feminists or as female Venezuelan fighters for socialism, we are ourselves governed by the contradiction inherent in fighting the battle against all forms of oppression and discrimination, both of gender and of social class, against patriarchy and against capitalism. In the fight against the latter we are accompanied by male comrades in struggle, but in the fight against patriarchy we still find ourselves very isolated. For that reason we have a great historical task: to conceive and give birth to a socialism that is not only anti- capitalist and anti-imperialist but also,
above all, anti-patriarchal. Already many communist feminists have learned the lesson from 'actually existing socialism' - that to overthrow the capitalist system, or to transform it into a socialist one, was not sufficient to change the relations of domination between the sexes and challenge discrimination towards women. Unless the cultural model of androcentric domination, which serves also as a support to capitalism, is not questioned and undermined at all levels, we cannot achieve our liberation. If we do not understand this historical legacy we run the risk of reproducing it, so that what could occur again in the 21st century. Some feminists think it necessary to occupy spaces in the parties and in the structures of the different public agencies to shape our politics; other, so- called radical feminists, emphasise the need for a political practice and militant activism that is autonomous and based in the movements, as distinct from the logic of parties. I consider that autonomy is a strategic and fundamental engine for the process of women's empowerment, for the struggles of the popular movements and not only those of women - but this is not the easiest or the quickest road. This does not leave out the contributions of feminists to equality, which have yielded a rich harvest in our country in the area of human rights. If we take it as read that the women's movement lies solely inside the political parties, that women should continue to make the politics of men, in the service of men, and repeatedly delay their own fight, then it is not very difficult to anticipate the result; nor is necessary to be prophetesses - which we are - to realize that this will lead directly to the failure at least of our socialism. I believe our road passes through the idea of the conception, the debate, the process of knowledge production that transforms our reality. I do not believe that while we delegate our power - whether to the party, to the leader, or to the husband - and do not take a step forward in the search for and the conquest of our autonomy, we will be able to find ourselves again as immanent political subjects, equal to men, as sisterly as they are fraternal, but above all as different as we are. happen through reinventing the forms of political action, through discovering new paths, pregnant with political lessons and with creative militancy, so that we do not risk the world becoming flat, as Sub-Comandante Marcos" says, or, in this case, so that socialism does not become flat. We, as women, respond • What solutions would the socialism of cooked for their children on their task to cook for all the community in exchange for a bigger pot, food pay below the minimum wage? happened to socialism in the 20th century • What would this 'new socialism' to the secretaries of the parties, to the lesbians, transsexuals and and to the female sex workers? • What kind of socialism do left-wing women want who are not only anti- imperialist and anti-capitalist but the housewife, approved in the 1999 and not just something on paper? • What solution will the socialism of duties as heterosexuals? • What would the socialism of the 21st they want to turn our daughters into, to the world of 'without tits there is no paradise' and to the transnational structures of discrimination? • How would the socialism of the 21st labour inside and outside the home, to What would it say to the merchants of So, women comrades, what kind of society do we want? • Will it perhaps be a society in which we continue organizing the communal councils so that the leader of the and imposes his agenda? • Will it perhaps be a society in which we Rather this will continue, on our own, to take care of our sons and daughters and those of the community, and remain prisoners of this perverse matricentrism? • Will it perhaps be one in which we cannot 11 the 21st century provide for the cooks of the popular canteens, who previously own, and now have 'the revolutionary' guaranteed for her and her children and offer to the mothers of the barrios, transgendered people of the barrios anti-patriarchal, so that the security of constitution, becomes flesh and blood the 21st century give to the groups of diverse sexuality so that their multiple gender identities are recognized and they share equally the same rights and Kennedy. century propose to the real live Barbies century respond to the sexual division of the needs of poor women, so that they do not die through lack of medical attention when deciding to end their pregnancy? female impotence who monopolize illegal abortions and who gain more money the council, or the best speaker, or the most enlightened one, manages the resources access education, not because educational centres do not exist, but because we are occupied in the quintuple day (mother, wife, housewife, militant, etc.)? • Will it be a socialism only as Marx painted it, or will we learn to read the critical questions that were well put in their time by Rosa Luxemburg, faced with reformisms and by Clara Zetkin, who captured the attention of her male colleagues with forceful arguments for the emancipation of women, and pronounced herself in favour of the right of the wornen to work and to participate in national and international affairs, as well as for the protection of mothers and childhood? Let us speak out! Bibliographic References D'ATRI, Andrea, (2004) Pan y Rosas: pertenencia de género y antagonismo de clase en el capitalismo. Ediciones Las' Armas de la Critica, Buenos Aires LEON, Maria, (2005) El socialismo del siglo XXI es el comunismo, iwww.rebelión.org ESPINA, Gioconda, (2007) El socialismo del siglo XX no ocurrió, son cosas suyas. Article sent to the women's list administered by G. Espina y G. Parentelli, CAROSIO, Alba, Feminismo en el socialismo del siglo XXI, www.rebelión.org. Originally published in MATEA magazine. Reproduced by www.aporrea.org, 22 February 2007, translated by Andrew