slave-owner, wife and all the slaves as one basic social and economic unit.
The family plays many important functions for the ruling class today. It is no longer the unit for economic production it was in the early days of capitalism, when all members of the family worked none cloth, making chains, and so on. But it still has a vital economic role.
The family of the classes. todav reproduces for capitalism. small unit, on its own, is responsible for the over-all well-being of both today's workers and those of the future. And it produces workers to suit the system. The family system is a repressive and conservative institution that reproduces within itself the hierarchical, authoritarian necessary to the maintenance of class society as a whole. at tosters the possessive, competitive, and aggressive attitudes which are necessary to perpetuate class divisions.
The bourgeoisie and even sections of the petit bourgeoisie defend the family for it is une mechanism through with their private property can be passed on.
Because women's 'natural' place is supposed to be in the family, this enables the ruling class to maintain a pool of low-paid, TeSCEYC skilled, and dispensable labour which is vital to the irrational fluctuations of the economy. Women are relied on to take employment in sectors which are extensions of their role in the family, such as caring, teaching, cleaning, restaurants.
The family as a unit is álso a consumer for the myriad of products produced under capitalism for profit. A glance at any modern advertising material indicates that this potential promotion experts - whether it be cosmetics to catch a husband, spray polish to brighten the family home, or anti-depressants to make its isolation bearable:
Of course, the inequalities in this situation are hidden, and the Church and the media are determined to see they remain that way. Just as the state appears to be neutral, life-long sacrifice husbands, and the elderly is made to seem natural'. democracy that appear to exist are systematised and promoted by the bourgeoisie, thus obscuring nature of relationships society.
The family, in reproducing this ideology, further denegrates women. For example, women's sexual desires and expression hardly exist - if the dominant notions in society are to be believed. She is seen to have sexual relations only to fulfill her 'natural' instinct as a child bearer And even if sexual relations for women aren't so directly linked to procreation, the role of women is reduced to giving pleasure to men Lesbianism doesn't fit so it is labelled as 'unnatural', and 'perverted".
ideology does simply 'keep women in their place. It weakens the working class as a whole by strengthening propertyless future This Te anons also little• MARTIN SLAVIN women's charch.
equality and cucouldec.
THE the POWER in class are striving What Have Unlike primitive mass of the into this daily life.
more than the drive Civisions wile 205 Hook Road, Chessington, Surrey.
wages, and welfare needs as 'luxuries' women. to be dispensed with. It is this kind of weakness in the working class that the bourgeoisie is only too happy to STRUGGLE FOR STATE cutterences AS REVOLUTIONARY socialists, to achieve the liberation of human life from all forms of oppression and exploitation festered and flourished since the dawning of class society.
and pre-class of state power societies, the productive forces of today's society - and the technical, scientific and cultural capacities of its members - have the potential for the people exercie collective control over all aspects of This potential for human liberation economic is blocked at everv turn bv a socia system in which the production and whole, reproduction of life is determined br accultulatc and appropriate capital, and not by the The possibilities of women gaining independence and confidence Part enormous in a society which develops its productive forces so that inequality is eradicated. Safe and effective birth control; mechanisms to eliminate the relevance of. all historically evolved socialised childcare, laundry, and restaurants, will all become possible.
Whether they are realised, depends upon the conscious efforts of the autonomous women's movement vitally necessary even after the seizure - in tackling not only material basis of women's oppression but also the ideological baggage of capitalist societies which will stubbornly persist.
Unless we recognise now that an integral part of the transformation of society is the transfer of social and functions borne by the individual family unit to society as a women's liberation will recede well into the distant future even after the working class has seized state power.
in society. The toothless measures of the Sex Discrimination Act bear this out.
Stalinism has erious problem. When the women' movement emerged, the policy of the Communist Party of Great Britain was to defend the nuclear family as a basic unit in socialist society. The CP maintained that the family was a working class could be a haven from the pressures of the class struggle.
