[page 19]
The problem of chauvinism and sexism within the British working class has always been a very difficult and crucial one and since i have been a 'clippie on London Transport, I have found myself really overwhelmed as to how I can deal with this problem in my workplace.
From the moment women start training with London Transport they are treated differently. During my 2-week training programme the instructor continually directed all his comments towards the men in the group. In his attempt to project a 'friendly image' of himself he constantly cracked chauvinist jokes apologising to the women if he thought them somewhat crude. Ironically, the first time he did address both sexes 'undiscriminately' was during his desperate recruitment attempt. He informed us all that the promotion doors were opened to everyone regardiess of sex. When I then asked him how many drivers there were who were women, he proudly announced the grand total of 9-as though this were some great feat on the part of London Transport. He then proceeded to blush slightly when I asked how many inspectors there were (there are only 2 or 3i and how many women in his posi= tion as instructors (there are nonel.
### LIGHT JOBS
He also claimed that London Trans port took care of all its employees and that it always found "light jobs' for those who had accidents and could no longer work as drivers or conductors. I have just discovered that a woman conduct. or who has been working for LT for 22 years has been sacked because she has arthritis (probably caused through her work) and can no longer work on the buses.
When I spoke to an official of LT about this he explained that 'after all, since there is a shortage of light jobs, these in all fairness should go to the men who have a family to support. There are women in my garage who have managed (despite the shifts and against all odds) to bring up a family on their ownGod help them if they have an accident. When another male conductor and myself met the Garage Manager he eagerly asked the other conductor to become a driver when he had finished his probationary period perhaps his vision was obscured but I was obviously not worth asking. No discrimination indeed! 44444444..****** During the past week in Coventry around the Chryslers" dispute, a confused force of housewives has emerged trying to get the men back to work. Last year, in Cowley near Oxford, the same thing happened. These women may be confused but they are very dangerous because of the way in which they attract right-wing, reactionary In Cowley last year, Mrs. Miller's meetings attracted people who publically challenged the trade union speakers as to 'whether or not they were British nationals*. Everyone from the National Front to the In the garage itself one feels like a piece of meat up for sale. The drivers and conductors ask you three questions: are you married? are you eng aged? have you a steady boyfriend? and if you answer in the negative, the bidding starts. They won't have any so sort of serious discussion with you about their chauvinistic attitudes and merely asked you if you burn your bra, or else they try to start a titillating conversation about sex.
### RAMPANT
As far as the union branch goes, the problem is as rampant here as elsewhere. When i spoke to my shop steward and area delegate about bringing up a mot. ion on the Abortion Bill the latter turned to me with a startled look and said *I don't see what this has got to do with the trade union, but it might make 'interesting" discussion. I wanted to give out leaflets to encourage women to come to the branch meeting but apparently that was against union rules! And anyhow, says another man, 'the women are quite out-numbered in this garage'. The area delegate said however he'd inform people of the motion and get them to come along. One person came to that branch meeting When I spoke to another rep. about the question of nurseries he merely pointed out that is wasn't an important issue because most of the children of women conductors weren't of nursery age. Too true, brother, because at this moment it is impossible for a woman conductor to work before the kids are of age if there are no nurseries! This fact just didn't seem to be grasped and anyway he was more concerned about whether there were adequate tea facilities at the terminus.
### DESPERATE
There is an absolute desperate need to raise the question of chauvinism and sexism within the general context of women's oppression. I am hoping to be able to introduce the Working Women's Charter and to raise the question into the discussion.
If other sisters have come across similar problems in their work place perhaps they could write and share their experience so that we might form clearer ideas on how to raise these questions in the British working class. -Woman conductor on London Transport ******************** management working in the interests of the Luckily, in Cowley last year, and here in Coventry, this development was immedthe attack of the working class living stand.
The way forward at the present time is for the trade union movement to take a firm ADVERTS NATIONAL ABORTION CAMPAIGN national demonstration is being held on 21 June. Coaches are being organised from most large cities everywhere in Britain. Demonstration leaves Charing Cross tube station (at the embankment)
at 2.30 pm. Pickets will be held in solidarity in other countries. ALL WEL COME! If you want details on the campaign in your locality write to the NAC, 80 Railton Road, London SE 24.
Following the MLAC Conference in Paris (see article in this issue), it has been suggested that the first meeting of the International Secretariat meeting be held in London on June 22. Further details on the 21 June demonstration.
SPEAKERS FROM THE N.A.C. Steering Committee are available to address all kinds of meetings (trade union, college, women's groups, Labour Party, etc.)
Write to Jane Noble, 4 Painsthorpe Rd., London N16, (01-254-8109)
N.A.C. Steering Committee meets in London every Tuesday evening at 7.30 at the London School of Economics, Houghton Street.
Write to the Abortion Law Reform Association for publications on the issue of abortion. Speakers notes (20p), Abortion Today pamphlet (25p), Lane Committee Findings (30 p) Reductions for women's groups. 186, Kings Cross Rd., London N I.
