On Thursday 30th September at a nondescript bar in Hanley (due to the CWU HQ being closed) several comrades met to discuss this week's branch topic 'Women and the Struggle for Socialism'. The lead-off was led by comrade Claire from London who came up to give the same lead-off at a public meeting earlier at Staffs Uni.
First off, we heard how the capitalist media today portrays a 'post-feminist society'; that is to say that women have won the major battles of the sexes and now 'have it all' in today's world. However, the facts reveal that on average women earn 15 percent less than men, and are more likely to take casual, part-time or temporary posts, and largely in the domestic sector.
What's more it is possible that 1 in 4 women will at some point experience domestic violence, and 1 in 7 will be raped.
There is also an increase in the sex industry, and the further commodification of women in advertisements.
In Engels' Origin of the Family he states that the woman's role is linked to class. The agricultural industry in older societies led to a surplus of production, meaning that men were the members who worked the land. And institutions like family protected private property.
The Industrial Revolution actually led to economic independence for women, and even under capitalism gains were made (albeit slowly) for more accepatance of women within the workplace. The NHS allowed more women to work in various sectors, and more nursery places were available to allow women more freedom in career choices. And how fitting that these are the very areas under attack by a Con-Dem government. (We later discussed the closure of a local NHS nursery in Stoke). Of course the Tories have used family breakdowns as the root of all evil and continue to attack child benefits making it even harder for women to defend the gains made in the past.
This is why as socialists we continue to fight for women's rights by fighting for a change in attitude and how society is organised. As Engels says, "Throughout most of history women's oppression did not exist, and in the future will be no more again."
After the lead-off Andy continued this theme by saying instead of sacking huge numbers of workers, share out the work for all levels of society.
Claire also reiterated the class issue by saying that working-class men don't benefit from the oppression of women, rather it is the ruling class that do. Working-class men would arguably prefer that women had more equality in the workplace to alleviate the strain of their own toil.
Another point raised was that capitalism does not recognise socially useful roles such as nursery nursing, social work and other roles associated with women as being important, hence the ease in which bosses can eradicate such services.
The overall feeling was clear - if capitalism is removed then attitudes can change as we as a society have been constantly institutionalised in our attitude to women, feminism and equality by the media and capitalism.
