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reformed in the autumn of 1976 to combat the uninformed views expressed at that time as a result of the Peace Movement. We disagreed with feminists who characterised the Peace Movement as a 'women's movement', and who saw it as inherently progressive.
The Peace Movement initially did win support both from women in the North and in this country. It gained followers partly because the anti-imperialist struggle had never paid attention to the plight of Irish women and their specific sexual oppression, and was therefore in no position to show feminists that nothing was to be gained in supporting the Peace Movement.
At the beginning of this summer, the Women and Ireland group helped to plan the London workshops on "What is socialist feminist practice?'. We argued that any socialist practice in Britain today should look at the question of Ireland as a high political priority and we offered to organise one of the workshops on Feminism and Ireland. We aimed to intervene politically through the workshop, as well as to provide information on the situation in Ireland. The response waspositive — there were many discussions and articles on The specific oppression of women in Ireland has been largely ignored by many — including the women's movement here, and the anti-imperialist struggle and trade union movement both here and in Ireland. This is the case even though the economic and political domination of Britain has reinforced and, it could be argued in certain areas, created women's oppression. The English left often ignores the anti-imperialist struggle on this country's own doorstep, and this confusion extends to the women's movement.
The state in Ireland argues that, because of the economic crisis, provision for equal pay, adequate nurseries and the right of women to work are impossible to achieve. The lack of money which the Irish state claims to suffer from is due to an economy — both in the North and South - which has suffered from imperialist domination.
In the North, 35.5 per cent of houscholds live below the poverty line. One third of these households have people in full-time work. The average family income is just under E10 less than that of the UK — although food. fuel and transport cost more. For instance, electricity charges are 33 per cent higher than in Britain.
Irish women are faced with many burdens. They are often forced to manage the family household as well as take a job in paid employment — a situation accentuated by high unemployment and emigration. The high cost of living and bad conditions of housing, health services and nursery provision adds to women's problems. Police and army harassment, and internment — all products of the war in Ireland — provide further burdens.
Women carn on average È33.76 in Northern Ireland, in comparison to the £53.25 of men (1975 figures). In the South, women earn 59 per cent of male carnings. The Equal Pay Act covers the North but it is watered down into an ineffective piece of legislation. The South has the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1975 and the Employment Equality Act. Although there have been some strikes around equal pay, the claims negotiated in several instances gave the employers more time to implement legislation than the Act allows for.
Women comprise 27 per cent of the workforce in the South, and 30 per cent in the North. Married women make up only 3.5 percent of the workforce in the South, however. Yet earlier this year, the Minister for Labour urged even this low number not to work in view of high unemployment, in order to give more jobs to men!
Although there are more than 300,000 under-fives in the South, only 26 voluntary nurseries exist, providing 814 places. It's not much better in the North, where £129 per 1000 people is spent on nurseries. Compare this to the f441 per 1000 spent in Scotland!
Since then, the group has produced the papers of the workshopasa pamphlet, as well as a poster and a slide-show for women's groups. We are also preparing for the national socialist feminist conference in January and for an educational on imperialism for the socialist feminist current in London.
We plan to investigate Irish women living in England and, in an ongoing way, to support the women's movement in Ireland, including groups like the Relatives' Action Committee.
The women's movement in Britain generally does not take up issues which don't directly concern us. Although it is not the aim of this article to explain and develop a detailed theory on the role of imperialism in Ireland, it is clear that this understanding is necessary for the struggle against our oppression in this country. We have a unique relationship to the struggle in Ireland, insofar as it is the British Army which is occupying that country.
This article aims to provide basic information and material to begin the much-needed ongoing debate in mapping out the responsibilities of the British women's movement.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH The Catholic Church is powerful in Ireland - linked inextricably to the history of British imperialism. The Church has gained its strength from its long involvement with the nationalist movement, the institutionalisation of sectarian divides with the partition of Ireland, the continuing persecution of Catholics in the North, and the economic poverty of the South. The frecdom to practise Catholicism was forbidden in the late 17th century and early 18th century. People identified with the clergy in opposition to the religion of the oppressors.
The position of women is directly influenced by the power and ideology of the Church. Until the link between the Church and the state is broken, basic rights like contraception and divorce will not be achieved, not to mention abortion. Its ideological dominance creates physical, material and emotional problems for women. The proof closer to home is evident in cities like Liverpool and Birmingham. Both are high immigrant areas, stronghelds of Catholicism and anti-abortionists. Practically all schools, children's homes, hostels and social service organisations in Ireland are run by or dominated by the Church.
CONTRACEPTION It has been legal to use contraception in the South since a test case in 1972. However, it remains illegal to sell, advertise or advocate contraceptives. The Family Planning Services are currently challenging this situation by arguing that if a family has a constitutional right to use contraceptives. then it must be allowed access to information to exercise that right.
