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Since 1884, when Engels described the origins in private property of women's oppression and the forms of the family which maintain it, little has been done to develop a Marxist analysis of the family a reflection on the backwardness of the socialist movement on this question. Only in recent years, as movements for women's liberation have begun to develop in advanced capitalist countries, have there been some initial attempts. We hope with this article to open the pages of our journal to a discussion which is the essential theoretical task of revolutionary Marxists in the women's liberation movement.
PRE-CAPITALIST SOCIETY The institution of marriage developed in pre-capitalist society as a bargaining system for the accumulation of lands, kingdoms, and eventually capital; and to provide a recognised system of inheritance for these acquisitions. For the ruling class, the idealisation of women (medieval chivalry, for example) and the institutions of slavery, serfdom and prostitution, accompanied and complemented this form of family organisation. The nuclear family acquired a particular importance for the nascent bourgeoisie -it was an instrument for the accumulation of capital, and for training children in individualism and competition. It was no accident that Protestant ideology placed such emphasis on family and sexual mores, though prostitution as a corollary of rigid family organisation by no means disappeared in Protestant society.
In the feudal period the reproduction of the family unit among the lower classes was in a sense a result of the imposition of ruling class ideas the enforcement of monogamy by early Christian kings but it also corresponded to the economic needs of those classes, the peasantry and artisans also being obliged to strive to acquire property. In these families, however, the division of labour was not of the kind to be experienced by the proletariat in the period of industrialisation: a woman working in the fields beside her husband was in much the same relation to the means of production as the man, though she was oppressed by the burden of domestic duties. It was the appearance of generalised commodity production which disrupted this relationship, and created the proletarian family.
THE WORKING CLASS FAMILY As the bourgeoisie assumed the dominant position in society, the forms and functions of the ruling class family were slowly changing. But it was on the lower class family that the capitalist mode of production had the most dramatic impact. The early industrial period was one of extreme exploitation of female labour, women and children being driven into the factory and the mine by the inadequacy of one man's wages and moreover when the employer had the choice he would in many instances go for the cheaper kinds of labour. But the social consequences had dangers for the bourgeoisie, especially in the context of the early crises of capitalist production. At such times, the mass of the working class, individed, uncontrolled by the institutions of church or family, with the evidence of their exploitation everywhere about them, could present a terrible threat, as they did in Britain over the Charter and the 10 Hours movement. The stirring of the social conscience of the bourgeoisie conscience of the bourgeoisie coincided conveniently with the awakening of fears for property by the condition of the proletariat as it emerged from the first and crudest stages of factory production. From mid-century onwards, there was a tendency for women to be turned back into the home where economically possible, and at the same time bourgeois ideology elevated the nuclear family to a central place in the literature, religion and public mores of the epoch.
It is here that we encounter the more insidious forms of women's oppression in bourgeois society. The worker is the slave of capitalist society, " wrote James Connolly, "the woman is the slave of that slave." The division of labour in the proletarian home is far stricter than among the middle classes- where in the last century the bulk of the work was thrown onto the vast army of domestic servants, and in recent times a certain liberalisation has taken place. The difference has scarcely lessened in the present century, and relatively the oppression of the working class housewife has probably increased in some respects, for example, her increasing isolation in view of the atomisation of the extended family which reappeared in an urban context in older industrial areas in the late nineteenth century. The nuclear family is the only institution which capitalism has been able to offer the worker to care for his basic wants, the only place, moreover, in which he can be master. It has also provided some kind of goal to justify the need to sell his labour, so that the division between work and "life" might be maintained as though it were some natural phenomenon, the one being necessary even to the hope of enjoying the other. In this way the collective consciousness of the organised male workers is weakened, the family acting as a brake on trade union militancy.
At the same time as she fulfils this function without cost to employer or state, the woman remains part of a reserve pool of labour. This pool has been drawn upon in particular conditions-in the two world wars (as a result of which certain minimal concessions had to be granted to them); in conditions of high demand for labour, such as the post-war boom, lasting until recent years; and in a different context, in periods of slump, when women are forced out into menial jobs in order to provide any family income, or employers (in backward sectors of industry) replace men with cheaper women workers, as happened in some areas in the '30s. Because of the peripheral nature of this oppressed section of workers, the trade union movement has traditionally been backward on the question of their organisation: the working
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class woman remains relatively isolated.
DOES CAPITALISM NEED THE FAMILY?
