unions would fight for abortion rights. emerging black women's movement. independent feminist groups. often in their homes. The
23 Marin SnakesholtA is the theory, rape is the practice and that all men benefit ing with the outrage women felt, but reluctant to support from the threat and fear women have of rape. Political solutions offerered ranged from uncontentious proposals such as women's taxi services and self-defence provision to Many socialist feminists kept silent in this debate — identify- the banning of pornography and longer sentences for rapists. SOCIALIST QUTLOOK no 8 July/Saptember 1988 "law and order" solutions:
This is why the independent organisation of women in the labour movement and the pressure of feminist campaigning is so crucial Women Against Pir Closures was a very impor- tant development in this regard because it was directly linked to a fight against the Tory government to defend jobs and was also able to use the forms of organisation the women's fiberation movement had developed in the previous Women's support groups, with their own bank accounts, banners and network of communication mushroomed in every mining arca and were able to mobilise quickly for The identification with other women's campaigns such as Greenham, strip searching, and black women's groups was important for developing the political awareness of women The loss of the vote for affiliation to the NUM made it But some of the most the terrain of debate in the women's movement to the left as lowards the end of the seventies a black women's movement over the last period. Campaigns around violence against militant women's support groups and the memory of this form of organisation continue to exist in preparation for the next hattic, This movement of working class women shifted the strike showed that sections of the labour movement could stand up to the Torics and these groups of workers were BLACK WOMEN have been organising in Britain in the trade unions and black community for the last 20 years. But emerged to challenge the oppression of black women in This movement had a sharp political and ideological reflecting the growing self-confidence of young black British women who had grown up in Britain and did not accept the sccond or third class status imposed on them by white society. The Tories have fostered racism by tightening up on immigration laws and strengthening police powers, using overtly racist themes National conferences of black women have taken place over several ycars and black women have campaigned against deportation orders, separation of black fimilies. racist harassment, discrimination in education, in the health service and at work and established battered women's con- The political critique of the priorities of white feminists has intluenced nearly every feminist campaign and journal women have been taken to task for holding demonstrations in black arcas of the inner cities and raising demands for demonstrations and picket lines to confront the police: socicty and racism in the women's movement. prepared to support the demands of women. realtightagainst the Tory government. harder to consolidate these gains. thrust around racism on all levels in their recent election campaign. in mining communities. tres for black women. MEN WO gest that women workers will secure two thirds of all new for this, Women part-timers are expected to hold 22 per cent jobs created in the next five years, Part-time work accounts This, alongside the campaigns of feminists, has increased the pressure on the unions; if they are to survive, they have to But the new realism thar is now dominant in the British labour movement, which accepts "popular capitalism' and enters into no-strike deals with the bosses, has influenced the Posturing and the idcalism of the sixties is rejccted by a more practical approach which emphasises minimum and winnable demands. A shorter working day is pushed but never without loss of pay. Sharing of housework is advocated Eurocommunists likc Bea Campbell advocate a feminist where higher-paid male workers accept pay curbs to redis- of all jobs in 1990 as compared with 17 per cent in 1985. incomes policy which argues for a new kind of social contract Campaigns which challenge women's oppression within the family arc harder to win support for in this climate. A defensive stance is almost inevitable given the defeats suf- fered over the last ten ycars in Britain but it is only class struggle methods that will defend any gains that women workers have won. This reformist layer attacks the class struggle methods of unions like the National Union of Mine- workers (NUM). Bea Campbell, for example, argued that defended the Kinnock leadership of the Labour Party, which she characterised as 'feminist' in the London weekly ma- gazine City Limis. She also publicly attacked the print mass picketing was 'macho" in the 84/85 miners' strikc, and Where the