launched a public protest at the sexual harassment of women by men in their own party, rounding on male deputies in other parties to revile these men's behaviour too.
Britain, feminists have transformed the women's organisation of
Tinto its most leftwing section but have not been able to win the battle for feminisation to the degree that women in the Greens have done. Kinnock, as leader, has resisted women's demand for power, trying to co-opt them instead through small concessions over parliamentary representation and promises of a women's
But what about the independent structures of the women's movement? What has happened to the oncepowerful sisterhood?
In nearly every Western European country except Spain (where a mass campaign for abortion rights inspired the growth of an autonomous women's movement) the independent women's movement, structured as it was in the mid-1970s, has fragmented and, in some cases, declined. In Scandinavia it has all but disappeared
But under the impact of feminism there have been many other examples of growth and expansion. In women's
Factions against the missiles feminists have played a leading role. A black women's movement is taking shape out of trade union and antiracist struggles, in Britain in particular, but in France and West Germany as well. Women in Western Europe and the US have increasingly developed an anti-imperialist awareness struggles of women in Nicaragua and
Mass mobilisations against attacks on abortion rights have been mounted by feminist organisations such as the National Organisation of Women in the US and the National Abortion Campaign in Britain. In Washington on International Women's Day last year, 100,000 women marched in the streets. And young women and lesbians, too, have highlighted the ways in which they experience their oppres-
Over the last decade, as with all political organisations in the labour movement, there has been a much sharper debate over strategy and a division among activists of the women's movement.
Three relatively distinct political currents have emerged. First, there is a bourgeois feminist current represented, for example, by the proDemocrat wing of the National Organisation of Women in the US.
The second current includes radical 19
6,000 SACKEO NEWS INTERNAT ONAL DISPUTE SOGAT NEA AL UCAT LASPUTE and reformist feminists, the former seeing women as an oppressed 'class' - victims of latter sometimes using the demagogy of revolutionary austerity policies to women.
Finally, there are socialist feminists linked to the left wing of the labour movement, active in its organisations and campaigns, but critical of male
These differences within the women's movement were bound to develop as the class struggle sharpened. It was clear that, short of a successful socialist revolution, women would be forced to engage more directly with power and thereby open up their movement to the danger of co-option by the bourgeois establishment or the trade union and labour leaders. There will be no going back to the early days of the women's movement but new forms of accountability do need to be found to debate how to make alliances with the labour movement on terms favourable to the mass of women.
The ruling class is incapable of satisfying the aspirations of the majority of women in society today. Understanding the anti-capitalist dynamic of the radicalisation it was marxists who helped build the modern women's movement in Europe and the US, by successfully arguing for demands and tactics that turned that movement towards the mass of women. Now, when many of the gains that women have made are coming under attack, is not the time to desert that movement.
The growing organisation of women inside the labour movement and the
mass movements, combined with a
sharper political debate among
women, provides an opportunity for
marxists to re-establish a stronger dia-
logue with the women's movement.
Understanding that wornen are an op-
pressed sex, marxists should not he-
sitate to build the women's movement,
prioritising the struggles of working
women, so that an effective alliance 1 between women and labour can be 20 built.d
NAUJ Unions must