The British Left's record on feminism leaves much to be desired. Jude Woodward reviews another sectarian and economistic attack on the women's movement in the Revolutionary Communist Party's book, Real Freedom.
Real Freedom is presented as a reply to the book Sweet Freedom by Bea Campbell and Anna Coote. This book has gained a substantial audience in sections of the women's movement, and as a pretty concerted attack on Marxism's record on women it certainly needs a reply. But for the authors of Real Freedom an attack on Campbell and Coote is in reality a convenient vehicle for a far more fundamental argument, '...feminism has a record of fighting women's oppression little better than Labourism' (p101), and 'the radical rhetoric of sections of the women's movement often obscures the fact that the very logic of feminism leads to a hostile attitude towards working class politics' (p105).
This hostile assessment of the women's movement as a whole is not unique to the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Its fundamental conclusions are shared by both the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Militant. And of course these organisations stand in a fine old tradition. The Social Democratic Federation, Britain's first 'Marxist party used virtually the same words to denounce the suffragettes! The argument goes that all feminism is bourgeois feminism, and women are a 'backward' section of the class who need special efforts to be won to socialism. This is generally coupled with a completely economistic approach to political activity, expressed most clearly by the Militant. The women's movement is 'divisive' and the task is to unite the working class around the bread and butter issues of wages, hours and conditions.
So how does Real Freedom justify its dismissal of the women's liberation movement? To summarise the book's argument: by 1970 the women's movement had already become so obsessed with personal politics that it was a dead letter and was no longer even fighting for its own demands. This point is proved by the dissipation of the movement in the mid-70s. Even the activism of the National Abortion Campaign (NAC) is dismissed as representing an inevitable compromise with reformism. Today the movement is 'one large quango', accommodated into the state through jobs in women's refuges. This is coupled with the total identification of the women's movement with reformism through the Labour Party. The women's movement is dead! Long live the RCP's 'new movement' — the women's right to work campaign.
The problem for Real Freedom, and many others on the left who make similar judgements, is that the analysis of the women's movement is completely divorced from any discussion of the overall developments in the class struggle and in politics. For example, while it is true that the women's movement did break apart in some confusion in the mid-70s, the roots of this cannot be found simply in the heads of active feminists.
The important turning point for the women's movement was the election of the Wilson Labour government in 1974 — not mentioned in this book. The defeat of the Benn-led left challenge on the EEC question, and the sell-out of the Jones/Scanlon trade union left through the social contract left the working class as a whole without any alternative leadership to that provided by the rightward moving Labour government. Opposition to Labour was essentially left to the tiny forces of the revolutionary left. With no radical alternative coming from within the ranks of the labour movement itself, it is not surprising that the radical feminist wing — which in general consciously turned its back on the labour movement — grew in strength in the women's movement.
A small socialist wing of the movement continued to seek alliances with other forces opposing the Labour government, organising in particular around the National Abortion Campaign, the Grunwick strike, and later the Anti-Nazi League (ANL). But the unity of the movement was destroyed at the 1976 Women's Liberation conference, by the intervention of the so-called 'revolutionary feminist' wing of the movement. Opposing all campaigns and strategies that involved men in any way, their very radical phrasemongering concealed an absence of strategy for building the movement. The most extreme exponents of these views eventually broke the democracy of the movement when in the final session they seized the microphone and insisted on the agenda of their preference. This was the last national women's liberation movement (WLM) conference.
A movement of women, as with movements of oppressed nationalities, is bound to embrace the viewpoints of different classes. What is fundamentally at stake is which wins leadership of the movement. And if the working class fails to win that role in the movement the reasons for this have to be sought in the working class movement, rather than in the subjective ideas of the leaders of the women's movement. In the mid-70s it was not surprising that the revolutionary feminists won such sway in the movement; the labour movement was offering no response to the Labour government on this or any other question.
That this was not an inherent condition of the women's movement is demonstrated by the fact that when a decisive lead was given by forces representing the working class they rapidly won large sections of the movement around them. This was the case at Grunwicks, but can be seen most clearly through the experience of the National Abortion Campaign. Of course, for the authors of Real Freedom, NAC was a sell-out too: 'through NAC the WLM made its peace first with Parliament, and then with the Labour Party' (p113) or 'the period of NAC's activism coincides with the convergence of feminism and reformism' (p114).
The question of reformism and the women's movement in fact arises in a quite different context. What NAC actually did represent was a consistent attempt by some forces in the women's movement to maintain an orientation to an alliance with the labour movement in fighting for a rather significant question of women's rights — despite the problems under the Labour government.
In the crisis of leadership of the labour movement under Wilson and Callaghan the activities of NAC made an important contribution to beginning to resolve this problem — not just for women but for the whole working class. NAC's successful labour movement conference, held in 1978 marked a new stage in taking vital political questions into the trade union movement. The attendance of delegates from industrial unions like the miners (NUM), marked an important step in breaking out of the rotten traditions of the British labour movement on women's liberation. And the forces that began to be mobilised by this kind of activity rapidly moved into the leadership of the struggle against the Thatcher government, striking a blow against the Tories through the successful anti-Corrie campaign. This section of the women's movement at least not only took forward the struggles of women, but gave some leadership to the rest of the working class as well.