Working Women's Charter Campaign Badges and Posters available:
Posters, in a variety of colour: 20p each, 17%p each for 10, 15p for 20. Badges, white on red, 10 p each, 8p each for orders of 20.
Contact S. Handley, 24 Vicarage Road. Kihgs Heath, Birmingham 14 stand on this issue and to encourage the participation of housewives and the wives of workers in the struggle. In this way, those of us who depend upon the wage from declining industries like cars, will not be left out in the cold and become prime bait for reactionary forces.
Just as important is the willingness of the trade union movement to put its weight behind such campaigns as the Work ing Women's Charter Campaign. The right to work affects all of us, and we all must be involved in the fight for this right!
Maureen Smith.
[page 20]
flashpoints •FRANCE In Frace the mass mobilisation organised by MLAC has made the Government retreat. This has resulted in a 'liberal abortion law'. But the problem is still far from being resolved. The cost of abortion is 400 francs to 700 francs (E40-E70), limited to the first 10 weeks legally, forbidden to immigrants and minors, and rarely applied in hospitals.
WEST GERMANY (FRG) A law was passed in Spring '74, after an intense campaign in 1971 and 1973. However, a conservative grouping in Parliament managed to get its suspension. In March of 1974 this law was, declared unconstitutional. The movement has re-emerged right across the country and a national meeting was held to plan how to fight this ruling on 19, 20 April.
SWITZERLAND A short while ago, a law was passed to liberalise abortion. 50,000 signatures had been gathered in December 1971 demanding a referendum to legalise But this petition didn't mention the right of women to chose, nor did it mention that abortion should be freely available. The federal law in fact only allowed abortions on medical grounds.
The women.s liberation groups have launched a campaign for free abortion on demand, for a woman's right to chose, and for abortion to be covered by medical insurance, available to immigrant women. SITALY The divorce referendum in May 74 demonstrated a change in the consciousness on the question of women's oppression paralleled by a decline in the hold of catholicism. An opinion poll recently indicated that 75% of Italian women were for the legalisation of abortion. The Communist Party of italy, on the other hand, does not agree that it should be free and proposes even the use of penal sanctions in those cases where a woman is placed outside the law'. The Christain Democrats want to limit the law to victims of rape, of incest, and in cases where there is immediate danger to the life of the woman. The Socialist Party includes therapeutic grounds and social grounds in their proposals.
In contrast, the women's liberation movement and the far left groups are fighting against the repressive laws, sometimes dragging behind them, the radical party and the Socialist Party.
Demonstrations were held against the moves by the police which closed the clinic of the Radical Party in Florence. In the north of Italy united committees have been set up in many town The co-ordination of these committees will help build a mass national campaign.
HOLLAND In Holland, the law is very repressive (comparable to the laws of the 1920s], but abortion is permitted for some. Many clinics have been estab lished which are private and which pro vides abortions particularly to foreigner Needless to say, they make enormous profits. •SPAIN Here the fascist laws make abortion illegal. There is little possi bility of a mass struggle on this question given the clandestine nature of any kind of activity.
BELGIUM and LUXEMBOURG The repressive laws in these countries force women to have clandestine abortions or to go abroad. In 1972, Dr. Peers (Belgian), who practiced abortions which were very expensive was prosecuted. A campaign was built -led at the time, principally by the Communist Party.
•PORTUGAL The fascist laws haven't been repealed. MLAC (the French abortion campaign) sent a team in April to begin to inform activists of the Carman method. Hospitals that had been taken over by the people were given instructions on this method. The struggle is only in an initial phase right now, built by the women's liberation movement and a movement for free abortion on demand which is just being created.
The MLAC conference held on 19,20 April gave the opportunity to build a campaign on a European scale. One decision taken was to hold a week of action and meetings in Portugal this summer. This will obviously help reinforce the limited steps which have so far been taken in Portugal.
The National Abortion Campaign contingent on the TUC International Women's Year march.
[page 21]
Communism versus Stalinism series)
"A woman's greatest embellishment is her етіу. There is nothing surprising in the Jact thar woman's weakness is man's inspiration: her weakness complements man's strength. Women are often timid and shy, coquettish and frivolous Such are the typical and therefore endearing' qualitities of the female character and they can be considered positive or neg ative according to taste.
No, not a quote from Woman's Own or J.J. Rousseau, but one of the many taken from Soviet publications of today in Tamara Volkova's study of woman's pos ition in the USSR.
Volkova's ample and up-to-date docu¿ mentation on both the material and ideo ¡ logical levels sufficiently illustrate the inequalities and oppression that exist today. Taking recent surveys, she points out, for ¡instance, that although there is almost universal female employment in the USSR., the contradiction between social and domestic labour remains through the continuing role of women as house- wives in the home, despite creche faciljities during actual working hours.
