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"What's all this then honey?" *It's part of the Family Allowance campaign. The Government is planning to take away Family Allowances and replace them with a tax credit system. All the credits will be tied to wages and will go to 'Oh God... What next! They're always hitting us with something. Whats the men going to do with it when they get it? Hey, Joe, you hear this? They're naking more money out of us every day. Oh no, oney, you don't need to tell me about profits. i know hat the money's for. They gets richer all the time nd we is staggering through the week. Well, I'm leased to see you here. I'm glad somethings getting ogether round here."
What! Our Family Allowances that women have had or years? But thats the money that tides me over hat is. If I didn't have me book on a Tuesday the ids would starve. He doesn't give me enough anyOh yes, I'll sign. I know about it all right. I've heard bout it from the women you know, and I saw someling on the television. You in that Women's lib. len? Well all I can say is its about time women got gether and did something. And this is happening all ver the country? Well I think thats marvellous, I ally do. There should be more things like this." Whats all this then? That petition for the Family llowances? I'll sign that all right. Every woman agrees ith that. Well its the only money we've got isn't it? he only bit of money we've got to call our own. nats my one bit of independence, no one's going touch that." oked at in isolation, the Family Allowance camign could be as reformist as the campaign around e Anti-Discrimination Bill. Trying to influence overnment legislation, when most of us don't believe voting, when nearly the whole of the Trade Union ovement walking through the streets did bugger all ainst the Industrial Relations act, is a fairly depressand crushing occupation. If we take the petition, e evidence to the Select Committee and the writing MPs seriously, we are in effect saying that parliaentary capitalism can or should work if we go rough all the right channels. Some of us may even Il believe that even if every woman in the country ned the bloody thing, that Heath and his mob uld say, "OK ladies, fair enough. I'll change it all ck for you. You're right... the tax credit system just a piece of pernicious, common market capitaln exploitation, designed to divide the higher paid om the lower paid and to keep the working class in eck more. Sure I'll change it. For you my dears, .... ything." And if even if the Government makes a ncession of giving the tax credits to the mother hich now seems likely) what will that mean? It will an a small victory to us (which is good), but it will ike very little difference to the weight of the new c system as a whole which is repressive and which won't have changed one bit.
WON International Women's Day march in London Homen evicted from postoffice after occupation, as part of the familyallowance campaign.
Photos by Martin Slawin.
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Another voice of opposition to the campaign comes from some of our revolutionary sisters, who say "Every fight against laws, IN REACTION to some new move by the boss class is not where we should " Their point is clear ... we should make our own initiatives. We should not merely jump and snap back in surprise at every new repressive measure against the working class, but instead we should work out long term strategies. We must consider more on-going political ways of organising, as around housing or women's health. Of course, this is right. There is not nearly enough of this in the Women's movement. Not nearly enough analysis of how capitalism is changing/ going through different phases and crises and how we should work out a long term perspective for action based on what we can see to be happening. But the Family Allowance campaign can and should be part of that. How?
How can the Family Allowance campaign be revolutionary?
First of all, I don't want to discuss the ins and outs of the tax credit system in detail. We have spent too much time doing that already, and if thats what you want, write to the Child Poverty Action Group, because its certain that they, at least, do believe in patching up the system, extracting the 'best' parts of legislation and underlining what they think are the 'progressive" bits. For instance, the opening sentence of one of their pamphlets is, *We have had only 4 months in which to prepare evidence for the Select Committee of the implications of the Tax Credit system for low income families, and the need for a number of amendments if the system is going to contribute meaningfully to the elimination of poverty. The CAG goes into tremendous detail, suggesting all sorts of amendments, "which could then transform the new tax system into a valuable anti-poverty (You must decide for yourself whether capitalism — which keeps 2/3rds of the world below the poverty line to feed us more cars/washing machines/ colour tellys - is even capable of doing that.) What I do want to talk about is; for what purpose has the Family Allowance legislation been introduced now?, and how can the campaign against it be revolutionary? The new tax and tax credit system has been brought in at a time when working class living standards are being attacked through the freezing of wage packets and through continual price rises. This, in effect, means a cut in wages, not only when they are paid (with the Freeze and higher taxes) but also IN THE HOME. The Unfair Rents Act has finally done away with all subsidised housing and people will now have to pay market (inflated) prices in rents. The rent rebate scheme and the tax credit system are designed to divide and isolate us from one another, and also to bring many more people under the control of means tested benefits. This more than ever before will divide the higher paid from those who it is hoped will become dependent on benefits/rebates/tax credits. In effect this will mean that for a whole new sector of the working class, strikes for higher wages will appear too much of an effort, because any wage rise will mean a cut in benefits. The family Allowance scheme is, of course, a part of this. Unlike the CPAG, we know that the tax credit scheme has not been designed as an anti-poverty measure, but as an attack and a means of control on the working class after a period of increasing wage rises and victories like those of the miners and the dockers and in the face of the growing militancy of the class. The attack on our housing conditions and living standards in the home represent attacks where we are least organised. That is why the Government and the big industrialists, who have suggested these laws think they can get away with it!
