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which seeks to eliminate men, or to replace them as dominators, this development is related to changing ideas, (from 14th century onwards) religious, then moral, about individual worth and about the "place of women". The limited reference to the changing economic and social contexts within which these ideas were located means we have a very unsubstantial picture of this development, fo example, it is important to examine the way in which the protests of middle-class women in the 19th century against the uselessness and powerlessness of their position developed into a movement claiming the same legal, educational and political rights for women which middle-class men already enjoyed; while during the same period working-class women struggles alongside men to bring improvements in working-class conditions generally. (Some elements of these differences persist today with some tendence for middle class women to seek areas of cultural or psychological liberation while working class women may tend to be more pre-occupied with demands for equal pay, equal work, opportunities for training etc. pects of the struggle are not separate in any real strategy for Women's Liberation and Sheila Rowbotham correctly recognises that the "liberal Radical feminism" was incapable of making the necessary links and carry the movement beyond the present social framework.)
Attention is then focused on the position of women as housewives, and as workers. This approach is presumably used because it is in these positions that women can clearly recognise themselves, but an analysis which makes the links referred to above, would need to examine more systematically the major factors which determine women's situation.
(Juliet Mitchell argues that the key structures which in their inter-relationship determine women's position are those of production, reproduction, sexuality and the socialisation of children, and this provides a basis for the analysis of the situation of women. Sheila Rowbotham's pamphlet hovers uncertainly between description and analysis.) PARIS - A Women's Liberation group has just started in Paris. For the moment, it isuvery small and composed mainly of intellectuals and students. It was initiated by a group of sisters familiar with the American movement (the theoreticians) that fused with dissidents from the wild-cat day-care Centre at the Censier Faculty.
From what we know, the group has so far made only one public appearance, a meeting around the fountain at the Vincennes Faculty which constituted a relatively bitter experience. On this occasion sisters were clearly able to see the extent of the male chauvinism and sexism within the French Movèment: the Maoist & Anarchist "militants" present joined forces with hardcore reactionary types welcoming the women with cries of "Strip!" "Suffragettes!", "Dykes"and "Counter Revolutionaries!" not to mention obscene proposals and bullying.
After this traumatizing experience, the sisters spent most of their time in discussion sessions and brainstorming. There is no question that the sisters in the movement as a whole have been awakened. But the group feels that it faces almost insurmountable odds.
Report from: EVERYWOMAN: 6515 West 83rd St. Los Angeles, Calif. 90045.
How about sending messages of solidarity to our French sisters. Address of Paris group can be obtained from above journal.
We salute these women who are breaking throuth the myth of the advanced stage of equality and respect supposedly enjoyed by our French sisters in te French Left Movement.