ideas of the reformist feminists and the new populist feminists overlap is at the level of rhetoric in denouncing "maleness", in accepting that a fundamental change in society is impossible and that women have to Thosc examples give a picture of the retreats that have taken place in the Thatcher years. On the other hand the class polarisation in British society has radicalised women who have born the brunt of the Tory offensive and fought back with mass mobilisations. We will look at three groups the ground is shifting to the right among women as it has amongst the mass of the thinking of many feminists in the labour movement. but collectivisation of houscwork is downplayed. tribute their wages to low-paid female workers. unions at Wapping with similar arguments. working class' concentrate on winning small victories. recruit women workers. in particular:
more police on the streets. The Spare Rib collective, the London Women's Liberation Nestetter and the women's peace As the black women's movement has developed it has women too. But because of the special discrimination black women face in socicty they have been able to challenge the false 'unity of women' imposed by many radical and populist feminists who prioritise gender oppression in an artificial way, ignoring or playing down class and racial discrimina- become clear that political differences exist among black campat Greenham havc all had clashes on the subject: WOMEN TRADE unionists have fought back against Thatcher ever since she came to power. The largest groups of women workers that have moved into struggle are in the public sector — healthworkers, teachers, local government workers, school cleaners and dinner ladies — resisting low pay. cuts and privatisation. Bur in manufacturing and textiles women workers have also resisted attacks on their industries and in the miners and printers' strikes we saw women's support The trade union movement has been forced to make many concessions to women, adopting a TUC women's charter, groups set up to involve wives ofstrikers in the dispute.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK na B July/Seplember 1988 issues into the centre of feminist debates' *black women forced anti-imperialist But while trade union leaders may be willing to make gestures to recruit women they are reluctant to support any campaigning on scxual harassment and abortion, and now proposing to establish a women's department at the TUC. 24
*Women Against Violence Against Women, led by radical feminists, took the lead in many towns' O MEN Black women also forced anti-imperialist issues into the ist role arid the racism of the British state has been reflected in conferences and campaigns around Namibia, South Afri- cat, central and Latin America, A key arca of this activity has been making links with women in Ireland. A protest centre of feminist debates. Recognition of Britain's imperial- =
parhament than ever before, and 21 are Labour women who and advance feminist campaigns. Bariles over women's: Over the last ycar, perhaps as a by-product of the boost feminist movement is more fragmented, more polarised, less collectively involved in women's struggles than ten years But the influence of feminism is still strong in Britain. Feminist journals Eke Spare Rib and Outerite have a wide circulation Women's campaigns continue to emerge that attract press attention. There are now more women in have already called a conference on rape. At the base of the Labour Party and the trade unions it is possible to debatc socialist feminists received from the emergener of black organisation will remain a strong focus of resistance to the THE PICTURE painted berc of the British women's movement is one where mass struggles of women still take place, but the representation surface annually at Labour Party conference. Battered women's centres exist in many arcas of the country. rightwing drift in the party women in a common protest against the strip searching of conference and, later, the Labour Party conference to oppose strip searching and the non-jury courts and to support demonstration on international women's day in 1979 outside Armagh gaolin Northern Treland united Trish and British Since that time a national campaign has been mounted in Britain and Treland which has had an important impact on Irish republicanism and the British Labour movement. Sinn Fein women have been organising throughout this period bur the links with British women have helped boost their struggle. The campaign mounted in Britain provided the melessary pressure to win first the Labour Party women's A ferent Tabour Party women's conference called for a Labour government to set a dare for withdrawal of the British army from Northern Treland. Feminist activity on Irish questions has been in advance of the rest of the British self-determination for the Irish people. women political prisoners. labour movement.
