rights, abortion was the central issuc men's issue not a class issue' including Thatcher herself.
participating in the debate as it was unfolding at the gates of The essential point that wars are fought because the imperialist ruling classes necd to dominate soctions of the world to protect and expand markets and profits is lost in costs of war befor men, although many soldiers get disillu- tructed, so soldiers (today, male and female) have to be constructed by the capitalist system. Some women active in mobilised for mass actions at Greenham. But their ideolo- sectarianism of some socialist feminists prevented them from debate was unfolding. Many socialist feminists had begun to organise in the Labour Party and the trade unions as the Women workers form 44 per cent of the workforce in Britain today and their proportion is rising. Some predictions sug- kind of simplistic radical feminism emerged from writers like Andrea Dworkin, Dale Spender and Mary Daly, which said that women were good and men were bad. Women were caring and civilised, men were violent and aggressive. The social construction of femininity and masculinity was some- "Take the toys from the boys" was an amusing slogan, but behind the wit lay a faulty analysis of why peace was a women's issue. Some women at Greenham argued that wars were fought and nuclear missiles were being imposed because men liked to be macho and fight wars. Women, on the other hand were concerned with reproducing life not this analysis. Wars have historically affected men and women differently, women somctimes predicting the social But just as men's masculinity has to be socially cons- the labour movement put forward this emphasis as they gical impact was weak and the academic inclinations and At the base of the labour movement a different but related Tories stepped up their attacks on working class women. IT WASAT this point that the influence of what has been called feminism began to grow in Britain. A new times recognised only to be forgotten. feminism began 1o sioned with actual combat. destroying it. populist by the trade unions and previous activity had shown that for NAC and they argued that the name should not be changed. These women also argued that NAC should be a mixed campaign because the mass of women were organised Reproductive Righters claimed the banner of anti-racism in the debate and said that NAC had ignored black women's experience of forced sterilisation, lack of rights to have children, and forced contraception through Depo Provera injections. The NAC loyalists refuted this charge citing the establishment of an international campaign by NAC as an example. But the accusation, although opportunist, was not without some basis. NAC had not involved black women in Britain to the degree that it possibly could have The women's movement as a whole had failed to listen to the The divide was really about whether to run a women's women's contraceptive rights, and the MP Enoch Powell pur his embryo rights bill to parliament in 1985, it was NAU that led the response. The response of the traditional feminist so-called Yorkshire tipper's horrific murders of The test of time has shown the political cost of the split. health information service or a political campaign on abor- tion. When Victoria Gillick launched her attack on young layers was weak. In contrast to the huge mobilisation six years earlier against Corrie, 5,000 people marched in pro- Test, with large numbers coming from the far left rather than women in the carly eighties provided ample grounds for feminist campaigns around male violence. Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW), led by radical femin- ists, took the initiative to lead protests in many towns, seeing this as an issue that united all women against all men. When police urged women to stay indoors or ensure they were escorted home, WAVAW countered with the demand that men should be kept off the streets not women, and also that women are most likely to be attacked by men they know, Radical feminists toured the country with films showing pornographic images of women to sell the message that porn trade