as comprehensive as the Marxists one was for economics. We have not thrown out the insights of the socialists on economics, and we do believe that whereas the oppression of women is intrinsic to capitalism it isn’t to socialism. But for the economic revolution to be a true revolution, it must be accompanied by a sexual revolution. Nothing can justify the attitudes of the economist expressed in ‘wait until after the revolution’. We must overthrow at one blow all oppressive situations – sexual, economic, racial, etc., – beginning right now in each of our personal lives.

 

I believe radical feminism, by its nature, of cutting across all class, race etc., divisions, has room in it to embrace other analyses of oppression from these groups, and as such is probably the only revolutionary group that will be able to establish a fully egalitarian society.

 

Bibliography

• The Dialectic of Sex – Shulamith Firestone
• Women’s Estate – Juliet Mitchell
• Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State – Engels
• Hidden from History – Sheila Rowbotham
• Man’s Rise to Civilisation – Peter Farb
• Sisterhood is powerful (anthology of writings from WL)

 

FEMINISM WHEN IT TRULY ACHIEVES ITS GOALS, WILL CRACK THROUGH THE MOST BASIC STRUCTURES IN OUR SOCIETY                                 – Shulamith Firestone

 

 

Sex Class – Why is it important to call women a class? By Jalna Hanmer, Cathy Lunn, Sheila Jeffreys and Sandra McNeill

 

We need a word which will allow us to:

1. Develop an analysis
2. Identify ruling class interests and methods of control
3. Develop consciousness of shared exploitation among women and their revolutionary anger

 

Class seems the most suitable word because:

1. It has dynamic connotations, unlike group, sex or caste – by dynamic we mean revolutionary force connotations.
2. It implies the existence of another class which sets up the institutions and social power processes that control, dominate and exploit women.
3. It makes women realise their potential power
4. It implies confrontation. Thus differentiating revolutionary/radical feminism from all others. It does not imply liberal reformist solutions.
5. It indicates that women’s oppression is not accidental, that it stems from a complex highly organised system of patriarchy.

 

We recognise the disadvantages of using the word (arising primarily because it suggests a Marxist analysis). For example,

1. It could suggest the oppression of women was based solely on economic factors and on our analysis women’s oppression has a wider and more fundamental material basis. The material basis of our oppression comes from the biological fact that there are two sexes and all the other material and psychological aspects developed thereafter.
2. It could suggest that class might disappear in the ‘classless’ society of the future, and class according to our analysis will not disappear since it is not just about power but power based on biological differences
3. As a purely descriptive word it has been exploited by male theorists and they say we cannot make it mean what we want it to mean. As this may be said of the language as such it hardly seems a decisive objection.

 

Thus we choose to say that women are a class in our analysis of women’s oppression and to outline the manner in which all mean derive benefits from the oppression of all women. It is necessary to distinguish between the gains which can go to individual men and the gains which go to the Patriarchy as a whole, at the expense of women. Individual men may refuse some benefits but men as a group benefit from the oppression of women as a group even so. This system of benefits is maintained by force, the threat of force and sexist ideology.

 

We suggest a tripartite development (of the advantages to men from the oppression of women) along the following lines would be a useful contribution to theory:

1. Gains around sexuality viz. The control of reproduction (when and if not all), the control of children, the reduction of female sexuality to that of a service function
2. Economic gains viz. Women’s unwaged as well as women’s waged work
3. Prestige and status gains viz. Self-confidence and sense of superiority due to female labour in shoring up the male ego; the deferential behaviour of women.

 

Why do women refuse class-consciousness?

1. It is difficult for women to accept that men hate and fear them despite overwhelming evidence
2. Emotional and economic dependence of women on individual men
3. Acceptance of different economic classes means that many women feel they have more in common with working class men than with other women (Margaret Thatcher)
4. For many women being a ‘house nigger’ rather than a ‘field nigger’ has unrefusable advantages
5. The recognition of sex class means a reassessment of relationships with men which can be agonising and frightening
6. It is difficult to give up the ‘but I am the exception’ position and to begin to feel the humiliation such a position is meant to obscure. You have to accept your own self-contempt.
7. The recognition of sex class does not allow easy, liberal solutions to our oppression as women.
8. The more oppressed women are, the more urgent it seems to be to make alliances with the oppressors

 

Reproductions

1. Is biology irrelevant because everything is cultural and hence transformable? Gender is certainly a cultural artefact but sex is immutable and there are two biological sexes. It is not our biology that oppresses us, it is the value that men place on it. It forms the basis for the ideology of female inferiority and the struggle of men to control children. Our biology oppresses us because of the value men place on it, per se it is not oppressive.
2. But even so the female reproductive function is crucial to our analysis of the oppression of women. We see sex class as arising from biology but we do not see reproduction as a limitation on women, rather we see it as a potential strength of women. If it were not men would have no reason to expropriate it. It is not that women have inferior status from bearing children that causes our inequality, it is the superior status accorded to men in the function(s) they do alone – it can be a thing of as little apparent significance as playing musical instruments (which the women never see). But whatever it is it must be regarded as more important than anything else in that society, by the women as well as the men. It is from the sole performing of this function that their power derives. In our own society men have elevated and appropriated production and put it in opposition to reproduction. They have developed a whole political theory around the view that production is the basis of society. (Even Marx acknowledged that Marxism contains an element on ideology and this is it).
3. Current thinking within the Women’s Liberation Movement would seem to represent this 9 month long experience as somehow ‘irrelevant’ to the ‘human being’ in a woman which is still seen as basically the masculine experience. Even within the WLM reproduction is devalued. In this way we fall victim to the male ideology.

 

Firestone argues that the male need for power will vanish if women give up their power of reproduction. However, it has to be remembered that women are not in a bargaining position where this argument might make sense. They are not on an equal footing with men. On the contrary if we give away even a fraction of the power we possess the most likely effect is that we will be crushed by the sheer momentum of male power. Already the work being done in artificial reproduction suggests this will be the case*

4. Because it is in no men’s interest (including the male left) to conceive of a classless society female reproduction (as a strength of women) must be devalued. If we hate Patriarchy as it is now we must hate it as the only future men can conceive and what that will mean for women as a class in the transition towards that future.

 

We do not want reproduction turned into a rationalise form of commodity production. This is made clear by the Marxist tendency to treat everything as production.

 

In Capitalist societies when biologists talk about artificial reproduction they talk mainly about reproducing men. When they do talk about women, they envisage women of the order of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.**

 

Changes in reproduction are crucial; they will change people and thus the nature of humanity. ‘People’ do not come from assembly lines – men will get what men can imagine.

 

Conclusion

Understanding that women are a class suggests certain strategies and tactics. Our strategy should be to build the class consciousness of women. Our tactics must be those that expose male power and how it operates. We suggest actions around rape and violence within the family including incest will have the most consciousness raising among women.

 

Rape and other sexual assaults are important because they show what it is that men hate and fear about women, i.e. their reproductive potential. Crimes of violence clearly divide men from women as they are not economic class specific. In this way the enemy is exposed.

 

*See ‘Women’s Liberation, Reproduction and the Technological Fix’ by Hilary Rose and Jalna Hanmer

 

** Contemporary science fiction written by male scientists have posited genetically engineered ‘model’ nuclear families. You can imagine their composition. And a ‘race’ of ‘human’ males served by programmed robot subservient women.

 

♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀

 

The Need for Revolutionary Feminism – Sheila Jeffreys

There is a need for revolutionary feminism for two very important reasons – one is the liberal takeover of the women’s liberation movement and the other is the grave lack of theory in the movement.

 

The Liberal Takeover of the Women’s Liberation Movement

There is a widespread hesitation to use the word ‘liberation’ and the reason given is that ‘lib’ is used pejoratively in the media and as a result the word has committed verbicide and now can only serve to provoke amusement and distaste. I believe that this tendency fits in well with other developments within the movement over the last few years towards a playing down and restricting of our revolutionary potential. There is a growing trend towards seeing the transformation of sex-roles as the desirable end of women’s liberation. Sex-roles can be transformed without any real change in power. Men can do housework and run creches but this change of roles, which even the revolutionary left sees as desirable can serve the interests of a state which seeks to have women at work without too much dissent and commotion. Will this change in sex-roles lead to women raping men and sticking kagged objects up them on waste ground? I think not, since the way male sexuality is used to control women on the streets, e.g. flashing and rape, will continue while men are the ruling class and changing sex-roles does not seriously threaten their power.

 

Another development is the ‘educational’ role of women’s liberation. Quite a few women’s groups have taken it upon themselves to talk to Women’s Institutes, church groups, etc. and have deliberately played down the meaning and the frightening aspects of women’s liberation, eg. by concealing or even lying about the fact that they are lesbians. The women’s liberation movement is, and should be seen to be, a threat, and I cannot see that it serves a useful purpose to represent it as a mixed Tupperware party with men doing the coffee.

 

Another development is towards life-stylism. It is possible to live with women, be in a women’s food co-op, attend classes at the WOmen’s Free Arts Alliance and go to women’s discos. Meanwhile the need for political feminism, the development of theory and strategy to wrest power from the hands of men is ignored. What will happen is that the women’s liberation movement will be transformed into a socially acceptable alternative to the Townwomen’s Guild under their noses, and then it will be too late.

 

Another problem is Spare Rib. The ethos of the Spare Rib Collective is, apparently, to eschew theory or indeed ‘radicalism’ since the paper is aimed at a wide spectrum of women and at encouraging women in to the movement. Therefore Spare Rib becomes bland and platitudinous and anger and hate towards men – on which all the energy of the movement was originally based – are completely left out.

 

The Need for Theory

My second reason for the need for revolutionary feminism is the lack of theory in the women’s liberation movement. There is enormous suspicion of theory as being a male invention and writing about the personal, lifestyles and sex-roles purports to be theory in itself. Meanwhile, socialist feminists produce theory which is an adaptation of Marxism, and indeed they are doing this with such prolific strength that they are seen to have fulfilled the ga which was the lack of theory and strategy for feminists. I do not accept that they have. There used to be ‘radical feminists’ who produced theory of the reasons – historical, psychoanalytical, etc – for women’s oppression and tried to suggest on the basis of their analysis what strategy women should adopt to end it. Perhaps they still exist, but they are not making themselves felt and seem to have gone into hibernation. It is exciting to read about radical feminism when entering the WLM but it is difficult to find any women who actually espouse and expound radical feminist theory.

 

In fact, the term ‘radical feminist’ is now used to cover such a broad spectrum of positions that I do not consider it a very useful term to describe a revolutionary feminist position. Revolutionary politics is about power. It involved the concept of power being in the hands of a particular group in society and being used to exploit and control another group or groups. It involves the determination to wrest power from the ruling group and to end their domination. It requires the identification of the ruling group, its power base, its methods of control, its interests, its historical development, its weaknesses and the best methods to destroy its power.

 

We need theory so that we can work out what are constructive and potentially revolutionary demands for women. We need it so that we do not just lump together the spectrum of apparently feminist demands at present being made, as equally desirable. We need to know where to put our weight so as to expose and embarrass men’s interests and weaknesses, to force them to take a stand and reveal their colours. Such an issue could well be fatherhood or total female control over childbirth.

 

The Basis of Revolutionary Feminist Theory

Becoming a revolutionary feminist does not require the abandonment of socialism. As a revolutionary feminist, I see in existence two class systems, on is the economic class system based on the relationship of people to production, the seconds is the sex-class system, based on the relationship of people to reproduction. As a woman, it is the second class system which oppresses me most and which dominates and pollutes my day-to-day existence, through my dear on the streets at night, the eyes, gestures and comments of males in every contact with them, etc. To be a socialist feminist, I would have to accept a unity of interests between myself and a group of men and to accept a unity of interests between myself and a group of men and to accept that my fear and humiliation come from capitalism and not men, and that I cannot do.

 

To construct revolutionary feminist theory, concentration on reproduction is crucial. It is in no way enough for revolutionary left groups to hold workshops on ‘sexuality’ or the ‘family’. They must talk about that frightening and difficult subject, ‘reproduction’. Economic class could be eliminated in the socialist society of the future. The son of an ICI director brought p on a Lambeth council estate would resemble anyone else brought up on that estate. Colour would be eliminated as a division by turning the world into a ‘great big melting pot’. But the differences between men and women cannot be eliminated. Women’s bodies are the factories in which children are produced and who controls these factories controls the reproduction of life and the future of the human race itself.

 

Patriarchy, the rule of men, has existed from as far back in human history as we have evidence for (before the economic class society). It is based not only on the exploitation of women as a class, but upon the ownership and control of their reproductive powers. No matter how much we ‘socialise; childcare and how much toilet cleaning men are constrained to do, reproduction will still be a female function. I was disturbed to hear, at a socialist feminist workshop, of the desirability of the socialisation of our bodies. For whose benefit? Men already control our bodies and could cheerfully do so in the future in the name of ‘socialisation’ of our bodies and the collective ownership of children.

 

The above ideas are a fraction of the debate around the idea of sex-class and are meant to promote discussion. If I have trodden on any toes, it is in the hope of provoking a response. It is my aim that a strongly political feminism can develop around revolutionary theory so that the WLM can remain a LIBERATION movement, I would also like to see a network of women develop, who are interested in discussing these ideas because it can be very lonely and frustrating to be a revolutionary feminist even within the WLM.

Male Sexuality as Social Control – Sheila Jeffreys

The penis and class struggle

What I am going to say does not obviously lend itself to a class analysis (Economic class that is). I start from the premise that there are two class systems, which exist side by side, in some areas closely interwoven and in others independently of each other. One is the economic class system, the other is the sex-class system, based upon the relationship of people to reproduction. In the sex-class system men have power over women because they control the means of reproduction which are women bodies. The products of reproduction are children and these also, males have always controlled. Men have, and so far as we can tell at this point, always have had power, economic, military, political and ideological over women. The exact forms of control can and do change according to the culture the historical period and according to changes in the development of the economic class system.

 

The purpose of this form of control

I would like to examine in detail a form of control which is particularly important and evident at this time. This is control through the exercise of male sexuality. So that women do not rebel it is necessary that they internalise their oppression, that there is a feeling of inferiority built into their personality structure, that their movement and personal freedom and bodily integrity are all restricted, and these things and much more, the exercise of male sexuality is designed to do.

 

The difference between sex and politics

Male sexuality is penile sexuality. We live in a phallic culture in which sexuality is generally defined as that which relates to the penis and the penis itself is used as a physical weapon and as a symbol in graffiti etc. Why is the penis so important? Is it important because it is the symbol of the ruling class, i.e. men. It is that which distinguishes one class from another and to males it is a badge of office. Thus in a society in which whites have power over blacks, the colour white acquires great symbolic significance/ IN an empire in which Britain ruled over colonised territories and was supremely powerful, the British flag (or passport) had such importance. Thus the act of flashing (indecent exposure of the phallus) can be seen as the equivalent of flag-waving by British cruisers in foreign waters.

 

By grasping the symbolic significance of the penis we can understand what is going on in the bedrooms and on the streets and on the walls of public lavatories. Much which is quite clearly pure power politics, is forgiven or explained by ‘sex’. When the adolescent youths I teach scrawl penises over any materials they are given to read, this is interpreted indulgently by the male lecturers as being a ‘natural and healthy flowering of interest in sex’. I see it as symbolising the young male’s growing realisation that he is in a superior class. He has come into his dominion and is of course fascinated by that which gives him his superior status, the penis. When these young males draw very large, erect penises on the blackboard, to greet me as I come into the classroom, they are saying that though I am a teacher, they are members of a more powerful class. They are putting me in my place, not acting out for their all-pervading interest in sex. It is not sex which is at issue but power.

 

Similarly, I was not upset those times in my adulthood when I was ‘flashed’, because I was too puritanical and inhibited about sex. I would complain and report flashers and my male friends would be horrified at my cruelty, fancy getting this poor inadequate bloke with a sexual problem into trouble. I was affronted and I know now that his is because the man was trying to humiliate and oppress a female by showing off to her the symbol of his power. It is a shock to be wandering, deep in thought, along a road, or sitting in a train carriage and to be suddenly confronted with an excited man thrusting his often unexcited organ into your field of vision. You are being reminded that you are a member of an oppressed group.

 

Towards a new definition of sex – the sensuality continuum

What is sex? In our culture sex is usually defined as being about penetration of the female by the penis. In this form sex is an aggressive activity in which the penis, symbol of authority, is wielded as a weapon, in which the physical integrity of the woman is breached and her body is invaded as in conquered territory. Lso the man is able to constantly reassert his ownership of the means of reproduction (the women’s body) and to assert his right of access to it. It follows that any activity which threatens the rule of the penis and undermines is sway, is rebellious, despite the fact that female sexual satisfaction is seldom dependant and often cannot be achieved by the wielding of this organ. So homosexuality, masturbation (even for a man, since the proper use of the penis is to subdue women) affectionate touch and all forms of non-penile sensuality are treated with suspicion or actively disapproved of or legislated against. Thus what is most commonly regarded as ‘sex’ in our culture e.g. penile sexuality is more easily understood as law enforcement or property rite or pure power politics than as a form of pleasure. If we cast aside this definition of sex, it becomes difficult to work out what ‘sex’ is. How does intense sensual pleasure and excitement shade into ‘sex’ or does ‘sex’ not exist as a seperate category. Excitement on a sunny morning the feel of velvet on the lips, the rhythmic delight of the dance, the ecstasy of neck massage, do these only change into ‘sex’ if orgasm takes place?

 

What is a feminist definition of sexuality? ‘Sexuality’ is a social construct. In different cultures, more or less emphasis is placed on the potential and on the nature of sexual appetite. In our culture, male ‘sexuality’ is constructed to take the form of ‘irresistible urges’, the need to put the penis into a hole to achieve satisfaction, the connection and confusion of violence and sadism with sexual activity and a quantitative approach. (How many natives have your subdued today?) All this is necessary to the use of male sexuality as social control. In whose interests are current attempts (sometimes even evident in the WLM) to construct female sexuality on a male model, around irresistible urges, orgiastic potency and quantity. A feminist definition of ‘sexuality’ might be to cease using the term and to speak instead of a sensuality continuum in which ‘penile sexuality’ and even ‘orgasm’ are seen merely as forms of sensual experience not totally seperable from the feel of a breeze on the skin.

 

The Guerrilla Warfare of the streets

Connected with everyday ‘penile sexuality’ of the bedroom are the terror tactics and guerilla warfare of the streets. From an early age, female children and a few male ones, are subjected to sexual molestation in the streets, parks, etc., by males. The most common form of this activity is flashing, closely followed by ‘feeling up’ and violent sexual abuse such as rape. Do women molest children sexually? We would have to fall over ourselves being liberal to suggest that they do. In an American study, 97% of the offenders were male and 9 out of 10 victims female (quoted in ‘The Radical Therapist’, Pelican books, in an article called ‘The sexual abuse of children: A Feminist point-of-view’.) The effect of the sexual molestation of children is that they grow up apologetic, frightened of moving about freely, confused about their rights in sexual situations, etc. The guerilla warfare of the streets is an effective form of control.

 

All this prepares women for the experience of rape in adulthood and gives them the fear of it so that their freedom is restricted. We know that rape is not about ‘irresistible urges’ but is usually planned and seems more concerned with aggression with sexual satisfaction, since penetration is often perfunctory or not possible through impotence, and ejaculation often does not occur. Race is the ultimate expression of the sex war and it is clearly about power politics and the use of the penis as a weapon.

 

What is to be done?

What are the implications of all this for socialism and for feminism? FIrst of all it would be interesting to work out to what extent the flowing of ‘penile imperialism’ and this particular stage of capitalism coincide and are connected. Could it be that when the more obvious forms of control such as economic and legal are being attacked and thwarted to some extent, that a more subtle form of control, harder to fight or identify, should come to the fore? Secondly, how can it be fought? It can be fought by exposure. Whenever any act is excused as being about sex we can point out that sexuality is a social construct, and examine it instead in terms of power politics. Meanwhile we can develop all forms of rebellious sensual activity which do not relate to the penis. I do not think that rape and sexual abuse of children will end as ‘sex roles’ change but only when male power is broken. Only when the penis is not a symbol of real power and status, will it cease to be used as a weapon and a form of social control.

 

(Paper given at the London Socialist Feminist Sexuality Workshop)

Towards a Radical Feminist Theory of Revolution – Some Suggestions on Structure

 

Introduction

We see a revolutionary feminist organisation as being for committed feminists, within the Women’s Liberation Movement, who want to find a political expression for their feminism in terms of theory and related action. We see patriarchy as the basic structure of oppression, and our analysis if the oppressor and the mechanism of that oppression leads to action that directly challenges male supremacy.

 

1. What form of organisation?

The WLM is a non-centralised and non-hierarchical, as a direct response to the complex nature of the oppression that it evolved to fight. We want to attack the patterns of dominance and submission through which wine are controlled, as well as their material manifestations. Therefore we feel that the organisation should be consistent with its aims and not rely on traditional authoritarian structures. Some structure is necessary, in order to co-operate in and co-ordinate political action, but this would be as flexible and possible to prevent concentrations of power and allow a creative response to changing situations.

 

2. Small groups

We suggest that the basic unit of this organisation should be the small group, of 6 to 10 women. The reasons for this are:-

1. the need for all to participate in the process
2. The need to build relations of trust as a basis for action
3. The need to integrate the personal and political
4. The practicalities of decision-making and taking action

 

3. The activities of the small group
4. Consciousness-raising
5. To work out theory – and continuing analysis of the patriarchy leading to effective and consistent direct action
6. Action and assessment including open and direct criticism both of our actions and if the personal dynamics involved

 

4. Co-ordination

While a small group may be involved in specific local action, if we want to operate on a larger scale, we need some form of co-ordination. We need to be able to take collective decisions in a national scale, and make wide-spread spontaneous action and communication between groups possible.

 

Means

1. for collective decisions and discussions – newsletter (forum for discussion of topics to be considered at meetings) – regional and national meetings.
2. For spontaneous action – telephone tree, carrier pigeons, any suggestions?

 

This was written collectively by Lynn Alderson, Suva German, Sheila Jeffreys, Catherine Lunn, Janet Payne, Jan Winterlake.

 

 

 

SOCIALIST FEMINISTS RESPOND…

Against “Sex-class” Theories – A group of socialist feminist women, London, October 1977

Introduction: Why we wrote this.

Socialist feminism is still in the early stages of defining itself. There are many differences between is which have not been clarified or even recognised. At the same time, there is still a great deal of confusion both about the relationship of the socialist feminist network to the wider Women’s Liberaton Movement and its relationship to the organised left.

 

As a group of socialist feminists we are convinced that the SF network has a basis for existence as a distinct political tendency, not just within the LM but within the Marxits left. However, in order to establish our identity as a tendency it is essential to clarify and debate our differences as well as what we hold in common.

 

This paper is a contribution towards the debate. We decided to write in response to Sheila Jeffreys’ paper because, while we all felt strongly in disagreement with the position they take, we are also aware that there is no ready-made alternative and that is was important to begin to try and thrash one out; also the papers were being widely discussed and they draw attention to important gaps in Marxist analyses of women’s oppression. The first section of the paper deals with Sheila’s papers in the context of the WLM, its theory and politics, while the second section analyses it in relation to traditional left-wing politics.

 

The ‘sex-class’ debate and the women’s movement today

In her papers (The Need for Revolutionary Feminism, Male Sexuality as Social Control, and Worker Control of Reproduction, referred to hereafter as NRF, MSSC and WCR respectively) Sheila has raised certain central issues on the nature of women’s oppression which need to be thoroughly debated. Her argument in all three papers is based on a sex-class analysis in which a feminist revolution involved two seperate, equal and simultaneous struggles i) against capitalism: the relationship of the worker to production, resulting in the class system (economic) and ii) against patriarchy: male control over reproduction, resulting in the sex-class system. Because her theory does not confront the relationship between these two systems, the economic and social context which contains the ‘relationships of reproduction’ is referred to but never analysed, thus the cause of our oppression is seen as a male drive for power over women – a ‘disease’ explicable only in terms of biology, however much Sheila tries to assert the contrary.

 

Sheila’s theory aims to be an alternative to the ‘liberal takeover’ of the WLM, and to supercede the division between socialist women and feminists (WCR, Catcall 5, p.16). She dismisses out of hand socialist feminist theory as an ‘adaptation of Marxism’ which has failed to confront the basic question concerning women’s oppression. We do not claim to have ‘filled the gap which was the lack of theory and strategy for feminists’ (NRF p.1) but we hope that this criticism of Sheila’s approach will be a contribution towards it.

 

What is the appeal of the sex-class theory?

The notion of sex-class has an immediate gut appeal, especially as there is no revolutionary socialist analysis which deals with sexual oppression. WHile women have initiated various campaigns around reproduction (abortion, sexuality, child-care, contraception, etc.,) this has been done in the face of inadequate theory which has lead to largely defensive campaigns. Left groups have simply transferred their practice – developed in the sphere of production – to ‘women’s issues’, the political rationale being to radicalise women workers as part of the general (male) class struggle. The WLM has orhanised spontaneously in the attempt to create a new feminist practice, but the absence of a developed theoretical framework has resulted in a lack of persective whcih has often led to the disillusionment to which Sheila refers. There is a feeling that the aggression which characterised the WLM originally has been dispersed through reforms such as the Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Acts, and through (non-feminist) camoaigns such as the WWCC and NAC, by a liberalisation of attitudes towards sex-roles etc; the low turn-out for events such as the picket of the Miss World Contest are interpreted as a sign in the decline of revolutionary anger amongst women in the movement.

 

In one of her papers Sheila reincites this anger by locating a specific area of our oppression: male sexuality as an instrument of women’s subordination, and her vivid description and forceful style increases its appeal. However, although the concepts used purport to be ‘materialist’ in its method of analysis. Her attempt to explain women’s oppression by reference to a single root cause leads her to a biologistic explanation, and we shall argue in this paper that a biologistic explanation is not a materialist one.

 

Sheila is describing areas of sexual oppression which up to now have been more or less ignored by Marxists. The forcefulness of her approach suggests that she is daring to confront questions also swept under the carpet by the ‘liberal takeover’ and by socialist feminists. We are arguing that her approach cannot equip us to confront our oppression adequately.

 

Two class systems?

Sheila argues that the Marxist analysis of society is inadequate because it ‘allows no place for a concept of patriarchy’ (WCR, Catcall 5, p.16). She seeks to rectufy this by providing us with the ‘sex-class’ system in which patriarchy, the mode of reproduction, exists alongside capitalism, the mode of production.