25 Pit Closures makes it unlikely that many young women will pitched very much at the level of literary debate. The lack of joined the women's movement - but cducating them against The problem in Britain is not a lack of willingness on the part of the mass of women to fight back against the Tories, as the example of the miners' wives and Greenham show. The key problem is the failure of the traditional socialist feminist layers to respond quickly to these movements, whatever problems they reveal, and develop a strategy to intervene to counter the influence of currents hostile to feminism or those tics with a traditional vicw of feminine power. This does not men', reminding us that this was the original aun of the This political counter-offensive by socialist tominists is welcome, if a little late in coming. The problem is that it is involvement of this layer of women in mass action initiatives - like Grenham and the demonstrations of Women Against Socialist feminists criticise themselves for academicism but fail to do anything about it. Left currents hostile to the women's movement such as Militant, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) and the Socialist Workers Party (sP) are attracting young women who may otherwise have feminism. Ar Greenham, for example, busloads of SWP men arrived outside Newbury court to chant slogans to try and feminism and Women Against Pir Closures, we have wit- nessed a rebulf of sume of the simplistic notions of populist feminism. In her book,/s the future female? Lynnc Segal ree- ground during the Thatcher ycars. This clairs for women a separate special knowledge, emotion, sexuality, thought and morality, pitting masculinity and femininity against cach Segal rejects the biological. psychological and social celebration of women's dilference, pointing out its similari- correspond to the reality of women's lives, nor does it focus their energies on changing the world around them. Tostead she argues that we should work towards a future that rejects *most of the social distinctions we draw between women and ognises that a more conservative feminism has gained who are ultimately hostile to class struggle methods • drown out the women's peace movement. modern women's mövement. know this debate even exists. union women can be strengthened at the base of the trade unions and with women outside the party, the women's Labour came to power and a slight increase in the number of With the aid of the trade union burcaucracy, Kinnock aims to silence the critical voice of women and line them up behind the leadership. Leaders ofthe Women's Action Com- mittee, a group fighting for more power for Labour Party women, and which at first won a lot of support among women at ihe high point of the Bennite reforms in the party. have since become accessories tosections of the bureaucracy, and actually welcomed some of Kinnock's manocuvres rather than fighting them head on and refusing to allow the NEG to The local women's sections in the party have also come under attack, as the centre and rightwing try to restrict their activities by blocking off funds and depriving them of repre- sentation, Women activists at the base of the Labour Party are not politically bomogeneous and are divided on what attitude to adopt to the party leaders. But if links with trade IN THE LABOUR Party, socialist feminists have thus been able to play a role in campaigns wider than what are traditionally viewed as women's issues. The women's section of the Labour Party has been transformed into a militant, campaigning and feminist forum demanding more power for women in the party as a whole. The left's power at this conference is a threat to Neil Kinnock's project ofshifting the party to the right. The labour bureaucracy has had to devise some complex tactics to dull the campaigning strength of the. What Kinnock offered wornen was a women's ministry if women MPs. But simultancously hc has moved to undermine the Labour women's confercoon, by suggesting that trade union women are under-represented. This is an attempt to shift the debate away from the demand that women should -ect their own representatives on the NEC, into a compli- cared debateover restructuring women's conference itself? *the appeal of Greenham contained contradictory features' interlere in the woren's organisation. SOCIALISE OUTLOOK no. 8 July/September 1988 worch's organisation.
black rommunity by offering hope of America, companied by a convincing alternative - not just formalistic assertions that we build an independent workers' Jackson's historic breakthrough in winning white working class voters; his ability to win near total support in the social change, his ability to unite black and white worker behind a radical pro- gramme show us the possibilities latent the middle cast, cducation, women's carc, AIDS, Jobs and above all what be calls workers" rights', Jackson's policies are far to the left of his Democratic: and gay rights, health rivals. They do not amount to a socialist programme, but Jackson does represent a qualitative difference. Not a profes- no corporate bankroll or media accoptability, he of- fers the prorise — or threat — of pro- I cannot sce how David Grani can assert that the Jarkson candidacy has demobilised those in struggie. On the contrary it has given them courage and them to their potential of Jackson's political character cannor be denied, but hisuccess — especially hik The failure of union burcaucracies: always knew that space was there? but it triumph in Michigan, based on a rank and fie carworkers revolt against the VAw burcaucracy — necds to be studied and the Democratic Party to challenge • has opened up a space for the left. Jackson has stepped into that is the Jackson campaign which has That left is often localised, fragmented and idcologically heterogeneous to the point of chaos, but The basis for the Jackson campaign was laid by the struggles of the us left Rovolutionary marxists must make a greater eflort, not to accept uncritically. bur to understand this reality and to in- SOCIALST OUTLOOK no 8 July/Septembar 1988 it has its own strengths and traditions. demonstrated its existence to millions. no. 6 David Grant argued against the politics of the lesser evil'. Here MIKE MARQUSEE takes up