If our wages and living standards are being attacked in the home where we are most vulnerable, then it is here that we must organise.
OFFICE HANDS OFF FAHILY ALLOWANCE !!!
IN THIS - OVR MEN HAVEN'T WORKED DUT HE CANT INTERVENE * LINE ON IT The only money we've got What is the real significance of Family Allowances to women? The quotes at the beginning of this article represent how a lot of women see Family Allowances .. "a bit of independence"; "money in my pocket"; "the only money we've got to call our • This is one of the most important aspects of it. In Italy, women on large scale rent strikes, used the money they were witholding as their own to spend as they chose. They felt they had been robbed enough. This is happening in Liverpool too. During the current rent strikes, one woman from Tower Hill said, going to spend my rent, and do you know where it'll go that t5? I'm going round to the shop and I'm buying all the food I haven't been able to afford for the last 6 months for my kids"
Many sisters have pointed out the difficulties of getting something back off the State, like demanding a hand-out. This has been a problem in the Claimants Unions who demand a Guaranteed Income. But the point here is not that we go down to the Social Security office and ask them for more money, but that we use our knowledge to control the SS as we want to. That was the point of the Cohabitation campaign - that our SS money should not have strings attached dependent on whether we are living or sleeping with a man or not, it should be ours as a right; money to call our own and as much as we can get. This is what the Family Allowance campaign is all about... connecting up the idea that women should have money in their own right, that this should not be related to the man's wage (or any wage); that it shouldn't have strings attached; that as women we do shit work for the system for which we don't get paid and then it falls onto us to make ends meet when the bosses put the prices up, and that is what we should organise around.
Why should women be forced into part-time work (when we already do a full day's work with overtime) just because Tescos and Sainsburys want to make more profit or just to put more money into the pockets of the property owners and money lenders? If Family
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Allowances is one way or a start to discussing around these issues, then it can be revolutionary.
If our women's groups mean anything, they should mean that we are trying to build a base in our communities. Trying to get to know more women, talking to them in the street, going to see them, them coming to see you, being involved with the actions around women's needs. It is the building of this strength and solidarity, in the areas we live in, organised around different struggles like the Family Allowance campaign and the things which affect us most which will be the deciding factor in the women's movement and in the revolutionary movement as a whole. Nellie Gate PS Many IMG women (and other sisters who pick up a copy of Socialist Woman occasionally) will wonder why this article is here, and why I have (as a non-member) taken the trouble to express views which are so radically different from the IMG's line on women (IMG says that the "woman question' is really secondary to proletarian struggle, while I believe that women's revolution is fundamental and integral to the liberation of the class, and has to be organised autonomously but at the same time as the collective struggle of the class):
March 27th - Women show their militancy in the North West Various actions were taken up and down the country on March 27th the day chosen by the family allowance campaign for nationwide protests. In Lancaster, following the example of the London demonstration on the 10th March, a group of about 50 women and 20 children with some male supporters marched from the city centre to the main post office and occupied it. Many of the women were working class mothers from the local housing estates. We occupied the post office for two hours, taking the opportunity of feeding the children with crisps, fish and chips, etc., providing some new wall stickers for post office users, and turning the telephone booths into a children's picnic area. The police in this sleepy town did not get themselves together enough to evict us, but local The police had finally got themselves together by the time the main body of demonstrators moved on to the local "Mothercare" shop, and made up for lost time by literally throwing the protesters out - in the ensuing scuffle, six arrests were made, three sisters and three male supporters. Charged with causing an obstruction likely to cause a breach of the peace, and "obstructing Police Constable Hogg in the course of , their cases come up at the beginning of May. The IMG and IS groups played a full part in this demonstration, and three IMG members and two IS members were arrested. For the first time in Lancaster's history a militant demonstration was supported by the majority of working people, and the local paper received many complaints about police Nina Thomas and on point of struggle (IMG says that because the fundamental contradiction in capitalism is between the workers and capital that the main point of struggle must be at the point of production i.e. in the factories. I say, that while I agree on 'the fundamental nevertheless this exploits us in every aspect of life, and only by fighting at home, at school, in the streets as well as at work can we hope to overthrow the power of capitalism. (I forget IM's line on the Guaranteed Income except that they don't agree with it because it evens out the distinction between "producers" and "non-producers".) I have written this article because I take the women's movement seriously. Because I believe there are many women who are still overawed by the spectre of the "Left groups" as the only 'organised' possibility of overthrowing the State, and who are still denying their own strength and belittling their time spent in the women's movement to their brothers. I can only say that Class struggle and feminism are for us one and the same thing, feminism expressing the rebellion of that section of the class without whom the class struggle cannot be generalised broadened and deepened' (from the statement of the International Feminist Collective).