These policies first appeared in the working class as the stalinist degeneration set in in the Soviet Union. reinforced the familv for many the same reasons it is maintained bv capitalist society — as a means of inculcating attitudes of submission to and privileges of a minority. And so the gains made by women in the 1917 revolution in the Soviet Union were rolled back. Bolshevik policies which fundamental problems of strategy confronted in the movement's activity was needed. From this, the socialist feminist network was set up at the 1976 WEM COHICICHICC Woman, the socialist newsletter, and regional conterences and workshops were organised.
was different January's conference of the socialist current in Mance on Most conference hoped a discussion on socialism TEHRISE provide some answers to the problems confronting them in struggle.
earlier socialist discussions were largely attempts by Marxists in the WLM to apply their analysis to the movement's debates.
ine renor socialist current has grown out of developments in the WLM itself. Its links with the WL places it in a good position to spread its ideas about a socialist strategy for women's hoeration to the movement.
The present debates start from a criticism of sections of the socialist movement which reduce the struggle for women's liberation to the narrow confines of the economic struggle of WOrKIng class workplace.
However, the basis of agreement within the current is at a very elementary level. The importance of a class struggle against capitalism recognised. But, its relationship to the hattie for women's iberation is tar from clear.
The meaning of feminism' remains undefined. some women it is an alternative to the political strategies revolutionary left, involving radically new demands and actions, even to the exclusion of women from left groups.
For others, the renewed confidence and strength of the socialist current offers good possibilities movement as a whole to develop clear links with an anti-capitalist struggle. Through its influence on the labour and socialist movements, women feel that the WLM can ensure its struggles are fully integrated.
This debate was inadequately developed during the socialist feminist conference. recognised this failing. The debate on theory and strategy will continue therefore through the Scarlet Woman journal and conference, after a further year of local and regional discussion.
The lessons to be learned from this welcome debate are relevant to the discussion agitating socialist movement. organisations cannot be content to comment from the sidelines. have a responsibility to contribute to promoted osed an equall aununics.
burdens discarded.
stronghold, which megiumacy process of seen as a The bureaucracy ICCOnSLrUCHOl perpetuating the bureaucracy oppression.
Party, Scarlet feminist bourgeois miserably failed. about the transformed, women at the women's would The feminist family.
Darty whole groups. the movement groups 'socialist For offered by the actions TOr the The scope THOSE raisce bul Most national women Revolutionary They women free, legal abortion, benefits, communal houses, public eating places, central nurseries and other measures to liberate women from the of domestic labour were The rehabilitation of the the ly is: the Soviet Union began. in the abortions were abolished in 1936;
reappeared; wedding rights and marriage ceremonies were again instituted; homosexuality wa made a criminal offence in 1934; and non-reproductive sexuality came to be deviation from socialist Women The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe remain oppressed today. They are still responsible for domestic labour in individual family units. According to an official Soviet census in 1970, 90 per cent of all urban women between the ages of 16 and 54 hold jobs outside the home. Yet the average • Soviet voman spenas tour to seven nours lay on housework, in addition t eight hours on an outside job. An important component of the political revolution needed to overthrow the will thus be women fighting to end the double day of work and all other vestiges of their The emergence of the women's movement in Britain has made an impact on the crisis-ridden Communist Party. The CP, unlike the Labour officially recognises SEne existence of the women's liberation movement. But the policies of the CP cannot change in any fundamental way wnie it remains nea to une interests of the bureaucracy in the And to dare, on une Vita question of the need to destroy the WICE SCCKS reinforce the family, the CP has It not only argues mistakenly that bourgeois be but like the Labour Party has been totally unable to address itself to the material roots of oppression in the family.
CP has Decont
exclusively concerned with changes in atutude ana personal relauons in tac With the tailure of the main organisations of the working class to champion women's liberation, it is surprising that women who began to organise against their oppression in the late '60s did so response to the inadequacies of the left. Even today, economism persists. Some sects still dismiss the women's movement as petit bourgeois. And the Socialist Workers Party; although it now recognises the need for a broad women's movement, insists it be tied to their party through Women's Voice nus une 'Women's Voice movement' is projected as a parallel one to the women's movement under the control of the SWP.
•Une women's liberation quite strategies. The movement appeared in the militant days of struggle in the late WCIC across the country: including groups for study, self-help, consciousness raising, and The wave of unleashed by womer demanding their liberation followed an important equal pay strike at Fords Dagenham, and of the campaigning activity by the National Joint Action Council for Women's Equal Rights, which had similarities with today's Working Women's Charter Campaign.
of actions taken by women for their rights at work made it clear that the new consciousness along wolnch was disappear overnight. Working class were influenced by the militant upsurge of the '60s and they, too, through their unions and other working class organisations, demanded their rights as women.
