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in official policy concerning women. The first followed the cstablishment of the new regime and was primarily concerned with the creation of legal equality, drawing women into paid employment on a wider scale. This cffort was accelcrated by the urgent tasks of post-war reconstruction. Communal facilities, especially for Children, were opened in this period and verbal attacks on the family were launched - particulurly locating reactionary and anti-communist values in the family.
The second phase saw the official enthusiasm for these policies evaporate. The third phase is marked by a re-sanctification of the fumily, by the introduction of measures designed to boost the birth-rate. This made it more difficult for women to control their own fertility. Some attempt was even made to push women back into the ome to care for the children. Rhetoric ahout the liberation of women and the development of socialism has justified these policy shifts throughout. 2 These shifts can be related to other policy changes the bureaucratic leaderships of these states have tried to establish to retain their positions and cope with growing economic problems. The case of the most recent changes show this relationship clearly.
Both an economic and an ideological rational underlie the changes in policy effecting women and the family, now as in the past. The bureaucracy's policy has been related to its assessments of (1) the requirement for women in the labour force (2) the size of the future national labour force necessary for a given rate of economic development (3)the potential of the family - to avoid and fragment opposition and to promote acceptance of the existing social order.
A national priority in most of the states of Eastern Europe over the past few years has been to boost the birth-rate. It has led to many legal and policy changes which reduce women's rights and access to contraception and abortion. In Poland a new harmony has begun to emerge between 'science". church and state in the idea that women's primary social task is procreation, The mass media promote the image of the happy large Polish family and school education is to contribute more to the preparation of boys and girls for their respective roles as fathers and mothers. Proposals for material incentives are clearly based on traditional patriarchial ideals. For example, it is proposed that couples without children should be taxed and women who stay at home to look after their children should have increased allowance. Money for collective child care and education facilities are sorely lacking The combined effect of such proposals is to sharpen the sexual division of labour and reinforce the woman's depenname of "progress". They are reinforced by the beginnings of 'family consumerism". The most privileged strata find these beginnings appealing. Their committment to the family involves a recognition of the way in which cultural, and to some extent material advantages, can be passed on to onc's children.
That women in Poland today are oppressed is obvious. There is a great deal of discontent and frustration amongst women. Because of their position in the family and in the labour force they are likely to find themselves at the centre of many social struggles. Women are likely to be particularly sensitive to any attacks on working class living standards - because of their double work load, the low standard of living, and the shortages and erratic supplies of consumer goods of all types.
In December 1970 in the Baltic ports women were amongst the first to agitate against the increase in food prices in the working class revolt which brought down Gomulka's government. And yet there is little sign of any coherent understanding of their oppressive situation. Exhaustion, atomisation, and the repressive political situation may provide an Immediate explanation of this apparent passivity but these are also vast ideological barriers to be overcome (3)
There has been some public debate about the contemporary situation of women, but this has tended to be a safety valve for the problem or an attempt to justify and mystify reactionalry policies and proposals. Neither a Marxist noT a radical feminist analysis or strategy has been developed.
The double burden of the working woman, of the resistance of men to any part in domestic work is recognised, but discussed largely in terms of the defects of "human nature' or the resistance of men to change. Thus the problem is recognised only at the individual or paychological level.
It is exceedingly difficult to develop a Marxist analysis in Poland, because the regime has claimed Marxism as its own exclusive possession. The development of a critical Marxism has to overcome the burcaucracy's distorted approach. Besides, like most other Communist Parties in Eastern Europe, the Polish party has not evolved any concept of socialist values. The significance of socialism for the development of people themselves is largely ignored.
The ideas of the western women's movement are virtually unknown in Poland. There is no discussion of sexual repression, and though some old communists remember Kollontai's hopes for 'free unions" between men and women, her emphasis on the importance of developing a revolutionary ideology of sexual relations has been forgotten.
Notes: (1) Report of a sociological study summarised in Kultura, No. 14, 2.4.74 (2)Socialists ever since Engles have emphasised the impor tance of women's participation in public production, bui socialist theory has been very confused over questions re lating to population policy and women's rights to control their fertility: the switches in policy in this latter area have not had to re-unite socialist commitments to women's rights here because nome have clearly existed. (3)And yet we should not write off the potential for such important developments occurring. In Crechoslovakia during the 1968 period women began to organise around their oppressive situation in that socialist' society and the question of women's liberation began to open up as an area of debate and agitation, until Soviet backed contro! was restored in Czechoslovakia.
