Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 23:15:43 -0800
Subject: M-G: International Women's Day Statement


"The first class opposition that ocurs in hsitory coincides with the
development of antagonism between man an woman in monogamous marriage, and
the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male."

So said Frederick Engels in his work "The Origin of Family." The oppression
of women remains directly linked with the institution of the family.
Regardless of her status in wider society, within the family, the woman's
relationship to the man became one of exploited and exploiter.

Layered onto the oppression is that of the Catholic Church in Ireland. The
Church has positively discouraged women from seeing themselves as having
their own identity and their own sexual needs. This view is reflected in the
Church's total opposition to contraception, abortion, and divorce, and to
women working. While the reactionary influence of the Church over the women
of Ireland has finally begun to ease -- with the legalisation of divorce and
abortion in the 26-counties recently, in both cases the law remains
extremely restrictive of these basic rights, and the forces of clerically
dominated reaction in Ireland are seeking to once again take away th,
already severely limited, abortion rights they have only recently obtained.

The 'Protestant North' is no better. In the six counties abortion is
illegal except on strict medical grounds, when a mother's life is in danger,
or when the fetus is deformed.

The Irish Republican Socialist Party  totally support a woman's right to
choose whether to have an abortion or not, and her complete control over her
own body. The IRSP also totally support making divorce readily available to
those who seek freedom from miserable marriage. We believe in a woman's
right to define her own sexuality, either as lesbian, bi-sexual or
heterosexual, and for an end to discrimination against lesbians in the area
of child-custody.

A wife still must have her husband's written consent in order to undergo
sterilisation in the 26-counties. In other areas of women's health, cut
backs in health, both north and south, are leading to increases in the rate
of Cervical Cancer, breast scanning facilities are almost non-existent, an
addicition to nerve tablets is on the rise as well. The IRSP is actively
involved in the campaign against cutbacks and increasing government
privatisation of health care.

Pre-school child care has been, and continues to be, grossly inadequate in
Ireland. The IRSP support the demand for the provison of free childcare
facilities for all those who wish to avail themselves of it.

Between 1982 and 1992 over 3,500 strip searches were performed on
republican and republican socialist women prisoners, and after all of that,
nothing of consequence has ever found on a prisoner. The strip-searches are
performed solely as a means to degrade and humiliate women and they remain a
regular feature of the everyday experience of republican and republican
socialist women prisoners. A present, Roisin McAliskey, nearly eight months
pregnant, is being held by the British Government and subjected to
ridiculously frequent strip searches. She is being held in the exclusively
male Belmarsh Prison, at the end of a 70 man block. She was placed in a cell
with feces spread on the walls and was unable to eat for three days because
of the stench. She was made to clean the walls by herself, despite her
advanced pregnancy. At nearly eight months pregnant, her own body weight now
stands at 98 pounds, yet her medical records were found to ontain a
directive from the Senior Medical Officer to all nursing staff to keep "all
contact to a minimum."

The IRSP demand the immediate granting of bail and release of Roisin
McAliskey on humanitarian grounds. We demand the immediate release of all
political prisoners in Irish jails, north and south.

Socialist struggle for the liberation of the working class, and our class
cannot be said to be free, until its most oppressed section is free. Today
women workers remain, in the words of James Connolly, "the slave of the
slave." Until women workers are liberated from capitalist exploitation and
the oppression of sexism, the working class as a whole will remain in
bondage. The fight for women's liberation, therefore, is the duty of every
socialist, men as well as women. Women have long been fully integrated into
all sections of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, its membership in
general, and its leadership as well, but ,  we in the IRSP see the
liberation of women from sexist oppression to be the responsiblity of all of
our members, regardless of their gender. 

On this, International Women's Day, 1997, the IRSP salute the working women
thoughout the globe who fight for their freedom as women, and for the
freedom of their class, and we rededicate ourselves to the struggle for
Irish national liberation, socialism, and women's liberation.

Una McKee
Irish Republican Socialist Party



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