Capitalism oppresses women – Resist and fight for socialism

Internationally, women are increasingly fighting back against austerity and gender-based oppression. In this feature written for the April/May edition of the Socialist newspaper, Sinead Daly looks at the struggles of working class women and the work of some of our sister parties in the Committee for a Workers’ International.

The dawn of the 21st century was supposed to see the erosion of inequality and oppression, but nothing could be further from the truth. The economic crash caused by the greed of big business, the banks and speculators has seen soaring levels of inequality and misery – particularly for women.

Impact of austerity

Back in 2010, the then Tory Prime Minister David Cameron warned of – “difficult decisions over big areas of spending like pay and pensions and benefits – and we need to explain those to people”. By those people he didn’t mean the millionaires and bankers who caused the crisis in the first place, he meant the working class and the poor.

The decimation of our public services has hit women hardest, indeed research undertaken by the House of Commons in 2017 revealed that women have “borne 86% of austerity since 2010”. This is due to a number of reasons. Firstly women make up the overwhelming majority of employees within public services, secondly we depend on those services more (without them it is usually left to us to fill the gaps) and thirdly the horrendous benefit ‘reforms’ that have been introduced have been catastrophic for women.

Austerity has impacted directly on the amount of violence and harassment women face, and their ability to fight back. In Britain, for example, more than 30 refuges for women fleeing violence have closed due to lack of funds, with many of the rest facing closure or, at best, severe cuts. At the same time the complete absence of affordable housing leaves women with nowhere at all to go if they flee violent partners. But not everyone is doing so badly from the economic crisis.

The millionaire/billionaire elite have continued to see their wealth soar. Just 8 of the richest men in the world have a combined wealth equal to 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world’s population. And it is women who are disproportionately represented in the poorest half of humanity. Moreover, hungry for profits we have seen the growing use of hugely exploitative practices by scrupulous employers like zero hour contracts, particularly among young people.

Women Fighting Back

The #Metoo movement has highlighted that many women in the workplaces experience sexual harassment. Some are even expected to just put up with it – it’s just the normal part of the job – this is particularly the case in the hospitality sector where 9 out of 10 women reported experiencing sexual harassment at work.

More worryingly is how many women are reporting putting up with sexual harassment at the hands of their managers just to keep a job or ensure they have enough hours work that week to get buy. There is a growing mood of anger and willingness to fight the impact of austerity, gender inequality and oppression among women. Some of this is bubbling under the surface, but in other cases – women have said enough is enough!

The marvellous struggle of the Glasgow City Council workers demanding equal pay shows what having a fighting trade union leadership willing to give a lead and support workers in struggle can achieve. Under Labour and SNP administrations 11,500 women workers have been historically been paid less than men for doing work of equal value.

The SNP have been talking the language of fighting austerity and inequality, but in reality they have been found wanting on a whole number of fronts. Across the country they are presiding over attacks on our public services, and slashing our pay and pensions. In an interview with The Herald on International Women’s Day, Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister, said “We’ve got to look at how we accelerate the progress, whether on equal pay and representation” – a good starting point would be to instruct her colleagues in Glasgow City Council to pay up!

The women’s and feminist movement is not a homogeneous group – there are very different strands of opinions. For some it is about quotas – lets get more women into board rooms or the parliaments. For others – particularly among socialist feminists – its about fighting for real fundamental changes to our lives – which won’t be delivered by having more women sitting in the board rooms of big business breaking the ‘glass ceiling’ whilst the rest of us are sweeping up the shards of glass.

As socialists, we are clear that the struggle for real change in women’s lives and ending the oppression we face requires the linking up of the struggles in the workplace, to the struggles against gender based violence and other forms of gendered oppression. It means fighting to end the system whose very survival is based on inequality and oppression. 

IRELAND: The right to choose

Under pressure from the growing mood from below, the Irish government have been forced to hold a referendum on May 25 2018, to remove the 35-year-old constitutional ban on abortion known as the 8th Amendment.

There isn’t a day that goes by now in Ireland without hearing the heartbreaking and horrendous stories from women about their experiences of feeling like criminals to sneak across the waters to the UK to have a termination. Since 1983 an estimated 170,000 women have been forced to travel to the UK in order to have safe terminations Up to 2,000 women each year illegally take the abortion pill, accessed online.

For years the establishment have fudged the issue, particularly given the huge grip that the Catholic church has. Just five years ago the Irish government voted to reassert the laws on abortion and even went as far as increasing the sentencing to 14 years for anyone aiding an illegal abortion.

So what has happened to see such a shift in attitudes? Huge anger against successive governments on both class and social issues has been evident. There is also a real desire among the youth to break the control of the Catholic church on Irish Society. 75% of 18-24 year olds support the right to abortion up to 12 weeks.