 

Patriarchal society, according to Sheila, is one in which men control the means of biological reproduction. She discusses reproduction in relation to two major spheres a) the family and b) other institutions directly concerned with biological reproduction, such as hospitals, birth control clinics, etc. Her analysis separates out the family as the basic institution of patriarchal society, because, she says, the authority and organisation of the patriarchal state is based on the patriarchal family; abolition of the patriarchal family would therefore result in the collapse of the patriarchal state since its main support would have been eradicated. But, using the same argument, a matriarchal family where women controlled their own bodies would constitute the basis of a matriarchal state. Her argument suggests that a matriarchy could exist within capitalism. This implication is also contained in her analysis of male control of other areas of biological reproduction. Male power is based on the ownership of the ‘means and forces of reproduction’ and female liberationists should base our strategy on seizing control of them ourselves. The definition of reproduction however, is limited to the physical act of producing children, and female control of reproduction is seen in terms of control of institutions concerned with this. Thus: ‘If women had control of reproduction, safe and simple abortion apparatus would be available for them to use in their own homes, self-help would be vastly increased’ (WCR p.18).

 

This definition of reproduction contains a number of things we cannot accept. Firstly that simply to replace all men by women in jobs concerned with biological reproduction would automatically lead to changes in the organisation of reproduction, such that women would no longer be oppressed. Sheila seems to have a notion that women are somehow more ‘human’ than men (see p.23 Catcall) and automatically know what is best for women in general. This is analogous to the argument that working class instinctively ‘knows what its interests are’ and will automatically undertake the task of transforming capitalism in a historically correct manner.

 

Secondly, her insistence on analysing reproduction as a system separate from the mode of production (capitalism) leads her to analyse patriarchy as a social system in its own right. This leaves her with no basis from which to analyse the relationship between the two ‘systems’, nor how the mode of production might limit changes attempted in the sphere of reproduction. The way is thus left open for reformist strategies which render female control of reproduction quite meaningless, e.g. control of the ‘means of reproduction’ as defined here would reinforce rather than challenge the sexual division of labour. Even an extension of the strategy for seizure of control to the government and all institutions is not in itself a recipe for any specific changes in the nature of these institutions. Without an analysis of the relationship between women’s role as reproducers and the other complex relationship which make up capitalism as a whole, there is no basis for carrying out the necessary changes. Sheila’s analysis, based on the separation of the spheres of production and reproduction, is quite consistent with the reformism of NOW (USA) and the ‘liberal tendency within the WLM, which Sheila is attacking.

 

Redefining patriarchy

Sheila defines patriarchy as society controlled by men, whose power is based on their control of reproduction. We would define patriarchy as a system of social relations, in which the dominant ideas and institutions reflect women’s inferiority. From this approach the difficulties inherent in Sheila’s approach are apparent. The oppression of women in the home is not a simple consequence of male control over reproduction, it is also integral to the capitalist mode of production. Prior to the development of capitalism the family formed the basic unit of production, although the sexual division of labour existed, women’s work was as essential as men’s to economic activity. Nonetheless there is evidence that women were considered inferior in relation to men in other spheres, such as political and religious. The relationship between women’s economic position and their social status is under debate. There is evidence to show that women’s sexual oppression predates the rise of class society. However, this is not sufficient basis for asserting that the root cause of women’s oppression is men or ‘male power’. What is at stake are different modes of analysis, one of which (Sheila’s) locates the root of oppression in collections of individuals (men), the alternative, which we are putting forward locates oppression and exploitation in sets of social relations and the dynamic by which they develop. Human agents are the supports of these social relations rather than giving rise to them.

 

These two approaches lead to different political strategies as will be shown below, as well as to different analyses of the material which research is still bringing to light the origins of women’s oppression.

 

We agree with Sheila that an understanding of patriarchy is fundamental to an understanding of women’s oppression; however, she reduces the concept to ne of biology and it refers only to a supposed male desire for power over women. She uses the concept as an ahistorical and non-specific explanation of oppression. Capitalism exhibits the ‘symptoms’ of the disease, but the disease, patriarchy, is unchanging. We would argue that under capitalism patriarchy has been transformed and given new meaning. In other words, as Sheila might agree, capitalism has given patriarchy its specific form, but the fact that patriarchy may predate capitalism should not lead us into the trap of analysing it outside of any historical context.

 

‘Sex-Class’ and ‘Economistic’ Marxism

In the previous sections we have made various criticisms of Sheila’s arguments and tried to indicate how her approach leaves various areas of confusion. In this section we try to show how the confusion is inherent in her approach and suggest the basis for an alternative which can more adequately take up the issues she raises.

 

In the sections below we discuss the inconsistencies which flow from this approach, and from Sheila’s conception of the ‘material base’. The point to be made here is that Sheila’s response to the economist approach is only one of several alternatives for Marxists. Among the debates around the adequacy of the base/superstructure model is the view that ideology itself is a material force, and cannot simply be subsumed under the economic as a perpetually secondary factor. This provides the beginnings of an alternative to the economist left and to Sheila’s positions, both of which are in their own ways reductionist. The notion of ideology as a material force can also provide a basis for the analysis of reproduction and sexual oppression which has yet to be developed, and which distinguishes us as socialist feminists from the organised revolutionary left.

 

Politics as power relations

Sheila’s attempt to analyse the relations of reproduction in isolation from any other social relation leaves her unable to explain the basis of women’s oppression in terms of relations at all.Her analysis of ‘relations of reproduction’ turns out to be not about relations, but about objects of ownership and control; in her writings, the concepts such as ‘means of reproduction’ refer to particular objects – women’s bodies, men’s penises, etc., and ‘forces of reproduction’ refers to the tools used in the physical process of giving birth – forceps, anaesthetic, etc. This is particularly confusing, because Sheila appears to be using these concepts in a way exactly parallel to the way Marx used the concepts of ‘forces and means of production’, which he develops to analyse the relations of production. However, in Marx’s writings, these concepts did not refer to actual machinery, factories or collections of individual workers, but rather to the social relations which characterise the way production is organised.

 

For Sheila, however, both capitalism and patriarchy are based on the ownership and control of certain objects (factories, women’s bodies, etc.) by certain groups of individuals (capitalists, men, etc.). This is illustrated by her diagram (from WCR) which shows separate models of capitalism and of patriarchy. Her model of capitalism shows the capitalists exercising their power over the working class by brute force – the barrel of a gun – in the form of the capitalist state. The prostrate worker is fed a few coins by the capitalists on the one hand, while profit is extracted from the product on the other. The model of patriarchy is similar; a prostrate woman, legs outstretched, is controlled by men via the penis, with the patriarchal family as the vehicle of control. She is fed bed and board on the one hand, while the ‘product’ – a child – is extracted for her womb (the means of reproduction) on the other. Both models locate the basis of oppression and exploitation in the ‘power’ exerted by groups of individuals, who emanate power like electricity, rather than in the nature of social relations which characterise the societies concerned. (The difference may be expressed most simply by arguing that your husband/father is not oppressive because he is a man, but rather that men are oppressive because they are husbands and fathers; that is, the problem is not their ‘essential man-ness’ hence notions of male sexual urges, etc. – but in the positions assigned to them by the social structure. The oppression of women, therefore, comes from ‘father’ and ‘husband’ and of course ‘mother’ and ‘child’.

 

The strategy for change, then, according to Sheila: ‘Requires the identification of the ruling group, its power base, its methods of control, its interests, its historical development, it’s weaknesses, and the best methods to destroy its power’ (NRF). The trouble with this is that it inevitably falls back on assumptions about innate qualities of the objects and people it refers to. Being innate, they are changeless, and so the analysis based on such assumptions cannot be used to analyse changes in the social formation, so as a basis for a strategy for women’s liberation it is a recipe for disaster. This can be illustrated by looking at her strategy for women’s liberation more closely.

 

Her papers are produced as an alternative to a certain form of economist Marxism, according to which women’s struggle against sexual oppression is subordinate to the sphere of ‘ideology’. This conception sees the class struggle as being solely concerned with issues which relate directly to the relations of production, i.e. those at the workplace; other questions are of secondary importance because while their existence arises from the relations of production, it does not directly challenge them. The struggle for revolutionary change is therefore focussed on the point of production.

 

Sheila does not challenge the validity of his viewpoint. While the economists get on with their analysis of the economic class struggle, she sets to work to examine the relations of reproduction as a set of separate an independent relations. This is a capitulation to the economists’ view that the sexual struggle and the class struggle are independent n some way, and it is this position which leads to the subordination of either one or the other struggles. In Sheila’s case, the sexual struggle is paramount and the traditionally conceived ‘class struggle’ is totally subordinate. Separating the two can have serious implications for political struggles. The ‘class struggle’ is seen both by the left and by some feminists as purely economic issues and raising the question of feminism is seen as a diversion, whereas we say that it is a central part of the way the struggle is conducted. Sexism is a central mechanism of the form of exploitation which women suffer – it cannot be raised as ‘just another purely feminist’ issue. The struggle against sexism will alter the form of struggle around the ‘purely economic’ issues.

 

The assertion that the sex struggle is a part of the class struggle without further qualification often amounts to an assertion of the predominant importance of the economic struggle and a denial of feminist analyses as being at all valid. But this stems from a narrow conception of the class struggle which we must challenge. Only a conception of it which includes the struggle against ideological and political as well as economic relations can extend the struggle for socialism beyond the narrow economic concerns.

 

In this section we argue that having rejected the economist approach to the women’s question, Sheila adopts many aspects of it herself which prolongs the split between Marxism and Feminism which socialist feminists are attempting to overcome. In order to fill the gap we have to reject certain aspects of both approaches.

 

Base and superstructure

Marxists have traditionally made a radical separation between the economic base and the ideological and political superstructure; this distinction is now being questioned. But instead of critically examining this question of the distinction, Sheila takes it over unquestionably. Whereas the economists refer continuously and monotonously to the relations of production in their analyses of all forms of oppression and exploitation, Sheila refers to ‘male control of reproduction’ as the basis of all aspects of women’s oppression. She suggests furthermore that male control of reproduction is the model or source of all oppression (WCR, Catcall, p.19). This approach has the same effect as economist Marxism, in downgrading the role of all struggles which do not relate directly to the ‘material base’, in this case the relations of re/production. For instance she says: ‘Economic class could be eliminated in the socialist society of the future… Colour could be eliminated in the ‘great big melting pot,’ but the difference between men and women cannot be eliminated’ (NRF). The implication is that only sexual struggles are ‘real’, the sexual struggle is the most revolutionary one, and as the most oppressed group, women are the revolutionary vanguard in the struggle for communism (see WCR).

 

By concentrating on groups of individuals, Sheila resorts alternately to the physical and the psychological in order to explain how men maintain their ‘power’ and ‘control’ over women. Penile imperialism, the ‘chief means by which men control over women’ (WCR, Catcall, p.18) is exercised through brute physical force (penetration etc.) and through women’s internalising of existing power relations so that ‘we do not even contemplate revolt’ (see also MSSC for this analysis). But the fact is that many women – Sheila included – are now contemplating revolt. If, as Sheila maintains, our oppression does stem from men, then how do we explain the fact that male control has been broken sufficiently to allow the challenge which the women’s liberation movement constitutes? And how came we begin to analyse the extent to which such a challenge might be effective under any given social system, e.g. capitalism? That is, how do we know that there are not restraints imposed on that challenge by the mode of production? We do not know, and we cannot know from within a framework which limits the explanation to a power relation between men and women. Simply to state that ‘colonised internalise their own oppression’ and to describe the mechanism by which this internalisation takes place cannot tell us anything about the origins of this oppression or its precise nature, no matter how detailed the description.

 

Sheila set out to show how women’s oppression is ‘at the base of and intertwined with the class struggle’ (WCR, Catcall, p.16). However the relationship exists only in the implication that men have inbuilt drive for control and ownership, combined with the assertion that women cannot be liberated under capitalism as capitalism is based on the exploitation of one group by another; there is no explanation as to why women should not explanation as to why women should not gain liberation at the expense of men under capitalism, only the assumption that we would not want to base our liberation on the exploitation of another group. The implication is that women are ‘truly human’, and that it will be up to us to humanise men through a process of reconditioning following the seizure of power of reproduction.

 

Conclusion

The Women’s Liberation Movement has complained very justly of the ‘economism’ of the revolutionary left, its tendency to reduce and explain all forms of struggle in terms of events at the economic level, the relations of production. But the situation on the left where politics and ideology are explained in terms of economics has its counterpart in the WLM. The left explains everything in these terms because there is no adequate theory of ideology and politics; the WLM has taken up this neglected area both in its theory and in its practice, but because of the lack of theory, has had necessarily to rely on inadequate theories of ideology and politics. This was evident in the earlier productions of radical feminism (e.g. Firestone), and is still evident in Sheila’s writings.

 

Again, we agree with Sheila that it is crucial to take up these questions and to formulate theory to deal with them, what we disagree with is the way in which she takes them up.

 

She is attempting to deal with the level of experiences of sexual oppression, why women’s experience of society is what it is, and it is important for us to explain this if we are to combat our own patterned interpretations and responses to situations and develop a truly revolutionary politics. But to explain certain aspects of our experience, we cannot rely on other aspects of our experiences; that is, we cannot explain female passivity and submission by pointing to male aggression and dominance as Sheila does. Male dominance does not explain female submission no vice versa. Both sets of responses are determined by other social relations and it is necessary to discover what they are to understand why men are ‘dominant’ and women are ‘submissive’ (which is what we experience). Sheila is using as an explanation the very thing we need to explain, i.e. male dominance as a cause of female submission. Sheila herself says that she does not know why men should have achieved power over women (WCR, Catcall, p.17), she just assumes it – as we all do every day. She has added precisely nothing to our understanding of our oppression.

 

The explanation of our experience cannot take place at the level of experience, we are attempting to explain why our experience takes the form that it does, and this cannot be done by reference to the level of experience; the continual reference to experience to explain experience is as a result of the non-theorisation of the ideological aspects of social relations; it is necessary to formulate new concepts to deal with this problem. It may be argued that Sheila has formed new concepts, what about ‘forces of reproduction’ and ‘relations of reproduction’ for instance? But these are not – as we argued earlier – new concepts – they are new words which behind them have the same content as the familiar biological arguments. They may sound Marxist but they are not, since they refer directly to relations between individual men and women rather than to social structures which ensure that interpersonal relations take the form that they do; Marxist concepts do not refer to interpersonal relations between biological individuals – although this is how they are often interpreted.

 

Sheila reacts in a confused way to the left’s assertion that the women’s liberation struggle is ‘ideological’ and hence less important than that of the working class. She accepts the left’s premiss that the ideological is merely an epiphenomenon of the ‘material base’, and tries to find an alternative ‘material base’ for women’s oppression, and naturally enough, she finds it in biology. Just like the left, she defines ‘material’ in terms of touchable, observable, sensible entities – women’s bodies, men’s penises, and so on (the left might talk of the ‘forces of production’, referring to the machinery, plant, raw materials etc., as being the ‘real’ material base). We are arguing against both these positions as having crude notions of what is ‘material’. It entails and assumption that ‘ideology’ is not really real, that it is ‘ideas in people’s heads’ only, and hence always and ever secondary to economics; this notion has influenced the political practice of the revolutionary left since its beginning, a new concept of ideology and how to alter it would entail a new form of political practice. As a beginning to this, we argue that ideology is a real material aspect of social relations and has effects upon the economic; hence it is not something which can be subsumed under the economic, nor is there any necessity to look for a ‘material base’ of oppression in biology as a yah-boo-sucks reply to the left (we’ve got our own material base, so there!) Ideology is a material force which shapes and forms women’s oppression round our biology. In short, we argue the precise opposite to Sheila who tries to explain (or at least ends up explaining) women’s oppression in terms of biology and individual drives. An analogous situation occurred previously in discussions of economics; some put our oppression down to the fact that we have to work at all! All work is by definition oppressive, therefore we must get rid of all work. Firestone and now other feminists have wished in the same way to ‘get rid of biology’ on the grounds that it is the source of women’s oppression.

 

Both production (work) and reproduction (biology) are eternal and necessary factors in human existence. Neither are of themselves oppressive. It is a number of factors which combine together to produce different forms of oppressive social relations rather than a single ‘root cause’, and as socialist feminists it is these several determinations of oppression we should be investigating, rather than lamely relying on simpler explanations which obscure that which we need to explain.

 

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Postscript

While the above paper is a group product it is by no means a group point of view. While writing the paper, the group has undergone changes, and these were brought about by the recognition of differences between us which were not seen as either important or particularly problematic until we were all forced to take positions in writing the paper.

 

Writing collectively brought many unforeseen problems wh8ch we did not resolve adequately. We set out to write the paper with different levels of confidence and experience in writing, reading, and of collective rather than individual theoretical work. This led to tensions and the dilemma of how to prioritise giving time to working them out, without losing all our original impetus towards writing the paper. Out of this arose debates about the form which criticism of Sheila’s papers should take, and about the validity of writing papers as a form of political practice at all!

 

Although we feel that parts of the paper are still not properly worked out, we think that it is important to put it into circulation as a contribution towards discussion now. To wait until we might finally achieve the ‘perfect paper’ would only perpetuate the ‘typical’ feminine diffidence about committing ourselves to a point of view.

 

ANOTHER SOCIALIST FEMINiST VIEW:

Some notes on Sex and Class/Feminism and the class struggle – Gwynne, Anne & Penny

 

The overthrow of the matriarchal clan system and the development of the patriarchal family was the re-condition for the development of the class society (Engels says this, but he doesn’t explore the implications of it for women). All class society, historically, is patriarchal. Capitalism is a particular form of patriarchal class society, in which women experience a particular form of oppression. Patriarchal society is one in which men, as a group, suffer from the alienation of their reproductive power since it is, in fact, women who do the reproducing of children and thus the labour power of society (contrary to the absurd myth put about by the Judeo-Christian ideology wherein the man, Adam, created Eve, the woman, from his own rib. And we have believed it for so long, at the ideological if not the material level! See Merlin Stone: The Paradise Papers).

 

It is this alienation of our reproductive power which provides the material basis for an autonomous women’s movement, not the superstructural consequences – the difficulty women experience in sorting out our ideas and asserting ourselves in the presence of men, etc. – which tends to be the basis upon which Trotskyists justify their support for an autonomous women’s liberation movement.

 

What distinguishes capitalist society from other forms of patriarchal class society where the oppression of women is concerned is the fact that capitalism deprived women of their economic independence and reduced her to the status of an unpaid labourer within the nuclear family. See Alice Clark: The Working Lives of Women in the Seventeenth Century. More recent studies of the economic position of women in pre-capitalist and early capitalist society confirm the important economic status of women in these societies. But because her reproductive power had already been appropriated by patriarchy, he work was done within – and for – the patriarchal family. This basic inferiority of her position was both reflected and reinforced at the ideological level through religion and the church.

 

Historically we know it to be true that capitalism can be overthrown without challenging patriarchy and that when that happens, as in the USSR, a new form of clas society emerges. To date there does not appear to have ever been an attempt to overthrow patriarchy. Perhaps just as Marx argued that capitalism is a form of class society in which workers for the first time are capable of understanding their history and change it, so too, capitalism is that form of patriarchal society in which women are able for the first time to understand the source of their oppression and overthrow it. The overthrow of patriarchy is the pre-condition for the development of a classless society, communism; but the working class, being the revolutionary class within capitalism, has to be the motive force behind the overthrow of capitalism.

 

Therefore we suggest three demands which are central to women’s struggle against patriarchy and capitalism and for a classless society; they are not new but comprise a prioritisation of existing ones:

1. Women’s control over our reproductive capacity, our sexuality and the conditions of motherhood

(which of course includes ‘a woman’s right to choose’/abortion on demand as well as demands for full time nurseries, demands relating to maternity services, etc.)

2. Financial and legal independence for all women

(which includes demands about equal pay, equal educational opportunity, etc., as well as payment for housework, and childcare)

 

These lead to the third demand:

3. Workers’ control over both production and reproduction

 

A note on sex-class:

There is an important distinction to be made between using Marxist dialectical materialist analysis for explaining the oppression of women and using Marxist categories within which to try and understand it. Marx was concerned with analysing the relations between groups of people around the means of production. The term ‘class’ has a specific meaning within the context of economic production. To use ‘class’ to express the relations between the sexes around reproduction under patriarchy seems to use just confusing. Women under patriarchy are the oppressed sex because men have appropriated our reproductive power (by definition – that’s what patriarchy means). Whereas Marxism as a theory is revolutionary because it spells out why and how the working class can overthrow capitalism – a particular form of class society – feminism is subversive because it undermines the very basis upon which class society is founded. Women are the fifth column (potentially) in every family, class and country.

 

Our task then as socialist feminists (as distinct from our tasks as female revolutionary socialists) is not to build a vanguard revolutionary organisation to help the working class overthrow capitalism, but to infiltrate every organisation whose activities impinge upon the lives of women, from revolutionary groups to tenant’s organisations, in order to spread our subversive ideas amongst women so that patriarchy will be overthrown at the same time as capitalism. The task of a socialist feminist network is to co-ordinate our infiltration, clarify the ideas we want to propagandise, improve methods and forms through which we do this, in order to make that possible.

 

Note: this is obviously just an outline of the way we see the sex and class struggles related. All the points need elaboration. Some we have worked out, others we are not so clear about. We hope that these notes will stimulate others to write in Scarlet Women to take the discussion further.

 

 

REGIONAL REPORTS

What’s happening in (some of) the regions

South London: There are now three soc/fem group in South London. Two of these are closed, in an unsuccessful attempt to resolve the debate about whether to include women affiliated to left groups. (The decision to close was taken at a time when it was felt that increased numbers would be detrimental – but by coincidence, no left women had yet joined!) The third group, which includes women in the left groups, has just been set up. The question as to the role of left women has been left to individual groups to resolve for themselves – and therefore remains largely unresolved.

 

We have had two joint meetings so far, and plan to hold them regularly. They are open to new women, and are therefore likely to be a place from which new soc/fem groups are set up. They are planned as an opportunity for socialising as well as having discussions, reports, etc. At the last one there was a film.

 

The three groups operate independently and i think we are all in the throes of working out what/who we are etc., through our own approaches.

 

Apart from soc/fem groups, there is a Women against Racism and Fascism group just started up, a health group and many others. We have recently got a women’s centre established and benefits have been held to finance it. Hopefully that means there’s a point of contact between groups that will develop.

 

The WWCC group (S.London) dissolved itself by mutual agreement of all its members. Most of us are now involved in soc/fem groups, which provide a scope for discussion which WWCC could not relate to. While the Soc/fem groups cannot at this stage fulfil the same role as the WWCC e.g. within the Trades Council, TU’s etc., we all felt that the orientation to TU’s was not relevant to the work we were able to do locally. While in theory we could have continued to do work in other areas and ‘fight for our ideas’ in the WWCC, in practice we were all demoralised by our lack of success in building local campaigns round the WWCC. Some of us as a result of these difficulties had developed criticisms of the orientation of the WWCampaign. The existence of a local sec/fem group made the decision to dissolve easier: most of us felt that the priority is to build the soc/fem network, which in the long term offers more potential for developing a perspective for work among women whether in the waged workplace or ‘in the community’.

(Report by Margaret Page)

 

Yorkshire: Soc/fem conference for Yorkshire on Saturday 10th December; details from Eve or Annie at WIRES, (address). Socialist Women’s Action Group and Women and Socialism group continue to meet regularly in Leeds and Sheffield respectively. In Sheffield the group functions mainly as a discussion group, although that has also developed into other things periodically, e.g. supporting the pickets during a strike at Bachelors Foods at the end of the summer. We’ve also talked in the group about how we can best handle events like the Grunwick picket, or anti-fascist demonstrations, as socialist feminists.

(Report by Jenny Owen)

 

North East: Regional meetings lapsed over the summer, but recommenced at Middlesborough in October with a meeting which discussed the problems of working with NAC, feelings of isolation from NAC HQ. etc, and more importantly, started to examine the problem of trying to discuss the politics of abortion while having to spend a lot of time on the (sometimes defensive and ‘re-actionary’) campaign to stop abortion facilities being eroded. There was a strong division between those who thought that we have to locate abortion firmly within the whole question of reproduction, and clarify our views and feelings about this – others thought that campaigning was a priority and politics was a luxury to be reserved for a time when campaigning was not so intense. The first meeting resolved nothing one way or the other except to meet again to discuss this specific abortion itself and the politics of reproduction as a whole.

 

Some women who are soc/fem but not members of groups at the moment have commented on.complained about not being informed about regionals. Are we careful enough about keeping ‘unattached’ women informed? How do we actually do it?

(Report by Anna Briggs)

 

LETTER

Letter from Gail Chester – in reply to some points about the history of the socialist/feminist current and of the Working Womens Charter campaign in Scarlet Women 4.

 

One point I would like to take up from your short history of the Socialist Current within the British WLM, which I felt, on the whole, gave a fair account of its development or later degeneration: You stated that the national WL & Socialism conference of 1974 (Sept) in Brum was on ‘Women in the Family’ which is a very important error. Its title was either ‘Theoretical problems and Tactics for Strategy of WLM as a mass movement’ or ‘Theoretical problems and Tactics for Strategy of WLM as a mass movement.’ As you can see, it was rather confused and alienating formulation, from its very inception, trying to encapsulate the resolution agreed by the planning meeting in the previous June:

“This theoretical (sic) conference will be the first in a series (soc again) of conferences and meetings, aimed at finding out what theoretical unity exists in the socialist current on WLM, and by discovering our disagreements, to further that unity. The Conference should initiate collective theoretical work with the aim of formulating, if that proved possible, a minimum programme for socialist practice in WLM”.

The important point to note was that this conference was the ‘natural’ follow on from the conference in Oxford, which considered the (then) 4 demands and found them unsatisfactory on their own as a practical way of mobilising women round the issues of Women’s Liberation. The solution of the academic Marxists who dominated the soc/fem tendency at that time was to propose this conference, which, as emphasised above was seen as the first in a series of conferences to build a soc/fem theory, which might eventually lead to action. The September conference was the first very tentative steps in this direction, and the first signs of the disintegration which happened at the next national conference, at QMC London in 1975, could be seen then. Despite a helpful attempt to familiarise everybody with the basic marxist terms and major political arguments in an introductory plenary session, many women were still very alienated by the intellectual elitism and political jargon and bickering which accompanied most of the proceedings. The agenda for the Birmingham conference was drawn up from an abstract perception of what was required, and thus, for this and other reasons, went very little way towards achieving any sort of theoretical advance for socialist feminists. But this did not deter those who thought they already knew what was required to achieve socialist revolution (and feminist? Presumably, though one can not be sure!). There was a tacit agreement that we should now go on to build the necessary mass movement along the prescribed lines (but which ones was never made clear).

