Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 12:41:19 -0600 (MDT)
From: Ryan Daum <rdaum-AT-gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>
Subject: Re: Women's oppression




On Thu, 18 Apr 1996, Adam Rose wrote:

> We cannot simply say that because a particular battle, say for abortion
> rights, does not involve strike action by men and women, that this is
> not class struggle and therefore we don't have anything to say about it.
> Oppression of women, as of gays, or racism, need to be specifically taken
> up and fought against, at work, on the streets, wherever, whether it is
> simply challenging attitudes or fighting for particular demands ( or
> more often nowadays, against particular attacks ) against the state
> or an employer.

Two things here: I agree that, in some respects, a struggle for abortion 
rights does involve class struggle.   I also agree with the emphasis on 
putting struggles in the streets.  Unfortunately, I don't think you can 
make it this simple: while women's struggle _involves_ class struggle, it 
isn't _equal_ to class struggle; the struggle for gay rights must use 
tactic similar to those that the "working class" more broadly uses, but 
it isn't part and parcel of the same process.

The reason I think these distinctions are important goes back to some of 
the discussion Justin and you were having.  I think there is more than 
one "fundamental" contradiction going on within our culture.  While I 
wouldn't say that these struggles are reducible to struggles aroud 
_identity_ (i.e. class struggle is not a struggle over identity except in 
the most vulgar idealist terms) I would insist that identity becomes a 
central part of them.

When a gay man, or a working class woman, or a Chilean miner the world, they 
encounter it primarily around the gaps and contradictions 
which are "closest" to them in terms of their "place."  Thus, it is very 
_rarely_ the case that issues become played out in class terms.  So the 
gay man demands freedom of sexuality and a redefinition of masculinity, 
the working class woman demands daycare, abortion rights, and VERY 
important cultural issues, and the Chilean miner demands Chilean autonomy 
>from the world market.  These are not mistakes: they are expressions of 
some underlying contradictions in the most natural way possible.

It is thus completely _irresponsible_ as well as mistaken for 
revolutionary socialists to go around telling these people to put their 
focus around class interests.  In what concrete way will this help the 
struggle of the gay man?  Fighting for class unity, when that unity is 
abstract and fetishized, is just another way of making people think 
you're an arrogant fuck.  I.e. telling Quebecois workers that they should 
be fighting for class unity in the Canadian state while their real 
experience in the world shows them that their national struggle _is_ 
important in some way is a way of a) showing how marginalized your 
perspective is and b) marginalizing it further.

Where we would agree, I think, is in the necessity of taking advantage of 
the "permanent revolution" dynamic in all struggles.  National struggles 
translate into class struggles as they reach the limits (quickly) of the 
international market.  "bourgeois" feminisms quickly collapse under 
pressure when their working class constituents push the dynamic further.  
In fact, this dynamic may even bring some "bourgeois" feminists into the 
working class struggle.

But to argue that we can rotate these issues around _class_, when they 
are only _related_ a kind of perspective that I think Marx attacked when 
he attacked the Hegelian dialectic.

> Of course, some working class men are sexist. However, whatever the private
> attitudes of ruling class women in particular, and despite the sexism that
> those women face in their daily lives, they undoubtedly benefit from the 
> system that creates womens oppression. Their class does not want to provide
> free child care, their class wants to continue to pay women 2/3rds what men
> get, their class benifits from the divisions created by sexist ideas.

So working class women are better off getting mistreated by working class 
men, than fighting for their rights with their sisters?  Of course there 
are limits to what can be achieved in these organizations -- this is just 
mundane fact -- but to pose the question in its inverse, to insist upon 
class unity, and to reduce all struggles to worker's struggles is, in my 
opinion, a form of patriarchal dominance.

> This means that any particular campaign gets toned down to keep these 
> women on board. In particular, trade union banners, even when carried
> by women, are not welcomed on demonstrations, or, if they are, are
> hussled to the back of the demonstration. Demonstrations organised
> by Labour Party women have Liberal Democrat speakers. The "feminist"
> opposition to creches at work is also a reflection of these interests.

I have not experienced this -- I belong to an organization that 
explicitly calls itself socialist feminist and endorses feminist 
organizations -- it knows that many feminist organizations are fucked, 
but pushes for a "feminism from below" (to borrow IST vocabulary) in 
these organizations.  We do this in the same way that we participate in 
the trade unions or even the social democratic parties in an attempt to 
deal with _real and actual struggles_ within very "combined and 
uneven" organizations instead of sitting 
outside the struggles like street preachers waiting for the apocalypse.

Women will define their various oppressions in the hierarchy that effects 
them.  In a patriarchal society, they are _first and foremost_ oppressed 
women.  They are _not_ first and foremost working class, because that is 
not what they live concretely.. can you account for that and work with 
that, or will you ignore it?

The question is: why _is_ there a feminist movement?  Why has it 
EXPLICITLY posed itself as a reaction to "we can all work together" 
attitudes in socialist organizations in the 60s?

> On the other hand, there is a socialist strategy. The theoretical basis
> of this is that working class men have an interest in fighting against
> womens oppression. In practise, it means anti sexist men and anti sexist
> women arguing with workers to actively fight against oppression. There
> is often resistance to this, both from more backward workers and from
> Trade Union officials, who USE FEMINIST ARGUMENTS.

I agree that working class women and men have common interests in 
fighting _some_ sexisms.  Beyond that -- no way.  I think that whenever 
you try to make this kind of argument, you're covering up some aspect of 
cultural oppression without even really knowing it.

> The argument over abortion in the UK is a good exmaple of this. Between
> the mid 60's and today, socialists have won an argument that abortion is
> a class issue, so that today it is easy to get Trade Unions to call and
> organise transport for demos against attacks on abortion rights. Also,
> there was considerable opposition to clause 28, an attack on Lesbian +
> gay rights, from Trade Unions.

This is excellent, but I do not see at all how it supports your 
argument.  It demonstrates a confluence of interests, but I also think it 
shows how successful the feminist movement has been in getting its issues 
out.  I believe this kind of thing would have been impossible had there 
not been an organized, autonomous/independent feminist movement.  That's 
how those struggles were won here in Canada.

> In practise, mobilising the power of the working class as a class is
> the most effective power in fighting against sexism, whatever difficulties
> ( and these should not be over exaggerated ) this poses.

It's also the most difficult and is really the last part in a long 
history of struggles to get workers to see themselves as workers.  To 
tell a woman that she is first and foremost a _working class_ woman is to 
ignore her experience which goes far beyond class issues.

Ryan

> 
> PS.
> 
> To suggest to any female member of the SWP that they have a "watered 
> down" approach to women's liberation, or that they are in a "man's
> organization" , is liable to put you in physical danger.

I make my remarks based on the horrible record of the I.S. locally: i.e. 
the local feminist book store refuses to sell their paper now because 
they offended the woman by attacking "bourgeois feminists" in the store 
in front of everyone.  We have, in the past two years, gained many 
"working class women" members who left the I.S. because of their rotten 
experience in it.  They explicitly counterpose feminism to woman's 
liberation, which just goes to show how horrible out of touch they are 
with real woman's struggles... Whether or not the SWP has the same 
problem as its sattelites, is an issue I cannot address.

 


     --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---