3 articles 2nd is 'Sex, Class & Womens oppression 3rd is 'Equality for some women' *************** Why Women are Oppressed *************** from Workers Solidarity No 36 WE ARE NOW eight years from the year 2,000. Approximately 14,000 years ago the first agricultural communities, and with them human civilisation, were founded. Humanity is 600 generations old. We hold the position of 'most successful species' because unlike animals we have been able to modify our environment to suit our needs. To early humans nature was a powerful and frightening force, the bringer of plagues, storms and droughts. Nowadays we control our environment to such an extent that nature is no longer a demon spirit or an instrument of the wrath of god. In much of the world nature is way down on our list of worries, it is more likely to fear us. As the capability to control the world around us has increased from the first primitive farmers to the high-technology multinationals, the way we perceive the world around us has also changed. So has the way we perceive each other. One thing, however, that has remained constant throughout this time is that in the majority of societies half our species (women) has been held in an inferior position to the other half (men). Why is this the case? The answer to this question should explain two things. It should explain why today with all our equal rights legislation women are still second class citizens, and secondly it should indicate the mechanisms and tactics we have to use to achieve womens' liberation. If we know what the problem is, we can find a solution. CIVILISATION DAWNS Early humans were hunter/gatherers living in nomadic communities, living from hand to mouth. The discovery of agriculture lead to huge changes in the organisation of humanity. Agriculture was the point at which civilisation began. This is because there are a number of ways in which an agricultural community is different from a hunter/gatherer clan. Communities remain in the same spot. Agriculture can support more people than hunting/gathering so communities get larger. Farming leads to the development of new technology. New skills lead to a greater division of labour. Individuals specialise in certain types of work, be it tool making, leatherwork or defence. However the key difference is that farmed land becomes a valuable resource. Land provides a surplus, that is land provides more food than is necessary for day to day survival. More importantly, land will provide this resource in the future, for the next generation. None of this is true of the herd of wild animals persued by the hunter-gatherer. The concept of ownership developed. So civilisation began when man began to acquire wealth in the form of land, food and animals. If a rich man wants to ensure that his offspring alone inherit his wealth, he must be sure that his wife is only mating with him. Thus, he has to be in a position of control over her. He needs to portray this as part of the 'natural order'. To accommodate this need society, through the use of religion, developed a rationale to justify the inferior position of woman. GOD"S CHOSEN RULERS Rulers have always been good at rationalising unfair practices, take for example the idea of the 'divine right of kings'. Popular for centuries, the church and state argued that kings and queens were appointed by God. The status quo was natural and good, any opposition to it was evil and doomed to eternal hell. These days kings don't have much power, which is why not many people rush to describe Charles and Di as God's chosen rulers. In much the same way, it was necessary to have women inferior to men to ensure inheritance rights. In order to keep women in this position a whole mythology of women as second class humans was developed. It was the accumulation of a surplus and the desire of a minority to monopolise it that lead to the class division of society and to the oppression of women. Now we've established the motive and the cover story, but of what relevance is the status of women in early history to their status today. As capitalism evolved it built on the existing model of the family, adapting it to suit it's own interests. Assurance of inheritance rights isn't as necessary today, however the family provides other services which capitalism does require. Initially, when the industrial revolution first began men, women and children were drafted wholesale into the factories. DEATH IS NOT ALWAYS ECONOMIC Quickly, however, the bosses realised that this was not the most economic way to run the system. The labour force was weak and the children who were to be next generation of workers were dying in the mills and mines. The solution was was to be found in the family. Before the rise of capitalism society was based around a system of slaves/serfs and kings or lords. The problem with slaves or serfs is that the owner must provide food, basic health care and subsistence in old age, i.e. maintain the slave at a cost for those times when he or she is not productive. A much more cost efficient way to keep a workforce is through the nuclear family. In this scenario, it is up to the family to provide itself with food, shelter, healthcare, look after the elderly and young (who will provide the next crop of workers). Within this family unit it is normally the woman who fulfils the functions of housekeeper, nurse, childminder and cook. There are two knock-on effects of women staying at home minding the family. Firstly they are not financially independent. They do not earn any money and are dependant on income received from their partners. Because nobody gets paid for rearing a family it's status as an occupation is at the bottom of the ladder and because women are financially dependant on their husbands it means they, in the past, have had little input into the major decisions affecting the family. ISOLATION This led to women having no input into the decisions affecting society. A woman's place was in the home. A second effect of women's position in the family is that they are often isolated from each other and from society in general. Unlike a paid worker