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Title: Women’s Freedom Author: Workers’ Solidarity Federation Language: en Topics: class struggle, feminist, organization, sexism, South Africa, syndicalist Source: Retrieved on January 1, 2005 from http://www.cat.org.au
We believe that women are oppressed as a sex. They are denied equal
rights, such as the right to control their own fertility and the right
to equal pay for equal work. They have been assigned the role of cooks
and child minders, their place is said to be in the home.
We believe that the root of women’s oppression lies in the division of
society into classes, and the economic and social relationships that
this created. By giving women the worst work, with no job security, the
bosses create a super-cheap workforce which they can hire or fire at
will. Cheap women workers can be used as a threat against men workers,
and as a way for bosses to increase their profits by cutting down the
wage bill. Because women have no real job security they are often fired
when they get pregnant, meaning the bosses do not have to pay extra
benefits or maternity leave.
Women’s unpaid work in the household supplies the bosses with the next
generation of workers at no extra cost, as women are doing the cooking,
cleaning and child rearing for free. They also take care of the sick and
the elderly in the same way. The bosses say that women’s low wages are
justified because men are the “breadwinners” in the family. But most
working-class women do the housework as well as join the workforce. In
this way, they work a “double shift” at great personal cost. Women’s low
wages often keep them trapped in abusive and oppressive relationships.
The bosses’ media is a key cause of such situations, because it promotes
hateful and exploitative images of women, which say that women exist to
be used and abused. Some men believe these lies because of their
frustrations from oppression at work or unemployment out on their
families and other women. Of course, this does not make such behaviour
acceptable, as such actions are intolerable. But these factors show that
sexist behaviour by men is rooted in conditions under capitalism, not in
men’s hormones or biological nature, as the ruling class claims.
So we recognise that while ordinary men may play a role in women’s
oppression, they are not the primary cause of the problem. The problem
can only be properly dealt with by both challenging men’s sexist
behaviour (which divides the masses and is unjust), and by challenging
the sexist structures of the capitalist system. We do not deny that
ordinary men may gain from women’s oppression in the short-term in the
sense that may have a feeling of “superiority” to women, or have a
slightly lower rate of unemployment or better-paid jobs. But in the
long-term, women’s oppression has disastrous results for men. It divides
workers struggles. It results in lower overall family incomes and lower
job security for all. It creates personal unhappiness.
We recognise that all women suffer oppression. But wealthy women have
access to maids, lawyers and so on which enables them to “buy” their way
out of a lot of the misery that ordinary women face. In fact, these
women are part of the problem as they defend capitalism and the State
because it is their own class interests. We thus believe that for women
to be really free we have to smash capitalism and build a society based
on Anarcho-Syndicalism on a class-struggle basis. We disagree with those
feminists who think that all you have to do is for women to become
bosses and politicians to achieve equality. We want to destroy the
existing power structures.
Women’s oppression is not purely a struggle for women as it is a working
class issue but we do defend women’s right to organise separately in
women-only organisations. This is because we recognise that it is women
who actually suffer sexism, and because we support the democratic right
of free association.
But this does not mean that we promote such organisations as the way
forward. On the contrary, while we recognise that people may see such
organisations as necessary in specific circumstances, we also know that
this strategy has many weaknesses. Firstly, we think that separate
organisations are almost always a bad idea in the workplace because
successful trade union action relies on the unity of the workers. Small
women-only workplace groups are usually too weak to win against the
bosses on their own, and they can even act to undermine and destroy
existing unions if they call on women to leave the existing unions.
There are cases where separate organisations have been used to undermine
workers unity and struggle. Secondly, separate organisation often lends
itself to the formation of multi-class alliances as it prioritises
non-class identities (like womanhood) overclass identity. In other
words, it runs the risk of building alliances between working class and
ruling class women. Thirdly, women need allies in the fight against
women’s oppression in order to strengthen their demands. They need to
have maximum support from other working and poor people if they are to
win real concessions from the bosses and rulers. They also need to win
men over to anti-sexist views. Women’s concerns should not be isolated
in women-only groups, or left to the “women’s section” — these are
issues of relevance to all working class people. Given that women’s
oppression is not in the real interests of working class men, a basis
for fighting unity around these demands already exists.
So while we defend the right of separate organisation, we do not endorse
it. Having said that, however, we do recognise that it may be necessary
to set up committees and structures in the unions and other
working-class organisations to promote work amongst women and a focus on
women’s specific concerns. These sections or wings of the broader
working-class movement can help make sure that women’s concerns are not
marginalised and also develop women’s political confidence. However, we
think that these sections must be based on the principles of class
struggle (be specifically working-class), and build alliances with other
movements of the workers, the poor and the working peasants. Without
allies, such movements are too small and too weak to defeat the bosses
and the rulers. We think it is up to these sections to decide whether
they should allow men to join as well, or just recruit women.
Very often the priorities of the women’s movement have reflected the
fact that it largely dominated by middle-class women. We believe that it
must become more relevant to working class women. Our priorities are
those issues which immediately affect thousands of working class women
e.g. work, childcare, housing, etc. We must fight for equal pay for
equal work, for women’s access to jobs that are traditionally denied to
them, for job security for women, for free 24 childcare funded by the
bosses and the State where women demand it, for paid maternity leave and
guaranteed re-employment, and an end to all violence against women. We
also think that it is only right that men do a fair share of the
housework. We are for women having an equal right to all positions of
“leadership” in mass organisations.
For these demands to be won as many working class women as possible must
be drawn into the struggle against sexism, capitalism and the State. In
campaigns to win these demands our emphasis is on building in workplaces
and in the townships where women are directly affected. All progressive
men must support (but not try to dominate) these struggles.