Extending Marxism 2: Women’s Movement, Global Justice Movement, Party and Movement

Extending Marxism 2:Women’s Movement, Global Justice Movement, Party and Movement

General Outline • Introduction – defining movement and party • Women’s Movement • defining terms of feminism, feminist theory, and the different feminist thoughts • tracing the women’s historical struggle - the evolution of women’s movement • historical accounts from the different parts of the world (Europe, US, Asia)- presentation of the timeline of women’s movement • women’s movement of today • our perspectives and alternatives (conclusion) • discussion points • Global Justice Movement (with emphasis on the women’s movement) • 1995 Beijing Declaration • 1995 Women’s March Against Poverty in Quebec • 1999 Seattle demonstrations against WTO summit • 2000 World March of Women • World Social Forums (2001 – 2005) • Party and Movement (on the question of women’s self-organization) • - Introduction • - Philippine experiences

What is a movement? • - when a significant number of people come together to fight and mobilize for one or several objectives; • - movement emerges when there are injustices, inequalities, oppression, marginalization, and intense contradictions and antagonisms

Basic Elements of a Movement • - issues of injustices etc • - mobilizing specific social layers (working class, women, peasants etc. or) or heterogeneous forces, e.g. ecological campaigns, anti-war movement or conjunctural political movements) • - targeted against the oppressor, the perpetrator of injustices, etc. – a multinational, a government, international bodies (IMF, WTO, World Bank, etc.) • - proposals for alternatives

Objectives of a Movement… • to radically change the present situations and build better alternatives • to end up injustices, inequities and oppression

Women’s Movement

How the women and movement shape into a coherent and massive political movement that carries out the specific issues of women? • as feminists • to confront problems which dominate our lives • feminist model of analysis • the creation of revolutionary theory

Feminist Theory • -theory is fundamental to any movement because it gives us a description of the problems we face,provides an analysis of the forces which maintain social life, defines the problems we should concentrate on, and acts as a set of criteria for evaluating the strategies we develop • - “one can construct, on a specific practice, a theory which, by coinciding and identifying itself with the decisive elements of the practice itself, can accelerate the historical process that is going on, rendering practice more homogenous, more coherent, more efficient in all its elements, and thus, in other words, developing its potential to the maximum - thus theory itself can be a force for change” – Antonio Gramsci

Feminism • - a model of analysis, a method of approaching life and politics, a way of asking questions and searching for answers, rather than a set of political conclusions about the oppression of women; feminists deal directly with their daily lives; the power of the method feminists developed grows out of the fact that it enables women to connect their everyday lives with an analysis of the social institutions that shape them (institutions of capitalism, patriarchy, discrimination and racism etc.)

Liberal Feminism – argues that women are equal to men because they are essentially the same as men in regard to capacities for aggression, ambition, strength, and rationality Radical Feminism – celebrates feminine traits and argues that men should adopt them. They see masculinity, with its emphasis on aggression and violence directed by men against women and men, as the problem, not the solution for liberating women and other subordinated groups. Cultural Feminism – is a variety of feminism which emphasizes essential differences between men and women, based on ideological differences in reproductive capacity. Cultural feminism attributes to those differences distinctive and superior virtues in women. What women share, in this perspective, provides a basis for “sisterhood”, or unity, solidarity, and shared identity. Different Feminist Theories

Socialist Feminism • - its ideological roots lay in the popular democratic tradition of the late 18th century • - socialist feminists are committed to understanding the system of power deriving from capitalist patriarchy

Importance of Marxist analysis • 1) it provides a class analysis necessary for the study of power • 2) it provides a method of analysis which is historical and dialectical – in Marx’s “theory of alienation”

Theory of Alienation • - its commitment to “species life” in communist society is necessary to understanding the revolutionary capacity of human beings. “Species being” are those beings who ultimately reach their human potential for creative labor, social consciousness, and social living through the struggle against capitalist society, and who fully internalize these capacities in communist society

Marx and Engels discussion of a family in capitalist society Family as just another part of superstructure -relations of reproduction becomes subsumed with the relations of production

Polemics of Socialist Feminism to Marxism • -through both its patriarchal structures and patriarchal ideology the family and the need for reproduction also structure society. This reciprocal relationship, between family and society, production and reproduction, defines the life of women. The study of women’s oppression then, must deal with both sexual and economic material conditions if we are to understand oppression, rather than merely understand economic exploitation. The historical materialist method must be extended to incorporate women’s relations to sexual division of labor and society as producer and reproducer as well as to incorporate the ideological formulation of this relationship. Only then will her existence be understood in its true complexity and will species life be available to her too.

Synthesis: Socialist Feminism • - analyzes power in terms of its class origins and its patriarchal roots, in such an analysis, capitalism and patriarchy are neither autonomous systems nor identical: they are, in their present form, mutually dependent. • -Exploitation and Oppression - they are not equivalent concepts, exploitation speaks of the economic reality of capitalist class relations from men and women, whereas oppression refers to women and minorities defined within patriarchal, racist, and capitalist relations • -Power, or the converse, oppression – derives from sex, race, and class, and this is manifested through both the material and ideological dimensions of patriarchy, racism, and capitalism. Oppression reflects the hierarchical relations of the sexual and racial division of labor and society.

Processes in domestic work help in the perpetuation of the existing society: • 1) Women stabilize patriarchal structures (the family, housewife, mother, etc) by fulfilling these roles simultaneously, women are reproducing new workers, for both the paid and unpaid labor force. • 2) They care for the men and children of the society. • 3) They work as well in the labor force for lesser wages. • 4) They stabilize the economy through their role as consumers.