they have little opportunity of meeting and sharing experiences with others in the same situation on a daily basis, and do something about it. They, on their own, have little power to change the conditions they find themselves in. Today the family is a trap for women as much as it was for women at the beginning of the industrial revolution. Women are paid on average 2/3 of the wage that men are paid, so within any partnership it obviously makes more sense for the woman to undertake responsibility for the care of children. It is for this reason, common sense rather than sexism, that that the vast majority of part- time workers are women, juggling two jobs at the same time. Having said that, why is it that women are among the lower paid in society? Is it necessary for capitalism to exploit women workers to this degree? The simple answer to that is sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. The only important difference between a male and female worker is that the female has the potential to get pregnant, that is the potential to want maternity leave and need creche facilities. In other words they are slightly more expensive to employ than men. So when women are asked (illegally!) at job interviews if they intend to marry, such discrimination has a material basis. An employer isn't interested on the good of society at large but in obtaining the cheapest most reliable workforce possible. DISPOSABLE WORKERS Historically women have been encouraged to work and have been accommodated when it suited capitalism. When there was either a shortage of male labour due to war as during the 1st and 2nd World Wars or an expansion of industry as in the dawn of the industrial revolution or the 1960s. When times are tough, when recession sets in, women are encouraged back into the family. The conclusion for most socialists is that women's' liberation can only be lastingly obtained with the overthrow of capitalism. This is not to say that reforms should not be fought for at the moment, but to recognise that some of the gains may be short-term ones which can be withdrawn. This conclusion isn't accepted by everyone concerned with womens' liberation, and certainly is rejected by large sections of the feminist movement. A good example of the alternative analysis can be seen in the following extract from the British Survey of Social Attitudes (a survey carried out regularly by an independent body). WHO MINDS THE CHILDREN It found that the provision of childcare was one of the impediments preventing women from working. Their conclusion was that "in the absence of changes in mens' attitudes, or working hours outside the home or in their contribution within the family it seems unlikely that even a greater availability of childcare outside the home would alter domestic arrangements greatly. Without these changes, it is conceivable that many useful forms of work flexibility - that might be offered to women such as job sharing, career breaks, special sick leave or term-time working - might reinforce rather than mitigate the formidable level of occupational segregation based on gender, to women's longer-term disadvantage." The authors of the survey note that as long as responsibility for childcare rests with the women they will remain trapped in the family. They also point out that concessions to women in the world of work often result in women being pidgeon-holed into less well paid job. This already happens in regard to part-time workers who are paid a lower hourly wage than full-time workers. They point out that men have to square up to their responsibility as fathers. The key they emphasise is a change in mens' attitudes. However what was not mentioned is that no matter how attitudes change, men are as powerless as individuals in regard to their working conditions as women are. With all the good will in the world they cannot change their employer/employee relationship, they cannot adjust their working hours to suit childcare just as women cannot. A more fundamental conclusion would be that society at the moment, capitalism, does not want to accommodate any of the problems of childcare preferring to leave it up to the individual to make their own arrangements as best as they can. CONTROL OF OUR BODIES It is for this reason that the issue of womens' ability to control their own fertility is key in obtaining womens' liberation. That is the fight for abortion rights, for freely available contraceptives, for 24 hour quality childcare. Women will remain as second class citizens as long as they are relegated to an inferior position in the work force. They are now in that position because to the bosses they are an unstable workforce, likely to want pregnancy leave, likely to come in late if a child is sick, likely to require a creche or want to work part time. It is because men in society are seen as the breadwinners that they have slightly more secure, slightly more dependable jobs. It's a vicious circle, because men are in reality better paid, it makes more sense within the family to assign the role of main earner to the male and the role of carer to the female. The only way to permanently get out out of this circle is to change the system. In a society organised to make profits for a few, women loose out. In a society organised to satisfy needs, womens' fertility would no longer be a limiting factor. INTO THE MAINSTREAM Women can of course win gains at the moment. In Ireland women are no longer forced to stop working upon marriage (though lack of childcare can make it impossible to continue). Attitudes have changed considerably in the last thirty years. Most importantly, the position of women is now an issue. Whereas before it was only addressed by the few socialist or womens' groups, now it's taken up in the mainstream media, in chat shows and newspaper articles. However, any of our new freedoms are very much dependant on the economic conditions of the day. So, while in the booming sixties American women won limited access to abortion, now in recession those rights are being pushed back inch by inch. When the reality is weighed up equal education & job