 

Thus the title for the London conference was set as ‘Perspectives for building the WLM as a mass movement’ (and not just ‘Perspectives on the Women’s Movement’ as stated in your original article). This clearly left the way open for left parties to present their platforms for mobilising masses of women – but as socialists, not as feminists. One speaker, from a left party, stated quite categorically ‘We want to build a strong movement of socialist women’. ‘What about all the rest of the women?’ some of us in the “audience” roared – a question that that phase of the soc/fem current never attempted to answer, at least at that conference, and thus the inevitable collapse and disillusion which followed. Some of us who walked out of that conference estimated that 80% of the 400 women present were non-aligned (i.e. not a member of any left party) and yer of the 6 papers presented, only one short one came from this, or some might say, any, part of the WLM. ALl the rest came from different left parties.

 

At a time when the soc/fem current in the WLM is trying to get together again I feel it is important to make sure that we are properly familiar with our history, so as to beware of some of the traps that await us next time we try to meet at a national conference. The above barely scratches the surface of explaining what happened to Women’s Liberation and socialism first time round, but I think some of the issues raised are covered by the discussion in SW4 of the decline and fall of the WWCC, which as was mentioned, had its roots in the Oxford Conference of 1974. However, for you to say ‘it was more or less seized upon by sisters’ gives a false impression of the enthusiasm with which it was initially received. It took a long time for it to be used as a campaigning tool in any large way, and this was only after a lot of vociferous pushing of it by women, mainly in IMG.

 

In fact, the November 1974 conference in Leeds was not a Charter conference, in the sense that later Charter conferences were for women (and men) who were already working with the Charter to discuss progress so far. That conference started out as a women’s liberation conference to discuss whether the WWCC was a good idea at all, and whether the WLM should adopt it/work on it. Some women went to argue that it should not be pursued, but as usually happens when such polarised positions emerge, the participants were not swayed from doing what the originally intended to do anyway. I hope this is not yet another lesson we failed to learn from history.

AMSTERDAM REPORTS: Isis Bulletin

About 25 people are waiting for the report of the Amsterdam Socialist workshop, which we promised to send out in the autumn; when we got the Amsterdam report we found it was in note form and would be very difficult to edit and print up, especially for a small number of copies. However, just as we were getting desperate thinking what to do about this, a welcome missal came plopping through the letter box, all the way from Rome: the ISIS INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN no.5., ‘Feminism and Socialism part 1, the Amsterdam Workshop.

 

So we decided to send your 21p’s back (if it’s in this envelope you know what it is!) and recommend you to get the ISIS Bulletin. As this costs 3 dollars (about £1.50) we recommend buying it in groups – perhaps you could decide at your next regional meeting to buy half a dozen and circulate them.

 

The Bulletin is very well produced and well worth the money. It contains papers presented at the workshop:

Where we stand and our relations with the left: Belgium – Denmark – Finland –                        France – Netherland – Portugal – Spain – United Kingdom – Bolivia

Reports on the workshop themes:

Women and the Trade Unions – Housework – Housewives – How the economic crisis affects women – Women and sexuality – how to work with women – worker control of reproduction – anarcho-feminism – thinking about women’s oppression

And final workshop reports

 

There are also six pages (in French) about the Paris Conference, and a page on International Solidarity.

 

In Feminism and Socialism Part 11 (No.6) there will be

“Material from feminist-socialists in other countries and continents plus an extensive resource listing of materials available on all aspects of the issue of feminism and socialism from several different perspectives and situations (advanced capitalist countries, countries with different stages and types of socialism, and Third World dependent capitalist countries).

The Editors welcome articles, letters and comments as well as resources from readers.

 

(The cost of $3.00 covers issues 5 and 6 together)

You’ll find when you get ISIS that a full subscription of $10.00 allows you to make use of ISIS resources and information services.

 

(We’re agog with admiration!)

 

WE NEED ENTERTAINING at the National Socfem conference in January. If you have any ideas for entertainment, especially if you have names and addresses of people we can contact (theatre groups, rock bands, singers etc,) please contact Anna Briggs, ℅ Scarlet Women Collective SOON!!

 

SOCIALIST FEMINIST NETWORK CO*ORDINATION   ♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀

The structure of the network was devised at the socialist feminist workshop at the 1976 Newcastle WLM Conference. Sisters at that workshop volunteered to help get the network going in their areas as co-ordinators. Since then the work put them upon them as co-ordinators has increased substantially and we feel there should be some way of sharing the work around. In some areas this has already been done by other sisters taking over from those who originally volunteered. In other areas there have been suggestions about breaking down the areas into smaller regions. We suggest that the question of how regions can best be co-ordinated be discussed in the regions so that a structure is developed which suits the needs of both the regions concerned and those who are willing to take on some of the work involved.

 

But please whatever is decided, let us know so that we know whom to contact when we have information to distribute or when we want to find out what’s happening in the regions – reports and papers from conferences don’t always reach us and news from the regions tends not to be forthcoming unless we ask for it!

 

And don’t forget the date of the next planning meeting for the Socialist Feminist Conference in January is December 3rd in Manchester and it’s really important that there is representation from as many areas as possible to finalise the details and get it all organised.

 

Can regions please be prepared to present their views on co-ordination at the national conference?

 

……WE NEED CO*ORDINATION!………..

 

…….WE NEED YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS…….

Promptly so that we know what sort of run to do for the next issue. Please see notes on subscriptions on page 1.

 

And please, before you put this down, remember

 

…….WE NEED CONTRIBUTIONS……..

For the next issue, on reproduction (see page 1) and for future issues. Cartoons and illustrations welcome as well as words!

DEAR SISTERS

We have an idea for a cover for SW – but we need an artist! If you think you can help, please contact us.

 

Published by Scarlet Women Collective, Tyne & Wear

 

 

30p

[This A4 page was a slotted free page into the back of the issue]

 

 

EDITORIAL

APOLOGIES, apologies: firstly for the delay in getting this issue out – we seem to have been very busy in the last few months cruising up and down the A1 going to conferences, meetings, etc., and it’s been difficult getting us all together at one time to work on it. Secondly, for the way it looks – we were thinking of dishing out endurance medals to anyone who actually manages to read it all the way through without falling asleep/ confusing the pages/ ruining their eyesight or in some other way succumbing to that feeling of numbness which large quantities of sheets inevitably brings upon the reader. However, we think the content of this issue – in spite of appearances – is very interesting and worth reading, so we recommend taking it slowly, page by page, preferably line by line…… next time it will look better, we promise. We are exploring the possibilities, cost, etc. of getting it litho-printed; failing that we’ll try some other way of getting it done in a more readable fashion.

 

THE THEME OF THIS ISSUE, or the subject which links the articles together, is the socialist-feminist current itself – its history (herstory), its practice in one area of work, and its future. The piece on the history of the socialist-feminist current is one we were asked to write for one of the European conferences and we had to do it very quickly, so we are under no illusions about its completeness. However, having to think about and reflect upon our experience within the Women’s Liberation Movement and our relationship to the left during the last 5-10 years was both interesting and very revealing. It so happened that the Working Women’s Charter National Conference was coming up at the time of writing it. We had been heavily involved, through our local Charter group, in trying to alter the orientation of the Charter towards a more feminist (as opposed to traditional left) approach to working with women. Reflecting upon the history of the socialist-feminist current and the role of the Charter within it, helped to put our current problems with the Charter and our battles with the Charter Secretariat into perspective. The articles on the Charter in this issue take up the question of its orientation, the problems relating to practice and the socialist-feminist intervention at the national conference. The question of how, or whether, socialist-feminists continue to work around the Charter needs to be discussed quite urgently and we hope a meeting will be arranged on this soon.

 

During the time that the Charter had been going as a National Campaign there have been other campaigns coming out of the Women’s Liberation Movement – the National Abortion Campaign, and Women’s Aid, perhaps being the largest, so far. What part has the socialist-feminist current played in them? What can we learn from all these campaigns about the best ways of organising mass campaigns? We would welcome papers from anyone who has been involved in these campaigns, looking at these kinds of questions. In the process of looking through all the papers we have amassed over the years from different conferences and elsewhere, we found several which were related to struggles sisters in left groups were having in trying to get their organisations to take feminism seriously. We feel that the exposure and discussion of these struggles too, would be useful since they would help to clarify our understanding of different left groups’ changing position on questions relating to women. A final general comment on this history paper; we would like sisters to comment on our interpretation of how the socialist-feminist current has developed, and fill in any gaps which exist or enlarge upon any aspect of it which they think is of particular interest or importance.

 

The British sisters’ participation in the two European Socialist-Feminist conferences marks the beginning, we hope, of a new phase in the development of our ideas and practice. We include two articles on the conferences which give a general overview of what went on at them. Papers from both conferences are to be circulated eventually and when we receive them we will use them in future issues. Given the different levels of class struggle in the different countries in Europe and the different ways in which women are organising themselves and raising their demands, greater knowledge and understanding of these events elsewhere in Europe should help to clarify our own theory and give us some ideas about practice, too. For example; in France and Italy (and perhaps elsewhere) in the course of struggles at work, womens groups have developed in some factories to discuss questions of womens oppression not directly related to the work situation. At the Charter conference mentioned above, a resolution from Lambeth Charter Group calling on the Charter campaign to set up similar groups provoked scorn and wrath from the left groups who rejected the idea as bourgeois feminism. This is just one of the many areas we hope to look at more closely in future issues.

Finally, we are happy to say that we are receiving more material from the regions, meetings and conferences. We hope that this flow will continue so that, when we have our typing and printing problems sorted out, we will be able to get SCARLET WOMEN out more frequently.

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NEWS FROM THE REGIONS

EAST – JO BRADLEY

A one-day Fem/Soc conference was held on 11^th June, attended by women from the University of East Anglia Women’s Liberation Group, Cambridge and Norwich Women’s Groups. Papers were presented on Wages for Housework, Radical Feminism and Socialism, Women and History. And an interesting one from Norwich Town Women’s group about the problems of putting across feminist ideas, let alone socialist ones, to the traditional womens groups to whom they speak.

 

SOUTH WEST – WENDY HOLLOWAY

The potential for setting up a specifically fem/soc group in the S.W. at the moment seems small. However on May 21^st the Bridgewater group held a Women’s Liberation Conference, which women from Penzance, Exmouth, Shepton Mallett, Exeter, Bath and Bristol attended. Over 60 women turned up, and workshops included Abortion, Women’s Health, Non-sexist children’s books, women and mysticism, sexuality and ideology, country women, and a body workshop. Wendy spoke about the Soc/Fem network and has started a small list of women interested in a future fem/soc group. For further info about Women’s Liberation activities in the region, contact Bristol Womens Centre Newsletter, [redacted], Bristol. Tel. [redacted]

 

NORTH WEST – NUALA MORTON

Manchester Wm and Soc Group have been having a series of discussions on topics that are both contemporary and historical. Among topics discussed, and on which discussion papers are being written are one on Rape, Women in the Labour Force, Wages for Housework, Children as Property, the Lesbian Left paper on Relationships and politics of emotions. They also hope to prepare papers on “The politics of Race”, “Working Class Women and the Women’s Liberation Movement”, Older women in the WLM and ageism”. Anyone wanting copies please send large stamped addressed envelope to Nuala, [redacted], Bolton. A regional Fem/Soc conference has taken place in Manchester on 16^th July. We will have details for next issue. (See also note on proposed Soc/Fem National Conference).

 

NORTH – ANN TORODE

Our individual groups continue to meet, but so far we have been unable to get a further regional meeting off the ground. Activities locally seemed to take priority – particularly the Abortion Campaign and involvement in setting up an anti-fascist group to counter the activities of the National Front in the area. We plan to hold a weekend meeting in Middlesbrough in September, but topics have not yet been decided.

 

LONDON – JANE DEIGHTON, TAMMY WALKER, KAREN MARGOLIS

The recent series of workshops “What is a Socialist Feminist Practice” were well attended with about 200 women taking part in each, except for the “Feminism in Ireland” meeting in which about 100 women took part. We hope to have reports on the workshops, particularly the final one which drew together the experiences discussed in the other three. We hope to print these, as well as some of the papers on Feminism and Ireland in the next issue. Details of future activities from Planning Group, [redacted], London, SE5.

SCOTLAND – MARY BRAND

Although the network in Scotland is small, a lot more women are becoming interested as a result of a fem/soc workshop at the Scottish Womens Liberation Conference held in Aberdeen in May. N.E. Scotland held a half-day conference in Aberdeen in June and out of that have formed a soc/fem group.

In Glasgow and Edinburgh groups are holding small local workshops, building towards a Scottish Soc.Fem conference in the autumn. Edinburgh held one on 17^th July. Details of further activities from Mary Brand.

 

MIDLANDS – HELEN GUNDON

A one day conference on “Women and the Crisis” was held in Birmingham on 9^th July. Further information on papers, future activities from Womens Centre, [redacted], Bilshall Heath, Tel B’ham [redacted].

 

INTERNATIONAL

As a result of contacts at thr Amsterdam Conference we now have women from France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Sri Lanka, Finland and West Germany wishing to subscribe and interested in setting up similar networks in their own countries.

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LESBIAN LEFT

Lesbian Left as the name suggests, is a collective of lesbian socialist feminists. The group has been meeting regularly in London over the past year. In traditional political terms, we are a broad front, consisting of feminists who are non-aligned and also feminists in the Communist Party, I.M.G, in other groupings. Our feminism and our lesbianism cut across, inform and enrich these different political allegiances, and in turn are complicated by them.

In an attempt not to assert polemically the links between socialism and feminism, but to begin trying to work these out in practice, we have been active on a number of levels.

We have supported the picket organised by the TRICO women in their struggle for equal pay; the picket organised by the workers on strike at Grunwick’s factory; the EGA picket organised by the hospital workers fighting to keep the women’s hospital open in the face of cuts in the NHS. We have also begun to come involved in anti-fascist work, dating from our involvement in the anti-NF demo protest in London last April.

On the level of ideas we have individually produced papers and discussed them within the group. Topics considered include: Male Gay Camp; definitions of class; idealism in the womens movement. Individual women in the group produced a series of papers on aspects of lesbian/feminism/socialism for the national WLM conference in April 1977, where we chaired a workshop. We gave the same papers at a one day workshop in London on sexuality in the “What is a Feminist Socialist Practice?” series.

We hope to duplicate more of these papers and distribute them as widely as possible. A group from Lesbian Left wrote the section on ‘Lesbianism’ In the new English edition of “Our Bodies, Ourselves”. Our group was represented at both the International Socialist Feminist Conferences in Paris and Amsterdam.

As a group we have had, and continue to face, many problems both practical and theoretical, possibly reflecting the difficulties and contradictions to be found within the women’s movement, the gay movement and on the left generally. We have no quick answers to offer but see ourselves as specifically lesbian members of the wide socialist feminist movement working towards a revolutionary change. This incorporates our understanding of the particular oppressive relation women have to capitalist society through the sexual division of labour in the home and at work, the ramifications of which affect all women.

The group is open and meets every Thursday, at A Woman’s Place, [redacted]. However we occasionally have our meetings elsewhere so its always best to check with the newsletter.

In Sisterhood,

Melanie

 

Editors Note: For reasons of space we have had to leave out a statement of aims they sent us some time ago. Any sister interested in further information contact Lesbian Left c/o Wendy, [redacted].

 

 

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE SOCIALIST CURRENT WITHIN THE WOMEN’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT

Note: We were asked to write this paper at short notice; it is based upon a combination of the papers we have collected over the years plus memories of conferences we attended. Inevitably, therefore, it is by no means a complete history. We do think however, that the events and conflicts which we outline here do reflect in general, the development of the Socialist-Feminist current within the Women’s Liberation Movement.

 

The late 60s saw the emergence of the Women’s Movement in Britain. In 1969 in London the Women’s Liberation Workshop established itself, developing consciousness raising groups and attempting to articulate and understand the ways in which women felt themselves to be oppressed and exploited. In the same years, a group of socialist women active in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign started producing a journal called ‘Socialist Women’, whose aims were both to impress upon the left the importance of the ‘Woman Question’ – to publicise the struggles of women in Britain and internationally and to try to develop a socialist analysis of women’s oppression, it was to be distributed through the newly formed Socialist Women’s Groups.

The first Women’s Liberation Movement Conference was held in Oxford in 1970. It was felt that the movement had already grown sufficiently to need a national structure in order to co-ordinate the increasingly diverse activities of women’s groups around the country. Women in left groups saw this as an opportunity to influence the political development of the Women’s Liberation Movement and managed to dominate the National Committee. This Women’s National Co-ordinating Committee formulated four demands which were adopted by the Women’s Liberation Movement – equal pay, equal educational and job opportunities, free contraception and abortion on demand, and 24 hour nurseries for all under 5’s. However the Women’s National Co-ordinating Committee degenerated into sectarian squabbles between the different left factors represented and was disbanded by the Skegness Women’s Liberation Movement Conference in 1971. It left behind a great deal of hostility amongst feminists towards socialist women and a deep distrust of structures and methods of organising which were associated with the male left. Instead the small, relatively unstructured consciousness-raising group was taken to be the model for structure and organisation in the Women’s Liberation Movement.

There were however, many women who regarded themselves as both feminists and socialists. Those who were in left groups were getting hammered for being “bourgeois feminists”; those who were not in the left groups but were active in the Women’s Liberation Movement were getting hammered for being “male dominated socialists”. Thus when a group of women in Birmingham who had organised their own Marxist study group called a conference on “Women’s Liberation and Socialism” in March 1973 several hundred women attended both from left groups and from non-aligned women active in the Women’s Liberation Movement. All agreed in the need to analyse the position of women from a Marxist perspective and most agreed that the existing analysis was inadequate for understanding the specific problems raised by radical feminists in the Women’s Liberation Movement.

A series of Women’s Liberation and Socialism Conferences were planned. Four conferences took place: London, September 1973 on Autonomy or Separatism?; Oxford, March 1974 on the four demands of the Women’s Liberation Movement; Birmingham, September 1974 on Women in the Family; and London, March 1975 on “Perspectives on the Women’s Movement”. There was also at least one day conference organised – on the Working Women’s Charter, Leeds, November 1974 – and probably others. “Red Rag” a journal for socialist feminist women was also started in 1972.

At first the political differences between those women whose primary political orientation was within the revolutionary left groups, and those whose orientation was within the Women’s Liberation Movement were obscured behind the collective euphoria generated by discussion of new ideas and new understandings. However, by the Oxford Conference, these differences were becoming more obvious and the final conference in London 1975 saw the alliance between the two tendencies end in bitterness and anger.

What were these differences? They related both to ideas about organisation and structure of the socialist current and to its orientation – how should we be organised and who should we be organising.

 

(a) Non-aligned women felt that the Women’s Liberation Movement had a great deal to offer the left in terms of how meetings should be structured; that it was important for socialist-feminists not to separate themselves off from the movement in any organised way and that the Conferences were useful in drawing together and developing a socialist-feminist theory and practice within the Women’s Liberation Movement.

Left group women felt that conferences should be organised in the traditional structured way and some felt that the socialist current should be more independent of the Women’s Liberation Movement in terms of structure, orientation and programme.

 

(b) Non-aligned women took the position that since all women were oppressed and exploited by capitalism it was essential to organise around issues relating to women at home and in the community as well as those in paid employment..

Women in the left groups, however, tended to take the position that socialists should orient themselves to the working class only – by which they meant women at the work place – struggles around working conditions, unionism, pay etc.

These political differences were exacerbated by differences in the degree of organisation of the two tendencies. The women from left groups were part of organisations in which issues could be raised, discussed and positions worked out. They had the facilities to write and produce papers together and they had the experience of articulating their views at large meetings. Non-aligned women were on the whole politically isolated within their women’s groups around the country and thus had little opportunity to get together with like-minded sisters and had relatively little experience in putting forward their positions in large meetings. Thus these differing political perspectives were never argued out on an equal footing and women from left groupings increasingly dominated the discussion and decisions at the Conferences.

At the last conference, the only papers produced were from left groups and both their content and the manner in which they were presented finally so alienated the non-aligned women present that many just walked out. The conference came to a premature end amid confusion and chaos.

For the next two years there appears to have been no more collective discussions of socialist-feminist theory and practice within the Women’s Liberation Movement – although Red Rag, the Socialist-Feminist theoretical journal, was still being published and several of the left groups were putting out women’s papers.

Many Socialist-Feminists devoted their time and energy to various campaigns – in particular the National Abortion Campaign and the Working Women’s Charter.

In retrospect, the manner in which the Charter was taken up by the socialist current is very illuminating. It came originally from London Trades Council and was adopted at the Oxford Women and Socialism Conference – It was more or less seized upon by sisters as a way of focusing the energies of the socialist current because it appeared to be a practical way of relating to working class women and to the trade unions movement; a way of uniting ‘home’ demands with ‘work’ demands.

As a non-aligned women said at the Leeds Charter Conference eight months later:

 

“There is no doubt that many in the socialist current took up the Charter without enough thought and discussion… The politics of the Charter were treated as if they could be read off from it, and not recognised as at least partly dependent in the tactics used… The crucial question wasn’t asked: What is the Charter, or what can it be, in relationship to the Trades Union in the one hand and the Women’s Liberation Movement on the other?”

 

Even before the collapse of the London Conference of 1975 then, the tendency represented by the left group women became predominant through the adoption of the Working Women’s Charter. The socialist current was organised in campaigns directed towards women at work in a way that precluded discussions about practice and the theory behind it.

At the 1976 Women’s Liberation Conference in Newcastle, a workshop was convened by some sisters on Tyneside on ‘The Socialist Current within the Women’s Liberation Movement’. The workshop was packed out. The discussion centred around our experience as ‘mindless militants’ and the need for combining the development of theory with practice. Women active in NAC felt particularly the lack of overall theoretical perspective. Non-aligned sisters complained of their isolation within the Women’s Liberation Movement. Sisters from left groups spoke of the need for support in their own struggles with their male comrades. Suggestions that a socialist-feminist conference should be organised were rejected – the memory of London 1975 was still too vivid. What was agreed was that a newsletter should be started with the aim of providing a communication network for socialist-feminists and discussing socialist-feminist theory and practice. Since then the socialist-feminist current has been growing again – groups have started around the country, several regional conferences have been held, and a national conference is being planned for later on this year. There are still political differences between the non-aligned socialist-feminists and those involved in left groups – the disagreement between the British sisters involved in the planning for the Socialist-Feminist Conference and their subsequent split, some organising for the Paris conference, others for the Amsterdam Conference, is a reflection of these differences. The area of differences remain the same: the orientation – just women in the labour force, or women in the community as well – and the question of structure and organisation. However, the level on which discussions amongst socialist-feminists are taking place now has changed. The non-aligned sisters after several years in the wilderness are coming together with a new strength and conviction that feminism is essential to the development and effectiveness of socialist theory and practice. We are confident that this time the socialist current in the Women’s Liberation Movement, firmly rooted in both feminism and Marxism, will be able to resolve its differences and make an important contribution both to the Women’s Movement and the left in this country.

Scarlet Women Collective

May 1977

SOME FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS WITH THE WORkING WOMEN’S CHARTER CAMPAIGN/ TOWARDS A FEMINIST/SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

 (written by three women active in the WWC for one of the workshops in the London series “what is a Socialist/Feminist Practice”)

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

When the WWC was passed by the London Trades Council in March 1974, it was seized upon by feminists on the left both aligned and non-aligned, as a vehicle for reconciling their socialism and their feminism. Here was a means of taking the demands of the women’s movement into the labour movement, that of organising working-class women around demands relating to their specific oppression as women, rather than just “as workers”. Here was a means of challenging the time-worn assertion by unionists and the organised left that if women were not interested in organising around demands put forward by male workers, then they were “backward” or “just not militant enough”. The WWCC appeared ideally as a basis of organising women workers because its demands seemed to relate both to women in their place of employment and to women in the home.

This recognition that women (and blacks) cannot simply be organised in the same basis as male workers was a step forward for the revolutionary left and the organised labour movement. However, beyond this simple recognition, and the broadly agreed aim of the WWC to “take the demands of the women’s movement into the labour movement”, large areas of confusion remain, and are becoming all the more glaring in the current discussion on the way forward for the WWC.

Since 1974, the WWC has been formally adopted by 12 national unions, 45 branches of other unions, 37 Trades Councils, and 85 other organisations. However, it has failed to build a base among working class women even where it has given active support to their struggles. Because of this failure to build a base at grassroots level it has been possible for trade unions to simply adopt the Charter while doing nothing more to fight for its demands or even campaign for support from their members, men or women.

Local groups (there are 30) are disoriented and the lack of focus for their activity, and lack of discussion, have caused them to have relatively short lives. The WWCC is split at the national and local levels, with local groups working in isolation from each other and from the national structure. We believe these problems stem from fundamental confusions by the Charter of how women’s oppression relates to class struggle.

STRUCTURE. The present structure of the WWCC was adopted at last year’s National Conference. This annual national conference is the policy making body of the WWCC, and in between conferences it is the national co-ordinating group (3 monthly) to which local groups send delegates. The Secretariat, elected from national conference, does administrative work and acts as a co-ordinating body. An Editorial Board, taken from the Secretariat, is responsible for the Charter Paper.

The WWCC is renowned for the bureaucratic nature of its structure. National Co-ordinating Group meetings have been poorly attended. Attempts as contact between local groups (e.g. national planning meetings) have failed, essentially because local groups have not found that these are geared to their needs. The same is true of the Secretariat’s circulars to the local groups, which bear little relation to their situation and resources. So the groups carry on with their usually isolated activities. The Secretariat should have simply a co-ordinating role, but it tries to lead the WWCC in particular directions, which only increases the distance between itself and the local groups. It is important that less than half the Secretariat themselves belong to local groups, while the ratio of members of the political groups (IMG, ICL, WP) is far higher than in a typical geographical group.

The rally is an example of this split between the national and local elements of the WWCC: the size and scale were totally out of proportion to the local groups, while its impact was aimed not through the work of these groups, (apart from the impracticable Women’s Rights Committees!), but independent of them. The reasons for holding the rally and the specific conceptions behind it have not been clearly discussed in the Rally planning meeting, let alone by the groups themselves. The whole event was bulldozed through from “above”.

Although the formal structure of the WWCC is appropriated to a tightly organised group committed to definite policy and unified strategy, it is not appropriate for the Charter since it does not have this. IT is important to understand that the WWCC was always keen to differentiate itself from the “loose structurlessness” of the Women’s movement, and to adopt a structure compatible with the traditional labour movement. Thus the structure was very much oriented to being similar to male initiated structures of the labour movement and of the left, so that the Charter would be accepted by these organisations, and also be and effective movement.

