The last year has seen a mushrooming of women's committees, particularly in Labour-controlled local council structures. Sarah Roelofs examines the recent experience of these committees.
The Greater London Council was first off the mark in May, closely followed by Camden and Islington Councils. Hackney and Greenwich now have Sub-Committees on Women, while Southwark has a Women's Equality Unit. It is worth noting that Lewisham Council has had a Women's Rights Working Party since 1978. These structures all, to a greater or lesser extent, have some effective power both inside and outside the council chambers. The extent of this power is to some extent reflected in their budget allocations — the amount the committees can spend, and on what, in their own right. While this latest fashion in local government politics has not yet spread outside London many other councils such as Merseyside, Bradford, Leeds and Sheffield, have expressed great interest in what have been seen as successful initiatives.
Is this outbreak of interest in women's issues only Labour Party opportunism — general electioneering on a vote-catching bandwagon of 'women's rights'? With a total of 12 jobs in three Women's Committee Support Units currently being advertised is this merely the provision of 'jobs for the girls' — for middle class feminists settling into middle age? Are these working parties, sub-committees, full committees, units, simply more bureaucracy, more meetings, papers, reports, recommendations and suggestions to the administration of the local state? Should socialists who believe in campaigning self-activity dirty their placards? I answer yes on all counts. Yes, sections of the Labour Party are being opportunistic; yes, nice interesting well paid jobs are being provided; yes, the accompanying bureaucracy is immense; and yes, socialists, all socialists, should be actively involved. This is not to say that the Women's Committees will be leading mass action in the New Year, but rather while acknowledging the problems, to argue that campaigning opportunities exist that socialists should take advantage of, especially given the form of democracy which to a greater or lesser extent the Women's Committees have based themselves on.
Democracy can make or break a campaign, a group, a movement. Of course what is defined as successful democracy in the world at large is not necessarily, indeed is usually not at all, successful for the point of view of liberation. Feminists and socialists are essentially concerned with liberation. Only the oppressed can liberate themselves, and in order to do this women and the working class must fight for the right to exercise political power for themselves. A precondition for liberation is therefore democracy that allows for self-government and self-activity. The Women's Liberation Movement must be autonomous in the sense of women-only governing themselves.
Democracy in this sense is feared above all else by those from whom political power must be wrested. As Tony Benn has pointed out, '... the establishment ... realise that ... they are facing a democratic challenge to the legitimacy of their own undemocratic privileges ... the real enemy now perceived is democracy itself.' And Alan Freeman in his recently published political biography of Benn notes that 'Benn's achievement is to have re-introduced these questions (of democracy) to a mass British public.'
Benn wants to 'see the people of this country take control of our own destinies' by acquiring 'equality in the control of political power'. Rooted in the historical democratic strategy of the labour movement which was based on 'the idea that politics was about social justice'. Benn draws on the tradition of those 'who had no wealth or power or influence (who) were forced to organise' in campaigns against the Combination Acts for the right to labour unions and for voting rights such as those won by the Chartists and the Suffragettes. He argues the necessity to 're-establish democracy within the Labour Party so that we can develop policies strong enough to win social justice.' A Marxist critique of Benn's concept of democracy makes the point that the Chartists were not simply fighting for the right to vote per se, but for genuine self-representation and self-government. This can only be achieved by a new type of state based on the active participation of everyone in society. (Examples of states where the whole people were involved were the Paris Commune and the Russian revolution re-modelling of the Commune with soviets as the basis of the constitution.)
Stuart Hall, in a recent article in Marxism Today leads us in to the women's movement critique of the patriarchalism of labour movement democracy. Noting that while the forms of working class democracy 'were, at root, fundamentally democratic in origin ... in their actual operation they preserve a certain formalism, constitutionalism in the modes of operation, which may be formally accountable to its members, but which lowers democratic access and participation.' While the women's movement supports delegation and accountability it argues for, what in labour movement language could be termed 'specific mandates' ie these are limited to certain specified tasks. 'Delegates' should be rotated to allow for greater participation and to mitigate against power becoming vested in certain individuals. Feminists argue for a distribution of authority, rotation of tasks, fair and sensitive allocation of tasks with allowance for learning, development and competence, frequent diffusion of information and equal access to resources. The women's movement has always maintained open participatory democratic principles which allow for maximum involvement of the maximum number. An example of a women's movement campaign which very successfully organises on this basis while seeking active involvement of the labour movement is the National Abortion Campaign.