ROSA

The Socialist Party in Ireland and ROSA – Socialist Feminist movement (an initiative launched by the Socialist Party) have played a key role in continuing to raise the issues defending the woman’s right to choose. They had mass publicity for the Abortion Pill train and the national Abortion Pill buses.

The aim of which was to highlight how ludicrous the current laws are and also to raise awareness about how women can access medical abortion pills online (this is supported by the Women on the Web). Our sister party in Ireland have been very clear – we need a clear vote in favour of repealing the 8th amendment – this will send a clear signal to the Irish government not to delay their commitment to introduce legislation for unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks.

The Socialist Party and ROSA have launched a #Time4Choice campaign. They have done so because many in the mainstream ‘Yes’ campaign, whilst supporting repealing the 8th amendment, are at best lukewarm on the issue of abortion rights. There is enormous potential for this campaign to be hugely politicising and radicalising.

They’ll be using this campaign to explain the need for a socialist left government that will give people choices over their lives – this includes access to free health care, a living wage, free child care and an end to the oppression and inequality of women. As well as arguing for the separation of church from the state. Most importantly socialists will fight for breaking with this rotten capitalist system in Ireland and internationally.

SPAIN: Mass feminist strike #M8

The scenes emanating from the Spanish State on March 8th, International Women’s Day, were nothing short of inspiring. Over 5 million women went on strike – led by the youth – and hundreds of thousands took to the streets in cities across the countries.

As our sister party in the Spanish State – Izquierda Revolucionaria (IR) – explains: “The feminist strike on 8 March was unprecedented. Never in the history of the class struggle in the Spanish state have such a deep and massive mobilisation against the oppression of working class women, against inequality and violence against women.

“Hundreds of marches took place from morning to evening and became a genuine Tsunami of millions in the streets. It reflected not only the anger of working class women and the youth with the capitalist crisis and reactionary PP government, but also the enormous discontent throughout society.

“What we saw will not be easily forgotten. Firstly, because this movement was built from below, on the initiative of hundreds of women’s collectives, social movements and Left organisations, which worked for months to make this success happen. Secondly because the PP and Ciudadanos leaders viciously opposed the strike and marches, showing that their political agenda is a declaration of war in favour of institutionalised sexism and inequality.

“The images of the demonstrations speak for themselves. Despite the fact that the system’s media try to dilute the figures participating, the marches were far bigger than during previous general strikes… In Madrid, there were more than one million people, covering more than 5 kilometres of road. And Madrid was not an exception. The same happened in Barcelona, Vigo, Ferrol, Gijon, Bilbao, Gasteiz, Valencia, Malaga, Sevilla, Zaragoza, Tarragona, Cadiz, Toledo and dozens of other cities.

“It was a mobilisation which surpassed all expectations. The role of the youth Many media articles have underlined the massive role of the youth in this struggle, and it is true. The participation of millions of young women and men in this battle reflects the enormous revolutionary potential of the new feminist movement which is developing.

“In this earthquake of the youth against violence against women and sexist capitalism, the Sindicato de Estudiantes (SE – Students Union) Libres y Combativas (socialist feminist platform launched by SE and IR) and the comrades of Izquierda Revolucionaria have played a key role.

“Our call for a 24-hour student strike was massively supported. 90% of students in secondary schools and 80% of university students joined the strike. Thousands filled the streets in our student demonstrations in Madrid, Barcelona, Vigo, Ferrol, Gijón, Bilbao, Gasteiz, Donosti, Tarragona, Valencia, Sevilla, Málaga, Cádiz, Salamanca, Guadalajara etc, with more than 150,000 taking part.

“On 8 March, the need for a revolutionary, anti-capitalist class-struggle feminism was clear. A movement which denounces capitalist patriarchy, but also the PP (Popular Party) government, Ciudadanos, and all those who accept the logic of this system of cuts to rights, wages, health and education etc, of precariousness and sexist “justice” which protects those who abuse women.

Struggle until victory!

This great feminist strike made clear that we don’t have to put up with this reactionary government for one more minute. Those who keep saying that there are no conditions for struggle, who lament an “unfavourable balance of forces”, what do they say now?

“Beneath the surface there is bubbling discontent and building pressure, in the homes and workplaces of the poorest and most oppressed in society. Among women, youth, and pensioners who have also begun an epic battle going over the heads of the parliamentary and union bureaucracy.

“All of this vitality, shown on 8 March, must continue in an organised fashion until the PP’s policies are defeated and Rajoy and co are removed from power. We must come together in a new general strike of all workers to end sexism and all cuts.”