Emphasis in the Charter has been on organising women and men together around the demands. Only recently has the call for women to organise independently of men in women’s caucuses in trade unions has been seriously argued by some women in the WWCC. But it has always been argued that local groups should be mixed – why in practice are they almost all exclusively men? Thus the aim of gaining support and active commitment from male trade unionists has been allowed to override the conviction of the feminist women’s movement that women need to find their own specific organisational forms in order to organise effectively (both inside and outside the labour movement).

The debate about structure cannot be separated from the debate about overall strategy and aims.

 

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS

 

1. Orientation to Working Class Women

Who precisely are these working class women that the Charter has agreed to orientate towards, and why are we orienting to them rather than to other women? Most women in the WWCC would agree that while all women are oppressed, the class position of some allows the, privileges that make them unlikely to identify with women as an oppressed group, or with the struggle for socialism. Therefore we orientate to working-class rather than ruling class women.

But it does not follow from the above that we should orientate to women in the industrial working-classes rather than, say, women in the service industries; or to women in the unskilled services rather than the professional services. Or again should we orientate towards working-class women in the home rather than in the workplace? For it is not clear on what basis the class membership of a women is defined: on the work they are employed at, or if they are not employed, on the work they are qualified to do or on the class membership of their husbands.

There is an obvious sense in which we all know perfectly well what we mean when we say a man or woman is “working-class” based on a loose picture involving accent, dress, lifestyle, as well as workplace. But this criteria has little to do with a Marxist sense of the term, which depends on the person’s relationship to the production process, they have to sell their labour to live, or by extension, are they dependent on another who has to sell their labour?

The debate on strategy and orientation then concerns: which section of the working class is potentially the most militant? Which section of working-class women is potentially the most conscious of their oppression and the most likely to struggle against it?

If the answer could be based purely on the membership of the WWCC, the answer would be: women in white collar service industries, with a strong bias towards the professions. Usually these women are in their 20s and have no children. From this, two conclusions may be drawn:

i) women from this section of the working class can no longer be written off by the left as “petit bourgeois”, and thus by implication, non-revolutionary.

ii) the WWCC has failed to build a base among the very women it has been orienting to as “working-class women”, i.e. women who work in industry, or in the unskilled services (and who probably have two young children by the time they are in their 20’s). Is the reason for this simply that the WWCC has failed to take account of the practical difficulties for these women to take part in time-consuming meetings, when they are more likely to be bogged down in family responsibilities than the “professional” women? While the situation of having children obviously restricts one’s activities, it would be naïve to be satisfied with this as an explanation.

 

2. Orientation to Women at the Waged Workplace

There has been increasing emphasis in the Charter on organising women at the waged workplace. While this is important, it is also essential to organise women from the home. But even within its orientation the WWCC has shown itself unable to relate to women involved in workplace struggles.

Since the WWCC has taken the male T.U. definition of ‘working-class’ – where one is defined through one’s workplace – it inevitably concentrates on the employed women. All the points in the Charter have been taken up within this workplace context rather than in the basis of women’s oppression stemming from our reproductive and domestic role. For instance, nurseries have been campaigned for from the viewpoint of providing an essential facility for working women, instead of from the feminist standpoint that collectivised childcare will free women from the oppression of isolated mothering. The WWCC has not realised that women under capitalism are defined primarily by their domestic and reproductive role, and that their role as waged workers flows directly from this.

Traditionally, the T.U. ‘s have only taken up economic workplace issues such as pay and redundancies, but not issues like unemployment and housing. Because the WWCC has oriented itself to taking up issues within the male-dominated working class organisations, it has fallen into the same economistic trap, presenting women’s oppression merely as a series of practical demands. It was so concerned to get the male trade unionists to adopt the Charter that it failed to orientate itself towards working-class women, by taking us issues important to them which would in effect fundamentally challenge the concepts and practice of the unions.

The charter has always been seen as linking women’s oppression in the home and at the workplace; or rather as bringing their oppression in the home into the workplace context, by virtue of its demands which relate to both. But the demands in effect relate to one or the other: some to the home, some to the workplace, and there are none that relate to our sexual oppression which occur wherever we are, and which is used to keep women in a subordinate position in every situation: at home, in bed, at work, on the street.

The inadequacies of the way in which the WWCC has raised women’s oppression are clearly shown by the experience of the Trico strike.

 

TRICO

Before intervening in any struggle, one must work out why it is important to do so, and what you want to achieve though that intervention beyond the success of the struggle. Such an analysis within the Charter never occurred over Trico – either before or after involvement.

During the whole of the strike, the WWCC was split between on the one side the Charter ‘leadership’ and the numbers of political organisation whose main concern was to put over their ideas to the strike committee, and to attend the mass meetings in order to monitor the strike from class quarters, and on the other side the many Charter members and women from all over London who were supporting the picket lines. These who saw themselves as ‘political leaders’ based their credibility on those who were the picket ‘fodder’ (and who were often ashamed to admit their membership of the WWCC!), rather than gaining their own credibility by doing regular picket duties themselves. In general, if they did turn up on the picket line it was often for just an hour or so, just like the T.U. bureaucrats who ‘graced’ the picket lines with their presence!

It is hard for people outside to see the unity of an organisation, especially when that organisation is itself split, and one group appears on the picket lines and the other at their own meetings. It is not surprising that when the latter tried to expose the C.P. leadership to the women strikers, they received little support, even though this criticism was often valid. If they had taken up issues that related more to the women they might have had more success. Also if the WWCC had extended its role further to campaign for active support for the strike among the “union base” it claims to have, it would have gained more credibility from the Trico women.

For instance, throughout the duration of the strike no crèche facilities were organised and so women with children were unable to participate. The Charter suggested a crèche, and the strike committee turned round and said “great idea – you set it up”, – not the answer they had hoped for! The crèche should have been organised by the strikers themselves, since in this way they would have acknowledged its importance. Disillusioned, the Charter dropped the idea. If the Charter had first approached some of the women, and had gained their support for a crèche, the strike committee would not have been able to dismiss the idea so easily. And to just drop it was to give it as little importance as the strike committee had given it. What would have been so wrong with positively helping some of the strikers to set up a crèche?

Again, the Charter never took up the issue of sexism which the women were continually having to face. Many of the men at the factory had not supported the strike. Many women were not being allowed to go on the picket lines by their husbands. And many women felt a conflict between commitment to the strike and their family responsibilities. Here was something that all women were experiencing and the Charter could have exploited to give a wider understanding of sexual oppression. Instead they restricted themselves to much talk about the Equal Pay Act and its inadequacies – something of which the strikers were already aware.

Because of the Charter’s orientation towards the working class it failed to take advantage of another facet of the strike. Many women not active in the Charter campaign had come to help the Trico women on the picket line. Here was an opportunity to draw them in to the Charter to help with support activities for Trico in their own local areas e.g. meetings, fundraising, publicising the strike and raising the issue of women’s oppression. Instead, the Charter concentrated on the strike committee, the opportunity was lost and the numbers in the Charter campaign continued to shrink.

Trico is often used as a shining example of the Charter’s credibility within the labour movement, yet no credibility was actually gained. The intervention by the “leadership” was a political failure – no wonder the Trico speakers did not turn up to the Charter Rally.

 

DEMANDS OF THE CHARTER

Membership of the WWCC has been though agreement with the Charter’s demands and attraction to the concept of an “overall” women’s campaign. A fundamental strategy for the WWCC is not developed on, beyond the broad aim of “taking the WWC demands into the labour movement”. Indeed, how many Charter members agree with this statement from the literature on the coming conference: “The WWC outlines the basic pre-requisites for complete equality at all levels of a woman’s social economic and political life”? Discussions around such central motions as – emancipation or liberation?; the material and ideological basis of our oppression; are the Charter demands reformist or revolutionary?; how does the WWCC take them up?; how should we orientate to the Labour Party – have rarely if ever taken place. Certainly most local groups are under too much pressure to be “active”, that discussion has little place in busy meetings. Discussion and development of political understanding is not assumed to be a necessary part of the WWCC, and is generally hived off into one or more of: a c/r group, a women’s group, a study group, a revolutionary group. The almost exclusively campaigning nature of the WWCC has contributed to the fact that at conference, discussion is again limited to “relevant” things e.g. specific demands, details of these and campaigns around them, without analysis of the overall context.

The criticism of mindless militancy can be levelled at the practice of the WWCC. The local groups have been left to pick a demand to campaign around with no generally agreed approach for this choice. The orientation of each group has varied with the inclination of its members, as well as with the general political situation.

As the Charter is seen merely as a series of demands, the way one demands links in with the others is not immediately explained. It requires a feminist analysis to see the connection and the Charter has always shied away from this, giving merely practical explanations e.g. women need control over their own bodies in order to be able to avail themselves of equal opportunities at work. Thus the linkage has remained very much a paper one. Demands have been taken up individually within single issue campaigns which, although often initiated by the WWCC have remained very much outside of it. The only real link between the WWCC and those campaigns has been the women who have worked in both. This is partly due to the reformist nature of the campaigns which the WWCC has not challenged e.g. NAC ahs oriented itself towards legislation and has not taken up the essential question of women’s sexuality.

 

STRATEGY

Now that the campaigns which many local groups have initiated are becoming even more difficult to keep going (particularly the nursery campaigns in the situations where the cutbacks have been accepted) and that the local membership that has not by now completely dropped out of the WWCC is becoming increasingly frustrated and dissatisfied, the question of overall strategy and the way forward for the WWCC is starting to be discussed. Any proposed strategy is based on certain analysis of the roots of women’s subordination; and this must be fully and openly discussed. The WWCC is in danger of totally disintegrating unless the demoralisation of many members can be turned into enthusiasm by talking and working through our difference conceptions and experiences. The women’s struggle at this time is particularly threatened because of the general lack of resistance to attacks on the working class (the economic cuts which effect women’s lives and jobs) and because of the strengthening of the state in ideological terms (Benyon’s Bill, levelled specifically at working class women). Our priority is to re-orientate ourselves while understanding the experience of the WWCC since its conception.

The theme of the National Conference on May 21^st-22^nd is “which way forward for the Charter Campaign?” We believe that this conference is crucial to the very continuation of the campaign, and that if a more realistic and perceptive orientation is not worked out many women will leave the WWCC and may drop out of political activity at an important time. But the current debate among the three left groups around whether or not to amend the Charter is not the key issue. Nor are we happy with the provisional agenda for the conference since it places too much emphasis on resolutions and too little on real discussions and exchange of local group experiences and lessons learnt. (Approx. 1 hour is allotted to workshop discussion on “problems of local WWCC groups” over a whole weekend!) We urge Charter groups to see this conference as a real priority, to help change the agenda to allow information and decisions to go from the grass roots upwards through the structure, and to allow themselves discussion time before the conference and hopefully write their own papers.

The perspective of “No to the Social Contract” becomes vital in order to take up the Charter demand sin any other than a reformist way, given the economic crisis and the attack on women as an economic group. We must refuse to allow any cuts on our money, health, education standards, or to accept any additional burdens put on us by the state for economic and/or ideological reasons. And instead of simply stressing changes in policy, whether it be union, local or national government, we must take up these issues by relating them to how women are directly experiencing this objective situation. We must relate to women on the basis of our common oppression and sexuality under capitalism. We must argue too that the fight against sexual oppression in all its forms is central to the class struggle. Male workers must not accept or retain any privileges above women workers or men above women, since “divide and rule” serves to help only the ruling class.

Women are truly “the slaves of the slave”, yet the basic sexual oppression which is our everyday experience is not mentioned in the Charter demands. Why is the 6^th demand of the Women’s movement not even referred to in this Charter? Precisely because of the convenient idea that if women are “released” from the “chains” of unequal opportunity, domestic work and childcare we will be able to “be just like men” and play a normal part in society, especially the unions. But due to our subordination – our particular gender role conditioning and experiences – we have a different consciousness. It is this consciousness the women’s movement has told us and is telling us so much about. As feminist socialists, we aim to organise women themselves to change society as a means towards their own and our own liberation.

The Charter up to now has attempted to resolve the conflict between feminism and socialism by cutting out the feminist part. These Socialist Feminist Workshops are searching towards a feminist socialist synthesis which is the essential task that we must undertake. One lesson we take from the charter is that any attempt to organise women on a non-feminist basis is doomed to failure!

 

TOWARDS A FEMINIST SOCIALIST MOVEMENT 

The WWCC fails to understand that sexism must be exposed and opposed directly. It prevents and undermines our attempts to change our position. For instance, a married employed woman going on strike immediately has to face the choice of leaving the activity to the men – and the single women – or refusing to carry out her domestic responsibilities at home. On top of this, she faces the expectation from men involved in the strike, from other women, and often from herself, that she is capable only for a secondary role e.g. in Trico, male trade union bureaucrats used sexism to dampen down initiatives and control the strike. Not only is the women’s time and energy divided, but she is psychologically undermined by the expectations from her workmates as well as her husband and her employers that she fulfil this role, regardless of her actual home situation. This expectation is expressed at the workplace through the men relating to the women as sex objects and servicers i.e. objects existing for their sexual/ego titillation or to satisfy other physical or emotional needs. It is precisely our silent compliance with this, and failure to collectively confront it, that undermines the possibility of women organising on a truly solid basis and of challenging the emptiness of formal equality which bears little relation to our actual experience of oppression.

Women must constantly fight their submissive relations to men at work at home and in society generally. We must develop ways of overcoming the split between the “personal” (which has oppressed us for years within the Left itself) and extend this into the ongoing politics of women’s oppression. It is necessary that we provide our own leaders in this fight, that we organise independently yet not separately from men. The building of women’s caucuses in the unions, the development of women’s groups outside the workplace, and an autonomous Women’s Movement which embraces within it a feminist socialist movement, are an essential part of the strategy towards liberation.

 

P.S. Sorry if this paper is so negative about the Charter. This is not because we are denying the importance of the role of the Charter, but because we feel that constructive criticism is what we need now.

March 1977                       Written by: Sue Oppenheimer, Margaret Page, Celia Shalom

 

EXTRACT FROM A LETTER SENT TO THE NATIONAL SECRETARIAT OF THE WORKING WOMEN’S CHARTER.

 Several women still involved in the WWC campaign have pressured us to write down something about the reasons for the dissolution of the Coventry Campaign. As we’ve now left the Charter Campaign, we are unwilling to do anything which might be construed as launching an attack from outside but feel that this might be an appropriate context in which to explain why Coventry Charter Group decided to dissolve itself.

There are lots of reasons for it, many of them local in character, pertaining to the development of this particular group, but there were also factors which we know are shared by other groups.

One of the problems which we had from the start was how to work on the charter. Before starting the Charter group, we had been working as a socialist women’s group on various issues as they arose locally, and probably most consistently on abortion. As a charter group we found it difficult to delineate areas of work. We felt that we should work on the Charter as a whole, yet in practice this prevented any sustained activity in a particular area. We found ourselves taking on general commitments of a propaganda and publicity character – e.g. talks to trade union branches, a trade union seminar on the charter, an exhibition on women’s work in Coventry – but this was at the expense of any deeper involvement in any single area. We tried forming sub-committees on some of the areas where the Charter’s demands lay (e.g. nurseries) but these failed to really get off the ground because our forces were split in working on each of them. We practically gave up our involvement in abortion campaigning because we felt that as a charter group we shouldn’t be involved in something which was primarily the responsibility of the NAC group. (During the time that the Coventry charter group was active NAC in the area pretty well folded up completely.)

There were of course advantages in working in the Charter campaign: we took it up originally partly because we wanted to secure an entry in trade union work and contacts, and to widen the basis of a group which was primarily academic, middle class, etc. We succeeded in building up excellent trade union contacts which we retain. However we did not manage to widen our membership significantly, for reasons which we feel were partly to do with the Charter. Over the 2 years or so that we were meeting, dozens of women came to a few meetings, but did not join the campaign. We know from talking at length to a few of them, that what they wanted was a wider contact with the Women’s Movement and its ideas than a Charter group gave them – they felt it was too narrowly concerned with working women, did not raise questions of sexism, socialisation of children, etc. This confirmed our own feelings that the charter was a good basis on which to approach the traditional institutions of the labour movement, but that it didn’t go far enough and was not sufficiently comprehensive for some of the women who were not likely to be interested in a socialist/feminist perspective. What we needed was a less rigid perspective, and a wider one.

We felt that this became more marked after the 1976 conference. Previously we had been fighting against our own tendencies to bureaucracy and what we increasingly felt was an inadequate set of demands. As a group we felt that the proposal changes to the charter discussed in April 1976 were even more inadequate, and after the conference engaged in a number of meetings to discuss amendments to the Charter. Although we finally produced a set of amendments, we felt that the time and effort spent on them was not worthwhile, (and assume that other groups had similar feelings.) We felt over the 6 months or so after the April conference that an actual conflict was developing between our interests as a local group trying to interest women in feminism and socialism and mount local activities, and our membership of a national campaign which (though I am sure it was not intentional) appeared extremely remote, continually sent us large amounts of written material which seemed to have no real connection with us, and seemed to have no relevance to our activities at a local level. Our meetings became more and more devoted to “business” which emanated from the Secretariat, and to discussing amendments to the Charter. Now work in Coventry went by the board, now members found the meetings irrelevant. In the end, so did women who had been committed, active and regular members of the Charter group from the start. So demoralised and lacking in identity as a group were we that when a long women’s strike for union recognition started un Coventry in October 1976 we reacted to it largely as individuals, not as common members of a campaign. It was this experience which made us realise that the group in Coventry did not really exist any more other than as a name. After a series of meetings to discuss the situation, we decided to dissolve the group, and members of the campaign have now gone into different areas of work.

Written by: Coventry Working Women’s Charter Group

 

SOME NOTES ON THE SECOND NATIONAL WORKING WOMEN’S CHARTER CONFERENCE

You didn’t have to listen to the speeches at the Second Working Women’s Charter Conference, held in London from 22^nd to 23^rd May to realise that there was something seriously wrong with the Campaign. Attendance was down from around 350 last year to barely 200 this year and even less on the second day. There appeared to be less than a dozen Charter groups present (no-one knew whether the others were unrepresented or simply didn’t exist) and only four of these – Bath, North Tyneside, Newcastle and Hull – were from outside of London. There were perhaps 70 trade union delegates from trade union branches or trades councils, but only a few of these seemed to represent active Charter caucuses and only one trade union branch had put forward resolutions. With the exception of North Tyneside and Lambeth WWC groups, women from IMG, ICL and Workers Power were the only ones who had seriously prepared fro the conference, putting forward papers on perspectives and specific resolutions on action and structure. The crèche was slow to get started on Saturday and on Sunday had to be staffed by volunteers from the conference, when it became clear that no one else had turned up to run it and that small children running round the conference hall was going to have a disruptive effect on the proceedings. No-one came to the disco in the evening.

Early in the conference, women from IMG joined with a non-aligned group of feminist socialist women to argue that it was impossible to amend the Charter (the original purpose of the conference agreed at the previous one) without a thorough discussion of experience so far and that the agenda should be reorganised to allow for greater discussion. Although strongly opposed by ICL and Workers’ power, who were committed to amending the Charter, the re-organised agenda was accepted. Workshops held in the afternoon focussed on the themes “What is the nature of the Working Women’s Charter and its demands? What kind of a Charter do we want? and How do we use the Charter? And looked specifically at experience in the workplace and in the community and relationships with the Labour Movement and the Women’s Movement. The reports of these discussions in the Sunday plenary revealed not only that many people had experienced severe problems in using the Charter and that most of the groups were in disarray, but also that there were irreconcilable differences of opinion amongst those present about the way forward.

Sadly the depth of the confusion and disagreement was never acknowledged by the conference as a whole and it sailed on into discussion of ‘perspectives’ on the Sunday morning entirely dominated by left groups. The discussion in practice was confined to proposals for the national campaign including relationships with NAC, fighting the Social Contract and so on. Voting was half-hearted, everyone seemed to sense that there was not the collective will to put decisions made at the conference into action. Although we had been active earlier in the conference, the socialist-feminist caucus was unable to make any effective intervention in the ‘perspectives’ discussion. A resolution acknowledging that “the specific nature of the exploitation of women in paid employment is inextricably linked to the oppression of women arising from our reproductive role” and committing the conference to “working around issues affecting all women whether paid for their work or not” was defeated. A further resolution to sexual oppression was only narrowly passed. In the final session, the conference was presented with a choice of structure for the campaign. Possibilities for a more decentralised campaign suggested by North Tyneside and IMG were rejected in favour of a modified version of the current structure in which the secretariat is elected from the conference, put forward by ICL and Workers’ Power. When the voting for the secretariat took place only members of left groups and one trade council delegate chose to stand. In the end only 8 out of 15 places on the secretariat were filled. The left groups have found themselves in sole control of an organisation without any base.

Workers Power and ICL were preoccupied throughout the conference with getting the Charter amended. Their analysis of the failure of the campaign to transform ‘paper resolutions’ into action was that the ten demands of the Charter are too reformist, too easy to pass without thinking about. They wanted the Charter to embody a revolutionary programme geared to the present state of struggle, featuring specifically a woman’s right to work, opposition to the social contract, sliding scale of wages and so on. Their idea is that the Charter should be updated every two or three years to ensure the demands remain appropriate. The view of IMG was that to amend the Charter would only serve to further confuse the trade unionists who had passed it. They believe that as it stands it provides a way of drawing the widest possible labour movement forces into the campaign and in the long term, lays the basis for a mass women’s movement. It is significant that both factions were entirely preoccupied with the ‘National Campaign’ and the direction for the Secretariat. The people who actually actively support the Charter – the local groups – were assigned only a marginal role.

For all the difficulties of the conference, I found the positions being presented in the plenary counterpoised by the discussions of grass roots experience un the workshops quite helpful in clarifying my ideas about why things are so clearly going wrong with the Charter Campaign and the lesson for socialist feminists inside and outside of the Campaign.

Socialist feminists were attracted to the Charter Campaign because they saw it as a way of making the ideas of the thus far rather inward-looking Women’s Liberation Movement relevant to working class women. Because the Charter focused on what were seen as the material pre-requisites of women’s liberation the Charter was seen as a way of raising basic questions by talking practicalities: nurseries, abortion, working conditions and so on. It seemed to provide a way of organising round specific issues – like nurseries – in a way which gave these struggles a context, a way of talking about and linking up all the problems women face. We argued that “working women” means all women whether or not they are engaged in waged labour and saw the Charter as a way of linking up women at work and in the home. In practice, however, these assumptions have not proved viable.

First, the Charter has failed to attract the mass support envisaged. Although it has achieved considerable paper support in the trade union movement, this has not turned out to be very active support. Crudely, the theory behind the Charter appears to have been that women will see the demands of the Charter make sense individually, begin to struggle around them, realise they are all linked up and to implemented require a completely re-organised society. In fact, most women probably know that the demands of the Charter cannot be achieved without fundamental change and so choose not to bother even to begin to struggle. In practice the Charter Campaign’s active supporters have had, in the main, a revolutionary perspective. But precisely because it was meant to be a mass campaign, it has never been seen as the place to conduct theoretical discussions, so the assumptions of the campaign have never been scrutinised. Within the Charter, for instance, there is enormous confusion about the role and function of the ten demands. Every one has a different answer to the question “are the demands achievable under capitalism and if so is this the kind of Charter we want?”

Second, local groups have encountered real difficulties in using the Charter to ink up the issues women face and draw out more general questions about women’s oppression. Although they have found little difficulty in getting local labour parties and trade councils to support the Charter it has been difficult to turn this into active support. Local groups have found difficulty in sustaining their membership; turnover has been high. Somehow the problem was what the Charter group could actually offer its members. Inevitably the group ended up involved either in one over-whelming campaign – like nursery campaigns or NAC – or sitting on endless committees without making any significant progress in any direction.

Third, the Charter has not proved a particularly useful weapon for directly confronting sexism. Many women at the conference reported that passing the Charter has not helped in changing fundamental attitudes in the (predominantly male) labour movement. For all that we may think that the Charter links women at work and at home, it does not do so explicitly. Trade union men may well see themselves fighting on behalf of, or even along side of their comrade sisters, but don’t see that the Charter has anything to do with their wives or daughters. Precisely because the Charter hedges the question of why women want nurseries, free abortion and contraception or whatever, it fails to provide a framework for arguing anything more than the right of women to go out to work.

Where now?

The Charter was drawn up in a hurry at a time when it seemed important to translate the demands of the Women’s Movement to the Labour Movement. At the time, however, many of us had not absorbed quite basic ideas about the importance of domestic labour to capital. We had hardly begun to think about patriarchy or to use the idea of reproduction to help us understand the role of women in capitalist society. In our anxiety to reach out to working class women we took on ideas about action/practice from the organised left. The labour movement and the working class were synonymous. The aim was to reach the formal labour movement and so we took on a ‘labour movement’ style of organising – resolutions and delegate conference – rejecting the models offered by the WLM.

Over the last three years we have been happy to avoid confronting some of the central contradictions of the Charter campaign because we wanted to take part in building a broad campaign. It is clear however that the Charter as an organisation is no longer viable. Over the last year several groups have come to and end and many more women have taken individual decisions to leave. The effect of the recent conference can only be to accelerate the collapse of local groups (what will happen to the secretariat and the support within the trade unions is less clear). If we are to use the experience of the Charter in a positive way to help us develop a more appropriate socialist feminist practice, we need to look again at domestic labour and develop a politics where it is no longer confined to the margins. Three areas for discussion seem particularly crucial:

 

1. Recognising the central role of women and the family in capitalist reproduction, we need to work out what kinds of demands would make sense to women, provide a basis for a broad campaign and be effective in challenging capitalism and patriarchy. Similar discussions have been going on in relation to the six demands of the WLM. (In working out our demands, too, we need to be clear who or what it is we are making demands of, making use of our understanding of the welfare state).

2. Charter experience raises a wide range of questions about the way we use a list of demands, whatever their context. Are they meant to be transitional demands? How central are they to our strategy? What kind of context should we put them in?
3. We need to re-examine our attitude to the Labour movement – What’s the significance of the fact it’s mainly run and controlled by men? How central is it to our theory of change – and develop a practice which is linked to our analysis.

 

Jeanette Mitchell

13/6/77

PARIS – AMSTERDAM – was the split necessary?