Democratic forms are thus crucially important — they are not simply a matter of organisation, or a preoccupation with structure, but of politics as well. The Women's Committees, coming from the Bennite Left or the so called 'hard' Labour Left, and being concerned with the stuff of women's liberation, have managed, somewhat unconsciously and very imperfectly, a fusion of the best of the labour movement's democratic traditions with the 'new' anti-patriarchal democracy of the women's movement. This is most true of the GLC Women's Committee. The fusion needs careful protection and the democratic forms need nurturing, but the basis is there for campaigning self-activity uniting the women's and labour movements. This would be an achievement indeed and such opportunities need to be seized rather than watched cautiously or dismissed for their imperfections.
An outline of the organisation and structure of two of these committees — that of the GLC and Southwark's Equality Unit — will illustrate the point. Others are roughly similar: Camden is a particularly successful model on the GLC example, particularly its recent work on prostitution. Kate Allen, the chair of the Camden Women's Committee, has issued a press statement fully supporting the recent prostitutes' occupation of a Kings Cross church in protest against police harassment. Both the chairs of the GLC and Camden Women's Committee support decriminalisation of prostitution. Additionally the Camden Women's Committee is involved in two schemes for affirmative action training, and work against single women's homelessness, and the racial harassment and discrimination of black women.
The GLC Women's Committee sought active mass involvement from the outset, by calling an open meeting to discuss the whole idea, which was primarily advertised in and around the women's movement and women's organisations in the labour movement. There was a high attendance and a considerable cross section of political views of women's liberation. Sub working groups were set up covering about 15 different areas, eg employment, transport, violence, lesbians, child-care etc. These groups are autonomous of the GLC with the aim of formulating and campaigning on policy proposals for it. The working groups are open to all women. Later a co-ordinating committee was established, aiming to co-ordinate and centralise the work of the working groups and making priority proposals and recommendations to the formal Women's Committee of the council while at the same time monitoring its progress. The co-ordinating committee sends major decisions for ratification to open meetings, of which two more have been held with a better attendance than the initial meeting. The co-ordinating committee has had a number of discussions about democratic principles and has been very concerned with accessability. Thus while every working group is requested to send a representative, as are all women's groups in the London area, the meetings are open to anyone to attend and participate. Tasks are rotated, minutes circulated, regular reports given. Special facilities for the disabled are provided, as is a creche. Positive discrimination in favour of groups like ethnic minorities, lesbians, disabled women is a guiding principle, as is strict mandation and accountability of any representatives. Involvement across the political spectrum has continued fairly high.
In the practical operation of this organisation there are obvious problems. There are difficulties with the function of the open meetings. There are tensions between these open structures and sections of the Labour Party who are worried by the lack of formalism, the looseness of the structures and by what seems to be a fear of giving away too much power. The co-ordinating committee has been reminded that real power lies firmly with the GLC. At the same time the women's liberation movement has become increasingly worried by what these committees can really do for women given their patriarchal origins and Labour Party opportunism. Sections of the women's movement are beginning to back off. Under all these pressures there is the beginning of a tendency on the part of some of the GLC people involved to slide on some of the democratically agreed decisions under the explanation that the GLC can intervene at any time. And there is the ongoing tension between these feminists who base themselves in or around the labour movement and those who are based in or around the actual structures of the women's movement. The actual work undertaken has a marked tendency towards a very large amount of paper work. However the subject of these papers is important.
Many issues have been highlighted which probably would not otherwise have recieved any attention, eg the genital mutilation of Third World women undertaken for enormous profit by doctors in London. Moreover one of the first things the committee did was to actively support the Women's Right to Work campaign and the 5 June Festival for Women's Rights. It is presently involved in a London-wide low pay campaign, including leafleting and a public meeting, aimed at trade unions and community groups. In addition it has joined forces with the Women's Campaign for Jobs in their protests against the insidious UB 671 form. A press conference on the effect of the form on women's rights has been held and a GLC-produced leaflet about it has been distributed throughout London.