Real Freedom doesn't give all this much attention — it would spoil the argument. In the same way, right now, the RCP's paper, The Next Step, denounces the mobilisations of women around Greenham. They are all 'vicar's wives' and 'social workers', whose main function is to sell-out the working class in its fight for nuclear disarmament: 'Despite the reactionary politics of the Greenham protesters — pro-law and order, pro-Britain and pro-family — many on the British left have interpreted the rise of feminism in CND as a shift towards militancy... By allowing middle class feminists to police its protests, CND has ensured that its token actions are kept well within acceptable bounds' (Feb 1983). The fact that national CND and the labour movement had planned no mass actions against the missiles in 1983 until the Greenham women took the lead is, of course, irrelevant.
But the problems of Real Freedom's approach come home to roost when it examines the record of the TUC. While the book [illegible] much of the failures of the TUC and its rotten misleadership, when it comes to the crunch, rather than a stinging exposure of the TUC, we have a stinging exposure of the women's movement! From 1975 the 'rot had begun', the TUC had ceased making even small gestures in the direction of women's rights. And Real Freedom's explanation for this is that it was the women's movement which let the TUC off the hook: 'The women's movement turned away from any strategy of making demands of the trade union leadership that it take up key issues of women's rights, towards notions of autonomy, individual fulfilment and self-help: it thus let the TUC off the hook. Feminists brought their preoccupations with counselling, self-help health collectives, battered women's refuges and self-defence classes into a space willingly provided for them inside the official machine by the union leaders' (p73).
It's true that the pressure did come off the TUC in the mid-70s, but this was mainly due to the retreats from the industrial militancy of the early 1970s. This industrial militancy had brought down the Tories, bringing Labour into office: women workers were offered the Equal Pay Act (EPA) and the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA). But then it became clear that more than industrial militancy was going to be needed to deal with Labour, and the crisis of perspective in the labour movement led to an industrial downturn, including among women workers.
In the unions a tiny minority began to regroup and organise to change the policies of the labour movement, led by forces like NAC and other campaigns. Towards the end of the Labour government this began to combine with reform movements at the base of the Labour Party itself. What emerged after the Tory victory in 1979 was a combination of struggle inside the Labour Party to change the leadership, and the beginning of more organised reform movements in the unions. The basis for this was laid under Labour, and sections of the women's movement played a not insignificant role. In particular NAC again was able to link up with a developing left wing in the Women's TUC which fought to increase its influence on the TUC itself, scoring some successes. This culminated in forcing the TUC to call the march against the Corrie Bill in 1979. It is interesting that Real Freedom does not even mention the 1979 Corrie march in its assessment of the TUC!
In its assessment of the women's movement in the 1970s, Real Freedom falls into the typical trap that besets sectarians. Every movement is either good or bad, black or white, with no shades in between. Unable to understand the contradictory nature of the women's movement, as it's not all good, it must be all bad.
For Real Freedom the involvement of active feminists in the Labour Party is the last straw! 'The convergence of feminism with the state and the Labour Party shows that the WLM has no independent political existence. Individuals can go on discussing how the personal is political inside women's refuges or in Labour Party wards. This only goes to show that feminism cannot even fight on the issues it has staked out for itself' (p17).
It is true that the Labour Party has not got an exactly shining record on women. So why are many feminists active in the Labour Party if it is such a sell-out? Feminists aren't the only people to have been joining the Labour Party [illegible] others. It would be crazy to imagine that these people are joining the Labour Party because they identify with its record.
Since the fall of the Labour government a left wing has emerged in the Labour Party. This became most clearly focussed at the national level around the time of Benn's challenge for the deputy leadership. While this left wing has innumerable weaknesses, the most political militants have seen this development as a way out of the impasse imposed by the last Labour government. Industrial struggle brought down Labour, but the end result was Thatcher! The appearance of a Labour Left provides an alternative — a fight to change the Labour Party.
There are two possible responses to this. The RCP's is to say that this is a hopeless waste of time and very dangerous. The other response is to get into the fight, and take it as far as possible. It's the latter choice that explains the movement of significant numbers of feminists into the Labour Party. The identification of these feminists with the left has been made clear by recent Labour Party Women's conferences. Last year it was the only significant section of the British labour movement to oppose the Falklands War and to call for the return of the fleet. And it led the way to unilateralism and CND. Alongside this, the growth of the Labour Party women's organisation helps lay the basis for building the women's movement with deeper roots among working class women.
Of course the movement of women into the Labour Party remains contradictory. At present the Labour Left has not come forward with a coherent strategy for women. This crucial weakness allows space for others, further to the right, who are waiting to fill the gap.
This is the real danger represented by Sweet Freedom, which the RCP can't grasp. The main elements of the strategy proposed by Bea Campbell and Anna Coote — abolish the married person's tax allowances and redistribute the money as higher child benefit — provides a basis for uniting the aspirations of women not with left reformism, but with the Labour Right and even the Social Democratic Party. SDP spokespersons Polly Toynbee and Sue Slipman have put forward similar policies.