FIVE OF US spent an afternoon talking about the two European Socialist-Feminist Conferences, trying to decide how to report on them. Three of us had been to Paris, two to Amsterdam. Since the papers from both conferences are to be put together by the conference organisers and circulated later, we hope to be able to comment on them in a later issue. In the meantime we felt it was important to say something about what we got out of the conferences, and the kind of perspectives which we felt were being put forward. Inevitably what follows is a subjective account and we hope others will send in comments on what they think were the most important aspects of the conferences.

The most obvious difference between the two conferences lay in the number of women at each, and this difference inevitably affected the way in which the conferences were structured and the degree to which participants could get a grasp of what others were thinking. At Paris over 4,000 women turned up – the Monday was a Bank Holiday in Europe which presumably was one reason for this. At Amsterdam, the conference was restricted from the start to 250 because the conference location could not accommodate any more. The Paris organisers were clearly overwhelmed by the numbers of women willing to travel from all over Europe to a conference on Socialism and Feminism – a nd how many of us would have anticipated that there would be so many women in so many parts of Europe concerned with questions of both feminism and socialism? For those of us who went to Paris the clear evidence that socialist-feminism or (feminist-socialism?) reflects a large and energetic new area of political development and activity amongst women throughout Europe was exciting and almost in itself made the conference worthwhile.

In terms of the structure of the conference, however, sheer numbers at Paris made it very difficult to get to talk to women from other countries on anything but a superficial level. The Saturday plenary session, at which women from different countries spoke on specific aspects of their work was useful and interesting in a general way, but there was no opportunity to discuss what was said. The following day was devoted to workshops on various aspects of the themes: women and work; violence; rape; repression; women’s centres; sexuality; and abortion, health and motherhood. The workshops were packed; language was a problem if you couldn’t speak anyone else’s and there was no-one who could translate; and because sisters tended to move from one workshop to another there appeared to be – in the workshops we went to – very little development on the discussion. The Monday plenary session on reports from workshops however did give us some idea of the range of issues and views expressed on the different topics.

At Amsterdam, however, there was much greater opportunity for women to get together with others from other countries and get an idea, from a personal involvement perspective, of what was happening. The first workshop was organised so that sisters from different countries were split up and allocated to different workshops. The first session tended to be introductory – sisters talking about where they came from what was happening in their country and what they were involved in. Later workshops discussed themes; feminist-socialist women and the left; women in left organisations; women and the crisis; women and sexuality; organising with women; sex and class; women and housework. There were additional workshops on health and anarcho-feminism. Since sisters tended to stay in the same workshop groups, they were able to develop the discussion at a theoretical level as well as at the level of exchanging experiences. The plenary session on reports from the workshops enabled sisters to get some idea of the ways in which discussion developed in groups other than their own.

One problem which emerged at both conferences at an organisational level was that of language. At Paris there were instantaneous translation facilities for the plenary sessions for three languages, for a thousand people in total. This meant that at best one language group consistently missed out on translation and the workshop sessions were inevitable to some extent self-selective on the basis of language. At Amsterdam the conference was in English only – which put the English sisters in an advantageous position. They were given the task of reporting from the workshops, which re-enforced their position, a fact which the sisters themselves were aware of. It is clear that if European conferences are to become more frequent, we will all have to make a real effort to become at least bi-lingual – or perhaps we should revive Esperanto or make up our own international language!

Turning to the content of the conferences – what, if anything, can be said about European Socialist-Feminists (or feminist-socialism – that is one area that requires clarification, for me, anyway!). At both conferences it appears that there was a wide spectrum of views on the relative importance of feminism to socialism and vice versa – that is, at both conferences, there appeared to be women who regarded themselves primarily as socialists, and others as feminists, and a range of positions in between. Perhaps the Paris conference reflected a greater orientation towards the straight revolutionary left, and the Amsterdam conference tended towards the more libertarian and feminist positions, but it seems that the differences were far from clear. Given that the Paris conference was organised to a large extent by Fourth Internationalists, we were surprised – and perhaps they were, too – at the emphasis given by the participants to questions relating to our experience of oppression as women rather than as female workers; rape, violence, issues relating to the control of our bodies came across as the most urgent areas of struggle for socialist-feminists.

One aspect of this which came across at both conferences was the difference in experience between women from Southern Europe (France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece) and those from Northern Europe. It appears that in Southern Europe the issues of women’s oppression are being raised in the context of a level of class struggle which is much more intense than in Northern Europe. Thus the questions relating to the family, the right to abortion, etc., and men’s attitudes towards women generally, are being thrashed out within the context of a much higher level of political consciousness than exists within the working class of Northern Europe.

In Northern Europe our experience is different and the problems we face are different. Feminist movements in these countries have developed outside the context of the labour movements, which tend to be economistic and have a relatively low level of political consciousness. Socialist-feminists in these countries are trying to take into their labour movements not just relating to women but are also having to come to terms with the fact that unless the political consciousness of the working class is raised at the same time, the revolutionary perspective of feminism will be lost. Hence at the Amsterdam conference the view was expressed that the straight revolutionary left was inadequate to lead the struggle for socialism unless it incorporated the analysis and objectives of revolutionary feminism, and that feminist-socialists were in face the most politically conscious grouping and had to play a leading part in developing a strategy for revolution.

An account of these two conferences has to include a mention of Wages for Housework, who were there in force at both. Because the Campaign talks about essential aspects of women’s oppression, and our collective power as women, they are able to get through to women at a gut level. Why aren’t we doing this, too? The arguments of Wages for Housework have to be countered, but it is not enough to deal only with the inadequacies of their solutions – we have to recognise that they draw upon the wellspring of the womens movement by stressing both the pain of oppression and women’s power – and they have done this consistently at a time when the socialist current – in this country anyway- was failing to do so.

SO WHAT IS THE FUTURE for European socialist-feminists? Very little concrete came out of the conferences – where the Amsterdam conference was concerned this was intentional, for the Paris organisers, this was possibly a disappointment. (In fact the Paris conference collapsed in confusion, partly due to Wages for Housework, and partly due to the disappointment expressed mainly by the Italian women but probably felt by many others, that the conference had not been the opportunity they had hoped for to talk to women from other countries about their experiences, and they then felt they had got nothing out of it). From the Amsterdam conference it seems that there is a basis for a European socialist-feminist network and the newspaper ISIS is to be used to circulate information about events in Europe. From the Paris conference there is to be a delegate only meeting in Rome on 22/23 October to discuss the question of Repression and to plan activities for International Women’s Day around abortion and employment.

Although the corporate results seem to be limited, for us there is no question about the importance of the conferences. The Socialist-Feminist (feminist-socialist?) current/tendency/movement exists, not just in this country but all over Europe, too. We have a tremendous amount of experience and ideas in common and we have a great deal to learn from one another. There are political differences, clearly, but how deep they are, how much they owe to differences in experience, and to unworked out and unclarified theories, it is difficult to say. Perhaps a greater understanding of the relationship between feminism and the class struggle in different parts of Europe will also help to clarify our theoretical understanding of the relationship between the two. Meanwhile we’d better start organising our feminist language classes!

Penny Remfry

 

 

AMSTERDAM – another view

This is a subjective impression of the Amsterdam Feminist-socialist workshop, but contains elements agreed on by all the British women who attended. It is added to the above by Penny Remfry because in many ways Amsterdam was a ‘model’ European Fem-Soc conference, for reasons outlined below. It seems important to talk at once about some of the questions of theory and practice thrown up by the workshop at a later stage.

We found the workshop tremendously exciting. Because the numbers were limited and we were able to spend the entire daytime (and for some, the night as well) in the Vrouwenhuis (women’s centre) where the workshop took place, eating, drinking and socialising all together, it was very easy to identify particular women from other countries, meet them again and again over the weekend, and get to know what they were thinking and doing. It was a good idea to have the first half-day just for getting to know people (though this could have been more structured, with a social, disco or theatre group)

One thing that contributed to the success of the weekend was the wide range of papers available, about national and local experience and about theory – in plentiful supply – and the workshops actually generated more papers during the weekend – always a good sign! A good range of papers must be axiomatic for a successful weekend with women from so many different backgrounds. We felt that they should be printed in three languages at least (e.g. English, French and German) to give sisters who don’t speak English a better start to a conference.

The idea of allocating people at random to a first workshop on the same theme was again an excellent one for an international conference. Some groups found this so good that they stayed together for the entire weekend. (Some people did “break the rules” and went in clusters to the first theme workshops and this was slightly disruptive). Other first workshops parted but when women joined the second, third and fourth workshops on the various themes (see Penny’s article) which had been selected, they stayed together for the rest if the weekend, which was most helpful. Many of the first workshops spent most of their time just finding out what other people were doing, and as (strangely, or predictably, depending on your cast of mind) there were entirely disparate accounts of the campaigns going on in the same country from different women, the conference could have ended up as four ‘swop’ sessions people had not disciplined themselves to staying with people they were already getting to know. We felt that the technique of allocated workshops and/or the discipline of staying together in one subject workshop for the entire conference could lend itself to a larger conference of up to 500 women; it broke down the anonymity which could be such a hindrance to any meaningful exchange of ideas.

It was very exciting to discover that not only similar campaigns but a similar development of the theoretical approach had been taking place in different countries at the same time. For instance, one woman from West Germany told me that three years ago, some of them had written a paper on mothers and the WLM, at about the same time as some of the Coast Women’s Group wrote “Are we a movement for the liberation of women, or a movement of liberated women?” and set off the “Conference about children at conferences”. In the particular workshop which I attended the “Sex/class” workshop, (which was added to the list of workshops by a handful of women and was eventually attended by 40-50), papers on a number of theoretical approaches to what was called by some “Sex/class” and by others “Radical Feminism and Socialist Feminism” and by yet others “Patriarchy and Capitalism”, showed that throughout Europe, women had been looking for a theoretical basis similar to the class analysis on which to locate the position of women and the relationship of this to capitalism, and to outline the revolutionary perspective of the theory.

As at least one other workshop came out in it’s report back with conclusions very like those of the “sex/class” workshop, I concluded that what women wanted, and got, out of the conference, was a place to develop and sharpen their own theoretical approach. The campaigns that feminists are involved in are similar – those around reproduction, violence & rape, childcare, women and work, etc. – what was problematic was the theoretical base of the campaigns – were they reformist? – how could a reformist campaign be made strategic and revolutionary while seeking immediate small improvements for women? What appeared to me to happen was that as women found sisters across national boundaries who were sympathetic in their theoretical approach, and sat down to develop their arguments together, some of the divisions within national fem/soc groups actually polarised.

Because of this opportunity to develop half-formed and tentative theory with others also trying to extend their understanding there was a feeling in some workshops that people’s understanding had actually been extended – I felt as though I had gained a year or two which would have been lost thinking these things out from the “narrow” (in one sense) base of a local group, or on my own, and other sisters seemed to feel the same. I came out with the exhilarating feeling that the feminist-socialist movement, far from being “un-aligned” is now THE left – and that it is up to left groups to realise that their definition of the class struggle, so narrow, so narrow, and so devoid of any real understanding of the relationship between the patriarchy and capitalism, is incapable of taking people forward without a redefinition according to feminist socialist theory and practice. This is an exciting feeling – but it is also frightening, as it puts much more responsibility onto us, if we really believe it.

One criticism of the conference, which may seem organisational, but it is actually crucial to feminism. The British WLM, (and apparently at least the West German too, see above) has been wavering backwards and forwards on it’s commitment to the crèche, as a positive experience for both mothers and children (I am typing this in a public library typing booth with a crying baby in a sling on my back!) I feel that this is ebbing in Britain at the moment, and it is obviously going to be, though it shouldn’t be, a continuous struggle. The Dutch women didn’t run a crèche because they said they had written to ask women if they wanted a crèche and nobody replied. It seems that the women’s movement can’t grasp the fact that you don’t ask people if they want a crèche – this puts pressure on mothers who feel that they are going to put someone out – and someone’s babysitting arrangements are bound to fall through at the last moment – what you have to do is organises a crèche and then if no kids come, disband it. As it was, there were two small children and two fraught mothers at the conference. Neither of these women could ask for a crèche at the first plenary, and I felt, (perhaps wrongly, who knows?) that if I had suggested a crèche, it would have been those of us who are mothers who would have organised it and the non-mothers would have escaped their obligation to the mothers who had to bring their daughters with them (they themselves had too much to gain and nothing to lose, so they couldn’t ask). Please can we establish that we are all responsible for our children – putting the responsibility onto mothers is just visiting the sins of the fathers on mothers – again! – and it makes our apparent eagerness to fight on behalf of women less credible.

Anna Briggs

 

REPLY TO SCARLET WOMEN COLLECTIVE FROM WOMEN AND IRELAND GROUP

April 1977

Dear Sisters,

In the February issue of Scarlet Women (S.W.) you wrote an editorial on “Women in Ireland” and published two articles on the Peace Movement. While we welcome the discussion that has begun to take place in the WLM on Ireland and the part that S.W. is playing in this, we think I is necessary to criticise the ways Soc/Fems are analysing the Irish struggle.

It has taken a long time for Soc/Fems to begin to look seriously at the question of Ireland. This is not a unique situation, many attempts have been made by small groups of socialists to build support for the Irish struggle and opposition to British imperialism and the military occupation over the last 8 years and most have failed to win support. Although this is due to many reasons not least is the racism against the Irish for which none of us brought up in Britain can escape. The struggle against racism is just beginning in the WLM.

The specific event which pushed feminists, including Soc/Fems, into a debate on Ireland was the emergence of the Peace Movement. Ireland took on a significance it didn’t have before when the Peace Movement (P.M.) was taken up by the British press. Irish women were “seen”, for the first time, to be organising together as women. The fact that they had been actively involved and organising together from the very beginnings of “the troubles” was lost. Soc/Fems took up the representation of the P.M as a women’s movement and have argued since that it is an expression of Irish feminism.

We think it important to answer two reoccurring arguments from Soc/Fems with regard to Ireland: (a) that the Peace Movement is progressive because it is women organising together; and (b) that Ireland is so complex and confusing we should not take up easy slogans like “Troops Out Now”. These two arguments have implications not only for an analysis of the Irish struggle but also for our own struggle as women and as socialists.

S.W.’s editorial poses the question “Would a Soc/Fem attitude to the P.M. be different from the traditional left”. In reply, we think Soc/Fems would analyse two elements of the P.M. – (1) the significance of women organising together and (2) the political nature of the movement. Our position is that, firstly, women organising together should never be viewed as necessarily progressive. The fact that there have been a number of situations where women have organised separately as women around demands concerned with the home and have in the process given support to extremely reactionary and anti-feminist politics should mean that we as Soc/Fems take this question a lot more seriously than we have. Two recent examples of women’s struggles have been to the Chilean women’s “Pots and Pans” demonstrations against the Allende Government when sections of Chilean women identifying themselves as women and as housewives organised around the extreme right’s demands. Again with the “Cowley wives” demonstrations against their husbands’ pay strike and in support of the factory bosses. Both these examples merely point to the problems, they don’t explain what was involved in each case but they do show that feminism does not inevitably rise out of women organising together.

The P.M. raises the same problems – it was predominantly led and supported by women and initially received very wide support. However, it is wrong to think that this has been the only issue women have come together around. In both the Republican and Loyalist areas women have demonstrated, picketed, and worked together. To give just two examples – the Catholic women’s defence committee to keep the British Army out of the ghettos and the Loyalist women’s demonstrations to bring down the power-sharing Executive. An analysis of the P.M. looking specifically at women shows that it received its support from certain sections of the Protestant and Catholic middle class who were wanting a return to the relative tranquillity of pre-68. These women have not been so affected by the economic crisis and political repression, It also received support from women in the working class catholic ghettos who were war-weary, tired and exhausted by the deaths and brutality which has been going on for so long and seems never-ending. Working class protestant women who were also exhausted by the situation and the abuses of the loyalist para-militaries gave it their support. Broadly speaking, the popularity is also a product of the general suppression of women’s interests by all the political organisations in Ireland. It is women who bear not only the day to day physical violence, the constant harassment by the army, but also the heaviest emotional load – particularly the Catholic women – of the fear of husband’s and children’s deaths. (Nearly 2,000 people have died, in British terms 69,000). As well, the strength of religious ideologies of women as healers, sufferers and bearers of peace has to be taken into consideration.

The demands for the P.M. are for an unspecified peace. They present Irish “problems” as religious ones and put forward the solution of a non-sectarian religion. Proposals for change are in the form of school de-segregation, etc., arguing that through changes in education you can change the structure of northern Ireland. Although there was a predominance of women no demands for women’s rights emerged. The P.M.’s emphasis on violence was officially against all forms of violence but it was the IRA that mostly came under attack. The only critical statement the Peace Leaders made against the British Army was after a 13 year old boy was shot dead outside his home by a British soldier. After this they said “we believe that the army should be playing it low key. They should take account of all the emotions of the people”. Two days later, after “howls of protests” from loyalists, the Peace leaders issued the following statement: “We fully support the rule of law until the northern Ireland community themselves evolve their own community institutions and form legitimate upholders of the rule of law”. (October 14, 1976). These are very political statements – they are based on ideas that the Northern Ireland statelet can be reformed and that the loyalist RUC and the British Army are the defenders of such reforms.

This brings us on to the other main argument from British Soc/Fem, that Ireland is too confusing and complex a situation and that we should not support the slogan for Troops Out Now. This has a validity only inasmuch that any attempt to analyse a concrete situation s extremely difficult. However, a part of the confusion around Ireland seems to be occurring because attempts are made to apply “theories” of feminism, of violence being male, of working class solidarity and parliamentary socialism in the abstract. The religious divisions and the armed struggle become confusing only when we start morally pronouncing on the situation without understanding the historical basis to the present situation. Britain has a long history in Ireland, a history of exploitation, oppression and fundamental restructuring of the economy, of politics and the population. Religion has been bound to the development of class forces because of the history of catholic oppression. The partitioning of Ireland was won by an alliance of class forces in the North between manufacturing capitalists and sections of the protestant working class who won the majority of protestants to the fight to stay within the British empire and to maintain their ascendancy over the native Catholic Irish. The northern Ireland statelet was structured accordingly. British interests were in maintaining an economic dominance and a political place in Ireland and although there have been economic and political developments, both in the north and the south since partition, which have altered the economic relations between Britain and the South and the North, Britain’s interests fundamentally remain the same. Religion has continued to express both political and ideological relations and religious sectarianism has continued to be a principle vehicle through which contradictions in Ireland are expressed.

The argument that Troops Out Now is an easy slogan rests on notions of British Army neutrality, of the Army entering Northern Ireland as a “peacekeeper”. This idea is contrary to a Marxist theory of the capitalist state which understands the state to be part of a social whole, and sees it as the factor of cohesion in a class system determining the domination of one class over others. The function of the State and the interests of the dominant class coincide. This is not to say that the British state is simply the tool of the capitalist class. But it is saying that the role of the army is not to keep Protestants from invading Catholic ghettos it is instead to ensure that Ireland remains a stable home for British interests.

The issue of the P.M. and the demand for Troops Out is political. For Soc/Fems to support the P.M. despite its political objectives and despite the forces in Britain who support them – the Government, the Army, the Press and the Church – on the basis that it is women organising together, assumes that it is merely the process of women “getting together” that produces ideological change. This relies on the belief that feminism inevitably asserts itself in women and that there is such a thing as a feminist essence. This has implications for our struggle for women’s liberation (for the theory and practice of Soc/Fem; perhaps all we need to do is to wait.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

At the National Conference Workshop on Women’s Liberation and Socialism it was agreed to set up a socialist-feminist network within the Women’s Liberation Movement.

Regional co-ordinators and a national newsletter would be instrumental in developing this network throughout the country.

TASKS OF THE SOCIALIST-FEMINIST NETWORK:

To link up those sisters involved in different activities and campaigns in and around the Women’s Movement in a way that will promote discussion of practical and organisational problems arising out of our activity.

The network will:

1. Help to overcome any feelings of frustration, demoralisation, isolation and aimlessness we may experience by enabling us to see our work in the context of some kind of perspective.
2. Hopefully lead to the development of a theory closely related to our practise – we will be able to pool our experience, generalise and theorise our practise;
3. Lay the basis for practical work and in this way help overcome factionalism.

 

THE REGIONAL CO-ORDINATORS:

Will be responsible for contacting socialist-feminists in their areas and arranging regional meetings and conferences to discuss topics and issues which people feel should be taken up in their regions and/or also nationally.

The Newsletter – ‘Scarlet Women’

Will provide a forum for discussion and to publicise and co-ordinate activities organised in the regions. It can be used to develop links between groups, individuals, etc. It can also carry suggestions for topics for workshops and conferences.

The newsletter will not lay down the ‘correct’ line – it will rather pin-point and isolate problem areas in the development of our perspective. In publishing contributions and regional reports, it will raise issues that could be taken up for further discussion at regional meetings.

 

REGIONAL CO-ORDINATORS

Scotland:      Mary Brand

North:           Anne Torode

North West: Nuala Morton

Yorks:             Jenny Owen

Midlands:      Helen Gurdon

East:                Jo Bradley

South West:   Wendy Holloway

South East:     Jane Clarke

London:          Jan Deighton,

Tammy Walker

Karen Margolis

 

[All addresses redacted]

 

To ALL Subscribers:

Have we still got your correct address – please keep us up to date on addresses and telephone numbers as we cannot afford to send copies more than once! (Assuming you are reading a friend’s copy!!)

 

 

 

At the National Conference Workshop on Women’s Liberation and Socialism it was agreed to set up a socialist-feminist network within the Women’s Liberation Movement.

 

Regional co-ordinators and a national newsletter would be instrumental in developing this network throughout the country.

 

TASKS OF THE SOCIALIST-FEMINIST NETWORK:

To link up those sisters involved in different activities and campaigns in and around the Women’s Movement in a way that will promote discussion of practical and organisational problems arising out of our activity.

 

The network will:

1)    Help to overcome any feelings of frustration, demoralisation, isolation and aimlessness we may experience by enabling us to see our work in the context of some kind of perspective;

2)    Hopefully lead to the development of a theory closely related to our practise – we will be able to pool our experience, generalise and theorise our practise;

3)    Lay the basis for practical work and in this way help overcome factionalism.

 

THE REGIONAL CO-ORDINATORS:

Will be responsible for contacting socialist-feminists in their areas and arranging regional meetings and conferences to discuss topics and issues which people feel should be taken up in their regions and/or also nationally.

 

The Newsletter – ‘Scarlet Women’

Will provide a forum for discussion and to publicise and co-ordinate activities organised in the regions. It can be used to develop links between groups, individuals, etc. It can also carry suggestions for topics for workshops and conferences.

 

The newsletter will not lay down the ‘correct’ line – it will rather pin-point and isolate problem areas in the development of our perspective. In publishing contributions and regional reports, it will raise issues that could be taken up for further discussion at regional meetings.

 

EDITORIAL

Yes – this issue of Scarlet Women is late and we are sorry – but there are reasons and very positive ones at that.

 

Thanks to the good publicity in Spare Rib. Women’s Report and WIRES we were kept busy over the Christmas season running off more copies of SW2 to meet the demand.

 

This success has forced us to consider the organisational side of the newsletter and the socialist-feminist network more carefully. We now have the names and addresses of many women in our files and are in the process of sending contact lists to the regional co-ordinators.

 

WHAT’S IN THIS ISSUE

We have received a lot of letters in response to SW2 – all very favourable. This is heartening, but what is more/equally heartening is that sisters are sending in contributions for publication.

 

a)    Women in Ireland

The problem of our attitude and relationship to the Peace Movement in Northern Ireland as socialist-feminists seems to be a major concern of sisters. Several regions have included workshops on ‘Women in Ireland’ in their day schools, conferences, etc.

 

The whole subject is very confusing. It is easy enough to take a ‘Left position’ on the questions – a position that doesn’t always stem from an analysis or understanding of the reality of the life of Irish women, but rather derives from a person’s English related politics and Left Group affiliation.

 

Would a socialist-feminist attitude to the Peace Movement be different from the traditional Left position? We know from our experience with consciousness raising the value and significance of empathising with other women. We also know from our experience with Left politics that theory can be imposed on reality, a theory that ignores and denies the richness and ‘many sidedness’ of real life – can we be sure that this isn’t happening on the question of the Peace Movement?

 

As socialist-feminists we should be able to analyse the contradictions in a situation where women are organising for peace. We ought to be able to understand their deep longing for peace as we try to imagine ourselves and our children isolated and caught in the arena of battle, but whilst recognising the potential of women coming together and empathising with their attempts to overcome their unique isolation and weakness, we might also recognise that the present Peace Movement is more likely to disillusion our sisters than to bring real peace in Northern Ireland. We are publishing two accounts of life in Northern Ireland – about the problems and the activities of women under fire. Though contributions to the Newsletter are normally more analytic, these accounts are necessarily impressionistic – we thought that they would provide a useful background for discussion both through Scarlet Women and at a regional level. We have also included the manifesto of the Socialist Women’s Group in this section on ‘Women in Ireland’ and we hope that these papers will inspire more contributions for future issues of Scarlet Women.

 

REPORT ON CAMBRIDGE CONFERENCE

The Cambridge sisters sent us two reports of the discussion at the conference and three of the papers presented during the weekend. It was really difficult to edit three of the papers presented during the weekend. It was really difficult to edit because it was all so interesting. What we finally decided to do was to prepare an account of the conference based on the reports so that sisters would have some idea of the points raised in the discussion.

 

We couldn’t print all the papers, so rather than summarise them we are holding them over for later issues of Scarlet Women. One particularly interesting paper we felt ought to be included in this issue, but it was very long so we have extracted one of its themes for publication now. The rest will be printed in another issue.

 

After reading the papers and the reports it seemed to us that two aspects of the struggle for a socialist-feminist analysis and perspective needed further amplification:

–       One was the lack of an adequate marxist theory of the process of reproduction which makes it difficult to figure out our own ‘position on the National Abortion Campaign’ as one of the papers put it, and

–       Linked with this, two papers mentioned that perhaps we had not given enough consideration to the implications of the slogan ‘A Woman’s Right To Choose’ – is this a liberal slogan?

 

We would like sisters to write in to us on either or both of these problems for a later issue of Scarlet Women.

 

EUROPEAN CONFERENCE

Fairly obvious from the material that we are getting that that there is little consensus about what a socialist-feminist actually is and what the priorities for socialist-feminist practice should be.

The problems centre around:-

(i) How does feminism and the oppression of women relate to socialism and class oppression

(ii) How do socialist-feminists relate the struggles of women to the class struggle in practical terms?

(iii) Can traditional marxist analysis extend its categories to cope with women, i.e. – women are workers too and from that even housewives contribute to the production of surplus value

OR

(iv) Do we have to use the marxist method to develop our own analysis of the specific oppression of women?

