a) Are we against ‘feminism’?

IN patriarchal society, feminism is a progressive tendency. The notion that feminism is ‘anti-man’; or that feminism necessarily prioritises gender over class; that feminism is upper class, etc... are rather inaccurate and impressionistic. Let us take a brief look at some of the major trends in feminism.

Radical feminists hold that all women share some basic unity of experiences: in that sense they posit a primary contradiction between men and women. We point out, however, that women are divided by class: while women of all classes do experience gender discrimination, it is true that working class women would, often, have more in common with working class men than with women of the dominant classes. Liberal feminism, deriving from liberal political theory which was born with the rise of the bourgeoisie as a class, shares the liberal philosophical idea of society being based on rational and selfish individuals; of the State’s role being to regulate conflict between individuals by defending private property and intervening to provide welfare while upholding the free market; of the idea that the conflicting interests of rational individuals can be reconciled in a ‘just’ manner within capitalist society. While traditional liberal theory had excluded women (and workers and non-white people) from the category of rational citizens, and sought to protect the family (‘private sphere’, said to be women’s domain and the ‘haven from the heartless world’ of capitalism) from interference by the state (‘public sphere’, traditionally said to be the male domain), liberal feminism demanded legal and political recognition for women as equal citizens, asserted women’s right to participate in the public sphere, and demanded state regulation (new laws etc...) to ensure equality in the ‘private’ sphere too. The demand for legal and political equality for women remains the main plank of liberal feminism even today.

While championing all the struggles for legal and political equality, our approach towards these struggles differs significantly from that of liberal feminism. A little ahead, we will consider these differences. Here it is enough to note that we recognise that capitalism as a system rests on exploitation of the labour of the working class and the domestic labour of women: and therefore class and gender are not ‘conflicts’ that can be ‘resolved’ within capitalism through any legal measures.

Socialist or Marxist feminists apply Marxist methods of analysis to understand women’s oppression. While not all socialist and Marxist feminists may be communists, the communist movement can certainly take many positive lessons from the work of these feminists. The broadest and most commonly agreed-upon definition of the word ‘feminist’ is anyone who considers that women’s subordination has a systematic basis and seeks to end such subordination. Communists above all hold that women’s subordination has a systematic basis and seek to end such subordination – the communist agenda therefore has ample scope to accommodate a feminist agenda. The approach suggested by our Fourth Congress Document is relevant: “Our comrades must be able to unite with these (feminist) organisations both in order to advance the programmes of these organisations as well as to politicise the more advanced elements of these organisations without resorting to unnecessary confrontationist practices.”

b) Attitude Towards Politics:

THERE are strands in the women’s movement who believe that that the movement, in order to be ‘autonomous’, must refrain from overtly political battles. Instead, they feel women must fight issue by issue, lobbying with political power groups and ruling parties to secure as many ‘facilities and amenities’ for women as possible. AIPWA argues against such an economistic understanding, pointing out that women’s social and economic issues cannot be divorced from politics. Without naming and confronting the economic and political formations that have an entrenched interest in perpetuating oppressive social practices and denying economic rights, it is not possible to win even the most basic of women’s rights.

c) Attitudes to Ruling Class Interventions and Demands for Legal/Political Equality:

THE ruling class, in order to secure its hegemony, initiates various measures as concessions to deprived groups: reservations for backward castes is an example, as are various legal and political measures relating to women. While these measures may be reluctant concessions on part of the ruling class, often due to pressure from the women’s movement, the fact remains that the ruling class initiates such measures in its own long or short-term self-interest. AIPWA often raises demands that relate to such ruling class initiatives: for instance, demands of 33% reservation in Parliament and Assemblies; for enactment and progressive amendments in laws against rape, sati, dowry, sexual harassment, domestic violence, demands for higher honorarium for ASHA workers, employment and facilities like creches for women as promised under NREGA etc... How can we define our approach to these struggles, so that we remain vigilant against falling into any sort of liberal illusions about these measures, and at the same time guard against facile dismissal of such ‘reforms’ as ‘useless’?