opportunities and equal pay are limited without free 24 hour nurseries and free contraception & abortion on demand. While a small minority of women can buy control of their own fertility, for the majority family and childcare is still - as it has always been - the largest problem faced by women workers. In this argument capitalism won't concede, it must be defeated. Aileen O'Carroll ********** Sex, class & Womens oppression ********** from Workers Solidarity No 36 Lavinia Kerwick showed great bravery when she spoke out about being raped, thousands took to the streets in support of "X" last February. Violence and discrimination against women are still very real. But for the first time since the early 1980s large numbers of women want to fight back. Aileen O'Carroll looks at some of the issues that have arisen. Can women of all classes share a common goal? Should women organise separately? Is there a connection between fighting sexism and fighting capitalism? IT WAS NOT until the French Revolution in 1798, that it began to be accepted that all men are equal. Until then the concept was dismissed as irreligious and and against the 'natural order'. Many of the morals, rules and rights that society assumes as constant are actually quite fluid. It is only in the last few decades that the idea of equality has been extended to include women. Although women still hold a secondary status, the idea of women as second class citizens is beginning to lose ground. Changing attitudes in itself are not going to lead to womens' liberation (all men aren't in fact equal in today's society, though there is no longer strong ideological opposition to the idea of equality). However, the freeing of women from the chains of sexism empowers us to fight for womens' liberation. However having said all this, why is it that women aren't more active in politics, in community groups, in campaigning? What is it that is holding them back? Anarchists believe that the core problem facing women is class society. However overlying that core is a layer of sexist ideas. This ideology serves to reinforce and justify womens' inferior status. How does this operate? How does it manage to do this? It's easy today to underestimate the effects of the conditioning that takes place. Conditioning that tells us, that in the very first place we doesn't have any right to compete on an equal basis. There is ample proof that this occurs, for example the findings of a recent survey on secondary school children indicated that girls had a much lower self-image than boys of a comparable age. Recent studies in American classrooms showed that when girls answered out of turn they were more likely to be told off, while boys were likely to be praised for showing intelligence or initiative. Given this it was not surprising that in later classes girls rarely spoke unless specifically asked a question while boys often spoke out or chatted with the teacher. RAPE AND 'GUILT' Researchers into the area of sexual harassment have found that people have difficulty in knowing what type of behaviour amounts to harassment. Women feel unsure as to what are their rights are, unsure as to how much hassle they are expected by society to put up with. In a recent interview a representative of Dublin Rape Crisis Centre indicated that in her experiences all the women she saw felt guilt in some way, right down to an old age pensioner raped in her own home. Indeed, this is hardly surprising given the type of reporting of trials such as the Kennedy rape trial this year. One in three of crimes against women arise from domestic violence. Yet these problems are given low priority. Rape Crisis Centres are constantly under threat of closure due to lack of funding. In the first four months of 1990, the Gardai received 1,568 calls for help in domestic violence situations (and all the experts accept that only a small number of such crimes are ever reported). The Womens' Aid refuges, run by volunteers, have only 16% of the space that is needed. Workers in a Dublin refuge reported that between four and seven families are turned away on average, while approximately another 60 women phone seeking advice each week. Our low status in society is reflected not only by the level of violence against us, but by the complete disregard that is shown for the problem by the government and society at large. A CURFEW ON WOMEN Though most rapes are committed by somebody known by the woman (92% of Irish rape victims knew their attackers), police propaganda is still aimed at frightening women into maintaining a self-imposed curfew at night. Even though the statistics indicate she is probably in more danger at home! We are forced to leave limited lives. We don't have freedom of movement even within our own communities. We are denied control over our own bodies. Worse of all, we are told how to look and how to behave. Women are constantly given cues that they are in some way inferior. This conditioning is a symptom of the position of women in society, not the cause but a symptom with far reaching affects. We learn what is the norm through what is seen as acceptable behaviour in the world around us. The media, be it TV, film industry or pop music occupy a very vocal and dominant position. Next time you watch MTV or go to the cinema try and count how many times you see women portrayed as individuals in their own right, rather than as appendages. You won't need more fingers to count on than you have on your own two hands. Most womens' magazines are still concerned with beauty, fashion and home making. Articles about working women are almost exclusively aimed at professionals and executives. They don't reflect the the reality that most women experience. Company magazine (June 1991) asks "Are you scared of success? Career success can be dazzling and very exciting, yet it can go hand in hand with tremendous fear". The article argues that if we just didn't keep holding ourselves back, we could make it in the career world. The truth for most of us is that it is lack of childcare and job opportunities determines our position as low paid workers, not our lack of