It was on the question of how to make this challenge effective and how to take the feminist struggle forward that differences have emerged in the movement hor raocal Tem sE and men make up two antagonistic classes. wolen s ol pression arises thanks to attempts by the dominating male class to maintain patriarchal and sexist relations. In other words as long as men have existed, so too has the subjugation of The common feature of all radical feminists is that they analyse women's olasession as separate frey. the class re anons society. struggle for socialism has no place in their strategy, and their concern for unity among all women leads them to see Changes lifestyle perspective for struggle, over above alliances with the working class ind other oppressed groups who ar Iso seeking to eradicate capitali society.
The strategy offered by radical feminists rests on the assumption that WORCH share identical their class. surprising, therefore, that the more extreme wing this advocates a separate life from men as the route to liberation.
A critique of radical feminism has emerged within the movement itself, from the socialist feminist current. reminists in unis current are equally concerned the Marxist method 'What's Left' on page 10 for further details.
politics perspectives. The first organised by socialist concerned domestic labour. It is in this area of analysis, especially on the related women's oppression, which Marxists ideological have been weakest on.
Through these debates, Marxists will be able to arrive at a more enriched understanding oppression of women.
ways. ior example, in wach society uses social, cultural, and psychological mechanisms bourgeois démocracies to perpetuate women's oppression? Many critics of Marxism have turned to Freud's theories psychoanalyst.
investigate this question.
have arisen when concepts are used to explain, rather than simply describe, the nature of women's oppression.
Very often these debates have started from the assumption that patriarchy - male-dominated family forms existed before class society. The drawn are different from those of the radical feminists: patriarchal relations once again become a parallel form oppressive relations, independent of the class struggle. is that it fails to look at the plight of women historically, to see the specific form oppression takes in each epoch.
It's a bit too easy just to put women's oppression down to nation! And when concepts are used to scientifically explain women's oppression, it ofte interests, comes back to the familiar idea that i exists thanks to women's biological makeup or their innate psychological current drives.
parallel to the class struggle not a central part of it - then it's not women's going too much further to see the movement as politically autonomous from the struggle. Thus there is the idea that and organisation is necessary Detail from hessian-mounted collage created by Margaret Harrison from the 'Women at Work' exhibition now on at Battersea Arts Centre, Lavendar Hill, SW11. Harrison's montage exposes the plight of women homeworkers. See workerist debate liberation oppression of women by aspects of into a political party which saw based and united, What are the forces women.
advanced LIBERATION MOVEMENT 'AUTONOMY'" MEANS Problems who need to psychoanalytical Headersho in them revolutionary workers' COT The danger in this kind of approach way.
Sexist male domi- by the psychoanalytical If women's struggle is regarded as and confidence separate political leaderships interests - Devone антотансан develops.
Class After the WITn aspect example, challenge 1959 Wages councils actions on important light lor to the because acuvIsts.
our the social movement for women's THE WLM to eradicate sexual men This is a dangerous perspective. If ialists the movement were transformed purpose as being separate from the class struggle, it would be weakened ana incapable or becoming oroadi division.
ready / to forge unity with other social and political involving both men and THE AUTONOMOUS WOMEN'S maids, self-government. In other words, it is women take control and struggle for liberation. Support for the autonomous women's movement - whether it be the right of women to meet in women's only groups or for action groups such as the National Abortion Campaign — is a vital part of the programme. Today, foundations movement remains BATTLE OF IDEAS supplement 9 March 1978 page 3 influenced by the ideas promoted by -the ruling class whic! SCt primarily as mothers and wives. The bureaucracy of the labour movement is quite content to keep things this divisions weaken the working class not only in its efforts to confront the bosses, but they can also help reinforce the privileges i enjoyec bureaucracy itself. The undemocratic nature of the workers' movement makes it difficult to turn the tide within the unions.
