THE LABOUR Party has discovered that women win votes. With the general election looming in the not too distant future, the debate over Labour's programme for women will intensify.
All this comes at a time when the pressure on women activists has never been greater. But with so much happening politically there is an even greater tendency for women's experience to be marginalised. This can be seen as not just a political marginalisation of 'women's issues', but also through burning-out with overwork, the experience of sexism within the labour movement and many other TeASONS Despite the rhetoric this marginalisation is not just confined to the right wing of the labour movement. It very much exists throughout the whole of the left. It is not surprising then, that Women for Socialism, the autonomous socialist feminist network within the Socialist Movement, has also been subjected to this squeezing effect.
Very often on the left it is clear that women's political work and their experience is underplayed and undervalued. This was seen most recently in the anti-war move ment where WfS activists played a pivotal role.
They usually led the way in challenging the right-wing of the movement as well as being the only current to seriously build a women's dimension to the work through Women Against War in the Gulf (WAWG).
It is often forgotten that it was WfS who called the first action in Britain that launched the anti-war movement here. The reason why WfS could respond so quickly was that they had an extensive internationalist background that could be drawn upon.
Whilst building WAWG has been and still is very valuable for WfS, the experience has not been without its problems. Being in the leadership of WAWG meant that the inde pendent profile of WfS suffered through the strain on resources. WiS was unable to capitalise on it's success and bring more women activists into its ranks.
Women for Socialism is now trying to turn this situation around, build its own profile and show that socialist feminism is alive and kicking in the 1990s. There are several important initiatives on the horizon and space for plenty more.
'Women in the unions' will be the theme for a national meeting called by WIS and the Socialist Movement Trade Union Committee. The meeting, to be held at the end of