In this context, Marx’s advice to the working class on the question of its approach towards its everyday struggles (for wage increase, better working conditions, shorter working day etc...), is helpful and relevant:

Marx advised that the working class, in its everyday struggles, “ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, not with the causes of those effects; ...applying palliatives, not curing the malady.” Rather than “limiting themselves to a guerrilla war against the effects of the existing system” they must “simultaneously (try) to change it”, use “their organised forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class...the ultimate abolition of the wages system.” (Wages, Price and Profit, Selected Works, p 225-226) The necessary phases of revolutionary movement required to do so cannot be evaded by legal or parliamentary means, but struggles for such means and measures can “shorten and lessen the birth pangs” of this revolutionary transformation. (Capital Vol I, p 20)

It is not enough for us to declare that laws and policies introduced by the ruling class cannot improve the condition of women because they are ruling class interventions, or because discrimination and violence are ‘inevitable’ within the capitalist system. For instance, take the Domestic Violence Act, which has quite a few progressive provisions towards protecting the rights of women facing domestic violence. Would it be right for us to declare that the law, however progressive and welcome, is basically quite useless, because after all, domestic violence is ‘inevitable’ in capitalist society? Would it be correct for us to declare that we’re not interested in various reforms, facilities, and amenities because such measures can at best secure temporary relief? That for us, reform and welfare measures for women are just a means to a larger end: i.e an excuse to organise women for wider social change? Surely not.

After all, we know that exploitation of workers is ‘inevitable’ as long as wage slavery lasts; yet communists have waged — and continue to wage — long, fierce struggles to expand workers’ rights and improve their wages and working conditions – to force the capitalist class to concede more and more ground. In the same way, the communist women’s movement must wage serious struggles to force the ruling class to concede more and more rights and welfare measures – not as a final end in themselves or as a guarantee of women’s liberation, it is true; but not as mere camouflage for some other goal either; rather as an integral part of the struggle for revolutionary change, shortening the birth pangs of a new revolutionary social order.

Women’s winning the vote; or legal equality with men; or forcing capitalist governments to run crèches; or winning proportional political representation in panchayats; or (as in the case of the Domestic Violence Act), winning the right not to be evicted from the husband’s/partner’s or father’s home etc... – are very real victories; it is another matter that the struggle cannot end once these victories are won. Rather, a more arduous struggle begins: to mobilise women to demand that the pro-women laws do not remain on paper, restricted to a select few; to demand that the poorest women have access to each and every right; to demand that the capitalist class provide the education, healthcare and wages that can put women in a position to actually avail of the benefits provided.

If we merely tell women, “the pro-women laws and measures are eye-wash; the government has passed it to win some respite and legitimacy for itself”, why should women believe us? But militant mobilisations of women to get the laws and measures implemented will open the eyes of the women more effectively than any declaration of ours – it will demonstrate to them how reluctant the ruling class is to allow the mass of people to have any real access even to the benefits of laws introduced by it.

In a very important sense the struggle to win bourgeois reforms and wage struggles for their implementation is a central part of the communist struggle for democratic revolution. In the course of such struggles, the mass of people – including women – get a hands-on experience of the truth that Lenin had pointed out about bourgeois freedoms: “Its (the bourgeoisie’s) supporters everywhere used the liberty they acquired like masters, reducing it to moderate and meticulous bourgeois doses, combining it with the most subtle methods of suppressing the revolutionary proletariat in peaceful times and with brutally cruel methods in stormy times.” (p. 121, Two Tactics).

Communists, in the phase of democratic revolution, strive to establish leadership of workers and peasants, so that the bourgeois democratic freedoms do not remain doled out in tiny doses and restricted by repression. Instead, if the proletariat leads the democratic revolution, the broadest possible section of the working people – men and women both – can have a real access to these freedoms and use these freedoms as a weapon in the battle for socialism.

The women’s movement must take it as a central task to mobilise the mass of women to lay claim to the freedoms meted out in tiny doses by the bourgeoisie; to defend and widen the scope of each of these freedoms; to use each of these freedoms as a weapon in the battle for women’s liberation.