Linked to this, a sexual division of labour still operates in production itself, communism versus stalinism no. 4 A WOMAN'S PLACE IN THE U.S.S.R.
by Tamara Volkova preface by Branka Magas IMG women tending to be employed in non-productive sectors of the economy, and at a wage rate 69% of that of a man. Similar figures show drastic inequalities in the educational achievement of wo men. This is again linked to the fact that Soviet women still bear the main responsibility and burden for family and domestic life, and most will admit that this is the main impediment to getting higher skilled jobs or further education, let alone to enjoying a fuller particiation in cultural, social and political life general.
crial expressing the official line on women - this boils down to a justification of this situation by upholding the contempplays and will continue to play, a major role in education and socialisation of Soviet citizens.
BOLSHEVIKS ther gloomy. Did the Bolsheviks and the this in the fight for women's emancipation? Did they expect this? If not, how has it come about, for what reasons and through what forces? Any study of women's position in the USSR, in Eastern Europe, China and other bureaucratised workers" states, poses these problems. What distinguishes Volvkova:s pamphlet from others on the subiect is that she not only situates the problem within of Stalinism (which is elementary for Marxists), but she attempts to confront the problems involved from a revolutionary Marxist position. ental points. Firstely, that, contrary-to the well-known stalinist justifications of ory' of socialism in one country), it was not just a question of Russia's economic backwardness which led to the retreats from Bolshevism. Rather, it was a complete abandonment of the world revolution by the bureaucracy, at the expense of which it solidified and entreched its own privileges.
### SOCIAL BASIS
meant precisely a retreat from what Lunacharsky had described as a fundamental aim of the revolution -life on a socialist basis. This was necessary both as a prop to the regimes economic policies, (the same cushioning role of the family under capitalism), and to contain the autonomous movement of women. Hence, the bolstering up and glorification 25p jod of stalinism in the 30s and 40s.
cracy, concerned only with maintaining its privileged position. The question of a solution to the problem therefore cannot discussed or envisaged outside a revolutionary transformation of Soviet political eaucracy and the reestablishment of prolctarian democracy.
Volkova also uses ample Soviet matorary family as a socialist institution which Taken at face value, the picture is raRussian women in 1917 struggle only for the wider context of the degeneration of the Russian replution, and the betrayals To do this, she stresses some fundamCial reality. the status que in the Soviet Union (based at root on their counter-revolutionary "the What did this mean for women? It putting famjly of the family and motherhood. This reached shameful levels during the bleakest perVolkova therefore sees the position of women in the Soviet Union today as inextricibly linked to the policies of the bureauinstitutions-ie. the overthrow of the burThe posing of these political questions, as well as the specific situation and role of women during and after the revolution are a welcome contribution to a discussion which has been taking place for some time both inside the women's libration move ment and within the revolutionary left.
-Sheila Coxhead Social Class and Psychiatric Disturbance among Women in Urban Popuris, in Sociology. May 1975.
Naomi Richman, a psychiatrist. was carrying out a survey into the health of preschool children living on a council estate in North London in 1971, when she dec. ided to interview the mothers for psychiatric symptoms. She came up with the finding that 42 per cent of these working class women were psychiatrically disturbed, 16 per cent very scriously.
No doubt the bucket-loads of tranquilisers handed out by the local GPs would have testified to a similar result, yet Richman's discovery has until now stuck out like a sore thumb in the acres of scientific treatises which have attempted to root mental states in childhood experiences and the body's chemistry, totally ignoring socPutting a rosy tint on reality with pills, or persuading those who are depressed to adjust are of course the most convenient ways of transferring the cause from class society itself, But a report published in the May issue of the journal Sociology at last puts forward evidence for social and environmental factors playing a causal role in all kinds of depressive disorders.
Photo: John Sturrock (Report)
Continued on p.22
[page 22]
The report by three investigators at Bedford College, London, is based on analysis of 344 women living in South London. 114 of them patients being treated for depression. The research firstly found that the onset of depression is directly related to what are described as major adverse life events. and to a lesser extent to serious difficulties that have continued for a number of stances...providing better housing, nursery facities, and job opportunities... which is certainly a major advance on the lies and pretences of the medical establishment, but it fails to recognise the need to additionally confront both the internalised expectations of the woman's role and the roots and nature of that role itself. which in large part account for the fact that wome are twice as likely as men to suffer from depression.
-Dick Brinsley ards the new-comer to the women's movement-one that tries to guide her on the debates on the family, on trade-union work, on the structure of the movement, etc.and that gives a history of the movement so far.
We also need anthologies devoted to one subject, especially on the family. Meantime, Conditions of Illusion fills a real need and the main problem for the reader is where to start. This collection is almost uniformally interesting and well-written, with a good selection of cartoons.
-Leonore Lloyd
----- pull-quotes -----
ruling class can potentially use these wom en who lay the blame for the real difficult- ies they face at the feet of the union, rather than the bosses and the capitalists where it
iately challenged by women who supported the attempts of the trade union to stave off
TITIL HEUN/TON CAMPAIG OS MIFL
A Woman's Place in the USSR, by Tamara Volkova, (IMG Pamphlets,
lation by Professor George Brown, Maire Ni Bhrolchain and Tyril Har-