confidence. GLOBAL FORUM OF EGOISTS AND BOSSES Unfortunately much of the womens' movement does exactly the same thing. Dublin recently hosted the 1992 Global Forum of Women. At £180 a head the forum was dedicated to "visions of leadership". Those attending were all "political, artistic & scientific leaders or prominent in the international leadership of the womens' movement". The brochure advertising the conference proclaimed "the president of Nicaragua is a women". So what! So is the Queen of England and Margaret Thatcher. I don't see things being much better for our 'sisters' over the water or for those in Nicaragua. The election of Mary Robinson didn't make any noticeable difference for the 'sisters' at home either. The conclusion of the conference, the message they are sending to the low paid, the part-time workers and the unemployed is that what is needed is 40% representation of women at all levels. Overwhelmingly, the message to us was to get up on our bikes, to seize the opportunities, that the only thing stopping us was ourselves. Class didn't come into it. A gap exists between what women are meant to be like and what we are, between what we are supposed to achieve and what it is possible for us to achieve. Failure on our part to live up to an ideal is attributed to some fault within us, rather than to the type of society we live in. It is for these reasons that women often find it more difficult to speak in public. We are often are less confident because by standing up we are reacting against a conditioning that tells us we should sit down. ORGANISING SEPARATELY? Women are constantly conditioned to believe that we do not have a right to an opinion, to be politically active, to speak out. Sometimes the first step against this conditioning is to organise separately from men. Partly this is because it is felt that men being more confident and more self-assured tend to dominate discussions. Or even more simply some women feel that when men are present they are more likely to take a silent role and leave the arguing up to them. Under these conditions women organising together is an exercise in empowerment. It's a positive response to the conditioning of society. It's role should be to make it possible for women to participate as equals with men. It should be seen as a temporary but necesary step, not as an end in itself. However problems arise when this is taken further and when women begin to campaign separately. This identifies men as the root of the problem, which they aren't. It also isolates men from the struggle, when it is obvious that in order to change society we must work alongside them. Within many Unions and the British Labour Party there exist women only conferences. A problem with this is that womens' issues are often referred to these conferences as a as a way of avoiding the issues and forgetting about them. Rape is a womens' issue - refer it to the womens' conference, contraception is a womens' issue - refer it to the womens' conference, etc. In these instances men are rarely confronted with these issues, rarely have to deal with them and are let off the hook. Therefore while we defend the right of women to meet separately we also think it vital in any organisation, in any campaign, that women present their arguments to the entire body of people and win those arguments and fight as a whole. Tactically, this is the only way to widen and then win the fight for womens' liberation. Things are better for us today. A lot of the institutionalised oppression, such as marriage bars and property laws has been removed. Often equal pay legislation and quota systems have been put in their place. Yet while things may have changed on paper, we are still left with class society. As long as this remains, the majority of us will not have equal access to the workplace or much else. As long as we are denyed economic equality, society will continue making up morals and invent so called 'natural laws', as a way of justifying it's treatment of us. By tackling the symptom, sexism in society, we will be in a better position to tackle the root cause. By tackling capitalism we will be fighting for womens' liberation. Aileen O'Carroll ************* Equality for some Women *************** from Workers Solidarity No35 LAST SEPTEMBER the Bank of Ireland was, according to the 'Irish Times', 'basking in an unadulterated glow of approval' from the Employment Equality Agency, the Council of Status for Women and the Joint Oireachteas Committee on Womens Rights among others. What the Bank of Ireland had so progressively managed to do was to provide one creche which will cater for up to 45 children. The Bank of Ireland employs 11,600 people. However, at £55 a week the centre is obviously aimed at helping only a very small section of the workforce. As Bertie Ahern said, it did not make sense having highly and expensively qualified women leaving the workforce because of lack of childcare facilities. However, it does make sense, to industry, to employ over 50% of the entire workforce having either low pay or no security of employment (or both). It isn't sexism that holds us in the worse paid jobs but rather the economic reality of the capitalism system. To survive in the market place any company has to be competitive, to maximise profits. With wages accounting for 80% of the outgoings in most business, employing the cheapest labour makes good sense. In todays society, creches and child-care are a luxury that the profit motive can rarely afford. To women who accept this system, the provision of expensive inadequate child care is a victory, while the plight of ordinary women workers isn't worth mentioning. But there is a general feeling that we are now living in a post-feminist world. Women may not be quite equal to men, but the principle of equality has been widely accepted and liberation is only a matter of waiting. We are allowed to vote, to drink in pubs and to work outside marriage. Our right to an equal education system and an equal workplace is enshrined in law. We have a women president. In Ireland there is now a wide acceptance that women have the