Report on the Gay Marxist Conference in Warwick At the Leeds national GLF Conference, a certain amount of interest was shown in the question of the straight left and to whether gay Marxists in the Movement should or should not join a particular organisation. In order to continue discussing this and other related topics a conference was set up in Warwick at the end of February.
We all agreed that the attitude of the straight left towards gay people and GLF is in general reactionary, or at best, it pays a vague sort of lipservice towards the question. Sexuality and in particular gay sexuality is "not a strategic question" or is "a deviation from the class struggle" * Homosexuality is talked about amongst the straight left as a distortion of capitalism and that "there won't be any queers after the revolution". In view of these sorts of attitudes, all of which one hears over and over again, it is not really surprising that most of the people there did not feel that they could join a straight left organisation, although the people there who were already in the I.S. and the I.M.G. thought it very important that they should stay in it.
Other workshops were on educating the straight left and in connection with this, giving support to and encouraging other gay people in the organisations to come out, and to join GLF. We discussed the relationship between sexual class oppression and how to present our ideas to the working class and to working class gay people, eg. speakers on Trades Councils, solidarity with strikers etc., and how we can give a Marxist perspective to the Gay Movement, though emphasising that we in no way wish to "take over"
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As a beginning to all this, we decided to set up a journal called "Gay Marxist" which will hopefully be sold in GLF groups, Womens Liberation groups, revolutionary organisations, Trades Councils etc.
Anyone with a revolutionary perspective can contri-.
bute to this journal. Articles must be sent in by April 20th. The first issue will be out on the first of May.
Contributions and orders to, Don Milligan, 2 Blades Street, Lancaster, Lancs.
Carol Smith, Lancaster GL. F Report of the Conference of Socialists in the Womens Liberation Movement in Birmingham on March 17/18 The size of the Conference was very encouraging. Nearly 300 women attended, and although one might have missed some of the flamboyance and excitement that radical feminists bring to Womens Liberation meetings, those attending made up for that in their determination to have a well ordered discussion. It was, I understand, intended as an exploratory meeting, and those who might have hoped for more were destined to be disappointed, it remained very much just that. There was a tentative air about it, quite logically. To call together anyone who might wish to classify herself as a Marxist without further definition and without further precision as to the aims and structure of the conference must result in a certain vagueness, which was reflected in most of the The bulk of the meeting on Saturday consisted of workshops, some general, with one centred around Maria Delarosa's pamphlet, and another devoted to Ros Delmar's critique of Engel's "The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State"
The general discussions were very wide ranging, but the key concern seemed to be with coming to grips with the role of the family in capitalism and our strategy in relation to this. While it was generally accepted that vague slogans such as Smash the Family must be rejected there was little agreement about a basic approach to the problems, or which issue should be central to any strategy. There was much discussion on the question of nurseries, the oppression of children in the nuclear family, and nursery campaigns YOUR YES , COME OUT OF , bE which most sisters feel is a crucial issue, and it is obvious that, as with most aspects of womens oppres sion, a great deal of work needs to be done in clarifying and elaborating a strategy.
