women's 'problems'.
While the press made much of Thatcher's gender, however, they made no effort to seriously analyse Tory policies on women. That is no accident. Behind all the gimmicks, Thatcher's government represents a major attempt to turn back the clock on women's rights.
CUT-BACKS Geoffrey Howe's budget, last month, will hit all working people. But it will hit women hardest. As inflation zooms to an estimated 17% by the autumn, who will have to deal directly with price increases in the shops? Women.
As the cut-backs in government expenditure bite, whose jobs will be first on the line? Those in which women predominateteachers, social workers, librarians, cleaners, cooks. Cutting back on women's jobs will not only lower family income-something the Tories were supposedly so concerned about-but will particularly hit single-parent families.
As services are cut back by local councils, who will increasingly be effected? Women. Day nurseries, on which many working mothers depend, will be the first to be axed as will be hospital facilities which will make the possibility of abortions on the NHS even more difficult than now.
VALUES As women are pushed into the home through redundancies or cut-backs in nursery facilities, the Tories will, of course, escalate their talk about 're-affirming' the values of family life. In the pre-election build-up, both Thatcher During the election build-up, the press made much of the fact that Margaret Thatcher could become the first woman Prime Minister. In a deliberate attempt to swing the woman's vote behind her, she was photographed in supermarkets discussing the price of a tin of peas or carrots to show she understood and Callaghan put great store on 'preserving' the traditions of the family. "Preserving the family', however, is merely intended to justify pushing women out of the workplace and back into the often stultifying atmosphere of the 'home'.
The 'family' the Tories want to preserve is one in which women are reduced to the second-class status of man-server and babyminder, without any rights or independent life of their own.
And what type of family do the Tories wish to preserve? The family life of people crowded ten to a room in the Liverpool or Glasgow slums? The family life of child-battering or wife-beating?
REACTION The Tory ideology is very convenient at a time of rapidly-rising unemployment. It can help reinforce prejudices in the workplace that, when jobs are at stake, it is the woman's that should be the home family life goes a little further axed because her place is really 'in But the Tories 're-affirming' of than this. It is also an attempt to put forward FIGHT-BACK which were only stopped by the mass counter-offensive NAC* launched. It is almost certain that, in the coming months, Corrie's Private Member's Bill to curb the time-limit on abortions will be The Tories will, however, have a difficult task trying to push ahead with their offensive. Over the past decade, more and more women have come to reject their passive role merely as wives and mothers and have demanded the right to participate in society in their own They have defeated reactionary moves to curb abortion rights, they have joined in unions in evergreater numbers, have led battles for jobs and higher pay and have forced the Labour government to pass legislation in their interests. While relatively toothless, the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act at least acknowledge the injustices that exist.
To combat the Tory offensive, however, we cannot rest on our laurels. If we are to maintain the rights we have-and win further ones-we have to continually be Women in the public sector will have to play a major role in the fight-back against the cuts that is being developed. They have a vested interest in forcing the leadership to mount a real camJOBS paign to defend jobs and social Women in the labour force have not only got to defend jobs and conditions however. They also have to fight to win the unionsand Labour Party-to support campaigns such as NAC to protect the rights of all women in society against the Tories reactionary attempts to turn the * National Abortion Campaign.
of a much wider liberation of humanity that can only be won by uprooting capitalism.
Reed's latest work Women's Evolution was by far her most serious contribution to marxist literature. Basing herself on Engels, she showed in more detail how pre-class society was a matriarchy in which women played the predominant social role which was only whittled away by the development of early class society.
Her work-which won international acclaim-stands in the tradition of the early materialist anthropologists such as Engels, Morgan and Briffault. It directly challenged the non-historical approach of latter-day 'gurus' such as Levi-Strauss who affirm there are no recognisable 'stages in human evolution. Towards the end of her life, Reed was particularly interested in exposing the dead-end of modern anthropology and re-setting it in a materialist