The bourgeois family, meanwhile, continue: to fulfil the function of training children in competition, and perpetuating the idea of a separation of social roles between the sexes. But this role is increasingly fulfilled by other social institutions, notably the whole educational system; and the importance of the family in bourgeois society seems increasingly to depend on the ideological and economic function it has in relation to the working class. There are contradictions here in the experience of recent years in the advanced capitalist countries. The family has taken on new roles in relation to consumption, most notably in the commercial exploitation of the family, of the mother-figure and sex-object. But at the same time, and till recently, the living standards of large sections of the working class and petit bourgeoisie have risen, and the physical burdens on the housewife have lessened; a capitalism which has proved unable to provide full employment, and could find an adequate reserve army of labour within a less rapidly growing population, has been able to tolerate the advocacy and use on an increasing scale, of contraceptives. The reserve of female labour has been drawn on increasingly; and women have turned increasingly to employment outside the home to raise their standard of living and in many cases to provide them with a certain independence. The possibility that capitalism can do away with the family begins to appear. And indeed this is not beyond the bounds of possibility: in certain conditions of production, notably plantation slavery. it has occurred before and we know well enough that the basic contradiction of capitalism, the fundamental, irreconcilable antagonism, is between labour and capital, not between the components of any form of social organisation, such as the nuclear family, which is appropriate to capitalism at a particular period.
But when capitalism which has not yet reached such a level of sophistication is plunged back into crisis, in the way we are experiencing at the present time, then the use of the proletarian family in specific ways is again increased, and the ruling class seeks to exploit it both economically and politically. We have only to look at the anti-strike propaganda of the Tory government to see this. And they are not entirely unsuccessful: a working class housewife, isolated from the collective institutions of the class (even if she works she may not be in a union, or she may be in one which neglects her and her workmates), and burdened with the increasing problems of managing the family budget, can be quite susceptible to intimidation of this kind at a time when the class as a whole has not yet found a way of responding independently and politically to the ruling class offensive.
TASKS OF THE PRESENT PERIOD Historically there have been two main kinds of upsurge of political protest among women. In periods of sharp political struggle, in revolutionary situations, women have taken a very militant part-the Paris Commune, the liberation struggles in our own times. At other times protest movements have tended to emerge from among middle-class, radical women, who because of their greater opportunities are better able to articulate their discontent. Their political scope has generally been much more limited. The suffragette movement, or at least the most militant sections of it, had possibilities of developing a broader political programme, but they were cut off by world war and the series of heavy defeats for the working class which followed it. In recent years a new revolt has begun to stir in the form of the women's liberation movement, which has emerged in the process of a radicalisation of youth throughout the advanced capitalist countries. The rejection of bourgeois norms of social organisation has had a key place in this process; the absence of great working class defeats, the ideological impact of struggles against imperialism on the advanced capitalist countries, have brought sections of youth to revolutionary politics. Because of the very strength of bourgeois ideology, it is relatively late in this process that women have begun to see the need for them, as being oppressed in particular ways, to organise independently: and the strong tendencies within the women's movement which see the need to relate this new area of struggle to the generalised class struggle are only just beginning to develop the theory which is an indispensable part of that practice. Central to this theory is an analysis of the role of the family in contemporary capitalism, on the basis of which we can develop the demands which best relate to the struggles of working class women, both at the point of production (including demands which relate to the concrete problems of working women with family obligations) and with more difficulty, away from it. We need to understand the restrictive role of the nuclear family unlike the Stalinists, we do not pretend that the nuclear family can somehow be turned into an instrument for revolution but in order to intervene in and give support to actual struggles, we also need to understand in what way the family nexus contributes at the present conjuncture of the class struggle to the formation of existing levels of consciousness. The ending of bourgeois family forms of social organisation is a part of our whole perspective for socialist revolution, but in working towards the objective of socialist revolution we have to work from and raise existing levels of consciousness. Work among working class women requires that we raise and accept some demands which relate not just to women alone, but are a part of the struggle of the working class as a whole: because, we repeat, the fundamental contradiction, the contradiction which will lead to socialist revolution, is that between labour and capital, between the proletariat and capitalist classes, and not between the nuclear family and sexual liberation: socialist revolution , will open the possibility direct struggle for the latter. Our immediate task is to help overcome the divisions among the working class, the brakes on consciousness, for which the nuclear family is responsible; and this of course involves an appreciation of women's oppression within the family. This article aims only to give some guidelines for the work that needs to be done: we hope that contributions in the coming months will make the discussion much more concrete. Judith White
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The following poem was sent in to DATA Journal (paper of the Draughtsmen': & Allied Technicians! union: July 1971) by a reader after it had published a letter which argued that married women should not be allowed to work, as this increased unemployment:
Sir,"Working Wives"
Unions, polities, and working too, are things that only SOME can do.