The issue of paid housework caused possibly the mos heated debates, particularly in the Delrosa workshop, being quite strongly rejected by most sisters. I will no repeat the arguments which have been discussed in various issues of Socialist Woman and elsewhere.
It was unfortunate that Ros Delmar's paper was not ready prior to the conference and had to be read immediately before the discussion which meant that most of the points raised in it could not be adequately dealt with. However, I'm sure its publication will result in more fruitful discussion.
On the second day the Conference concerned itself with the positions of the various established tendencies of the left and continued on to a plenary session on strategy. There are two basic problems concerned here:
1. Whether it is possible to forge some kind of United Front of socialists in the Womens Liberation Movement to coordinate activity around specific strategic tasks relating to the struggle against womens oppression as part of the struggle of the working class against capitalism, and 2. What would be the relationship of such a grouping to the Womens Liberation movement as a whole? It was felt that the preliminary nature of the conference precluded any definite decision relating to these problems, and the feasibility of such a body adopting a strategic line and the coordination of work. It was, however, decided to prepare for a further major Conference projected for the 30th June, and a meeting will also be held in London on April 28th at 2pm at the Workshop.
Lesley Richardson, Harrow SWG Ways of Seeing by John Berger. Pelican, 60p. We live, not merely in a class society, but a class society with a male-dominated culture. This means that in all aspects of our lives which are culturally determined all norms tend to be male. It means that standards are set by males, and these standards include those that would seem to be the province of the female (i.e. those that men have said are their province). Thus, the most influential books on childrearing have been written by men - Freud, Spock, Bowlby, Erickson, Truby King, to name the most important only - all of which emphasises the importance of the mother-child tie, and the great, unbridgeable differences between male and female characteristics and roles.
The women's liberation movement, in its emphasis on consciousness-raising, has attempted to break with this male-orientation. In particular, it lays stress on the importance of women ceasing to regard themselves as mere appendages of men, chanelling their interests and aspirations through them, and seeing themselves only in relation to men.
This aspect of consciousness - women seeing themselves in relation only to men - even (or perhaps especially) relates to their own sexuality. Whereas a man uses his sexuality in order to achieve sexual success, a woman uses her's to gain "possession' of a male, because in our society it is only in this way that she is considered socially successful, and is also the
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only way in which the majority of women can be assured of economic security.
The distortion of sexuality that results is both inward ly and outwardly determined. Women in our society (it is not universal) are supposed to be sexually submissive, this is how men like them, and yet it has been shown that 'dominant' women are able to enjoy sex more - they are not afraid of their own sexuality and are able to let their partner know what they need and want. So distorted are the values of our society, however, that such women, unless very sure of themselves, may think that they are not normal and may even feel guilty of their feelings.
The outward distortion of women's sexuality is perhaps more obvious, but it is also more insiduous, so that it becomes harder to pinpoint. We are so used to its manifestations in every aspect of our culture, most recently and notoriously in advertising and pornography (the latter has been around for longer), the two often indistinguishable. (I am distinguishing between eroticism and pornography - the latter is exploitive, both economically and in terms of human personality and sexuality).
A book which clearly and delightfully explores this theme (amongst others) is WAYS OF SEEING, by the Marxist art critic and historian John Berger. The difficulty of reviewing this book is in trying to select quotes that succintly give the flavour of the essays on Women in Art and the Nude, and on Advertising. (In fact, the chapters, three of which are essays in pictures, have no titles: I have indicated the subject matter of two of the written essays and one of the picture essays).
Taking as the overall theme of the book, the European oil painting tradition, Berger gives us new insights into how women were (and are) seen by men and by themselves and how this is reflected in the way they are presented. The distinction between nudity ('Nudity is a form of dress') and nakedness ('to be without disguise') is discussed. Most paintings of nude women are to display ownership of the woman by the painting's owner (or painter). Many paintings moralised, e.g. about women's vanity. Nude women were depicted with mirrors, admiring themselves, but it *The spectator buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product. She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself. One could put this another way: the publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product.
It should be emphasised that the particular sections of the book reviewed above are set in the context of a work that examines cultural concepts in a property-owning society, although it goes deeper than merely saying that women are property too. Lavishly illustrated and written in a style that can be understood not merely by those already knowledgeable about art, this is a book that cannot be too highly recommended. Leonora Lloyd YOU KISS
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