Comrades and Sisters

This article is the first section of the Workers' Liberty pamphlet 'Comrades and Sisters', about socialism and women's liberation. It tells the story of women's struggle for liberation: from the French Revolution and the birth of feminism, through the fight for the vote, up to the 70s women's movement, Thatcherism and the backlash against feminism. The Rights of Woman In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. The book was a manifesto, the founding text of feminism. The 1790s were years when change and equality gained many new supporters. The French revolution...

The second section of the Workers' Liberty pamphlet 'Comrades and Sisters' looks at women's situation today. Domestic work, (badly-)paid work, the vast gulf between working-class and ruling-class women. Women in communities, and women in the welfare state. Religious fundamentalism, the state, New Labour and family values. How can Marxism explain women's oppression? Housework is Horrid A woman's work is never done. And despite more women having jobs, housework is still a woman's work. A 1999 survey (Home-to-Home) reported that 87% of women change the beds, compared with only 4% of men; 67% of...

The final section of the Workers' Liberty pamphlet 'Comrades and Sisters' looks at what socialism can offer women, and what sort of movement we need to win liberation. Formal Equality and its Limits Britain has had the Sex Discrimination Act for three decades and the Equal Pay Act for two-and-a-half. But women's pay is still less than men's, and women still experience discrimination. The laws have not achieved what they promised. Why? There has been some progress: fewer employers pay lower rates for a woman doing exactly the same job as a man. But there is a ready-made excuse for women's lower...