Audrey Wise
eS Vast mimbers of women sot to work for about 70° of men's rates of wages. This is nomic exploitation on a grand scale and equal pay is clearly an elementary demand, But equal pay need not mean equality, end we must ask ourselves in any case, equality with what? Do men have such idyllic lives that we want the same for ourselves? In a world where people are valued as economic units rather than as people, to be an equal economic unit mist not be the height of our ambition. What we want is a revaluation of 211 people, men and women, in humen terms not as adjuncts to machines. Going out to work is not new and is not a sign of growing equality or emancipation, In 1851, 25% of married women {and two out of three widows) had a job additional to housewife. For these working class women, work was an inevitable burden, in and out of the home, as unskilled cheap labour. When you sell your labour-power you are selling part of your life, and if you sell it for a low price, in this society you are announcing that you are a low-value person. Equal pay is therefore a very necessary step towards equality, and will have repercussions on the value placed on women in general,
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But the keeping down of women is not just a capitalist phenomenon and. it is not just capitalist who do it. ther societies based on property have done it, and men of all classes take part im it. The fact that women are the mothers make them beth powerful end vulnerable, and men seek to curb this power and utilise this vulnerability. Children mike mothers euardiens of the future with a direct and visible immortelity, while @ men c-n be dependent on the word of a woman even for his knowledge of fatherhood, This is power indeed. But mothers are vulnerable because their children are also hostages, and by depriving mothers of the guardianship of their children men have meade full use of superior physical strength to ensure their dominance. Now we have an industrial socicty where physical strength matters less and less, where women have had to be educated (though often inadequately), and where some men see them as more of a danger than ever. These are the men who ally themselves with the capitalist class on this particular issue, against their fellow women workers, These men are their own enemies, because undervaluing women means under-valuing motherhood, If motherhood is under=-valued so is family life. Bringing up children is regarded as just washing nappies and other unpleasant or monotonous tasks fit only for cabbages or servents, 1.6. women, But surely dealing with the unfolding of new minds is a fascinating and creative thing, if properly shared with a willing partner and not a 2h-hour a day burden. Reality has been so turned on its head thet "women's work" automatically means the most lowly, menial, unskilled, badly-paid work, instead of the most creative and humene, In Victorian times, working class women were drudges and richer women were decorations, It cannot be regarded as more than a modest advance that working class women are now permitted to be both! If women are to achieve equal pay they must act as “organised labour". Tt is very easy to find working women in shops and factories, But they are much scarcer in Trade Union me-tings, and they are rare jewels indeed in influential positions in the Unions, There are some signs that the worms ars turning, 4st Fords end a few other places, but women in general are absent from the places where the decisions are being made. Where are the women who should be on the AEF National Committee? Half the members of USDAW are women, yet only en cighth of the Executive. There are
BB Divisional Councillors in USDAW, but only three are women, This sort of statistic can be repeated throughout the Unions. Where are these missing women? They are at home cooking their husbands meals. Ks long as most Women acce pt the spss mn of the “double job", they will not have time or energy to take their places in the commmity, in political and trede union activities. As long as even many left-wing husbands expect their wives to stay at home with the babies while they go out to be in the vanguard of the struggle, there will be these missing women, absent from 4 struggle which concerns them at least ss mach as men. Last year's Workers! Control Conference was 2 splendid Conference - but it was very similar to the TUG and the Labour Party Conference in one way, in the proportion of women prese anil The comment in a Union Journal that 4t would be'a good thing for more women to be delegates to the Tredes Union Congress "beacause we are always short of dancing partners at the Mayor's Reception " is not an isolated example of male patronage within the working class movement itsclf. Women will have to assert themselves. pretty strenuously to best down patronage ) and to overcome all the as pects of discriminztion still syisting, Equal pay, equal training opport unitic Ss, equal gus rdinnship of children (as a general right ) not just when there is 3 Court: “Orde rx), and the removal as all the smaller humiliations, There are no spitals which will not remove 2 Boe without the husband's consent. There are the Insurance Companies SEtee a amand the husband’ signature for compensation paid to a wife for her own neeident at work, ind 50 on,
Even the very language is sex-biase d. Perhaps it started with God the father. believe the pagans did have Goddesses s Do the Irish Civil ures marchers reelly mean "one man, one vo te"? I hope not. Sex-bins lice very deep, after centuries of conditioning, and to ae any further progress against it, including the achievement of equal pay for work of equal value, women wilt have to challenge the role assigned to them by man. Domestic as well as financial respons sibilities will have to be shared by man and women as partners, so that sach lives fully both outside and inside the home and ohare 3g also the joys of parenthood, Neither Will be superior to the other, and neither sex will abuse its particular powers. The achievement of this kind of equality for women budeonc raise the quality of the lives of men as well es women, and its achic yement will be one measure of the success of the struggle egainst capitalism and other exploiting systems. * Mes. Wise is a divisional councillor of USDAW and the mother of two children. Reprinted from Black Dwarf, 10/1/69.
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