If one is married it must stop, and never envy another's lot, One must not look for horizons wide, Just at the one who's by our side.
Around him all the world must spin, or we will be accused of sin.
The things we did, when we were young, Are things that NOw must NOT be done. Must all life cease outside the shell of marriage??? God, a living HELL!!
- J. MeIntosh wide. becomes more important, becomes greaterLIS SOCIALIST WOMAN - ARTICLE IN PRARIE FIRE.
The fame of "Socialist Woman" is spreading far and The latest example of this the article in the Saskatchewan community paper, Prarie Fire, which describes the magazine in glowing terms: richly documented presentation of the struggles of women. It speaks to and for working class women, particularly working class working women, who are among the most exploited, and who, of all women, "have the potential power along with other workers to create the basis for our liberation! " As the magazine and it's popularity spread, and as its value to the women's movement in terms of it's working class orientation and class analysis so the need for reports, articles, photographs, ete., on topics relating specifically to working and working class women We welcome articles and letters from all our readers, and that more local reports and features will help spread the magazine even further afield,
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Part-Time Work: Full Scale Exploitation "Fine, that's the breaderumb but where is the whole loaf".
Woman at home; cooking, cleaning floors, making beds, shopping, washing, cleaning clothes, collecting and amusing children, talking to them, mending clothes, fighting through the daily labours and chores, gradually stultifying the mind, hand and back "toned" by lifting, stooping, carrying, holding, walking, obsessed with money....the small amounts which are the difference between managing and not.
Why? love of man? of children? wanting to do the best for them all? being compelled to go on till the sheets are whiter than whiter than grey; enjoying the liberation involved in the boring repetative tasks?
Articulate middle class women on the box and in the papers explain the ease with which they "cope" with the chores, - aided by machines which take away work, easy-to-cook foods, money that solves the problems they face; other women to take on the burdens of scrubbing and other heavy, time-consuming jobs: possibly a husband sufficiently educated in the demands to take some share in the work. But Ior the working class woman there is no release from the problems which the family faces. No gadgets, no time, jumble sales for odiments, grocers that give credit and consequently charge higher rates...all her time is spent organising and working for the family, her husband, her children, her self. 80 hours per week on her "labours of love", done unpaid - the unpaid woman's lot. And for about 50% of women between 15 and 59 this is all their lives.
From: Woman, Society & Change We have another 50% who are doubly worked - housewife and worker. In a society where there are at least a million families living "in poverty", obviously large numbers of women are forced to go out to work to supplement the family income, not just for luxuries but also to help with the income, as their husbands' incomes are insufficient to support the family without help. to gain luxuries for the family, holidays, furniture, ete.
From the survey for Women's Employment 1968; 81% of women want work for the financial considerations; 38% for company; 29% to stop boredom; 11% because it gives them independence; 6% to get away from the All women, for whatever reason that they work, have to face housework as well. he progressive qualities of work are obvious to all and this is not to make a fetishism of work, but women in homes are isolated from each other, individualised and noncorporate, totally consumed by the social unit of the famoly; her ideas and feelings, her expressions are contained by the family. If she is to change her position in the family, she must first recognise it and then become conscious of the potential of change. The possibilities of change are not found when she has her arms up to the elbove in water. It is not personal liberation that is possible, it must be through her liberation as part of a group, a class. When the woman goes out to work, as part of the work force there is a greater chance she will become conscious and organised Throughout the capitalist countries of Western Europe and North America, we have seen over the last ten to fifteen years a huge increase in the educational institutions, particularly in further Despite the obvious present downswing in the employment figures, there is etill a demand for labour, particularly in the technical grades. In the next few years the availability of labour will be gradually reduced by the raising of the school leaving age in 173 and with the continuation of the trend to extend the length of time in full time education, the supply of workers will not be increased. The only sector of the population that is able to fill these places will be the married women - in the present climate of government there is no prospect of the demand being met by increased immigration. The pressures on a woman to work will be aot only from the family, but there will be a demand for them from the employers, But working does not solve her problem of housework... "adjustments that are most desirable: and practicable enable women to perform their dual functions efficiently and with a minimum of stress".. and Klein who did a study on this came to the conclusion that it was PART-TIME WORK.
