BY JANINE CURR
SYDNEY — On February 19, the International Women's Day Collective
debated, for the third time in as many weeks, the question of whether men
should be encouraged to participate in the IWD rally and march on March
10.
The IWD collective meeting on February 5, attended by members of Amnesty
International, the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), Resistance and the
Worker Communist Party of Iraq (Australian branch), as well as individual
feminists, voted unanimously that all supporters, including men, would
be welcome at the rally and march.
It was agreed that the IWD march should be as large and representative
as possible and that the participation of men who support the demands of
the march would strengthen the movement's ability to win them to support
for women's liberation. The collective wanted women from all backgrounds,
especially from migrant communities, to feel welcome and reasoned that
a decision to ban men would hinder that.
At the February 12 collective meeting, a large group of women who had
not previously been involved in organising this year's IWD activities turned
up and attempted to overturn the decision. A motion to reopen the question
at the next meeting was passed.
The main argument put at the February 19 meeting by the dozen or so
separatists, who were mainly students or worked for trade unions, was that
men's exclusion from the march and rally would make the event more “inclusive”
for women.
This position ignored the fact that many women, especially migrant,
indigenous and other working-class women, want their male partners, sons,
fathers and political associates to show their support for women's liberation.
As a letter to the IWD collective from the Women's Multicultural Resources
Centre stated, many of the issues raised by the IWD march also affect men
and they should be encouraged to support women's liberation activities.
This argument was echoed by women from the Kurdish Association, the Iranian/Kurdish
Committee, the Fairfield Migrant Centre and the Multicultural Family Planning
Association.
In her motion to reaffirm the decision to allow supportive men to participate
in IWD, collective convenor and DSP member Kim Bullimore pointed out that
IWD activities have always and should continue to be decided and organised
by women because women, as the oppressed sex, need to lead the struggle
for their own liberation. From IWD's inception, march organisers have recognised
that, if full liberation is to be won for all women, the movement needs
to make alliances with other oppressed groups, including with working-class
men who will support the movement's demands.
Within this framework, men have participated in IWD marches around the
world since the first march in 1911. In Australia, since the first march
in Sydney in 1929, IWD collectives have generally encouraged men to show
their solidarity by joining the marches and rallies.
The second argument raised at the meeting by the advocates of men's
exclusion was that IWD is principally a “women-only space” which “empowers”
women. This argument dismisses the immediate aim of IWD mobilisations —
to be as effective as possible in forcing real changes in public opinion
and government policy which will make life better for all women every day
of the year — and counterposes to it the very temporary sense of personal
confidence the (relatively few) women who participate in the march gain.
A compromise motion was adopted by a narrow majority at the February
19 meeting: that men be asked to march at the back of the march or line
the route. It was better than barring men altogether, but it still misses
the point that, while men as individuals do benefit from women's oppression,
men in general, and especially men who support feminist aims, are not “the
enemy”.
The men who march under the leadership and banner of the women's liberation
movement on IWD are walking proof that working-class men, also the victims
of capitalism although to a different degree, can be convinced to sacrifice
their privileges and join the struggle for gender equality as a integral
part of the struggle for human liberation.
[Janine Curr is a member of the Sydney IWD Collective and the Democratic
Socialist Party.]