In preparation for a superior form of democracy in socialist society, well as to advance women's struggles, n important part of the figl for orking class democracy is the rig of women to organise independently of the bureaucracy and discuss apart male workers WInG hold sexist ideas. This helps women to gain and - TOTCE SEnE represent These problems won't disappear struggle Even when the working has established own democratic organs of power which challenge those of the bourgeoisie, the naterial basis of women's oppressio ind the ideas to sustain it will persis overthrow of capitalism choices will still have to. be made about where resources are allocated. The autonomous women's movement meld ore omen are not swept aside.
of women are not swept aside. today's ae vance. productive forces and a new level of feminist consciousness that go well beyond what was possible in Soviet Union in 1917, revolutionaries are better equipped to confront the inequities suffered by women in every their existence. For the Bolsheviks generally accepted a sexual division of labou which continued to assign women te staffing the child care centres collective laundries. Thanks to the •ov une women. movement today, these tasks are no longer automatically regarded as the 'natural' duty of women.
The wavs women organise nov and during the transition to socialism - will vary immensely. Autonomous organisation will involve campaigns caucuses in the unions, consciousness raising groups, and so on. Not all of these groups exclude men. Indeed, the organisation of mixed campaigns and 'women's issues are an indication commitment to seek unity everyone prepared to join in the class struggle in a way which integrates the women's liberation But whatever the form this might take, i is up to women to take the leadership in the fight for their liberation The commitment of revolutionarie autonomous movement isn't something we agree with today, bke dismiss tomorrow economistic currents on the left, we don't condemn the movement as an irrelevant petit bourgeois formation 'middle class Rather than simple tactical orientation, our commitment stems from the contribution we see the movement making in confronting the bourgeois state and in reaching political goal universal liberation.
SOCIALIST STRATEGY FOR SOC seek to build the broadest possible movement of recognising that women as a sex are oppressed by class society we can't brush aside the effects of class Sexism is experienced in qualitita tively different ways by differen classes of women. It is possible for women of the ruling class to alleviate the privaused nature or domesur labour, for example, by employing sending children to public schools, or investing in labour-saving devices And thev are auite able to control their fertility by a visit to the private clinics of Harley Street That's not to suggest that thes women won't be drawn to the rank of the women's movement. In Britain it hasn't occurred yet, but as feminist ideas penetrate deeper it could. But struggle for women's liberation begins to challenge the very of class society, these women will have to choose between
the dominant class relations from which they benefit, and the struggles being led by women to put an end to une class and is state wnich oppresses them.
These women will loin movement on the basis of agreement with its six demands, along with a lot rangther pritical hold Should political views. revolutionaries support the unity of the movement, or simply be satisfied with becoming active in the socialist current? In our view, to join with only self-professed socialists weaken the movement as a whole. If the socialist current separated from the WLM tomorrow logic if one argues that the rest of the movement should be ignored - much SIES sondanity imagination would dissipate.
The unity of the movement today around demands which take struggle for women's liberation forward can lay the basis for confident fighting and immensely larger movement tomorrow. issues. such as rape, first taken up by radical feminists, have had enormous impact in society. although serious criticisms made of the strategy put forward on the issue of rape, any differences can be better resolved within a common movemen miss especaly ue cast when the movement is in ferment and cicar ponacal arternauves nave nol yet crystallised.
Agreement on the six demands of the WLM does not necessarily give the mic. But insofar as it was born in the midst of the youth radicalisation of the late '60s — with its challenges to hierarchy, authority, attitudes, and the distortions society imposes on all forms of daily life -we can at least say it has a disposition to develop with this dynamic.
As the class struggle develops, this will be mirrored in the movementse ano une seal tor unity action with Cao lausE Torces — mier are women. through debate and clarification on a strategy for liberation. the socialist current of the women's movement can help win the within the movement to a socialist strategy.
This will strengthen and bring more forces into broader struggles. this lays the basis for raising demands for the needs of women in • these broader struggles those against racism against une urunwick bosses, and so on. This is the best way to ensure the deas or une women s movement are spread far and wide.
Revolutionaries have an important role both within the socialist current broader MOYCHICHIL. arguing for our programme of action independent of the ruling class and its revolutionaries seek to activists to our ideas. It is through the active struggles waged movement that the different strategies will be tested. This will force the petit bourgeois or bourgeois forces in the movement to choose whether to link up with the working class as the only means or acmeving noeranon.
