welcome the opportunity W munist women's position vis the Socialist Feminist current in the Women's Liberation Movement to state our own stance, although we are limited in this both by shortage of space and by the somewhat confused nature of the original critique.
We can summarise the arguments of the authors, Cath Cirket and Val Coultas as follows:
1) The family is the principal institution of women's oppression. The basis of women's oppression is material, ie. the sexual division of labour within the family, This matersal oppression is "reflected" in sexist "ideologs".
2) Given that the family constitutes the fundamental block to women's liberation, it must be removed, i.e. abolished. The material preconditions for its abolition are only possible under a new system of production, le.
3) Since women's liberation is materially tied to socialist revolution, there can be по separation of tasks of Socialist Feminists from revolationary socialists as a whole. 4) The failure of feminists in the CP to understand the material roots of women's liberation has its political consequenoes in the reduction of political struggle vis the WIM to " ideological" exposure of sexism and women's rights, missing out the need for a united fight for women's liberation politically in the labour movement. This then leads to missing the potestial of the women's movesent as 8 spearhead' in the struggle for socialism and the need for socialist Feminists to fight for this position within the WIM.
the CUECUUCUCLS of this approach, in terras of what it says of the ING'S 1) Your model of the family never analyses the conditions of existence of material ppression. You have no politics NOw far th amily. sexuality, personality, consciousness o the sexual division of labour (and in that sense TOIL TERENCES with the whole tenor of the WIM). We, on the other hand, believe these must be integrated into revolutionary practice and strategy if these are to represent women.
2) The ING strategically expounds political Tuture for the WIM.
TALOBOMUUS effectively collapsing it into a ginger group of the labour movement under the guidance of a revolutionary elite. However, only formally respect the autonomy of the WLM, we believe in it. An autonomous women 8 movement must be, in our view, an essential nocdium for women as a political force 3) The IMG still sticks to a concept of revolution as a cataclysmic moment deronated by the revolutionary vanguard. This means that they never tackle the problem of consciousness or movements as mass, autonomious sources of political initiative. In the Communist Parcy, we reject vanguard elitism, we see revolution as a process, as mass politics - mass movemenis of conscinusness and action towards control, in which independent political forces come together in a political formation.
Now we would like to go into a little more detail about our points of difference.
The Family:
We were a bir stunned thar your only reference to revolutionary socialism and the family seems to be the Communist Manifesto of 1848. However, forgiving that, we agree that the family is an important starting point. Any women must incorporate their posicion within the working class and their position as a sex, thar means analvsis of the relations of production and the relations of reproduction, which clearly would start with the family. Bat that isn't enough. You also need to agalyse the totality of the social clations of reproduction and the social meads by which the subordination of women is vecured.
You don't consider the possibility that capitalism may dispense with the fomily for us.
and you don't discass the family's function in binding adherence to rating class ideologs.
Your sleight of hand attitade towards sexism as • bundle of ideological baggage, as simply.
obscacles, leaves you with no account of the way they are operational in the ruling class's hegemony.
Challenging sexist ideology is not just a matter of making chaps nicer, but of changing practice, an internal reconstruction of the warkers LIE CIELL. that's LICESTAUN you misunderwand Bea Campbell, Jane Roberts and Caroline Rowan Detail from photo by: LARRY HERMAN TO THE BIRTHDAY GIRL!: movement has shown the state power socialiss feminist current that would be completely inconsistent with Communist practice.
But what we do oppose is:
using socialist feminism as sanctuary fron WLM. - fight from our responsibility within the movement for its survival and expansion as a mass movement. -vanguardist capture of this or that current or campaigo by certain left groups (mentioning no mares, although most of them seem to have forsaken us in recent years.)
In this respect we share most non-aligned teminists distaste for small left groups making relendless takeover bids in the movement.
Instead, we believe socialism-feminism should be concerned with: - What do we mean by socialism? Is it che varieties hitherto on offer Feminists have long had a critique of sexist socialism, so the problem is how bat incid contribution can be located within socialist politics, within the contemporary debate aboul what constitutes a truly contemporary socialist This certaloly involves exploring relationship to the left. The dilemma which is experienced on an informal, individual leve must be integrated into our socialism- fertisen on a theoretical and strategic level.
- What is the WIM and our relation to it? After all, the ground of our existence is the WL.M, it is our referenoc point, we are of it, our socialism-feminism is within it. Yet you talk of it almost as if you were exues. but not as il you/we were the subjects who live the problem: of the movement 1oo. The movement's problems — and they are big ones — cau't be solved by evacuating into a caucus, corner o current, simply feeing from the discomfort o the movement's condition. We have to take diferences were water co wept of the concept of the revolutionary vanguard, with a hierarchy of relationships ranging from the advanced sections of the working class to the ignorant and confised masses is opposed by ours, which is a concept of a mass revolutionary party in democratic alliance with autonomous political Toroes. In essence, ours is about the creation of a new mass political formation. Your position, in our view, assumes an elite and pessive mass. Ours assumes tbe engagement of the masses.
The IMG is forced to make totally dishonest anims about the feminist impact within the CP. Firstly, you insist that the RATLY IS bureaucratie monolith, and when thar doesn'