Government is encouraged' because women are not accepted as a legitimate part of the workforce.
They either work, so the story goes, to supplement the family income or to get a bit of extra cash for themselves or their kids. It doesn't matter that a greater number of women are being forced to go to work because of the rising cost of living, or that it is virtually impossible for most working class families to survive on one intry. "status as men's jobs This is why women have to go to work, because it is not just unemployment that is hitting women hardest. There is the farce of the equal pay the threats on abortion rights and the cancellation of the The cuts in education and social services have an equally drastic effect.
Part-time teachers are being sacked and the majority of these are women.
Nurseries are being slashed, and this affects both the jobs of nursery nurses and working mothers who need to find somewhere to leave their children during the day. Then there are the cuts in the health service, where many of the services cut-such as abortion clinics or family planning servicesIt is not accidental that these specific attacks on women are taking place at the same time as the old reactionideas about a woman's role in are being regurgitated. idea is that a woman's role is in the women only work to pin money', that if anyone is to lose a job it should be women. The media been full of horror stories about Trico, brentord.
saving tips for "housewife' who has to make do on a Even Archbishop Coggan has been ment's evidence.
proposed that a Ministry of the Family should be set up to check the Trico strikers. *growing tide' of promiscuity, pornogWomen have traditionally formed a reserve army of labour, to be fed in and out of industry according to the changing needs of capitalism. Additionally, the jobs women do tend to reflect the role they play in the family -caring, cooking, washing, and generally servicing. This in turn reinforces the conception of what women are capable of doing or even like doing.
All this is compounded by the fact that women's jobs are lower paid and often not in the mainstream of indus- ing They do not carry the same the demand for a woman's right to work is quite fundamental to the struggle for women's rights. As is reflected in the demands of the Working Women's Charter, equality for women is impossible unless they are given the opportunity to free themselves from the ties and responsibilities of the family. Adequate childcare provisions, free contraception and abortion on demand, equality of opThe biggest certainty since waves swept over king Canute, was connirmed last week wner an Industrial Tribunal ruled in favour of management over the equal pay strike at West London. Despite agreeing that there was no difference between une work une men ou ana me women did, the Tribunal accepted in entirety the management's case and in the hearing itself the Tribunal members did not even ask one question which challenged the manageBut the judgement is not a defeat for the As a statement from the District Committee of the AUEW says, it 'confirms the correctness of our decision not to appear in front of the Industrial Tribunal'. In boycotting the Tribunal, the Trico workers
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