Without any clear alternative these policies have gained weight among Labour women. They are even widely considered to be 'left' policies. In the context of the current debate around coalitionism — led by sections of the Communist Party, of which Bea Campbell was until recently a member — it is clear what function these policies can play. They provide a basis for uniting women behind the project of a Labour Right/SDP coalition government. This would be the end of the Labour women's organisation as a left force inside the Labour Party. But Real Freedom doesn't even see this challenge, let alone take it up, as it gives the current debates inside the Labour Party no significance.
Of course Real Freedom loudly proclaims the need for socialism, and its [proposed] 'women's right to work campaign' includes at least a fair proportion of the actions that women should expect a socialist government to take — from full employment to the socialisation of domestic labour. But the here-and-now struggles of women are essentially not socialist enough for the pure RCP. The only struggles they dare get mixed up in are the occasional strike.
But there is a serious debate that socialists must confront in the here-and-now, and that is the debate taking place in the Labour Party on women. And if we are not careful we will lose it by default. There are two issues of absolute centrality to the female section of the workforce. First and foremost is the question of low pay, and alongside it the job segregation that underpins it. This year the labour movement as a whole finally accepted the principle of a national minimum wage, which would constitute a tremendous advance for women workers. But as usual in the Labour Party the real debate is about how it would be financed. Roy Hattersley has already indicated that in his view it would have to come through increased taxation of the higher paid. This is exactly the same answer as given by Bea Campbell and Anna Coote in Sweet Freedom, when they ask other workers to be 'altruistic' towards women. There are two clear problems with this answer; first, unless this higher taxation is going to massively cut into the majority of workers' standard of living it wouldn't be enough to pay for a minimum wage; secondly, if you are looking for a way to divide the work[ers], [illegible] a worse deal for another, you couldn't choose a better way to do it.
The whole Labour Left, with women in the forefront, has to take up this question of the minimum wage, and argue that it should be paid for by the [expropriation] of the banks; [illegible] companies and multinational companies. On job segregation we have to begin to seriously raise the argument for positive action — the setting of goals and quotas to bring women into all jobs. The experience of some Labour councils in implementing such programmes can be used as the basis for beginning the real argument for legislation to make this mandatory on all employers. Real Freedom like the Militant, rejects positive action out of hand. It calls it divisive, a policy 'which asks the working class to pay for an improvement in women's position'. It would be interesting to see how Real Freedom would explain to the million-plus women who are the sole wage earners in their families that a better paid job for them means a setback to the working class!
All such arguments really do is let the labour bureaucracy off the hook. Bea Campbell does too, when she argues that while positive action is a good thing, women should rely on the goodwill of the bosses to implement it. At the same time, without considering the issue of legislation, she argues it would inevitably be a side-issue in collective bargaining, reliant on a 'degree of altruism that has no part in the tradition of British trade unionism'.
Women in the Labour Party should take up the arguments around the national minimum wage and on positive action, putting forward a series of demands that begin to go to the roots of the problems confronting women. But, of course, Real Freedom's fundamental argument is against all partial demands and reforms. This is 'reformism' and counter to Marxism. The fight for laws in particular is abhorred, 'parliamentarist', and in the 'acceptable' arena of lobbying and talking to MPs.
So how, as Marxists, do we see this? Well, Marx and Engels' view was clear, they showed it in practice. They built the successful 8-hour-day campaign at the end of the 19th century — not a 'socialist' [illegible] was won [illegible] the overthrow of capitalism! And they fought against those tendencies in the workers' movement of the time which argued that the fight shouldn't be for a law, but against individual employers. But they didn't go lobbying for it, they built some of the most massive demonstrations Britain has ever seen. Perhaps the [illegible] book will explain how Marx and Engels were also reformists!
The fight for reforms and partial demands is a fundamental element in Marxist strategy. They don't solve people's problems, but in two important respects they are a step on the road. First, as each subsidiary aspect of women's oppression gets cleared out of the way it becomes plainer to the great mass of women what the roots of their problems really are. Secondly, each successful fight for reform represents both a real improvement in the status and situation of women, and builds their confidence and ability to struggle for more.
The authors of Real Freedom declare the necessity of socialism, but then make no contribution on how to achieve it. Like every other sectarian current on the British left, they prefer to maintain their unsullied revolutionary purity, of a type only found in ivory towers, rather than dirty themselves in the actual struggles working people are engaged in now.
The new rise in combativity of women, the immensely positive role played by the women at Greenham and the Labour Party women's organisation, is a challenge to the left. Can we prove that socialism has something to offer these and all women? Yes, by being responsive to the needs and demands of the movement as they are thrown up. This doesn't mean adopting wholesale every notion that wins the label feminist. But the feminism of the vast numbers of working class women who look up from their kitchen sinks or sweatshop sewing machines and say: 'What about us!' — that's our feminism. And we have [illegible] away centuries of oppression. Real Freedom's starting point is not where they agree with the sentiment and these struggles, but where they disagree. Its only contribution is to help convince women that Marxists have nothing to say.
JUDE WOODWARD is an active member of the Labour Party and the Greenham peace movement.