BATTLE OF IDEAS supplement 9 March 1978 page 2 wishes or hopes. It needs hard analysis which comes to terms with how male-female reproduction combine with the total set of social relationsdominant relations of production — in society.
It isn't an easy task. It means we need to examine these historically, from preclass through the slave, feudal and capitalist forms of class society. Furthermore we need SCC women still oppressed and subjugated by the East European and Soviet bureaucracies, even after capitalist relations have been overthrown.
WOMEN'S OPPRESSION UNDER CAPITALISM WOMEN'S ROLE in the different family forms that existed throughout class society has served the interests of the ruling class. In our society, ne capitalisin advanced industrial countries, nuclear monogamous family is the unit that maintains and determines ine specinc character of women's oppression. The mother-father-children set up we are all familiar with is a far cry from the communal kinship structures of primitive societies or even the slave family already exist and opening up new OLICS. exclusively the organisers of family life, their isolation in the home can lead them to 'breadwinner' from rocking the boat at work, because of the extra burdens such achions relations household affairs.
industrial action might pay off, but it doesn't subsitute for cash in the hand for the family's food and clothing remain And it's not a long step between women SCCInE their separate breadwinner to both men and women putting the private concerns of family ife ahead of the collective interests of the working class.
The daily struggle of the working class in a time of crisis like many suffers from these notions. have working class accepts the idea that women belong in the home, it's not ditticult to understand why men and often women see the are people.
WORICI The pressure ORIC will place in managing In the long term , and social. interests those of the society by control of If the forces will women's jobs, needs and demands of the mass of the maintenance of capitalist relations depends in important ways continuing oppression women. Nevertheless the destruction of these capitalist relations is not an end in itself — it simply removes the major barrier to the achievement of our longer term goal; the liberation o humanity from all forms of apres sonian sexual, culturprecondition for women's liberation is the replacement of class collective and planned all forms of production.
Women's liberation won't automatically come about when the private ownership of the means of production is transferred to the working class as a whole. To begin with the productive need to be totally redirected and planned. This way, they will be channelled to fulfill the needs of the mass of people, including This means we need to be clear about the nature of the state we are presently up against. That the state defends capitalist relations is a point on wnich all revolutionarie agree. But the economism syndicalism of the British left has tended to reduce capitalism to the economic relations at the point of production.
Capitalism is a complex system of political, and relations. The state defends all these in the interest of capital by regulating and controlling every aspect of our existence - from supervising tamily life and stepping in with the 'welfare state' if the family fails to deliver 'the goods', more interventon m the CCUHUHLY rescuing ailing firms or using police force against pickets intervention into sexual relations of nomosexuals. This is the scope bourgeois domination revolutionarie are out to destroy, and it is against the power of the state that demands for women's liberation need to be posed It's obvious that one sector of oppressed people or even workers on their own can't successfully challenge this formidable political adversary The working class • an essential, but by no means only, component of the struggle for state power - must aim to unite all the oppressed and exploited in society. Every step along the way today's through the establishment of organs of dual power, to the final overthrow of the capitalist state, the working class must lead an struggle for a system of demands, or a programme, which can generate the unity that is vital.
Demands for the liberation of women can't therefore be separated from the political concerns of the class struggle. In place of ahistoric, ultimatistic demands to abolish the family, demands should be pursued for take responsibility, under our control, for tasks carried out today by women in the individual family unit. The family won't disappear by dictat!
It will wither away only when society as a whole assumes its collective responsibility tor member of the community. That is a central task for socialism. Placing these demands now on the capitalist state takes forward the struggle, as Lenin explained in relation to divorce: 'Marxists know that democracy does not abolish class oppression. It only makes the class struggle more direct, wider, more open and pronounced and that is what we need. the freedom of divorce, the clearer will women see that the source of their "Domestic slavery' is capitalism not lack of rights. The mere democratic the system of government, the cleare will the workers see that the root evi is capitalism, not lack of rights.' 'Divorce in this quotation can be replaced with 'childcare', 'a woman's right to choose on childbirth', 'equal pay and other demands of the women's movement.
In place of demands for the creation of new lifestyles independent ol polluical and working struggle, as radical feminists raise, revolutionaries fight to transform the daily concerns of women into a challenge against bourgeois control over them. This isn't easy especially with issues like rape and women battering. But with these quesuons well, determination to challenge weaken the bourgeois state, combined with a firm commitment to women's liberation, which underlies revolutionary approach.