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Review of Shoulder so Shoulder, BBCTV The major weakness of this six-week production - a dramatised version of the struggle for the vote - was that it centred on personalities rather than politics. It did not do onough to place the struggle in an ovcrall political context. For example, although the Government was faced with an escalation of the Irish question at the time of the suffragettes militant campaign this was barely touched upon. And the great working-class unrest of those ycars - including waves of strikes of women from 1911 to 1913 was not mentioned at all.
In fact, the working-class got pretty short shrift altogether. The series continued the myth that the struggle for the vote began more or less with the Pankhursts, and was just a middle class movement. In fact, Female Reform Associations (entirely working-class) started as carly as 1819 It was not until 1867 that the first Female Suffrage Society was formed, wtih the Manchester Committee.
The series left many questions unanswered. For a start, why did women want the vote at all? During the nineteenth century, middle-class women successfully fought for reforms in the fields of education, marriage and child-guardianship. One is tempted to belicve that it was not fear that further improvements were unobtainable, but rather the fact that working class men were getting the vote, which worried the middle-class suffragists.
Up to 1905 all the suffrage groups campaigned by peaceful means - with mass petitions. demonstrations, etc. When Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenny interrupted a Manch ester Liberal Party meeting in support of Winston Churchill's canditure, they were sent to prison. From that time, the use of militant tactics mounted, causing a split within the suffrage movement. militant campaign. also occupied the political arena. So in the foreground.
repressed lives of middle-class ladies socialist.
the discouragement of Sylvia's East to the working-class were dropped. Secondly, the inexplicable attitude of Christabel to the Labour Party.
In 1907, Mrs. Pankhurst left the Independent Labour Party. During the years of industrial unrest, the One of the gaps of the television pro duction was that it concentrated entirely on the glamourous aspects of the suffrage movement. It ignored the equally large, but less Mamboyant, aspects of the nonMore importantly, there was no examination of the reasons why the Pankhursts turned to increasingly militant tactics. There was a good deal of working-class activity, around repressive trade-union laws, and the question of Home Rule one motive for these tactics may have been to keep the suffrage question well Another reason may be that the laid the busts for their looking for the sorts of outlets that the Womens' Social and Political Union (WSPU) offered.
The personal factor cannot be left out of the explanation. The movement came to be increasingly dominated by Christabel Pankhurst, Mrs. Pankhursts" favourite daughter. It is not possible to spoculate how far Mrs. Pankhurst was a genuine socialist at any time, and how far she was under ber husband sinlluence, but certainly Christabel was no This resulted in two disastrous devclopments for the movement. First, End activities, which ended in a final split in carly 1914, signifying that any attempts to extend the movement inWPSU culled for strikes to be made illegal. In 1912 the Annual Conference of the Labour Party went on record for the first time in favour of women's suffrage.
The same year, George Lansbury retired from Parliament to stand in Bow and Bromley on the single issuc of women's suffrage. Christabel, while giving him nominal support, effectively sabotaged his campaign. Meanwhile, other suffrage groups decided to actively support all Labour Party candidates, but the WPSU attacked them along with Libout of government funds In 1916 when Asquith stated he supported women's suffrage, Mrs. Pankhurst said they did not want it whilst men who were saving the country did not have it.
Only Sylvia's East London Fedoration, of all the suffrage groups, continued to cumpaign for the vote during the war years. She also campaigned against conscription. At the time of her death, in 1928, Mrs Pankhurst was a Conservativo candidate.
Another problem not touched on by the programmos was the odd fact that all the suffrage associations, whilst campaigning for increased democracy, were themselves entirely undemocratic. The one exception was the Fast London Federation. Its democratic structure was one reason why Christabel expelled it. Why did none of the women taking part in the movement take initiatives to query their autocratic leaderships? If they did, this series did not mention it.
With all these reservations, the series did make a start on the long-neglected history of the women's movement. And two very important things emerged.
First, what did come over was the fantastic militancy and courage of the women - at a time when feminine behatior" was even more restricted than today.
And sccondly, the horrors of forcefeeding undoubtedly brought home to many the torture being inflicted on the Price Sisters and others.
It is to be hoped that this scries can be shown again, to enable more people to see it. Better yet, it could be fol lowed by further programmes examining - hopefully in more depth and with more political insight - other aspects of the struggle of women for their Leonore Lloyd.