 

Barbara Yates asked British sisters to send her their thoughts on what a socialist-feminist is for this conference. We thought that we could devote the next issue to the same topic. Sisters could also consider:

–       What is our difference with the radical feminists

–       Is it in our perspective of social change

–       Or is it simply in our attitudes towards men (i.e. radical feminists hate men, – socialist-feminists like them, radical feminists are gay, socialist-feminists are heterosexual)

 

NEWS FROM THE REGIONS

We’re a bit short on news from some regions – our fault as we are only just getting our address lists for regional co-ordinators sorted out, and requests for Scarlet Women are snow-balling, so at present in some areas, no-one knows who else is interested. We hope regions will be encouraged by the National demand and get groups together.

 

1.     LONDON

(We’re sure lots of things have been happening that we have not yet heard about, so if any of our readers know of feminist-socialists groups in their area, please pass on a ‘Scarlet Women’ and ask one of the group to contact us. We can help put the various groups in touch with each other.)

 

A group of about fifteen women got together and plan to hold a series of one day feminism and socialism workshops. The first of these will be entitled “Is unemployment an area of Feminist Struggle?”

 

The next is on “Sexual self-determination and the right to control our own bodies.” Future topics include “Feminism and Ireland” and “What is a Socialist Feminist Practice?” Bring own lunch for self and children. Creche provided.

 

2. NORTHERN REGION

We have held three meetings since September, in Sunderland, Middlesborough and Newcastle. We have decided to work towards holding a conference in Newcastle on “Women, the Family and the Community.” The idea behind this is to emphasis the importance of women’s role in reproducing the labour force and the family’s role in reproducing the relations of production, and to draw out the implications of this perspective for the strategy of organisations campaigning in the area. We want the conference to be open to all those interested, particularly those involved in political activity in the area. We want men as well as women to come. This means that we have to very clear about what we are saying and the conclusions we want to draw, so we are preparing papers at the moment on “Social Reproduction,” “Women on the Welfare State,” “Break-up of the Welfare State.” (Women from Middlesborough, Sunderland, and Newcastle respectively are doing the papers).

 

3. IRELAND

We have heard from Belfast Socialist Women’s Group, who formed in October 1975. They sent us a copy of “Women’s Action” which they issue bi-monthly to promote socialist-feminist ideas. So far they have produced four issues. The current one contains items on poverty – based on the recent CPAG pamphlet; a criticism of the TU “Better Life for all” Campaign; “Housewife’s Syndrome” (a quote “I think I only live when I go out or get taken out. That’s the only time I live. When something’s demanded of you.”); an account of Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington’s struggle for national liberation, women’s emancipation and for socialism among other items. We found it lively and informative, and giving lots of hope for socialism and feminism in Northern Ireland. We hope to have more information from the groups about its activities, problems, etc. for the next issue of Scarlet Women.

 

4. SCOTLAND

We have known contacts in Scotland so far. We hope to have some feedback from the Scottish Women’s Liberation conference where hopefully there was a feminism and socialism workshop. We would like sisters with any relevant papers from that conference to let us have a copy.

 

5. SOUTH EAST

We have also few known contacts in the South East, however, there is an active socialist-feminist group in Brighton and we hope to have more information for next issue.

 

6. EAST

After a very successful and interesting conference held in Cambridge, attended by 70 women East Anglian Region have organised a Women and Socialism Conference.

 

 

REPORT ON THE CAMBRIDGE CONFERENCE

 

The following account is taken from two reports sent in to us by Val and Wendy about this conference:

 

This weekend was very successful. The organisational side ran smoothly and the atmosphere was relaxed. The papers presented provoked interesting and focussed discussion which wasn’t snarled up in the kinds of tensions and aggressions between different factions which many of us have encountered at conferences before Given that the Socialist Women’s National meetings broke down over precisely these sorts of tensions let’s take this as a good omen that such difficulties can be overcome.

 

“I didn’t feel that anyone was peddling a line. Everyone was prepared to let people have their say and listen.”

 

Points from the discussion

 

a)    Child Benefit Scheme – this was examined (and rejected!) as a potential recognition of women’s work and economic independence. Should payments always be made to the mother? Would this reinforce the assumption that women should always be the carers.

b)    A proposed marxist analysis of reproduction and its relation to production was discussed.

“Under capitalism women are oppressed as workers. Under patriarchy women are oppressed as women.”

“The chief means by which men exercise control over women is by penile imperialism. Imperialism is the means of control whereby the oppressors (men) force on the inhabitants (women) or the conquered territories (women’s bodies) a sense of their inferiority and inadequacy so that they do not revolt.”

(Quoted from the paper “Worker Control of Reproduction”) Wendy questions this. She points out that many women enjoy penetration. Does this mean that their experience is unauthentic? She also says that women can penetrate each other – ‘are they then trapped by pseudo-imperialism?’

 

The discussion did not deal with these points tho’ ‘I wonder if we felt sexual politics wasn’t quite political enough?’

 

c) The paper “Fertility, Abortion ‘Choice’” was the next on the agenda. Wendy says: “I think this is a really good paper, and I recommend anyone who didn’t go to the conference yo read it if they are interested in the contradictions we get into in the movement by not facing up to the fact that a lot of us both do and will have children. Some of the problems we turned over in discussion were – why should we feel having kids is an aberration.why do we feel so isolated by it/ why are our child-rearing practices so individual and privatised (eg we had a creche in the daytime but hadn’t thought to try and make any collective arrangements for the social in the evening. So a lot of women with kids probably couldn’t come)/why haven’t we examined the implications of fertility control from the point of view of the State’s interests and what attitudes do we have about conception? How have we thought about the kid and the conflict they experience exposed to traditional values at school and sharply differing feminist ideas at home? Why is there such a divide between those with and those without children and what can we do about it? – and many more.

 

d) The last session came out of the experiences of the pregnancy-testing group and it was good to get and idea of the contradictions they face. Basically on the one hand there’s the politics of send help (could this be defined in a positive way, not protective and individualist, but showing the State what we want..) and servicing (they see 400 people a year and provide a back-up service which the NHS does not) and on the other hand there’s the NHS which is basically socialist but has to be improved and the group haven’t the energy to conduct a political campaign around the health service or much to examine their own ideas and assumptions ‘cause they’re so busy carrying on.. How do they transform a service into a struggle? This problem of course hits NAC and Women’s Aid and many other campaigning parts of the movement, and is one I’d guess we’re going to be still trying to resolve for some time to come.

 

In summing up, Val says: The conference certainly stimulated my thinking about the relations between socialism and feminism in new directions, which I’d like to follow up before the next workshop, and I think other women felt the same. We should have at least one meeting soon in Cambridge so that the energy generated by the workshop won’t simply evaporate.

 

Perhaps the Socialist Women’s Groups could start up again, but this time focussed on more closely specified (possibly towards the next Regional Workshop) so as to avoid some of the dissatisfactions of the previous groups – e.g. varied and changing interests within the groups, a tendency to a very generalised, vague level of discussion. It seems that most of us are much surer of our feminism than we are of our position as socialists – ad that this is reflected in our political practice. We need to develop our ideas about our role as feminists in present socialist struggles, rather than tacitly justifying our activities by the belief that there will be “No Revolution Without Women’s Liberation.”

 

Let’s not forget the other side of that slogan! (Sorry about the polemics but I feel dissatisfied with the way we may be containing our power by being too inward looking – a mis-application of the idea of separation??) For example, to what extent should we be (and are we) working with other groups against racism, the cuts, etc. – and influencing these struggles which do bear important relation to women’s future position? If we aren’t, to what extent is this true of WLM nationally? One thing I’m particularly interested in looking at is the fact that WLM arose during the “affluent ‘60s.’”  (and out of the contradiction engendered by it for many women). If we’re now in a period of prolonged economic crisis and unemployment (especially for women) what does this mean for the growth of feminist ideas and for our strategies, demands and organisational forms in the next few years?

 

If the other regional conferences are as good as this one then it’s quite hopeful: we really do seem to have moved on since the Mile End debacle of March 1974, (1975? ed.) after which it didn’t seem likely we could get anywhere with a room full of feminist socialists, the sectarianism was so intense.

 

 

FERTILITY, ABORTION, “CHOICE” – TOWARDS A POSITIVE POLITICS OF THE FAMILY

 

Editorial note: we have taken the introductory and concluding sections here. The argument relates very much to discussions in previous issues of Scarlet Women about the contradictions in the women’s movement.

The middle sections dealing with the implications of the slogan “A Woman’s Right To Choose, state population policy and the factors that influence a woman’s decision over family size will be held over for our issue on reproduction.

 

This is an attempt to pull together various strands of pre-occupations with the subject of having or not having children, “the right to choose”, feminism, and fertility control. And it’s an attempt to discuss why these are currently important questions for socialist feminists.

It still feels as if there is an absence of a politics of the family from a feminist perspective, and from left politics in general. It may sound strange to say that, since there is obviously a well-established negative critique of the bourgeois nuclear family as oppressive, repressive, facilitating State authoritarianism (Reichian version) and schizogenic (Laingian version) and as particularly confining and crippling women. But there is very little in the way of a positive critique; I mean one that both analyses the function of the family as it is, including its advantages, and also discusses what better forms of the family might be achieved and under what conditions. Trotsky is often quoted: “The family cannot be abolished; it must be replaced.” But in practice the nature of the replacements we make are necessarily haphazard and piecemeal, but also private and invisible, un-examined in discussion in the women’s movement in general. Because children continue to be born, women continue to reproduce, and adults to live together, the family is reconstituted with a dozen different variations: one-parent; sexually monogamous; traditional biological parent couple; extended; mixed or single sex; communal etc. But within the women’s movement there is still a relative lack of discussion of any positive politics of the family in any of these re-incarnations: a gap so large that it’s hard to notice it.

There are several possible reasons for this:

a)    I think the image of the “ most feminist feminist”, helped along by the media, persists as being that of single, rather young, educated and childless person. The social composition of the women’s movement in this country has probably been one of the numerical domination by the former category, plus another sizeable group – women who had their children within conventional nuclear marriages, and whose feminism developed in the process of their rejection of these assumptions and forms of living. This is, feminism (in Britain anyway) has usually been associated with either voluntary childlessness, or with fertility experienced as part of a past history of familial oppression, and included in a Goodbye To All That. Such alternative/lifestyle’ solutions as have been self-consciously tried, like choosing to produce children outside of straight family structures and in, e.g. communes. have usually been divorced from socialist-feminist analysis and have been proposed and discussed far more within the broad liberation left than from the specific perspectives of the women’s movement. Those feminists who feel that they would like to choose to have children are in a position to see, far to clearly for comfort, the weight of the contradictions entailed by that decision; the virtual impossibility of full-time work; particular problems for gay women; the question of remaining self-supporting being supported, or living on social security, problems of the relationship to the father, biological or social; and more.

They may feel angrily aroused by the pressure of their knowledge, in advance, of such difficulties, and unwilling to face a channelling of most of their emotional and practical energies into meeting them head-on. Those women who have already chosen to have children may be made to feel guilty; they don’t accept that their choice should entail a concentration of their political work in that direction. Campaigning for bursaries, setting up playgroups, may see a nightmarish prospect to women already deprived on contacts with adults in their domestic life. But one of few ‘positive’ suggestions voiced in the women’s movement has been this – that a conscious decision to have children should entail a prior commitment to such work. (Is the search for some “justification” for having a child behind this? – that for a feminist to reproduce on purpose, emotional need/enjoyment, isn’t enough of a good reason?)

 

b) The Left tradition of seeking the release of women from the home (and so implicitly from child-bearing, although this vanished from view) as the precondition for their liberation. This is a venerable line of descent from Engels in the Origins of the Family; The emancipation of women becomes possible only when women are enabled to take part in production on a large, social scale and when domestic duties require their attention only to a minor degree. And this has become possible only as a result of modern, large scale industry, which not only permits of the participation of women in production in large numbers, but actually calls for it, and moreover strived to convert private work also into public industry. However, Engels only argued that “the first promise for the emancipation of women” was release into the workforce; he also said “full freedom in marriage can become generally operative only (after) the abolition of capitalist production.” For women to be freed “the quality possessed by the individual family of being the economic unit of society (must) be abolished.” He was also, of course, writing at a period of apparently unlimited industrial expansion, which couldn’t afford to discriminate sexually about who it employed. Thus to continue the assumption that liberation for women demands that they join the labour force full-stop is both a gross simplification of the early marxist argument and historically untenable. The great advance of Wages for Housework Campaign, regardless of how dubious one might feel about its economics, has been its ideological intervention – the insistence that work in the home is work, and is vital to the maintenance of reproduction of waged labour power. The absence of any other expression of a politics of the family, (however restructured) in the women’s movement, may be an uneasy blend of socialism as the traditional left’s concentration on waged labour outside the home, and analysis which forgets reproduction, and a feminism defined as a necessary struggle for individual autonomy for women, a tossing-off of domestic chains. But we continue to live in homes of some sort; and the majority of women continue to have children. Why do they? After allowing for the effects of “conditioning”, “roles,” and so forth, it remains true that some women (whether feminist or not) will feel that children afford a unique chance for a warm long-term contact of a sort not liable to fluctuations and natural deaths of feeling in the way that adult sexual relationships, of whatever form, have their course. A real and ambivalent hope expressed by a black American woman; “they say no, no – no more kids: the welfare worker she tells you you’re ‘overpopulating’ the world and something has to be done. But right now one of the few times I feel good is when I’m pregnant, and I can feel I am getting somewhere, at least then i am – because i’m making something grow, and not seeing everything die around me, like all it does in this street, I’ll tell you. They want to give the pill and stop the kids, and I’m willing for the most part: but I wish I could take care of all the kids I could have, and then I’d want plenty. Or maybe I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have to be pregnant to feel hope about things. I don’t know; you can look at it both ways, I guess.” (from Robert Coles interview).

How could any positive politics of the family, in however altered a form, be developed? The women’s movement is probably most powerful as an ideological force for change. In some respects it is necessarily utopian – I mean that “ideal” solutions are being proposed as desirable goals, while we actually live in an economic and political climate, which throws painfully solid obstacles in our way and these cannot be overcome in a voluntaristic manner. Individuals may find themselves trapped in a net of mutually contradictory or economically unachievable wants; for instance, to have children, to be self-supporting, to work, all simultaneously. The renunciation of these desires will be painful, or their partial achievement will be exhausting. Failures will be lived out as the experience of private guilt. Feminist and class analysis may be hopelessly confused; if it’s implicitly assumed that it’s somehow necessarily “More feminist” not to have children and  not further analysis is made, then the demand for the “right to choose” for other women to have children runs into the danger of becoming vicarious, politics for- others, especially where these other women are taken to be working-class. To allow the perpetuation of the media influenced image of the women’s liberationist as young, childless, and impossibly “free,” serves only to fix the gulf wider. And if women do have their children in a way which is treated as a private accident, and quite marginal to their feminism, a whole crucial art of lived experience is being overlooked, and a critical area for marxist and feminist discussion is lost. The gulf between women’s movement and other women can’t be narrowed in the absence of any moved towards a positive politics of the family which is premised the need for some of form of relatively stable ways of living, and having children, or not having them; to project it all into some bright utopian socialist future which we aren’t likely to reach in our lives is a particularly disheartening form of after-the-revolutionism.

Denise, Val & Julia

 

 

FOR THE NEXT ISSUE WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE A PROPER COVER FOR ‘SCARLET WOMEN’ DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEAS OR DESIGNS THAT WE COULD USE? ALL CONTRIBUTIONS WILL BE GRATEFULLY RECEIVED! SCARLET WOMEN COLLECTIVE

 

 

THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT AND THE “WOMEN’S PEACE MOVEMENT”

 

It is difficult for any person not born and reared in Northern Ireland to realise how significant a step it has been for women to get together and publicly demonstrate solidarity and who can blame them if “peace” is the issue which has brought this about. How many of us, who take freedoms here for granted which North Irish women do not have, could last out as long as they have without taking a stand against violence, which disturbs, distorts, destroys our children, husbands and families.

 

People are either –

 

(a)  Republicans    or         Unionists         or         Liberals

(b)  Catholic                       Protestant                    Minorities Free thinkers

(c)  Church educated        State Educated            State Educated

(d)  Working class             middle class/rich         middle class

(e)  Unemployed                employed                     securely employed

(f)   Poorly housed             well housed                very well housed

 

The first three are undisputed, DE and R are myths which each community believe about the other. 3 is probably fairly accurate. But there is a large proportion of working class, protestants and catholics, who are unemployed or low paid, who live in poor housing conditions (the extent of which would be a scandal over here)who find no common identity with each other. The two religions dominate over everything – down to personal relationships. Protestants don’t play with Catholics, don’t speak to catholics, don’t go out with catholics, certainly don’t marry them without destroying the family. Protestants go to one school, catholics to another, protestants use protestant shops, catholics catholic ones. Protestant go to their dancehalls, catholics go to theirs. Protestants drink in protestant pubs, catholics in their clubs. No one bothers with trade unions, everyone discusses politics, doing the other side down and scaremongering with tales of what happened to such and such, and on Sunday you go to your Church and become reinforced with hatred of your fellow-beings for another week.

 

What do women do? Well, looking after four or five children isn’t easy. It’s hard to make ends meet on the wages paid there, or on dole money. Women work in the bakeries, spinning mills, cigarette factories, hospitals, schools. Most offer part-time work and housewives shifts – no creches or nurseries. In the country there’s Women’s Institutes to go to, in towns there is no equivalent of Towns-womens Guilds, so they go to church based organisations, or bingo. Women don’t go into pubs, don’t go to public meetings – Hell, what public meetings were there ever? They saved in Credit Unions towards Christmas, holidays and school uniforms. They visited their mother, sisters, in-laws frequently took beatings from their husbands and just accepted it. Campaigns? Sisterhood? Zombies. The family network is tight, it keeps minds closed, it’s a small place. How does a catholic know what a protestant is like? They rarely meet. If they do, then the first thing you establish is what you are (where do you live? And what school do you children go to?) There were certainly no organisations which offered a chance to see each other as people. A few mixed streets sometimes managed to do this, on July 12th and August 15th each year when hatred was stirred up by sectarian songs. Sport is segregated – hockey/lacrosse, rugby/hurley, football/gaelic football. Pub songs – sentimental Jim Reeves type/Irish folk songs. Teenage rebellion was daringly embraced by each singing the others songs, until parents soon whipped you back into line.

 

At university where you would expect barriers to break down, this is rendered practically impossible y the fact that about 60% of students live at home, or are expected to go home each weekend.

 

Then around 1967, the Civil Rights movement got on the go demanding an end to discrimination against catholics in housing and jobs, only to be met with violent suppression by forces of law and order, the dreaded R.U.C and B. Specials. True, discrimination against catholics was blatant, but there was also a large number of working class protestants who has neither decent home nor jobs, and the result was not a united front against discrimination but increased bitterness among these Protestants who eventually became U.U.F members.

 

At no stage have the working class been made to feel a common identity. British on the mainland fall into the same trap as the Irish themselves and tae one side or the other. Sad to say, the Left appears to  be doing just that as well. We in the women’s movement run the danger of doing the same thing. The Irish women have got together as Irish mothers, wives and sisters; they are not being made to understand their common oppressions as women as we understand them. If we just knock their movement on the head, we alienate ourselves from them. We miss the opportunity of communicating with them what we all have in common against ‘us and how to struggle against it. Contraception, abortion, nurseries, battered wives hostels, better houses, job opportunities, better wages, unionisation, divorce, property laws, gay liberation, on parent families – the lot, we’ll miss the lot!

 

Given the narrow and closed minded environments in which they were brought up, all this is totally new to them. Living in fear with violence is NOT! The peace movement is a first step. Let us SMASH those who are using it to further their own disgusting ends – the hypocritical Church leaders, whose actions in their parishes keep communities divided, the state which denies the people the laws and freedoms we on the mainland enjoy, and exploits them economically, and the forces of law and order which act as bloodhounds with over-zealousness.

 

At the same time we want Northern Irish people to identify in a class struggle, and work out a solution in which they are people first, and their religion is a matter for their own conscience. There are years and centuries of in-bred prejudices to be got rid of – it won’t happen overnight. Violence and senseless killings cloud that process and reinforce the prejudices. “TROOPS OUT NOW” is an easy slogan for us who are removed from the scene, but do we hear that cry reflected from the majority of Catholics in Northern Ireland? At the moment the Northern Irish have more to fear from their neighbour than the troops (not that is has always been like that) I know that if the troops were removed the U.V.F would react mindlessly and that the most inoffensive Catholic would be the victim. Is that what we want to see happen?

 

I don’t know what the answer is. I do know that you are not free to think in Northern Ireland – you are too busy hating. The women aren’t hating now – they’re open to ideas and we must build on what they’ve started and develop their consciousness until they have a blueprint for a new society.

(Irene Corkey)

 

 

THE PEACE MOVEMENT

(Note: this has been edited for space reasons. We have tried to keep in all the most important points but we have left out quite a lot of details).

 

Last October I went on a delegation to Ireland organised by the Troops Out Movement because I wanted to see for myself what was happening there and what women were thinking and doing. In Belfast several of the woman delegated spoke to members of community groups in the catholic working class areas, to members of Belfast and Derry Socialist WOmen’s Groups and to Mairead Corrigan, on of the three main organisers of the Peace Movement, among others. It became apparent that, contrary to what the British media seemed anxious to show, the Peace Movement is not a Women’s Movement. They insisted on being called peace PEOPLE and said that strong men must be involved if they were to get anywhere. Whilst they have made noises about setting up community groups and centres for the getting together of Catholics and Protestants in the North, they have not taken up any issues of special relevance to women and their concern with children seems not to be for any nursery provision, etc. but a rather sinister interest in getting them to support the Peace Movement’s aims which include being prepared to inform on relatives and neighbours thought to be involved in ‘terrorism’).

 

At the time of my visit to Ireland, there was quite a considerable support amongst Catholic women for the Peace Movement, but this was mainly amongst the middle class or working class who had not been much involved in the work of the communities or in the anti-imperialist struggle. As has turned out to be the case, it was maintained that the previous supporters of the republican movement who went on peace demonstrations would cease to do so when the leaders failed to condemn acts of violence against Catholics by the police and British Army, as most of them were marching on the assumption that the movement was against all violence. We were told that whilst Catholics were expected to give support for the republican movement, there was not criticism when protestant women protested at British treatment of loyalist para-militaries in prison, or when they shouted “Well done Boys” to the army and police as they went to peace rallies.

 

But most importantly, the Peace Movement have not clarified what sort of peace they want. Some impressions gained from the interview with Mairead Corrigan however, were that they would want a harmonious Northern State, not united to the rest of Ireland; the British army would remain in the background to enable catholics and protestants to come together, and when peace was achieved power would be handed back to the politicians.

 

These solutions seem to be totally inadequate for dealing with the injustice and inequalities that people suffer in Ireland. The politicians to whom power would be handed back in The North would inevitably (because of the way electoral boundaries are rigged) be mainly loyalists, which would result in a situation similar to that before the Civil Rights movement of 1969 at the beginning of the present war; where catholics are deprived of jobs and adequate housing and where the police are the only ones in Britain to carry guns on normal duty.

 

And the North is anyway a haven for monopoly capital. Male wages 75% of those in Britain and women’s wages are 53% of that. There is nearly twice as much unemployment throughout the catholic ghettoes. In the south, women explained that the presence of foreign investment and industry, encouraged by tax and other concessions from the government means very poor social services, the continued strength of the catholic church with its control over the ideology and attitudes relating to women’s position, as well as the inevitable economic oppression. The south remains a neo-colony of Britain and the border between North and South inhibits attempts to fight against the oppression suffered by both the people of both regions.

 

So why did many working class Catholic women support the Peace Movement in its early days? (always remembering that the Movement enjoyed great government and media support and that figured in newspapers have been shown to have been greatly exaggerated.)

 

The more middle class women had never been particularly involved in the republican struggle and had been able to make some kind of compromise with the Unionist rule in the North. Although some had supported a move for more civil rights, the growing strength and demands of the ordinary catholic people were essentially not in their interests. S for the working class catholics, it is not enough to say that the media or the church was able to manipulate them. When I was in Belfast it was obvious that these people have suffered the most from the last 8 years of war. It is women who are more often in the neighbourhood, who have had to survive in the face of internment and murder of relatives and friends, continual raids, street patrols and searches and spot arrests by the army. Despite the weariness of the war, the women in the Republican areas that I spoke to were adamant that they would not give up, that although they wanted peace, they did not want it unless it meant justice as well and that British troops withdrawal was a prerequisite to any move towards peace.

 

I cannot write about work in the military campaign but it was obvious that women were involved in all aspects of the struggle. In the communities for example, they worked around nurseries, old age pensioners and children’s outings, food-coops and Advice Centres. More and more they have taken control of their own lives; they work in street committees, keeping a watchful eye on troop activities in the locality and patrolling the streets at night; provide for relatives of prisoners through Relatives Action Committees; and control housing, allocating empty property to those in most need through Housing Action Committees. (The Local authority has tended to abdicate responsibility for some republican areas). All these community groups seemed to be predominantly maintained and run by women, who managed to remain active despite army attack, husbands imprisonment and frequently large numbers of children.

 

Although some women i met in the Republican Movement did accept that women had particular demands of their own, they said that their principle aim was to secure the ending of British Imperialism in Ireland. They said that they did not have time to fight against women’s oppression as such, although several told me of personal battles they had had to establish their right to be politically active outside the home. All supported equal pay “of course” and many were prepared to challenge the right of the Catholic Church to have any important say in church, education or personal life. It seemed likely that the growing independence of women from the dictates of the way church leaders have not supported the struggle or women’s role in it.

 

There seemed to be an assumption that women’s liberation meant seperate groups rather remote from other struggles which might be going on. The women I spoke to did not see the point of joining such groups at the moment but whilst most of them were not taking up women’s demands in any consistent way, it was obvious that many of the ideas and demands of the women’s movement are at least in circulation and that the daily experiences of these people included battles which would be very similar to her own. Since I was in Belfast, there has been a growing awareness too that the community as a whole must be involved in the struggle and that the communities’ involvement in the struggle must be seen by the Republican Movement as being as important as the military side. It seems that this has come from a realisation that the Peace Movement was able temporarily to attract women because many of them were alienated from what must often seem a purely military fight having little to do with the daily struggle to survive. This realisation could well help the growing awareness of women’s situation and as a feminist it seems to me that I have an obligation to support the women’s demands concerning the overall struggle, not only because it is through that activity that issues of special relevance to women are going to be properly brought forward.