One of the original motivations for the GLC Women's Committee was the lack of policy on women's issues in the manifesto. The idea was that the working groups should produce policy proposals for inclusion in a 'Programme for Action for Women in London'. A draft has been produced covering policy on women's centres, childcare, pregnancy and motherhood, black women, disabled women, employment and industrial strategy, health, lesbians, the media and the arts, women and planning, violence, and transport. The introduction notes that a number of areas are still not covered — eg young women, older women and pensions, unions, law, welfare benefits and taxation, peace, sports and leisure, consumers, housing and new technology, but that there will be ample opportunity for proposals on these issues to be included in future drafting stages of the programme. The draft programme has been circulated initially to women's groups. It is proposed that every women in London should then have the opportunity to discuss and contribute to it. This consultative process, taking policy proposals out to interested groups for comment and change, is a reflection of the participatory democracy, however imperfect at the moment, conceived of in the GLC Women's Committee. The basic democracy is crucial. The democratic methods and structures must be asserted and the Committee itself turned outwards. Links with the labour movement on a rank and file level should be strengthened. Constituency Labour Parties, trade union branches and so on should be requested to send delegates. A group of women have pushed for discussion around campaigning priorities: it has already been agreed that a banner should be produced so that the Women's Committee can be visibly seen as supporting campaigns like that of the NHS workers. The potential is enormous but those who believe in mass self-activity need to move quickly before the bureaucracy does.
The Southwark Women's Rights Unit operates slightly differently to the GLC Women's Committee. It has not as yet held any open meetings, but nor has it yet ruled them out. Instead it has written to 700 to 800 community groups, including women's groups, tenants associations, play groups, health centres, etc, including a standard questionnaire, information about the Unit, and requesting ideas and the opportunity to talk to the group. A similar questionnaire was circulated in local papers. While the response has not been overwhelming it has been enthusiastic. The issue of safety and violence came out top in the questionnaires and is now the Unit's main public campaign with the provision of women only self-defence classes, better lighting and the relocation of walkways on council estates. The Unit is planning to follow this issue up with others and to hold exhibitions, local open meetings and door to door canvassing. It is also planning an exhibition bus (Camden has a similar idea with a mobile women's information centre).
Southwark does not have any of the additional structural organisation like the GLC. But, as with the GLC, all of the formal Women's Committee meetings are open and community groups are encouraged to send representatives with the right to speak but no vote. The Unit feels that with its limited budget and resources it should feed its proposals and demands directly into the council's other committees.
Sue Goss, the chair of Southwark's Women's Committee, feels one of the most important functions of the committee is redressing the balance between women and men in terms of the social wage. She points out that the social wage is primarily produced by women and is primarily used by women. But it is men who have the decision-making power over what is produced, made available, over where resources are allocated and for what purpose, and how it is all to be consumed. She hopes structures like Southwark's Women's Unit can give women more power in these decisions, more of a say over their lives. On a more grass roots level than the GLC (which covers the whole of London, after all) the Southwark Unit is opening up power structures and making them accessible in a way that presents feminists and socialists with opportunities for grass roots campaigning.
The Women's Committees are innovative. They are the first governmental structures to incorporate 'liberative' democracy, to attempt to reach outwards, to seek to actively involve those on whose behalf governmental decisions are made in that decision-making process. The committees offer some opportunities for women to take control of their own destinies and to achieve some measure of social justice. This is not an argument in favour of taking over the local state from the inside — rather the reverse. In order to achieve social justice, to win our demands for women's rights and liberation, we do not set up shop in the town halls just because they have opened their doors to us — rather we welcome the open doors for the access they give us to the town halls, precisely to drag the occupants from their bureaucratic asylums and out onto the streets.
Stuart Hall in the previously mentioned article in Marxism Today describes, in relation to the working class, that which is feared by all those opposed to real democracy because of its threat to their vested interests and privileges, '... the class must not mobilise on its own account; power must not ... seep down into the hands of ordinary folks. The sound of ... shop stewards getting notions of their own capacities above and beyond their station as relayers of power from elsewhere, of tenants who speak back to housing managers, ... pickets that refuse to stand still, ... women who won't settle to their familial roles, blacks who assert their own self-identities — the sound in short of the class in motion, of democratic initiatives passing to the forces below — is a sound which has made ... consciences shudder and ... nerves rattle down through the ages.' The women's committees offer opportunities for women to 'mobilise on their own account' by virtue of their democratic basis. But the opportunities must be taken, used and turned outwards for us to reap the social justice harvest.
SARAH ROELOFS has been involved in the GLC Women's Committee since its inception, and is a member of Islington South and Finsbury Labour Party.
References
1 Tony Benn: Arguments for Democracy ed C Mullin, Penguin 1982
2 Alan Freeman: The Benn Heresy, Pluto Press, 1982.
3 Mullin, op cit.
4 See Epilogue chapter in Freeman, op cit.
5 Stuart Hall: A Long Haul, Marxism Today, November 1982.
6 See: The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Joreen from The Second Wave, Vol 2 No 1 1972.