For all these reasons, although it may appear a bit contradictory on the surface, revolutionaries demand; the democratic right to civil not Church marriage in Spain; resist the breaking up of Asian families through the immigration laws of the British state;
and oppose sterilisation when it is imposed by the state — as it is on Black women in Britain Revolutionaries in been slow to understand the centrality of women's liberation. What we have had to overcome is the legacy the reality today - of both social democracy and stalinism.
democracy has traditionally insisted that the unions will take economic matters, and Parliament will solve all political and social questions. The scrupulously avoids what it deems are 'personal matters' - like abortion rights, which it was only forced to take up when movement that could no longer be ignored.
When social democracy does take and up social questions in women's movement such as child care provision, it offers utterly reformist simply 'patch up' the system rather than transforming it. economic sought to achieve these more often than not through backroom wheeling and dealings with local rather than mobilising the mass of women. But even in these cases, the economism -OI blinkered its forthright struggles, and in ignoring them, the in political initiative hands of reformists.
The reformists try defenders of women's rights - but of ignore the material roots of women's oppression. more interested in changing attitudes struggles independent Socialist and the atmosphere.
why the these The fuller the 'new left' ciass women.
to face. class responsibilities a grew change - and care of Party reminists oul which the IS concerned, perspectives to And it has authorities the SATINSA orientation to these was left in the to pose as Thev have been much is rel The socialist current in the women's liberation movement is reborn. This was affirmed at the thousand-strong Feminist Conference January, at which women from the International Marxist Group partici pated. We were impressed by its size positive, supportive Thinking back to the national socialist current conferences before they collapsed in 1975, we were struck by the different flavour and content of discussion. This set us thinking -difference? has changed in the socialist current? Is it a positive or negative change?
Since the earliest days of the women's liberation movement, there has been a debate about the links between the battle for women's liberation and the struggle against capitalism. Activists during the late 60s applied the tools of Marxism to discussions, sharpened debates in the student movement and As working class struggles gathered steam in the early 70s, the WLM responded with solidarity action. And as well as discussions on the nature of domestic labour and the family in capitalist, society, there was lively debate on the links between the WLM and the organised struggles of the working class — particularly working Labour was returned to office in 1974. And women had new problems Promises of equality and independence evaporated. Attacks on living standards placed even greater on women in the family. The toothless Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination laws didn't live up promises, Government failed to lift a finger in defence of women's abortion rights against reactionary attacks.
In response the WLM vigorously campaigned on its six demands. The National Abortion Campaign, the Working Women's Charter, and actions around such issues nurseries, rape and battered women stronger. Through their experience of struggle, more and more women new to the ideas of the WLM saw the need to fundamentally society by challenging women's oppression and the class society which perpetuates it.
But these changes don't come easily. The movement was up against basic problems: the strength and political power vested in the State; the collaboration of union and labou leaders; the labour movement itsell which dismisses the plight of women experienced beyond their economic conditions at work; the inadequate perspectives for liberation offered by sections of the socialist movement Discussion and analysis of the
women's 'natural' role in the family.
We need to take the ideas of the women's movement into all working class organisauons. mn adaron tc women within these bodies — tor exampie, I women's caucuses women have been drawn to many activities: single issue campaigns, campaigns launched (however inade quately) by the leadership of mass organisations, and one-off meetings and conferences organised by WLM groups.
Women new to the ideas of the women's movement are beginning to act. And ine wEM nas a special responsibility to ensure that through debates, pampniels, and books, tne links between these specific issues and questions oppression are drawn. independently working class wide-ranging local tion.
Challenge This liberation This is being AT THE PRESENT time there is a debate within the revolutonary ett on both us portical perspectives and the way to build a new, unified revolutionary organisaOT Benne ppeared in the columns of Socialis on women's by the COTTONS contribution to this discussion.
The IMG consider.:: that the issues discussed al An invitation from the conference in April will be of interest to many on the revolutionary left. For organisations and individuals to participate in our conference of regional meetings of IMG members are being organised. The final series place on the locked of and pr following STUBUS individuals are invited to attend: Big Flame, Workers League, national Socialist Alliance, Libertarian Communist Group
Socialist Challenge supporter
The aggregates two items: tactics in the trade unions, and the next steps in building a unified revolutionary party. Regional meet ings wilbe taking following cities: London, Glasgow, If you would like to attend either Ine aggregares or the conterence mer Inter. write to: IMG, PO Box 50, London NI 2XP. Please state if you are in one and of the organisations mentioned.
revolution' can only will be discussing conduct consciously BlaC uces direction confronting them until 'after the The positive lessons of the WLM Said the organisation's method of work and its programme And the more action taken by the party in support of struggles launched by women, the more conscious all of its militants will become their ana approach -TO these questions. Every effort must be mad overcome sexist prac Steps that are taken in this should not be hidder because unthinking, backward behaviour not only degrades women, but also weakens the credibility of the ideas of the organisation as a whole.