This is work that is done for paid employment for over four hours a week, It can be by its nature
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part-time work eg canteen work, attendants at cinemas ete, office or shop cleaning, or it may be work that is done because there is a shortage of full time staff. The part-time work to a married woman in the present system are easily recognised; she is able to cope more easily with her two jobe. disadvantages? 'any of the women who work part-time do so to supplement the family income, and there is nothing else that they gain from working. The woman still viewa the family as all important and there is no development in her consciousness. Consequently her work is unimportant and she will not be prepared to enter into any action or movement that may alter her view of the world. In the Post Office strike many of the scabs were married vomen who had returned to work after their familles had uries. with their work mates, no identification with their struggle. If we allow the increase of part-time work there is a real possibility of increasing the potential scab force that is employed. (The P.O. management have asked the U.P.W. to allow more part-time workers to be employed. Why? Future blacklegs?)
For the capitalist, part-time work produces some pleasart prospects. responsible for the socially necessary tasks of cosseting and caring for the male productive workers and the future generation of workers, the work in the part-time jobs is the added labour • the economy....if is the productivity deal for the employers. uation is very accurate, the woman can be exploited more efficiently if she is allowed the concession to work part-time. Not only do women actually do more production of values, but she, worker, can work more efficiently in the short time worked. The Peak-Frean survey demonstrated that the part-time women workers were more efficient, fresher, more hardworking and happier in their work. There is little likelihood to be any pressure for change. And apart from the parttine unequal pay that she recieves what else does she get for her labours? Far less possibility of getting a skilled or technical job. (Whereas 52% of all fulltime women workers were unskilled, 67) of part-time workers were unskilled.)
Usually part-time women workers are not trained and are seldom involved in the training schemes at work. they are usually viewed with suspicion by the trade unions, and they are often not members. Partly due to the nature of the work that they do there is often great fragmentation of the work force. Consequently, these workers, often unorganised, are open to the worst kinds of exploitation. In lay-offs of workers the part-time workers are often the first to go. in a relatively secure job like teaching where the part-time teachers have relatively little job security. often these women will take odd shifts, and this is particularly true in the pre-Christmas period when there are even "twilight shifts"which employ women from 5.00 or 6.00 pm till 10.00pm.
traffic wardens, Job, and as she is advantages of sion schemes.
Inal and out work.
But what are the worker, taking work work situation.
Wage.
As long as women can be kept union and in its activities.
Klein s assessment of the sitright to work. article on "Women of the Commune"| library.)
Lenin: State & Revolution Marx: The Civil War in France Merit publishers)
Louise Michel: La Commune C. Talês: La Commune de 1871. The part-time worker has little securi. *the seldom covered by colle. aggreements, is not involved in holiday or pe.The worst exploitation is that found in occasioThe occasional worker is often a woman with children, who, prior to the family, had worked in a small sweat-shop, usually clothing. They will drop in odi days, and without any insurance cover or stamp, work occasionally.
on piecework rates, usually in the clothing or toys industry, at the mercy of the boss, who will deliver work at any This type of work affects not only the woman who is employed , but often the whole family is engaged in the operation...and this naturally leads on to the exploitation of the children, whatever the intentions of the mother. of employment should be abolished; women and men should not have to give over thier homes Part-time work is a blessing for the woman to manShe becomes a more efficient juggler, but the most important reasons why a woman should work are often not even approached. If women do not become involved in the workers" organisations, there is little possibility of involving them in action and in developing consciousness. But it must also be recogniced that the unions must take up the fight for socialisation of some of the household tasks and thus enable the women to participate fully in the The women should not just fight for a bit of a job so that they earn a little bit more, or they relieve the tedium of the home, but they must be fighting for equal work opportunities, the opportunity to work full time, the - Jane Porter BOOKS on Women in the Commune I These should have been included in the May-June 1971 issue with the Edith Thomas: The Women Incendiaries (available from your Trotsky: Leon Trotsky on the Commune (pamphlet by -Available from Red Books, 182 Pentonville Road, London NI.
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their attractiveness'. stop judging women as ve have been conditioned to