However broad we may try to build the WiM. we can't pin our present hopes on numerically increasing the involvement of working class womer in local groups. When working class WHICH OCCU challenge oppression, they often see the unions, tenants associalluls groups, or even the Labour Party as their terrain of struggle. For these woleh, immediate there identification often which sharply uvea up to in many cases.
terraola London this the DarL of the fully HOL immediately because of their sex.
would and this is the and the Many And can bureaucratic women's other broadest torces anti-capitalist such as and fascism, By win by the their is not an with the challenges responsibility which the WLM has not weneed only look at the activities planned for month to see how WLM. failed approach many women who might understand, the full demands of the movement. Yet many of these women are fighting hard battles against injustices they face Whatever the form this broad radicalisanon may take, me wEM needs to maintain — and even step up - 1is тасрепасп аспупу. A ngnung force of women determined to put an ena to une oppressive Tamuy walch class society has forced on them can only give a spur to women struggling 'Police protect pornography', chanted women marching in London to celebrate International Women's Day. When women began to put This exploits women' stickers on the sexist Jaffa orange squash hoarding, police moved in to around specific issues in the labour movement united Callpaleus such as thes Abortion Campaign.
THE REVOLUTIONARY PARTY AND THE WLM THE REVOLUTIONARY PARTY The WLM movement which seeks to eradicate sexual, cultural, social and economic oppression faced by women. entails confronting the state, so the movement cannot remain politically autonomous from the class struggle. Ultimate success requires unity with every force out to end the power of the bourgeois state.
But to say that the women's EXP - S movement has a political link with the front class struggle and snoula notignore H National is quite should therefore be organisationally tied to political parties, trade unions or any other body which appears to share some or all of its aims. Any successful effort to take over the women's movement organisationall would disastrous! struggle for liberation - even if the agreed!
MOYCHCHE revolutionaries can best influence the This WLM is by democratic right to present their ideas to the movement, and through debate and activity, winning women to them.
The party can't substitute itself for the WLM. It has a very limited and specific role: to synthesise the experiences of struggle into a protect this degrading image of women.
The marchers refused to leave, and the police were To centaneon men waran cerence. different from arguing weaken The way The party arguing for the OT questions power revolutionary niernanonally This has state against muggers •UnE confidence. pating CUBe centrality BATTLE OF IDEAS supplement 9 March 1978 page 4 programme of action and demands capable of unleashing a battle agains the right of the bourgeoisie to dominate and control all areas life. The party fights for within all movements struggles aid them recognising the nature of bourgeois domination and to win them to the need to challenge capitalist relations and ultimately to seize state power is united and on fundamental agreement - that is its political programme. On a wide range Vol neory, history, aesthetics, philosophy, etc, the party takes no line Policies taken by the revolutionary party, on the contrary, relate to one limited concern — how to get from today's struggle to the seizure of state On a whole range of questions revolutionaries consciously do not adopt a political line. Furthermore, even where revolutionaries agree on a line, it doesn't mean they have all the answers! What we do have is method of approaching the struggle and an overall strategic framewor which links present struggles with the seure or state dower. rough ou organisation we are able to synthesise of all our militants, and can share our assessment and policies on a wide range of issues which the WLM is beginning to take up - like thi anti-imperialist struggles, racism, and Because the IMG is the only group on the far left which is part of a sections in over 60 countries, we also have the benefits and experiences of struggles in which our comrades, all over the world have engaged in. It is the responsibility of revolutionaries, therefore, to ensure that perspectives adopted by the women's movement don cur across me reces o ouie sections of society either in Britain or lappened. It is on ecessary to recall the support whi some feminists first gave to the Peace People in Ireland or the lack of sensitivity in the rape actions to the racist witchhunts launched by the the so-called black The relationship between members of a revolutionary organisation and the WLM isn't a one-way process. The development of the revolutionary programme is not drawn from the air or from 'holy texts'. It is drawn from ne mose avance expenerces struggle and debate in movements lik WLM. anvolvemen women members of a party in the WLM not only gives them individual but by bringing their experiences back to the organisation, it strengthens the party itself The fact that we are scheduled to discuss at the IMG conference this year such a wide range of aspects of women's oppression and activities is in many ways attributable to a decade of struggle and debate in the WLM.
For revolutionaries, a commitment to the class struggle and to the autonomous women's movement is inextricably linked. Actively particicampatible with membership inte WLM. revolutionary organisation as long as recognises of the struggle agains fooling ourselves, however, if we maintained that the revolutionary party was able to escape the pressures of the society in which we live. These pressures will exist even after class relations are overturned! This doesn't and put off
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