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The idea that women are like peasants which has appealed to several women's liberation writers appears again here. Women's consciousness-raising meetings are compared to the assemblies of Chinese peasants "speaking bitterness"; but while both these may involve speaking out what has previously been unspoken it is also important to recogniseas Mitchell does not-that such meetings of peasants were organised by the Communist Party with the well formulated political aim of mobilising the peasants not merely to recognise how the landlords had exploited them but to move into action against the landlords(4) Perhaps consciousness-raising could be developed as such a political tool but at present it is often far removed from this. The individualism and competitiveness of women stemming from their position of isolation in the family is compared to similar characteristics amongst the peasantry. But these comparisons don't lead us anywhere; Mitchell stops short of any conclusions which might follow from them (as for example the mistaken view that women constitute a class(5)
Mitchell considers the potential of women workers for militant action to be very limited. She gives great weight to the attitudes to work expressed by groups of women workers to whom she talked. They saw their position at work as subordinate to their position in the family and so tended to be complacent about their work situation. In fact the position of women at work is examined only in terms of their position as women (who accept the view that their "real place" is in the home). Thus at work "There is no possibility of comradeship or unity in struggle the relationship of women workers is simply the counterpart of the loneliness of the home, it is a friendliness or its opposite. Because the economic role of women is obscured (its cheapness obscures it) women workers do not have the precondition for class-consciousness. " (P. 139 my italics). Because women are rarely economically independent, because their "primary identification is as maintained
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persons within the family women cannot become class conscious. Thus women suffer, according to Mitchell first last and always because they are women; the task is to develop feminist consciousness: "In the home the social, function and psychic identity of women as a group is found. Class differences at work (which anyway never produce class consciousness) are here obliterated for status differences: wealthy, middling. poor. This is not to underestimate these. But the position of women as women takes precedence: oppressed whatever their particular circumstances. Hence the importance of feminist consciousness in any revolution. Hence Woman's Liberation." (P. 182). So Mitchell is herself so overwhelmed by the strength of established ideas about "woman's place" that she ignores the objective relationships at work. She seems not to understand that the basic pre-condition for class consciousness is the fact of being a worker, selling one's labour in a capitalist society. Women workers do tend to relate, subjectively to the work situation in a different way from male workers because of their position in the family, with all the ideas which surround that. But this does not mean that they are incapable of class consciousness, it does mean that the logic of the development of their consciousness will be somewhat different than in the case of male workers. Women on strike at Brannon's at Cleator Moor (see article in last Socialist Woman) have developed a very high degree of militancy and solidarity in a strike which began on 3rd June and still continues. The film Women and the Bill made earlier this year illustrated the way in which women workers can become conscious of their position as workers fighting the Industrial Relations Bill and as women workers struggling to achieve equal pay.
Mitchell's feminist questions get feminist answers, Even when the questions she actually raises are not feminist ones she fails to provide Marxist answers: "We have to see why and how our oppression is structurally necessary to-day in order to fight for its overthrow"(p.95) - is not satis. factorily answered in this book. Nor is the question: who oppresses women? adequately dealt with. In order to develop a socialist theory and practice we have to examine the way in which class exploitation and sex oppression are related. This means that we must consider in what ways and to what extent women actually suffer in this society (-and here we must recognise that working class women are in the worst position); who gains most from the subordination of women? (-not men in general, or even men in particular roles, although they may get some satisfaction from a sense of personal superiority and personal power). The great weight of the advantages goes to those who own and control the wealth of this society- who are able to draw on a cheap, poorly organized reserve pool of labour, who can make divisive propaganda appeals setting the housewife with her shopping basket against the militant trade unionist who "causes" rising prices etc etc) And in addition to this who will be most crucial if we are to change the situations? (— working class women, as a part of the class having the potential power to challenge the existing structures of this society.)
The debate over theory and practice in the women's movement continues. In Women's Estate Juliet Mit-hell has contributed another book to the feminist case. The development of'a comprehensive Marxist analysis is still an urgent task Margaret Coulson NOTES 1. Shulamith Firestone-THE DIALECTICS OF SEX. Cape 1971. 2. Juliet Mitchell- "Women: the Longest Revolution". NEW LEFT REVIEW, December 1966. 3. For development of the concept of over determination, see Louis Althusser: "On Contradiction", NEW LEFT REVIEW, Jan. 1967. 4. See William Hinton: FANSHEN, Merlin Books 1968, Ch. 13. 5, See for example Margaret Benston: "Political Economy of Women's Liberation". MONTHLY REVIEW, Vol, 21, No. 4, Sept. 1969.
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