                                                       Anon. (Anonymous was a woman – Virginia Woolf)

 

 

MANIFESTO

Socialist Women’s Group – Northern Ireland

 

The Socialist Women’s Group was formed in October 1975 by a group of women active in revolutionary socialist politics and women’s liberation groups in Northern Ireland. For some members, the formation of the S.W.G represented a break with the feminist oriented politics of the women’s liberation movement and a recognition of the need to analyse the economic and sexual oppression of women from a class-based viewpoint. For others, it represented a recognition of the need for socialist women to organise and discuss together as women – a need which the S.W.G maintains does not create divisions between men and women but is a recognition that these divisions exist because of the oppression of women as a group in capitalist society.

 

This specific oppression has, we believe, been almost totally ignored both in the anti-imperialist struggle and in the trade-union movement, with the result on the question of campaigning for women’s rights, Northern Ireland is one of the most backward areas in Europe.

 

The Catholic Church has enormous influence in Ireland. In the South, where it exerts considerable influence on the Dail, it has consistently opposed the introduction of reforms in family law, divorce and the provision of contraception. The puritan attitudes of the Protestant churches in the North has meant that many of the basic reforms concerning divorce, abortion and married women’s property rights which now apply in Britain have been withheld from women in Northern Ireland. Those reforms such as Equal Pay and an extension of the Health Service to include free contraception, which now apply to Northern Ireland, have, we must point out, not been due to any initiatives here but rather have come to us indirectly, as a result of the activities of women in Britain.

 

The S.W.G believes that the campaign which must now begin here should not simply set its sights on achieving parity with Britain, but must be seen in terms of an overall struggle for socialism within which the question of the emancipation of women is a vital part. While we oppose British imperialism and its agents – the British army and repressive legislation – we believe that the effective liberation of the working class – women and men – require the creation not of a united capitalist Ireland but of an Irish Workers State. We see the struggle for women’s liberation as an integral part of the struggle for socialism and stress the importance of women organising to fight for their rights. To this end we advocate women’s caucuses in both trade unions and socialist organisations. We recognise the important role many women have played in the anti-imperialist and economic struggles in the past but point out that too often their own demands have been ignored by their male comrades and suppressed by the women themselves, out of a desire to preserve a supposed unity of forces.

 

 

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE EUROPEAN SOCIALIST-FEMINIST CONFERENCE?

The last issue of ‘Scarlet Women’ carried a short report on the preparations for a European Socialist – feminist conference to be held in Paris in November. A planning meeting of representatives from some of the interested women’s groups in Europe was held in London last October. Differences arose at this meetings and the group in Britain which have been trying to organise the British contribution to the conference were divided roughly in half over what sort of conference they wanted, and the relationship between the Women’s Liberation Movement and the Class Struggle. We are printing here some extracts from the minutes of that meeting.

 

Represented at the October planning meeting were sisters from Holland, Germany, Spain, France and Britain. Each contingent briefly explained what kind of conference they wanted:

 

THE DUTCH who were all from a grouping within the Dutch WLM called the “Feminist Socialist Platform” wanted an open conference to which all those women who considered themselves feminists and socialists could come. They wanted an exchange of ideas between countries on how different strategies could be used, not a conference oriented towards agreeing upon a programme because such agreement would be virtually impossible to get. Themes for workshops:

1)    How to organise in waged labour – should we work in trade unions and if so how?

2)    How to organise in the community and on the issue of housework?

3)    Some Dutch sisters wanted some more theoretical discussion on the relationship between waged and unwaged labour.

They did not want voting, delegates, or the making of a manifesto.

 

THE GERMANS wanted the theme of the conference to be “Women and Work” and suggested that the conference be in three parts as follows:

A.    The position of the Women’s Movement on:

a.     Wages for housework

b.     Discrimination at work

c.     The double work of women

d.     The education of women for typical women’s jobs.

B.    The role of women in the Class Struggle

a.     What struggles have there been that matter for women

b.     The role of left groups in these struggles

c.     What has been the experience of women in parties and trade unions in these struggles

C.    Socialist Questions

a.     Abortion, education, health, women in factories

b.     What has bene the reaction of parties and trade unions to these struggles.

Although they felt the exchange of information was good, they wanted the conference to agree to a broad manifesto as this was a step forward to political action.

 

THE BRITISH were divided in their views. Three views were expressed:

a)    That the conference should open to all women who regarded themselves as socialist-feminists and should discuss a wider range of issues than just women in the workplace, such as abortion, child care, sexuality and minority women. They did not want votes, delegates or a manifesto.

b)    That the basic question “is classical marxist theory sufficient for an analysis of the situation of women” should be main theme for discussion at the conference

c)    That clearly there were differences amongst women from different countries because of different situations in their countries. The conference should work towards reconciling differences and work towards a “minimum bases” of agreement.

 

THE SPANISH saw the conference in three parts:

A.    What is the relations between women’s struggle?

a.     Are women a class (in the marxist sense)

b.     What is the relation between the economic system and the situation of women

B.    Women and Work – particularly the question of why the Women’s Movement wants women to work outside the home.

C.    Concrete Action – they thought it would be difficult to agree on a manifesto in three days, but agreement on specific actions would be possible.

 

THE FRENCH thought the conference should have only one theme, Women and Work, as this united the women’s struggle and the class struggle. There should be a manifesto which recorded points of agreement and disagreement. There should be enough area of agreement for the basis of common campaigns. They had written a new appeal to be used to publicise the conference.

 

(The following is a direct extract from the minutes:)

 

“WOMEN’S STRUGGLE/CLASS STRUGGLE

AN APPEAL FOR A EUROPEANS WOMEN’S CONFERENCE

 

In the last five years, women’s struggled have become massive. They have put forward various themes (abortion, contraception, sexuality, work, child care, housing, domestic work, consumer power, sexism, legislation, etc.) They have taken place in many places (work, neighbourhood, universities). They express themselves politically in different ways: traditional political and trade union structures, groups of autonomous feminists, movements for free abortion on demand, women’s commissions inside the trade unions, groups of women in the factories and in the neighbourhoods. Despite the obvious progress which is revealed by this variety of women’s struggles the reality remains the difficult to liaise politically between the autonomous wome’ns movement, the struggles of the mass of women, the struggles of the working class and the trade union movement.

 

The current capitalist crisis makes increasingly more obvious specific aspects of women’s oppression. The bourgeoisie leads an offensive against women at work, through massive layoffs amongst women, through campaigns for women to return to their homes and through a new value being attached to women as mothers and wives (using various tricks like child allowances, part-time work, etc.). It allows them to justify maintaining a high level of unemployment.

 

And we, who do not see women’s struggles independently of that struggles of the workers for their emancipation, or from the building of an autonomous women’s movement, feel the need for political discussion between feminists who fight in countries with different political situations; especially in Southern Europe, where the struggles of women are getting bigger and bigger. This is why we propose to all women who see their struggles in this perspective, to come to a European conference on the theme:

 

STRUGGLES OF WOMEN/CLASS STRUGGLE

During this meeting we could consider the following points:

●      The place and role of women in the class struggle

○      To what extent can women’s struggles, because they show the possibility of new relationships, both individual ones and collective one, enrich the notion of democracy

○      How do they defend the struggle against power/governments in all of its forms, power which generates all oppression

○      What implications do these struggles have on the present policies of the European bourgeoisie. How do they help the positions of political organisations evolve, and the organs of struggle of the working class develop.

Among other things, we should start this discussion by considering the problem of women and work.

●      What is the role and place of women in the capitalist system.

○      What is the role of domestic labour

○      What form of organisation do women adopt in factories

●      How do the bourgeoisie, the trade union, the political parties, the currents in the women movement respond to these women demands.

●      What type of international solidarity with women’s struggles could this conference begin to build.

 

The meeting which could discuss our experiences and thoughts could draw up a pamphlet/charter and behin to co-ordinate or launch campaigns. It could also lead to the 9 March 1977 becoming a day of International Women’s mobilisation.

 

After the above appeal was read there was much debate. Criticisms of the appeal came mainly from the British and the Dutch – though some British sisters supported it. That by situating women’s struggles in the class struggle in the appeal, they were excluding many socialist feminists from the conference. That by concentrating on women and work they would risk only attracting to the conference those already active in such campaigns.

 

The British said that the fight against the attacks on women, by the bourgeoisie during the crisis in the capitalism must be on many fronts. The resurgence of ‘motherhood propaganda’ was an attack not just on our jobs but on our sexuality, our very personhood. Our health was being threatened by closure of hospitals, maternity clinics and abortion clinics. The British spoke of the effects of the cuts in government spending in the UK and how they were particularly affecting women. They suggested ‘Capitalism in Crisis’ as a conference title.

 

The Dutch, said the WLM had gone beyond ‘the left’ in its analysis of the oppression of women in capitalism. It had analysed how capitalism oppressed all aspects of our lives (eg. by turning us into compulsive consumers) and to return to such a narrow position i.e. Women at Work, at this first conference, would be retrograde step for the movement. Naturally women and work had to be one of the themes but not the theme. The French replied by saying that ‘Women at Work’ was not at all confined to women’s work at the workplace (waged work), but it also needed to include women’s work in the family, child care, etc. and the relationship between waged and unwaged work.”

 

The rest of the meetings was concerned with trying to find a basis for agreement on how to proceed. Finally, a vote was taken on whether or not to accept the French “Appeal”. The French, German and two thirds of the British representatives voted for; the Spanish, Dutch and one third British voted against – the French appeal was carried by one vote. A second vote was then taken on an alternative structure suggested by a British sister, but the French and Germans abstained from the vote. All the Spanish and Dutch, and two thirds of the British voted in favour, one third of the British voted against. The final outcome of the meeting: the Dutch refused to organise a meeting on the basis of the French appeal and a further planning meeting was arranged for December in Paris.

 

Barbara Yates sent us this report on the latest position:

“Following this (October) meeting, we received a letter from Holland explaining that the Dutch women were not going to attend a conference based on appeal drawn primarily by the French sister, but would instead consider organising a separate conference in Amsterdam, for anyone (including those organising the other conference) who called themselves socialist feminists. Their conference would not be confined to one or two themes and would not be biased towards women and work.

In the meantime, another planning meeting was held in Paris, (the Dutch, Spanish and some of the British Group were not represented), a revised appeal was written and a conference set for PARIS ON 28/29/30 MAY, 1977, on the two themes; ‘WOMEN’S WORK; PAID EMPLOYMENT/UNEMPLOYMENT AND DOMESTIC LABOUR AND ABORTION, CONTRACEPTION, SEXUALITY AND THE FAMILY.’

 

It should be stressed that the difference of opinion in the British planning groups is not such that we are no longer talking to each other and we hope that most people will feel interested in both conferences.”

 

 

S T O P  P R E S S

We have just received a copy of a letter from the Dutch sisters about the conference they are planning. It will be held on 3-4-5 JUNE, 1977 in AMSTERDAM. The starting point for the conference is: “Working with women on the base of “no feminism without socialism; no socialism without feminism.” Every woman who is the least interested in this point is very welcome.” However, there will probably have to be a limit of about 20 women from each country because they can only take a maximum of 250. Workshops will be on: Where do we stand with respect to the feminist socialist theory and practice?? Feminist-socialists and the left wing political parties and trade unions; housework; organising women; women and the crisis; foreign women living in our countries out of economic necessity. The conference will be in English and they would like papers on the above themes.

 

Below is the Dutch sisters’ letter. Their paper will be printed in full in the next issue of ‘Scarlet Women.’

 

Dear Sisters,

 

After several rounds of discussion, between the women who attended the planning meeting in London, and also with the women who were interested in going to the conference, we have decided not to participate in the planning of this conference any longer.

Although we agree that an exchange of experiences and ideas of feminist-socialist groups on a more international level would be very good, we disagree too fundamentally with the way this conference is planned to think that it will get us any further in the direction we want to go. Even if we would spend our energy in trying to reach some kind of a compromise we do not think the conference would fulfil our needs.

We want a much broader kind of exchange, one that allows a discussion that it not narrowed down from the beginning by concepts reminding us too much of the rigid ideas about what is ‘politically relevant’ of our socialist comrades. But even if we would manage to introduce more themes besides the themes of ‘women’s role in the class struggle’ ‘women and work’ and ‘international solidarity’ we still think the discussions would be too heavily dominated by specific groups of socialist women to get the kind of exchange we want. In London we couldn’t help noticing that several of the ‘delegations’ were mainly consisting of women affiliated with Fourth Internationale groups, and that a lot of other currents within feminist-socialism were not present, either because they already decided not to participate, or because they weren’t invited. In Holland the group of women within the feminist-socialist Platform that is affiliated with the Fourth Internationale is only one amongst others, the large majority of women who originally were interested in a European conference does not want to participate in a conference that is obviously started by one current from the beginning. One consequence of this is that like in Paris, many feminist-socialists would not be interested in such a conference and it would be difficult to organise in Amsterdam.

We have decided, as a group, not to participate. We have written a small paper to explain the Dutch situation, to make it more clear to sisters elsewhere why we took this decision. However, we would like to keep in touch. There is a possibility that individual women interested in proposed themes might still want to attend the congress.

In sisterhood, or something like that,

The ‘7’ from the Dutch feminist-socialist Platform.

Contents

1. Editorial
2. List of regional co-ordinators
3. Women & Science Collective
4. Regional Activities
   1. Cambridge Conference
   2. Newcastle Workshop
   3. Manchester Women & Socialism
   4. Yorkshire Women & Socialism
   5. Paris Conference

 

 

EDITORIAL

 

A brief recap:-

We decided at the National Conference Workshop on the Women’s Liberation and Socialism that we ought to be developing a specific socialist-feminist analysis, because unless we had some worked out perspective as socialist feminists, we were in danger of dissipating our energies in a multiplicity of meetings.

It was agreed that as a first step we should set up a socialist feminist communication network which would link up those sisters involved in different activities and campaigns in and around the women’s movement, in a way that would promote discussion of practical and organisational problems arising out of our activity.

1. Help to overcome any feelings of frustration, demoralisation, isolation and aimlessness we may experience by enabling us to see the content of our work in some kind of perspective
2. Hopefully lend to the development of a theory closely related to our practise – we would be able to pool our experience, generalise, theorise our practise
3. Lay the basis for practical work and in this way help overcome factionalism

 

Sisters at the workshop agreed to take on the task of regional co-ordination – to be responsible for contacting socialist feminists in their areas and arranging regional meetings, conferences, to discuss topics and issues which people feel could well be taken up in their regions and/or also nationally.

We also decided to circulate a newsletter to provide a forum for discussion and to publicise and co-ordinate activities organised in the regions. The newsletter can be used to develop links between groups, individuals, etc., it can also carry suggestions for topics for workshops, conferences. Through the newsletter we can discuss what we are doing.

 

Scarlet Woman No.1 – included the paper for the National Conference Workshop and a report back on the discussion at that workshop. We, the Coast Women’s Group also published and account of our activities as a group – the problems we experiences arising out of those activities.

The first issue met with a good response, a lot of letters came saying that it was both interesting and relevant, in that the problems it raised, particularly in the section dealing with the Coast Women’s Group, were also experienced by other sisters involved in feminist and socialist activities and campaigns.

It was comforting to note that our problems as a group have some objective basis, are not simply the result of personal ineptitude and lack of organisation.

In this issue, we have published an account of the work of the Women & Science Collective. It would be useful to publish reports from other groups in future issues of Scarlet Women.

 

Other ideas for the future

1. Could regional co-ordinators or anyone else concerned send in reports of their activities to date – any meetings held or planned, topics discussed etc.
2. Maybe individual socialist feminists involved in single issue campaigns (NAC, Women’s Aid, Independent Campaigns) could write in explaining their rationale and perspective i.e. Why this campaign rather than any other, how do they see their authority in the context of the development of the women’s movement and the general struggle for socialism.
3. Sisters involved in ‘community’ and ‘trade union’ struggles are faced with specific problems in trying to raise ‘women’s issues’ in the course of their campaigns. How important is a feminist perspective for women working in these areas. In this issue of Scarlet Women we have included a report back of a regional workshop held in Newcastle on just this theme

 

For the next issue of Scarlet Women, we will be publishing papers and report back from the Cambridge Socialist Women’s Conference – and hopefully any other contributions that sisters care to send in!!

***

 

WOMEN AND SCIENCE COLLECTIVE

Who we are

 

We are a group of socialist, feminist women ‘in and around’ science. As individuals we came into the group with, and have maintained, different levels of involvement with the women’s movement, political activities, and science. We got together to share experiences and ideas about the capitalist and secist science by which we are confronted. In particular, we are concerned to examine how the individualism, competitiveness and sexism of capitalist science affects scientific practice and practitioners, and to explore how science affects/ignores women. We feel that the women’s movement is inconsistent in its attitude towards science and technology, and we want both to generate and participate in discussions about the potential contributions/threats which science offers to our liberation.

The group has been together 1½ years. We “closed” the group after a couple of months together. There were obvious contradictions in choosing to be “closed”. However, as we wanted to be primarily a “task orientated” collective, closing the group seemed necessary for the ……. (Cannot Read bottom of page 2) the required commitment and continuity. We tried to maintain contact, hold open meetings with all “interested” persons not in the closed group. After about one year when the group had dwindled down to a core of five, we opened the group again. We are still in the process if stabilising the new group.

 

How We Work and What We’ve Done

 

We work as a collective. Writing as a collective usually means an initial discussion of what we want to try and write, someone or a small group writing a rough draft, and further discussions with everyone contributing to the final copy. When we give talks we try to ensure that at least two of us go to the meeting and that questions be addressed to the group not at individuals. We feel that it is very important to try to challenge, and break down bourgeois individualistic ways of working, and individual ‘ego-involvement’ with particular ideas.

Most of what we have done so far, (and perhaps too much?) has been centred around examining sexism in science and has been related to the radical science movement (mainly through the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science). We presented a paper at the BSSRS conference ‘Is there a Socialist Science?’. We have travelled around speaking to BSSRS local groups. Our major achievement has been preparing an entire issue (from conception, writing all items, to the collective paste-up) of the BSSRS magazine “Science for People” where we dealt with the following issues: Why DOn’t Girls do Science, Power and Sex in the Laboratory, The Political Implications of Creches, Women, Food and Nutrition, Hazards of Home, Women at Work, Hair Dyes, (a few copies still available at 25p and postage from us or BSSRS). This spring we presented a seminar “The Politics of Contraception” at an ongoing series of Science and Socialism seminars.

We hope to do more in the future aligning ourselves more specifically to women and to the women’s movement. We have written one article for Spare Rib and plan to prepare other articles for them in the near future.

As we have several commitments and interests which we want to pursue in the near future, we are now trying the process of working in sub-groups which meet separately and relate to the larger group. Sub-groups are now working on a critique of The Biological Basis of Sex Difference, Politics of Contraception, and Women and Mental Health (obesity and anorexia).

 

Problems and Issues Which Have Come Up

 

1 TASK ORIENTATION vs CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING. We want to be a ‘task oriented’ group (we feel we have something to give!) and we work best when we have deadlines to meet, BUT we hate deadlines and feel they detract from meaningful, spontaneous conversations which can so easily arise in a group like ours. However, when we don’t have specific deadlines we easily become apathetic and disillusioned with the group and fewer meaningful discussion seem to emerge!

2 FAMILIARITY. We actually found that we worked best on ‘tasks’ when we didn’t know each other well. Now that we’ve become friends and care more about each other’s lives, it is harder to settle down to tasks we mean to be doing.

3 OPENING A CLOSED GROUP. We have found it difficult to ‘open’ a group once it has been closed. The tyranny of structurelessness prevails! It is difficult to integrate new individuals into the group in such a way as to make them feel a part of the group and appreciate the new ideas and experiences they bring with them without changing the values/orientation/goals which ‘OLD’ members still want.

4   PRESENTING IDEAS TO THE REST OF THE WORLD. There is a huge gap between working out our ideas and communicating them. When we recently presented our ‘Politics of Contraception’ seminar to a group, consisting largely of radical ‘aware’ (??) men, we were surprised by the defensive, hostile response. We must work out a better strategy for communicating our ideas!

5   COLLECTIVE EXPERIENCE. The chance to work as a collective has been a most rewarding experience for most of us and provides a striking contrast to the individualistic way we need to function generally. We would like to find more ways of integrating the collective experience into our daily lives.

However, problems in working through collective experience have pinpointed how much we have each internalised an individualistic response to society. Individual contributions to the collective still seem value laden, e.g. because many of our projects involve writing those of us least able to write still feel that we have less to contribute to the collective than those who can write well/easily.

In sisterhood,

The Women and Science Collective.

 

***

 

REGIONAL ACTIVITIES

Socialist Women’s Regional Conference, Cambridge, October 16th 1976

(extracted from the Cambridge Women’s Liberation Newsletter – August 1976)

The impetus for this came from the National Women’s Conference in Newcastle where it was suggested that women involved in socialist groups should get together and share ideas. We have been attempting to involved women from other towns in East Anglia in the planning but since no-one from elsewhere managed to get to the advertised planning meeting we’ve decided to go ahead with planning from Cambridge while inviting people from other groups.

The programme for the day will be centred round activities we are currently involved in with discussion aimed to define a socialist perspective for us to work from.

A brief introductory session will give us themes to think about throughout the day and for this we are using the points raised in the first national Socialist Women’s newsletter as guidelines.

Then there will be two sessions on major issues. Two small groups in Cambridge have been working to produce papers as starting points for discussion on women and changes in the law, and on self-help health groups.

Self-help Health Group. This group brings together people and ideas from several different groups: women who have been involved in the Cambridge pregnancy testing group and the National Abortion Campaign raised the question of what it means to be a socialist woman in such groups; other angles come from women involved in the university Women’s Paper working on mental health, and people involved in the proposed Women’s Aid centre in Cambridge. A critical question here is the politics of servicing.

Women and the Law. We’re trying to find a unifying socialist/feminist perspective, looking at how laws work and the question of how far to campaign in support of a better but inadequate law. We’re looking at labour law and welfare and family law.

Finally there will be an open discussion session, going back to the issues raised in the introductory session and tying them in with points raised during the day.

A general group has been working on ideas for this session. We think that if the open discussion is left entirely unstructured we may fail to achieve our aim of defining areas to work round in the future.

 

Extract from Scarlet Woman No.1

Points arising from our problems as a group:

1. What is the role of a Women’s Group – particularly a socialist-feminist group? How can it develop strategy so that its intervention in socialist activities can be fruitful both for itself and for the campaign/activity concerned?
2. How can we incorporate feminism into our socialist activities. So that our involvement in, for example, the Cuts Campaign, does not become a step backward into ‘real issue’ politics?
3. How should Consciousness Raising be integrated into the Women’s Group? Does it become dispensable for ‘older’ members? Can or should it be developed into a more theoretical approach? If so, how? Is CR integral to the autonomy of the Women’s Movement – essential to the creation of feminist consciousness, the means by which isolated women develop strength and an understanding of their collective power (just as participation in strikes is important for the development of class consciousness, i.e. the process by which workers realize their own power to change and control events)?
4. How can the WLM give support to sisters whose marriage falls apart as a result of their involvement with feminism? It is a basic contradiction of the WLM that it challenges existing personal relationships but can offer little in their place. In its ideology and demands it offers unrealiseable possibilities to women – unrealisable because our oppression is structured in the economy.

This is a contradiction which is not contained within the socialist movement. Socialists have always opposed ‘lifestyle’ politics and ‘utopia building’ to the struggle to overthrow capitalism. For us, there can be no such opposition. Our very survival, personal and political, depends upon building a movement offering new relationships and possibilities to women and children (no, not separatism!) – but how do we go about this? Our experience with childcare points up the difficulties.

5. Bearing in mind points 3 and 4 can the WLM develop into a mass movement? Does it have to? How do we involve working class and married women? – if we don’t there is a danger that the WLM will become a movement of ‘liberated women’, offering a threat to the mass of women rather than a source of support. Is the WLM a movement or vanguard? Probably somewhere in between in that the impact of its ideas has been greater than the actual numbers of women involved.

Should the role of the WLM be as a catalyst sparking off campaigns and activities involving men and women who do not see themselves as feminists?

 

Newcastle

How do we integrate socialist and feminist politics?

A day meeting held at the socialist centre, Newcastle, on September 4th on the wearing two hats problem.

This was the first regional meeting we in the North have held as a result of the workshop at the National Conference and it was attended by 17 women from Middlesborough, Newcastle, Sunderland and Coast Group. Most of us there, as well as being involved in women’s groups and campaigns are active in trade unions, the Labour Party and Left Groups (I.S and I.M.G.). The meeting was organised around three topics:

1 Wearing different hats: “I often wonder which hat to wear at meetings; whether I should leave my ‘feminist’ hat at home when I’m being a ‘trade Unionist’”, to be a discussion on our experiences of picking up on ‘feminist’ issues at ‘socialist’ meetings.

2 Are feminist politics secondary to socialist politics? Are we reluctant to raise women’s issues because we do not feel that they are as important as socialist politics? Do we lack conviction – or self confidence. Is it lack of theory or because of the attitudes of the left towards feminism.

3 The way forward. Where do we start in tackling the problem – our consciousness, our theory, our organisation and structures, or where.

Three working papers were submitted and we drew up a list of specific instances where we had conspicuously failed to raise ‘women’s issues’ at socialist meetings.

 

Trades Council Fight the Cuts meeting (1)

The discussion at the workshop on cuts in social services and education expenditure centred around the problem of redundancy amount Health Service and Education workers, ignoring the effect on the users of these service, most especially housewives. “A” felt she ought to raise this issue but didn’t dare in case she didn’t get the support of the other women in the workshop, she was frightened of appearing obsessive and irrelevant.

Unemployment Meeting (2)

In a statement about the Scottish teachers strike, the speaker unfortunately said that women teachers in the north of Scotland regards their m=work as a hobby. “B” felt very nervous about pointing out the sexist nature of that remark, both because the speaker has been extremely good, and it seemed rather niggardly to pick it up on that one point and because the meeting was about unemployment and not sexism.

Anti-racist Meeting (3)

A comrade said that by playing on the sexist attitudes of the men involved he had diffused a potentially racist situation. He argued that it was perfectly legitimate to use sexism to combat the greater evil of racism. No woman felt strong enough to challenge his remark and in the end it was left to a man to explain that fascism breeds equally on sexism and racism.

Anti-fascist Meeting (4)

The discussion turned to writing a leaflet for the Asian community, the chairman said that it could be written in English because all immigrants understand it now, “C” pointed out with some trepidation that Asian women could not speak English because the are confined to their homes. It had not occurred to the men present that some immigrants are female.