Timeline of the women’s struggle • Late 18th century - feminism demands for female emancipation (the principle of egalite as the foundation for a new morality within human relations) • - during the French Revolution, Olympe de Gouges publishes, in response to the “Declaration of the Rights of Man”, her “Declaration of the Right of Women and of the Female Citizen”. She is guillotined in 1793. • http://www.pinn.net/~ sunshine/book-sum/gouges.html • http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/march99/gouges2.html

Timeline of women’s movement… • in Britain a feminist democrat Mary Wollstonecraft (Vindication of the Rights of Woman) was published and pushed the demand for female emancipation directly into the mainstream of British political life, inspired by the principle on egalité as the foundation for a new morality within human relations. • http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/woll.htm

Timeline of women’s movement… • 19th century: early part of the century, in Europe the writings of Wollstonecraft influence other women in Britain; abolitionist and suffragist movement in the US started (the first wave feminism) • - 1820s William Thompson and Anna Wheeler influenced by Robert Owen’s egalitarian principles, regarded as utopian – popularized socialist feminism (key theme “the idea that women’s apparent inferiority was a product of ‘vicious circumstances’ rather than innate deficiencies had been a key theme in feminist writings in early 18th century - fully developed by Owenite feminism) • - - 1837 First Female Anti-Slavery Society convention meets in New York City. • - 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London. When women delegates from the USA are refused entry, they decide to organise a women’s convention on their return home. • - 1845 Margaret Fuller, publishes “Women in the 19th Century”, profoundly influences development of American feminist theory • - 1848 First women’s rights convention, Seneca Falls, N.Y. 68 women and 12 men sign a Declaration of Sentiments, outlining grievances and setting the agenda for the women’s movement. At this convention, Amelia Bush becomes first woman to chair a mixed meeting. • - - 1849 Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and starts to lead other slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad • - - 1850 First National Women’s Rights Convention held in Worcester, Mass – more than 1,000 participants. Formation of National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), to win voting rights for women by means of a constitutional amendment until 1920 where US granted the suffrage rights of women. (for more details about the international women’s suffrage timeline visit the site http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0931343.html

Timeline of women’s movement… • 20th century: the Russian Revolution happened; 1st and 2nd world wars in the early part of the century; national liberation movements in the colonized countries occurred in the middle of the century; then the fall of the Russian empire and emerging struggles of ethnic minorities; the second wave of feminism happened in the 60s; and the global justice movement.

Timeline of the women’s movement… • in 1917 October Revolution in Russia • 1919 formation of the women’s commission called the “Zhenotdel” with a monthly publication “Kommuniska” • Lenin argued that “the experience of all liberation movements has shown that the success of a revolution depends on how much women taken part in it”. • -Lenin says, “we derive our organizational ideas from ideological conceptions, we want no separate organizations of Communist women. She who is a Communist belongs as a member to the party just as he who is a Communist, and has the same rights and duties. But the party must have organs – working groups, commissions, sections – with the specific purpose of rousing the broad mass of women, bringing them into contact with the party and keeping them under its influence; special methods of agitation and forms of organization. This is not bourgeois feminism but a practical revolutionary expediency.”

Timeline of the women’s movement… • In 1936 during Stalin period the women were pushed back to their traditional role in the domestic spheresIn 1936 during Stalin period the women were pushed back to their traditional role in the domestic spheres • In 1960s the second wave feminism started in the US when 50,000 women went out the streets and left their homes and workplaces to protest the arms race • After the 1990s onward --- thousands of women’s organizations emerged in different parts of the world, until the formation of the World March of Women in 2000

Women’s Movement of Today • -strategic character of building an independent women’s movement in every country according to particularities of local situations is an indispensable condition for challenging women’s oppression and achieving real socialism • - - the essential task in the women’s radicalization is to find ways of linking up with the new generations of radicalizing women in order to build feminist movements

women’s situation at present: • - increasing number of women in the labor market esp. doing part time work • -restricting laws for women’s reproductive rights • - increasing number of immigrant women workers • - discrimination

Present Currents of Feminism • - Radical feminists who, on the basis of their analysis of the existence of sexual classes, consider the struggle between the sexes as the only element in the struggle for women’s liberation. • - Various strands of bourgeois feminism • - Reformist feminists • - Socialist feminists who see the struggles of women as more closely linked with the struggles of the labour movement. • - Revolutionary Marxist feminists - including ourselves we try to integrate into our theory, analysis and political practice the different contradictions which shape women’s reality (gender, class, race), situating women’s struggle in a revolutionary perspective and recognizing the importance of an alliance with the labour movement as a whole.

The Revolutionary Marxist • we affirm the existence of a material and social basis for gender oppression and the need for women to constitute themselves as a social subject, with their own political expression • women’s liberation work is not simply a sector of work in itself but something that must influence every other area of our work and our entire organization • to ensure that women become conscious of their specific problems, encourage their self organization to defend their specific interests and thus strengthen the autonomous women’s movement. • we also take initiatives each time we can in the workplaces and unions to defend and extend women’s rights. We systematically highlight the link between women’s domestic responsibilities and their position in the workforce • we support women’s right to self-organization and representation within the labour movement

Global Justice Movement • 1995 Beijing Declaration http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/declar.htm • 1995 Women’s March Against Poverty in Quebec • 1999 Seattle demonstrations against WTO summit • 2000 World March of Women http://www.marchemondiale.org/en/charter3.html - World Social Forums (2001 until present)

Party and Movement • Why is there a need to form political party in a movement? • Mass movement and campaigns on specific issues are not enough • A need for political party which can offer global alternative, a programme, a project of socialist society • What Marx and Engels wrote in the “ Communist Manifesto” in 1848 is still valid today: • “ In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, [the Communists] point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. • “In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. • “The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement”.

Extending Marxism 2: Women’s Movement, Global Justice Movement, Party and Movement