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The National Women's Conference, held in Houston from 18-21 November, gave the American women's movement a badly-needed lift.
Under the Carter administration, women's rights have received scrious blows. The Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution (ERA) is sitting in state legislatures. The affirmative action programmes that opened education and jobs to women and minorities hang on a decision of the Supreme Court, and federallyfunded abortions for poor women have been cut. Recently, attacks on civil rights for homosexuals have received wide media coverage.
Over 15,000 women came to the conference from all over the country to say what they want. And national television audiences watched a resounding majority of delegates align themselves behind childcare provisions. abortion, the ERA and oppressed national minorities.
A major victory was for lesbian rights, long a stickler for liberals in the women's movement such as Betty Friedan. The motion concerning "sexual preference' called for end to discrimination against gays, including custody arrangements, and for reform of state penal codes regarding behaviour between consenting adults. When the resolution came to a vote and passed, cuphoria swelled over. throughout the auditorium rose and shouted in unison, "Thank you sisters!"
State delegates also passed a strong resolution concerning the double oppression of minority women. It called for full employment, bilingualbicultural education, affirmative action programmes, an end to the deportations of Mexican and Asian workers and to forced sterilisations.
Of course the Carter Government did not spend 55 million so that women could organise an effective struggle against its own policies. A commission appointed by the President and headed by Bella Abzug. former Democratic representative, planned the conference as a delegates' spectacle, with avenues provided to channel women's energies into reformist politics.
Organised workshops dealt with lobbying WOMAN techniques, working within the Democratic and Republican parties, and how to reach high administrative positions. Electoral campaigns were discussed. But there were no opportunities for non-delegates to discuss and to organise around the Equal Rights Amendment. affirmative action and abortion.
The liberal leadership of the organised women's movement, primarily in the National Organisation for Women (NOW), shies away from militant action. On the opening night of the conference, NOW members bubbling for action were doused with pleas to write letters to their representatives asking for an extension of the ERA ratification period. There was no planning for mass rallies, or any visible action.
This reluctance to attack issues head-on was evident within the proceedings of the conference itself. A small group of appointed commissioners drew up resolutions, the Plan of Action, and insisted that Pro-Plan' delegates must approve the resolutions as they stood. Discussion or substitution of stronger resolutions would undermine the feminist spirit of the package, they claimed, and open the door to disruption from the right.
The Pro-Plan argument rested on the presence of several state delegations. The Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Kian boasted that they controlled the Mississippi delegation, which was all white and included five men. The hierarchy of the Mormon Church directed its followers to swamp the Utah convention and to oppose childcare provisions, abortion, gay rights and the Equal Rights Amendment.
Unfortunately, the tactic of bureaucratically blasting the resolutions through meant that an opportunity for political argument with the anti-woman forces was impossible. The chair ruled any such attempts out of order.
But this defeatism was contradicted by the development of the minority resolution. Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian-Pacific women's caucuses met individually and together drew up a substitute resolution much stronger than that in the Plan of Action, That resolution passed resoundingly.
However, at the end of the conference all resolutions were handed to government departments — recommendations from American women. Margaret Costanza, a Carter aide, assured the conference that the President would have a 'substantive response to the resolutions. To use his phrase, "You can depend on that".
The Carter Government has thus far demonstrated its willingness to deport migrant workers and slash back education and welfare programmes. The same Jimmy Carter whom Costanza would have women depend on approved federal measures that refuse abortion funds to poor women with, "There are some things in life that are not fair. That wealthy people can afford and poor people can't.
That same weekend, right-wing forces were organising. Across Houston, they held an 'Alternative Convention' that drew 15,000 people, including anti-gay stalwarts and the John Birch Society. Speakers denounced the women's conference as an anti-religious, antifamily, anti-American gathering that endorsed sexual perversion and the murder of unborn babies.
Much more sophisticated tactics, aligning themseives with liberal issues such as equal pay. are also being planned by the right. The following weekend, 25-27 November, a national anti-abortion youth conference was held in Milwaukee. The national chair of the Socialist Party USA participated. Workshops linked issues such as disarmament, problems of the Third World, and struggle against 'corporate injustice to the fight against abortion.
Careful and firm action is required under these conditions. A major obstacle to be overcome is reliance on Democratic politicians. Bureaucratic tactics such as Pro-Plan, which stifle debate, will not help clarify issues or build the visible mass movement necessary for the fight for women's hberation and to overcome the right.
Shelley Kramer of the Socialist Workers Party (US) stressed that, 'What can change the minds of those who mistakenly support the right wing is exposing their leaders, answering their questions, impressing them with the strength and power of our ideas. This will be possible only if we mobilise the majority that supports women's rights behind a programme that defends women's needs