 

FEMALE OPPRESSION IS INTRINSIC TO CLASS SOCIETY. Class society was founded on our oppression. All institutions and movements are permeated by sexist ideology – even that movement dedicated to overthrow of class society itself.

Given that we really believe in our slogan

There can be no revolution without women’s liberation;

There can be no women’s liberation without revolution.

 

How is it that we have to spend an afternoon discussing the ‘wearing two hats’ problem in any way? How come that we feel so torn between our feminist perspective and our involvement in the socialist movement?

Why are we forced to deal with the problem of integrating our feminist and socialist politics? Surely the struggle against women’s oppression ought to be an integral part of the struggle for socialism.

The fact that we feel such a conflict of loyalties and the fact that we find this conflict so anxiety provoking reflects nothing if not the depth of our oppression as a sex.

 

1. Our oppression goes so deep that the socialist movement, supposedly out to challenge capitalism root and branch, until recently accepted sexist ideology unquestioningly. Women were not seen as specially oppressed and for the purposes of organising at least, could be ignored – not quite ignored, for though we may not have had specific problems, we were certainly problematic for the left. We stood in the way of revolutionary process. We were backward and we distracted the worker from his proper pursuit of class struggle in two ways
   1. As part and parcel of comfortable family life we sapped his will to strike, dimmed his revolutionary ardour
   2. As Eve figures, we diverted that ardour in unfortunate directions

Socialist women struggling for a feminist perspective were made to feel that y raisin women’s issues they were creating an indelicate diversion. The inadequacies of that analysis led to a fase polarity being set up between the class/socialist issue and the women’s/feminist issue. Although the left acknowledges the fact of women’s oppression on one level, this polarity still exists with the class issue taking precedence within it.

2. Our oppression goes so deep that it affects every aspect of our lives including our relationships in the socialist movement. Even though we are committed feminists we cannot altogether free ourselves from the psychological effects of that oppression. Consequently it is not easy to keep having to challenge that polarity.
   1. As women we are accustomed to putting the requirements of others before our own interests. This makes it especially hard at meetings to interrupt the even tenor of agreement about what the subject under discussion actually is (the Cuts, unemployment, racism) to ask the ‘irrelevant’ questions – what about the women? It goes against the grain – maybe the ‘socialist issue’ should take priority – maybe I should keep quiet.
   2. We are also used to being belittled and patronised; aware of the possibility that we could well be ignored when we voice an opinion. Our self-confidence is systematically undermined by sexist society. If we try to speak at meetings we do so with diffidence, feeling silly in case we’re boring, side-tracking the issue or being trivial even when we are talking about the subject in hand. If we go further and insist on our rights to put our interests before those of the general struggle, if we ask that questions ‘what about the women’ we are likely to feel very guilty, sounds unnecessarily defensive/aggressive.
3. Our oppression goes so deep that even though we have been battling away in the socialist movement for years now, chauvinism is still rife in the left and Trade Union circles.

Maybe there is formal acknowledgement of the fact that women are oppressed, but the significance and extent of that oppression has to be defined and limited for us to by chauvinist attitudes.

1. It is seen as just one issue among many to raise the occasional struggle around.
2. It is certainly not to be given as much weight as class issues
3. Nor is it considered as significant as black oppression in the scheme of things

If a black person is attacked, that is racism.

If a woman is raped, that’s life.

Our hurts are more trivial than those of black people, and even feminists sometimes find it hard to persuade themselves that sexism is as evil as racism. Which is why we let the ‘comrades’ remarks go unchallenged at the anti-racism meeting.

“Maybe he’s right, maybe I’m carrying things too far by feeling angry. No, he’s wrong –  but how to say it casually, without introducing rancour into the meeting. If I put it theoretically, I can present it objectively without yelling. All oppression hurts. How dare you, a comrade, not take that pain seriously.”

When he was answered by a man, we were left to think

“Why didn’t I say that, why did I leave it to a man”

And anyway, why shouldn’t we yell out occasionally that oppression hurts.

For our oppression isn’t seen as something that really hurts us. Men can forget the woman questions when we are discussing Ireland or Chile. We can’t! We can never forget that we are oppressed i is there in our every relationship. For us it is a part of living, not a separate issue. We can neither forget the women when we discuss Ireland, nor can we forget that we are women, whatever we are discussing. In fact we can never take off our feminist hats to suit the convenience of the agenda. Male comrades may think and even say to us in so many words,

“ O.K. you are oppressed, but don’t go on about it, don’t drag it into everything, where is your sense of humour, you are in danger of becoming a bore.”

In conclusion, then, we are faced with a number of conflicts, stemming directly from the fact of our oppression.

We are constantly having to force awareness of ourselves as a special category at meetings when we raise the women’s issue. Constantly having awareness of ourselves forced on us by the sexist attitudes of our comrades.

Definition of socialism still effectively excludes the feminist perspective. We are put in the position of having to force the left to recognise the validity of women’s issues in the general struggle for socialism.

Even those sisters that accept that the class issue should have priority are brought up against the fact of their own oppression at meetings. They are faced with the dilemma, shall I challenge that sexist remark, shall I ask what about the women, or shall I let it pass?

Because we are oppressed, it is often difficult to speak at meetings anyway, and it especially goes against the grain continually to raise the women’s ussie – when we bring ourselves to do it, we know that we could be annoying or irritating our male comrades by disrupting the tidy progress of the meeting. The fact is that we cannot relax at meetings, can’t allow ourselves the luxury of concentrating on the subject in hand in the full knowledge that the struggle of women against their own oppression is seen to be integral to general struggle for socialism. Integral in the sense that:

1. Both men and women comrades see the implication for women in any campaign being fought.
2. Methods of organising women are considered as seriously as methods of organising men (i.e. women immigrants, housewives, etc.)
3. The socialist movement is free of sexist ideology and assumption – or at least that men as well as women are ever vigilant to challenge such ideology
4. In this way we will be free to participate without undue self-consciousness of ourselves as women; free to consider the subject matter of the meeting and free to raise issues other than ‘feminist’ ones.

Ann Torode. Coast Women’s Group.

 

MOST OF THOSE (at least those over 25) in the Women’s Movement who would describe themselves as Socialist Feminist arrived at this perspective from being active members of left groups, perhaps at college, and ye at the same time feeling dissatisfied with the analyses of socialist change provided by those groups, or to be more specific, the men in those groups. Through being told repeatedly that the struggle was ‘at the point of production’ and not at the kitchen sink, or even at the typewriter keyboard or hospital laundry, if that was where you happened to be, and also that women were reactionary, a counter-revolutionary force, women on the left had to either work out their own salvation or be completely co-opted by the male picture of themselves as the handmaid of the left, there on sufference only.

Fortunately, the former was what happened and women on the left developed what seemed at the time to be a completely new perspective on the nature of revolutionary change. We have spent the last four or five years developing this perspective, relating it to ‘mainstream’ left thought and indeed discovering in the writings of Marc, Engels et al., some strains of ideology if the time and the economic climate had been right. Instead, they have lain dormant, ignored and even denied for the first fifty years of this century, and have now been developed (e.g. the relationship of housework to surplus value) in as valid a way as other Marxist themes have been developed by 20th century male socialists.

We have now reached the stage of being able to examine the many political changes of the ‘Third World’ in particular and in the rest of the world, from a socialist feminist viewpoint. This provides the main explanation for the affinity many of us feel for the Chinese revolution, which for all its shortcomings, set out with the intention of tackling all social forms from the smallest unit upwards – the priority given in early days to rehabilitating prostitutes by creating a climate of opinion in which their exploitation was understood and personal stigma removed is one example – another might well be the development of a non-elitist medical system that caters for the real needs of the whole individual rather than the Russian system which for all its ‘polyclinics’ still relied heavily on a technological reputation.

In other words, what we have developed in the socialist feminist approach is one which could be described as ‘holistic.’ It is not simply that we look at issues as they affect women (e.g. the ‘cuts’ and so-called ‘community care’ by that our approach to the revolution is one that looks for the effect of social change on people as friends, parents, siblings, lovers, students, etc., as well as in their restricted roles of workers (for money), producers and consumers. We are redefining people’s place in society with reference to all of the roles and relationships in which they are involved whereas conventional socialism sees people’s relationship to the power base as being a direct results of their place in production. We do accept that people’s relations to production has an effect on their political and social power, but maintain that if the revolution did not encompass the most searching examination and change of all sorts of social relationship, father-son, teacher-student, etc., it would not be a revolution y our definition. We start at men-women relationships because they underpin the most basic inequalities in our society – but we do not stop there.

All these things agreed, and subsumed under the slogan ‘No revolution without women’s liberation, no women’s liberation without revolution’, we have reached an impasse which is caused by the dual factors of grouping together as women o examine women’s issues, and the eagerness of men on the left (most of them) to let us get on with ‘women’s issues’ while they work on the ‘important’ things like racialism and the right to work. I feel that what we have to do is to explain the relevance of socialist feminism to all social issues with which the left is concerned – whenever we come across an example of political analysis or action which lacks our feminist and ‘holistic’ approach we should point it out, and seek to teach this new approach not as something diversionary but as a valid approach for the whole of the left. The fact that we as women may be involved for a number of years in trying to get this message across should not deter us or make us feel embarrassed, in spite of the opposition we may encounter. We have worked hard working our ideology out – we now have to spread it. A few examples would serve:

1.Many women in the campaigns for easier access to better birth control have to reject the ‘population control’ element of some male socialist economists, pointing out that they could just as easily advocate pro-natalist policies if they thought that the socialist economy could be better served that way (it has happened before and is now happening in some parts of Eastern Europe).

2. A long as detailed article in the Guardian by John Harris, a most astute and intelligent commentator on African affairs made only passing reference to the situation of women and we were left at the end not knowing if Julius Nyrere’s regime had any effect on the birth control available to Tanzanian women, whether childcare and domestic tasks were still the main responsibility of women, either alone or with their mothers and sisters, whether women were actually getting to the local call meetings and affecting local politics. Of course it may be that all this has come to pass – but if it had it would be a miracle and we should still be told by male socialist writers. We have to train them to adopt this analysis in their work (rather like getting them to notice the floor need vacuuming (Cannot read bottom of page 11) at home!) and we shouldn’t have to send a sister to Tanzania to report specially on changes in family structure.

3. Two articles in New Society this week (Sept.2nd) by John Rex and Lawrence Scheimmer, analyse what is happening in Southern Africa, conclude that a Russian socialist model is quite likely to follow a violent revolution, and the latter only refers to the position of women in the current struggles to adopt a tone of surprise that ‘280 pre-teenage girls went on the rampage’ in the SA violence. Nowhere does John Rex comment on the appalling effect on family life of the apartheid and migrant labour system, and on the analysis, or lack of analysis, of changes that could be hoped for in this direction by the freedom movements (I don’t means teaching the girls to handle weapons). Two things must sicken you about African freedom movement leaders – they are almost all male, or related to males in references to them – Winnie Mandela is always ‘wife of jailed leader Nelson, etc.’. Where are the women?

4. I was always sickened, attending black power rallies in Leeds, to find the black men on the platform and the black sisters in the kitchen, making the curry – or at Bradford, to see a busload of Asian men at an anti-NF demo, knowing their wives were at home suffering the most awful isolation and repression.

To conclude, we have to start shouting, in the press, at meetings – everywhere – we have a valid approach to the whole of socialist thought and action – and without the feminist, whole-of-life approach – THERE IS NO REVOLUTION!

Anna Briggs. Coast Women’s Group.

OBVIOUSLY NO PAPER OR CONFERENCE CAN COVER ALL ASPECTS OF THE relation between women’s liberation and socialism. In this paper I want to look at two issues. (1) the question of defining what people mean when they talk about socialism, (2) how to take up the issue of women’s liberation in aspects of the class struggle on Tyneside, particularly with reference to public expenditure cuts, unemployment and the anti-fascist/anti-racist campaign. While the paper treats these questions separately it is important to insists on their connection, the way we campaigns now should influences by the type of socialism we want to create.

 

WHAT TYPE OF SOCIALISM DO WE WANT?

1. Definitions of Socialism.

 

If we look at the discussions about women’s liberation and socialism, we can see obviously the debate between radical feminism and socialism. This essentially is over whether capitalism or men constitute the cause of women’s oppression and what revolutionary strategy flows from this. What I want to discuss, however, is the debate between socialism and economism. If this distinction between socialism and economism is not clearly made, then I would contend it is not possible to establish the relevance of socialism to women’s liberation.

There have been many political debates in the socialist movement. The debate against economism is an old one. The essential argument of economism (and related theories such as workerism) is that the working class organised at the point of production is the only class with a role to play in the revolution and that its experiences in the factory are all that is necessary for the generation of revolutionary consciousness. In this sort of model of revolution the role of housewives, as well as intellectuals, artists and peasants, etc., is minimal. This type of theory leads to a political practice which focuses on the industrial struggle on the shopfloor, often to the exclusion of all else. Similar in this respect to economism is syndicalism, which sees the road to revolution as via the mass general style and so focuses exclusively on trade union struggles. For women, many of whom are outside the trade unions, syndicalist theories lead to an exclusion from the class struggle.

For revolutionary Marxists the struggle for socialism is the struggle for the liberation of all humanity; the ending of the economic exploitation of the proletariat and of all other types of oppression. This has consequences for fundamental aspects of revolutionary strategy.

1. b) Revolutionary Consciousness

 

What is revolutionary consciousness? Does it mean understanding one’s own oppression and understanding about all types of oppression and exploitation and seeing the need for an integrated fight against them? Lenin in “What is to be done” argued that political class consciousness (i.e. a fully developed revolutionary consciousness) required understanding of and opposition to all types of exploitation and oppression. To overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism it is not enough to revolt against one’s own oppression, but to oppose the system as a whole.

In this framework the role of the revolutionary party is to provide the conscious factor in history which seeks to unify all struggles and to develop them in anti-capitalist directions. If revolutionary consciousness if not automatic or spontaneous, then it is necessary for some organisation to take revolutionary consciousness into the working class. The consciousness that workers spontaneously achieve is economist and often social-democratic. For the working class to become the ruling class in society it has to win the leadership of all oppressed layers and intermediate strata.

1. c) Workers’ Councils (Soviets)

 

Many sectors of the struggling masses, e.g. peasants, women, black people etc. are not organised in trade unions. Trade unions, therefore, reflect the sectoral struggles of groups of workers; they do not unify the whole class or the masses. This is the task of workers’ councils or soviets. Soviets are the universal form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They are composed of all layers in struggle against capitalism, can achieve the overthrow of the system and provide the participatory direct forms of democracy which can build socialism. Soviets would include representatives of housewives committees, women’s groups, tenant organisations, nursery action groups etc., as well as representatives of workplaces, unemployed workers etc. In the tasks of the period of dual power (i.e. the situation in which two forms of state, bourgeois and proletarian come to decisive conflict) (Cannot read bottom of page 13) the task of soviets should not be only to organise military affairs, distribution of food, transport etc., but also to tackle immediately the problem of childcare (and in many instances contraception and abortion) to free women to participate in the struggle and raise their own demands.

 

PRESENT CAMPAIGNS ON TYNESIDE

a) Cuts in Public Expenditure.

The cuts affect women both as employees and consumers. What we have to do, however, is not simply to demonstrate that cuts hit women hardest, but to take up their role in reinforcing the family and show how women can struggle against the cuts. Many militants will take up the struggles against the cuts without any understanding of the question of family, but taking up the fight against the cuts (particularly social services and nurseries) does lead to some discussion of the family. To fight cuts effectively one has to reject the view that is it the women’s responsibility to provide community care for the sick, old, mentally ill etc. Work around the cuts thus provides us with an opportunity to educate wide layers of the vanguard on the question of the family. For women to participate in fights against the cuts requires organisation at the level of the workplace and community. It is not enough, however, for women to take part, they must also lead these struggles. For instance, at the North Tyneside Council Meeting, where the Housing Campaign was thrown out of the Council Chamber, most of the tenants were women. They were very militant, but the men did all the public speaking. Positive discrimination in favour of women, encouragement to speak help with preparation etc. is needed to overcome this sort of problem.

1. b) Unemployment

Here we have to campaign for the Right to Work for Women both at a programmatic level and in terms of practical implications for campaigns against unemployment. For instance campaigns against unemployment should take up cases where women’s jobs are threatened, e.g. civil service, teaching, nursing, textiles, service industries. When campaigning for training, apprenticeships, more jobs, etc., we should demand 50% of them be allocated to women. Documentation is needed on the number of women unemployed, inequality in benefits, rate at which women become unemployed etc. Campaigns also need to stress the need for abortion, contraception and childcare facilities as essential for a Woman’s Right to Work. We also need to respond to proposals to “solve” the problems of youth unemployment by sacking all married women.

1. c) Anti-fascist/Anti-racist Campaign

While it is obvious to many that fascist movements are racist, it is often less obvious that they are sexist. For fascists women’s chief (often only) role is as breeders of the master race. Therefore fascists oppose abortion, sexual freedom, women working outside the home, etc. and seek to reinforce the family and repressive sexual morality. This means that, as with racism, they take up themes which have a deep resonance in a working class imbued with imperialist and sexist ideology. Workers do not support fascists just because they are unemployed and live in slums. These are significant material factors, but the appeal of fascists also depends upon deeply ingrained reactionary ideas. There is nothing incompatible with being a revolutionary socialist and saying that the mass of the working class is deeply (though not irremediably) racists and sexist. Response to racism comes from a long imperialist cultural heritage. Response to sexism comes from the way working class existence is structured by the family. A man goes to work to support his family; he looks to family life for comfort and relaxation; family maintains personal identity. Thus the slogan of the defense of the family rallies many men and also many women, for whom the family is perceived as an escape from low-paid boring work. The anti-fascist vanguard has to discuss and come to terms with the question of the family to combat fascism successfully.

On the questions of anti-fascist/anti-racist struggles we have to fight to win the campaign to take an orientation to black women, particularly Asian women, who, because of their oppressed position in the family, may be ignored in such struggles. For instance it is not the case that only black youths have been subject to racist attacks. Attacks have also been made on black women, but as these have included sexual attacks, the women have not reported them. It is therefore difficult to assess the extent of attacks on black women. It is not the case that the extremely strong family structure of the Asian community is an impassable barrier to Asian Women taking part in struggles. At the Imperial Typewriters Strike, Asian women played a leading role. This example has to be discussed and analysed by the anti-fascist vanguard.

Liz Lawrence

(Newcastle International Marxist Group)

 

 

SUMMARY OF THE DISCUSSION

1. Wearing different hats

Although we often feel torn about raising ‘women’s issues’, most sisters felt that their confidence had grown with the growth of the Women’s Movement. We were at least able to identify sexist remarks at meetings even if we did not always feel that we could challenge them.

Several other instances of sexism at socialist/trade union meetings were cited – male comrades not taking creche arrangements seriously – like union branches adjourning to men only bars, thereby effectively excluding women from the camaraderie and informal decision making of the trade union movement. A particularly striking example of sexism was mentioned by two Newcastle women.

After picketing, a crowd of men and two women went into a bar, the barman served the men but refused to serve the women – the majority of the men left with the women but half a dozen reused to leave the bar, they didn’t see the reason why they should.

We discussed the incident at the anti-racist meeting. One sister said that though she had disagreed with the ‘comrades’ remarks she decided not to challenge them because she felt that the discussion ought to concentrate on the anti-racist campaign that they were there to organise. She said that if we took issue with every sexist remark, we could get side-tracked. Other sisters wondered if she was implying that women’s issues were secondary in taking this attitude. She replied that she felt that we had to weigh up the situation at the time. She pointed out that there were other people in the meeting to take up his sexism.

1. b) Are feminist politics secondary to socialist politics

 

Why are we reluctant to raise women’s issues?

1. We are usually in a minority at meetings – maybe the only women there
2. We feel that we would not get support from other sisters at the meeting
3. Recognised ‘socialist’ politics are felt by the majority at the meeting to take precedence over ‘feminist’ politics – so we are very conscious of being labelled as ‘the one who always brings up the women’s issue.’ In many cases these are regarded as either trivial or irrelevent so we are frightened of appearing idiotic.

Attitudes of the left

 

Though most left groups and the labour party recognise that there are women’s issues, they often feel that mere recognition is enough. It is left up to the women to get on and organise around the,. Women’s issues are not seen as integral to the struggle for socialism; as integral to the current campaigns against the cuts, unemployment and racism.

Non-sexist attitudes and behaviour has not yet become a way of life for the male left. Socialist men may only remember to be non-sexist when they know that there are feminists present who will challenge their sexism.

One sister said that a left group might latch on to a particular issue because it has become fashionable – a kind of bandwagon effect – like the abortion campaign. But when the abortion campaign was taken up it was reduced to a workerist outlook, the group concerned did not enrich its socialism with a feminist perspective – rather abortion became a class issue rather than a ‘women’s issue’.

Is this because we haven’t yet presented any underlying socialist feminist theory that the left can take up women’s issues in this way? Or is it due to the male bias of the left groups themselves?

The real question is what do we all mean by socialism – do we mean ‘workerism’ or do we envisage a total struggle around all aspects of our lives. We had a long discussion about Workplace ‘versus’ community politics and organisation.

Some sisters argued that socialists had to organise at the workplace because that was where the mass base was – it was pragmatically easier than trying to mobilise women tied to their kitchen sinks. Also the organised working class would form the spearhead of the coming revolutionary struggle and we ought to concentrate our resources there. This did not mean that we should restrict our activities to questions of pay and conditions but rather that we should raise consciousness amongst the working class and its organisations on other issues like racism, sexism and struggles taking place in the community.

Against this, other women felt that whilst the organised working class with certainly play the leading role in the revolution, the ‘community’ type issues and the struggles around them would constitute a growing challenge to the State itself and that it was these issues that most concerned women. Thus the crucial importance of women and women’s issues to the growth and development of the revolutionary movement. A campaign against education cuts, say, was a campaign directly against the State.

We need a coherent theory of the family and its role in capitalist society and an analysis of the importance of ‘community’ politics in its relation both to the Women’s Movement and to shop floor struggles,

 

1. Where do we go from here

Women should give each other more support at meetings, perhaps we could caucus before any particular activity to discuss our intervention to ensure that various workshops are covered, that amendments are submitted, that sisters are supported by each other when raising women’s issues.

We must try to build up our numbers in political groups and trade unions so that we are not the lone womens issue speaker at every meeting. Locally, we must encourage men to participate in the women’s liberation and socialism course so that they behind to see the importance of women’s issues to the general struggle.

We decided to organise a regional conference to discuss more fully the role of women in the family and the community. We would link this theory to specific local campaigns and we would invite men and women involved in those campaigns to participate.

This afternoon’s discussion was so productive that we decided to continue the regional meetings of the socialist current, the next meeting to be on October 23rd in Sunderland. The Sunderland sisters to decide subject and venue.

 

We have heard from the Manchester and District Women & Socialist Group who have been meeting since August. So far they have had three meetings with an attendance of about thirty.

The group has decided to look at specific topics like Health, Education, Sexuality, Economics, etc., and try to work out a socialist feminist perspective for them.

Firstly, they looked at health, dealing with the NHS – the cuts, women working in the NHS, the relationship between worker in, and consumer of the health services, self-help groups, and the state-financed Community Health Centres.

The discussion tended to polarise into those who felt it was necessary to develop a strategy for fighting the cuts and defending the existing health services, and those who first priority was fighting for an improved health service, who were dissatisfied with the flaws in the services provided.

By the end of the meetings everyone felt that it was worth struggling to synthesise these views through the Women and Socialism Group. An effort was made to combine both approaches and by the end of the meeting, although there were the differences, everyone felt that it was worth struggling to reach such a synthesis; that there was an urgent need to develop a socialist feminist perspective through meetings of the Women and Socialism Group.

Yorkshire Women & Socialism   (extract from WIRES No.15)

Having been selected (arbitrarily!) as Yorks co-ordinator… I can see no sign of any functioning women and socialism groups, although there were plenty of Yorks women at the National Conference Workshops. Hence something of a vacuum! Many socialist women here in Sheffield seem to be up to their eyes in campaign work; we could probably use some general discussion, but would sisters choose to commit time to this….? (I’m investigating the idea via local newsletter, talking to people etc.) What about York, Leeds, Hull, Pontefract etc..?

Is organising regional and local discussions in the WLM itself more important than doing this just within the socialist current? What do sisters think about doing both/either – how do the two relate to each other?

What local W. & S. groups do exist in the region?

Is discussion via the W. & S. newsletter and Wires as much as we want just now?… or could we use e.g. one of the suggestions made at Newcastle – a regional meeting on a specific topic like abortion?

….Feedback please. In Sisterhood, Jenny Owen.

 

***

 

EUROPEAN FEMINIST SOCIALIST CONFERENCE – is still in PARIS, bit the date has now changed … 1977

The 3 broad themes of the Paris conference will be

Women and work

Women and the class struggle

International solidarity

And we in England are making representations to the Planning group to have workshops at the conference relating to the following topics:-

National abortion campaign

Working women’s charter

Gay politics and the lesbian left

Alternative childcare

Women’s Aid

Chilean Women’s solidarity group

Spain and Women against fascism

Women in left groups

Immigrant Women

Women in minority nations (Wales, Basque, Brittany etc)

Women in Ireland

Women’s periodicals

Equal Pay, Unemployment

Women’s Health

Women in rural areas

These are only some of the possible topics that we in Britain could contribute to, and hopefully short papers (about 1 page each) are being prepared for each. These will be circulated for comment, amendment etc. to anyone who wants them.

 

At the moment there are meetings at the London Workshop for anyone who is interested in helping with preparation or who just wants to know about the conference. To women outside London, we are very sorry that the meetings have to be in London on a weekday at the moment (because of booked Saturdays mainly), but PLEASE, if you want to help, or perhaps write something for the conference or whatever, write to the address and we will keep in touch!

Particularly, if anyone has ideas about what a socialist feminist is, or should be, write down and send them to us!

Finally, a plea for financial help! At the moment, money for postage is coming out of my own pocket and there are more than 60 women on the mailing list and we don’t know who of those is still interested in the conference. If you are interested therefore and want to receive papers and further details, please send a supply of stamped addressed envelopes or a small donation. From now on we will have to stop sending out info so indiscriminately, although we will of course continue to put things in the workshop newsletter and Wires.

In sisterhood,

Barbara Yates

 

(Note: Any communication to SCARLET WOMEN should be accompanied by a SAE as we have no funds for postage at the moment.)