right to participate in society on an equal basis with men. However, despite this change in hearts and minds, life on the ground for most women today, is quite similar to those of forty years ago. Though we may not, in general, have the same sexist morality to put up with; economically we are still second class citizens. For the majority of us, our right to choose the way of life we wish to lead is as limited as it has always been. Rather than being liberated, we are still tied, by virtue of our poor wage earning abilities, to the home and family. A study recently published in Fortune magazine indicated that the leading occupations for women in 1990 weren't so different from the top jobs for 1940 (see table). The average hourly earnings of woman are still 68% of those of men. In hard cash terms, men earn on average, £1.83 more per hour than women do. Fortune Magazine Table 1990 1940 1. Secretary 1. Servant 2. Cashier 2. Secretary 3. Bookkeeper 3. Teacher 4. Nurse 4. Clerical worker 5. Nursing aide 5. Sales worker 6. Teacher 6. Factory worker 7. Waitress 7. Bookkeeper 8. Sales Worker 8. Waitress 9. Child care 9. Housekeeper 10. Cook 10. Nurse So, what are the problems facing women in the workforce? The answer you'll get to that question, will depend very much on who you are talking to. For the last six years, Social and Community Planing Research, a non-profit making institute, has been surveying British social attitudes to everything from should revolutionaries be allowed to have public meetings (only 48% said yes) to should the tax system be changed. Looking at the recently published 1991 survey, it becomes obvious that the key factor preventing women from working is children; i.e. lack of nursery places, lack of creches at work and "guilt at leaving the care of children to others". It noted that while 51% of those surveyed would have thought a work-place nursery suitable for the care of their children, none of the sample surveyed had access to such a service. Overwhelmingly, children were cared for by a close relative. On the other hand, the Financial Times, in a major article on women managers cited the main problems for women going into business as confidence, training and expertise, credibility and networks. For women at these higher levels, childcare provision is not a key problem, as they can afford to hire other women to stay at home so they are freed to go out and work. So when women managers seek to overcome sexism, provision of free 24 hour childcare is not a priority. Women may not be equal to men in today's society, but undoubtedly some women are more equal than others. It is certainly true that there are very few women managers, however this is just a symptom of the general situation of women as a whole, not a cause. The installation of women at the top of a profession won't change the basic ground rules by which society is run. Those women at the top may suffer sexism from their colleagues. They may be ostracised from the old boys network and may find it more difficult to succeed. However, they also have an interest in seeing the system continue. Their high incomes, standard of living and position in society is dependant on them being on the top of the pile. So while they may lobby on 'safe' issues that affect most women, such as rape and domestic violence, when it comes to issues that question the way society is run and thus threaten their position, sisterhood quickly breaks down. How many of the Irish women TD's, who support abortion information are willing to publicly say so? On the one hand they may be members of the womens movement while on the other protecting their seat is more important. Mary Robinson may be a women, but she didn't show much sisterhood or solidarity when she signed into law the new social welfare regulations on cohabiting couples. This provision limits couples to 80% of the benefit that two single people receive Normally the women is the partner who receives the lower income. Women will remain as second class citizens as long as they are relegated to an inferior position in the work force. They are now in that position because to the bosses they are an unstable workforce, likely to want pregnancy leave, likely to come in late if a child is sick, likely to require a creche or want to work part time. It is because men in society are seen as the breadwinner that they have more secure, more dependable jobs. It's a vicious circle, because men are in reality better paid, it makes more sense within the family to assign the role of main earner to the male and housework to the female. The only way to permanently get out out of the circle is to change the system. In a society run for profit women loose out, in a society run for need, womens fertility is no longer a limiting factor. Women can of course win gains at the moment. In Ireland women are no longer forced to stop working on marriage, though lack of child care can make it impossible to continue. Attitudes have changed considerably in the last thirty years. Most importantly, the position of women is now an issue. Where as before it was only addressed by the few socialist or womens groups, now it's taken up by the mainstream media, by chat shows and newspaper articles. However, any of our new freedoms are very much dependant on the economic conditions of the day. So, while in the affluent 1960's British women won limited access to abortion (used by thousands of Irish women), now in recession those rights are being pushed back inch by inch. When you come down to basics equal education and job opportunities and equal pay amount to little without free 24 hour nurseries and free contraception and abortion on demand. While a small minority of women can buy control of their own fertility, for the majority, family and child care is still as it has always been the largest problem faced by women workers. And as a small finishing thought, under capitalism most managers are paid a hell of a lot more than most workers. That's a situation women mangers won't want to change. After all, Margaret Thatcher was the ultimate woman manager, wasn't she? Aileen O'Carroll