More than 60,000 women in Ireland are prescribed the pill as menstrual cycle regulators. Not surprisingly, Ireland has the highest incidence of irregular cycles in Europe! Today, there are family planning clinics in five towns and cities in Ireland. The clinics ask for donations rather than selling contraceptives.
The Censorship of Publications Act of 1929 is the law these clinics have to get around. It is the same legislation used to han Spare Rib, a Family Planning booklet, and Gay News. There have been six unsuccessful attempts since 1971 to change this law. The sentiment against it is evident in the fact that over 69 per cent of Irish women of child-bearing age want the sale of contraceptives to be legalised. Fianna Fail — now in power — intends to introduce a contraceptive Bill in light of changing attitudes, but it will legalise their sale only to married women.
Contraceptives are available in the North, but the Catholic Church's position against birth control has left many women without a choice.
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Abortion is a criminal offence in both the North and the South. Even feminists who support the other demands of the women's liberation movement often don't see abortion as a just demand. In 1976, 2,920 women who had abortions in England gave addresses in Ireland: 1,802 came from the 26 Counties; 1,118 from the Six Counties. Many additional women probably gave addresses in England to qualify forthe NHS.
The puritan and reactionary attitudes of the Protestant ascendancy coupled with the attitudes of the Catholic Church in the North has withheld British legislation on divorce, abortion and homosexuality from the North. Unionist MPs consistently oppose any reforms for women, and block their extension to the Six Counties.
In addition to the 1967 Abortion Act, other Acts which have not been extended to the North include: the 1967 Homosexuality Act; the Matrimonial Homes Act (giving women certain rights over the home); the 1973 Matrimonial Causes Act (divorce is prohibited by the 1937 constitution in the South, and in the North a 1939 Act operates); and the 1976 Domestic Violence Act.
A number of factors have combined to develop a new consciousness amongst broad layers of women in Ireland, including the boom period in Irish capitalism in the 1960s, with its increased demand for female labour in production, and the heightened expectations of these younger women in the workforce. This trend emerged in an environment of growing struggle in the North in 1968, coupled with the international influences of anti-imperialist solidarity (the Vietnam war), and the new rise of Irish socialist feminism.
THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT The Women's Liberation Movement itself was founded in the carly 70s. It dwindled in the South in 1974. Its main achievement had been to publicise the hypocritical contraceptive situation and to produce Chains or Change: the first exposé of the specific oppression of Irish women. Some women still meet under the WLM title, but its membership has largely scattered, or formed other organisations.
The daughter organisations of a reformist character include the Women's Political Association and Women Elect, who aim to get more women into Parliament; Women's Aid, mainly a charitable organisation although it is becoming more feminist; and Action, Information and Motivation, responsible for the introduction of the Family Law Reform Acts and for exposing the extent of brutality within the family, centring exclusively on alcoholism.
The IWU has never had a policy on the North, although it publicly oposed the use of capital punishment during the Murray Defence Campaign, the introduction of the Emergency Powers Act and Criminal Law Act, and the Peace Movement.
There has been a historical schism in Ireland between the fight for national liberation and the fight for women's rights. It is time this was challenged. It will prove difficult to do so because many in the Republican movement view Catholicism and Irish nationalism as conflicting with the needs of Irish women. Many feminists don't connect the root cause of backwardness of Irish society with their own oppression. The socialist feminists who struggle against imperialism find themselves isolated, intellectually and politically". In the words of one such sister: "We have had to sift through the only conceptual tools left to us in our revolutionary traditions - nationalist traditions — which are imbued with Catholicism and reactionary ideology. Many feminists have rejected nationalism and rightly so, but have thereby cut themselves off from a part of our history which is the key to our struggle today.
In the North, the women's movement emerged later than its counterparts in the South. This stems from the impact of Republican influence in the North, which placed women's liberation after national liberation.
This tardiness was reflected during the Free Derry period of the struggle. Steps to collectivise domestic labour - such as creches, communal laundries, etc. — were not taken. There is now a Women's Aid group with refuges in Belfast, Derry and Coleraine. The Northern Ireland Women's Rights Movement (a university-based women's law group), a Belfastcentred lesbian group, and a socialist women's group called the Andersonstown Women's Group, are the other main groups which exist. The latter is the only one involved in the anti-imperialist struggle. However, the possibilities for integrating this with the struggle for women's liberation are steadily increasing as contact grows between women in the North and South. A very important step in this direction was the All-Ireland Women's Liberation Conference held in October 1977 (reported in Spare Rib), in which all the above-mentioned groups took part.
The Women and Ireland Group can be contacted c/o 4 Woman's Place, 42 Eartham Street, London WC2. Shortly available will be copies of a pamphlet, 'Papers from the Feminism and Ireland Workshop' [price 40p plus 20p pop], and a poster, "Women at War, we are in solidarity' [price 90p).