BY
PAT BREWER
Is the Democratic Socialist Party a revolutionary feminist party?
Not really, according to Alison Thorne, a leading member of the Freedom
Socialist Party (FSP). The DSP, Thorne argued in her contribution on the
future of the Socialist Alliance (SA) in last week's Green Left Weekly,
has no claim to revolutionary feminism because in some way it waters down
its support for women's liberation to simply an issue of democratic rights
and doesn't allow a women's caucus internally.
Thorne's criticisms of the DSP's approach to the struggle against women's
oppression was made within the context of a more general argument as to
why left regroupment — the uniting of the socialist left into a single
party — is not a possible option for the future development of the SA.
Such left regroupment, Thorne argued, is only possible after a “thorough
process of discussion around program”.
She cited the question of revolutionary feminism as an example of the
programmatic differences that exist between the DSP and the FSP, supposedly
precluding these two affiliates of the SA functioning within a single,
multi-tendency, socialist party. Instead of regarding the SA as providing
a vehicle for left regroupment, Thorne argued that the alliance should
be restricted to being an action-based coalition (a “united front”).
This response to Thorne's arguments will only address her accusations
about the DSP's position on women's liberation.
Revolutionary feminism
Given the centrality that Thorne attaches to feminism in assessing the
programmatic differences among the SA affiliates, it is quite disappointing
that her allegations against the DSP are not backed up with any facts.
For example, Thorne claims that the “DSP focuses narrowly on women's
rights, rather than on how feminism is integral to revolutionary struggle”.
Is she claiming that the DSP only supports struggles for formal legal rights
and is therefore reformist not revolutionary? This is what her allegation
implies, but she provides her readers with no evidence from either the
DSP's documents or its practice to back it up.
Any examination of the actual practice of the DSP shows we have made
the struggle against women's oppression a central aspect of our political
activity since our formation in 1972. We have actively participated in
the struggle for women's control over their reproduction and fertility.
Within the trade union movement, we took up working women's demands through
the Working Women's Charter campaign. We have combated sex segregation
and discrimination in industry through the Jobs for Women campaign in Wollongong
in the 1980s.
We have been central to maintaining and building the International Women's
Day rallies and marches — the main annual feminist mobilisation — for more
than a decade now.
We continue to struggle to make equal wages a reality not just a formality,
while recognising that achieving the formality of equal wages in law was
a step forward for women.
At the same time, we have combated the ideological arguments and sexist
stereotyping that are used by the capitalist rulers to justify and perpetuate
women's oppression.
The DSP's analysis of women's liberation and its relationship to the
struggle for socialism is summarised in the slogan “No women's liberation
without socialist revolution! No socialist revolution without women's liberation!”
The DSP's program spells out what we mean by this. It states: “The struggle
for women's liberation poses the problem of the total reorganisation of
society from its smallest repressive unit — the family — to its largest
— the state. The liberation of women demands a thoroughgoing restructuring
of society's productive and reproductive institutions in order to maximise
social welfare and establish a truly human existence for all. Without the
socialist revolution, women will not be able to establish the material
conditions for their liberation. Without the conscious and equal participation
of broad masses of women, the working class will not be able to carry through
the socialist revolution.”
If this isn't revolutionary feminism, what does such a term mean?
Women's caucuses
The second accusation Thorne makes against the DSP's revolutionary feminism
concerns the question of the right to form a women's caucus within a revolutionary
socialist party that is programmatically committed to the struggle for
women's liberation.
On this issue, Thorne uses the method of argument of guilt by association,
slur and innuendo. She cites the Black Panther Party in the USA and the
Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain as being destroyed by “rampant sexism”
because, presumably, they did not allow women and other members of specially
oppressed groups the right to form caucuses. Since the DSP is opposed to
the organisation of such internal caucuses, we too must be sexist. The
right to form a women's caucus, Thorne argues, is key to combating sexism.
This confuses two different issues. A socialist party's commitment to
the centrality of women's liberation in the struggle for socialism is a
political question. The formation of a caucus is an organisational one.
If a party has no commitment to women's liberation in its activities,
even if it is programmatically committed to women's liberation, an organisational
form such as a women's caucus is not going to address the problem of sexism
within its ranks. In fact, many socialist groups and parties with women's
caucuses or collectives have encountered deep problems of sexism in their
internal life because they have allowed the struggle for women's liberation
to be marginal to their activities.
The DSP does not organise its members on the basis of gender, race or
any other non-political criteria. We organise our members on the basis
of the party's political activity. We organise into working groups (“fractions”)
all those party members engaged in a particular area of political work.
We don't think having within the DSP separate and exclusive caucuses
based purely on gender will address sexism if it arises within the party
nor deal with a lack of commitment to raising the struggle against women's
oppression. Such questions are a responsibility for the party as a whole
to tackle, not marginalised or swept under the carpet as exclusively “women's
business”.
As a party, we seek to create the best possible conditions to help women
members become confident leaders of our organisation in all the areas of
work it engages in.
This, however, does not mean that we don't support the formation of
women's caucuses in other organisations that do not have a practical commitment
to women's liberation. But this is not an organisational template to be
imposed regardless of the political situation; it is a question of tactics
in concrete political situations.
For example, in the trade unions we support the formation of women's
caucuses to develop policies to overcome discrimination and the material
conditions of oppression as well as the confidence to take these policies
into the official union bodies and fight for their inclusion as a central
part of the union's aims. But if a union leadership is committed to championing
the demands in the interests of all the union's members, which of course
include demands in the interests of women workers, then a women's caucus
may not be necessary.
The FSP's position of advocating women's caucuses as the means to combat
sexism within a revolutionary feminist organisation reflects a real political
difference with the DSP. Unfortunately, Thorne did not clearly articulate
wherein the difference lies.
From reading the documents of the US FSP it appears that the comrades
view the struggle against women's oppression as the central issue in the
struggle for socialism. They arrive at this position because they view
women as being the most oppressed part of the working class and, therefore,
the “most” potentially revolutionary — the implication being that women
workers are inherently more capable of struggling for socialism than male
workers. This is certainly a view that is not shared by the DSP.
Whether I am misinterpreting FSP views or not is a discussion to pursue
at a more leisurely pace while we continue to work together to build the
Socialist Alliance. But I would hope that future discussion of our differences
will be conducted in a more honest manner than Thorne treated them in her
article in GLW.
[Pat Brewer is a member of the national committee of the DSP and has
been an active feminist for more than 25 years.]
From Green Left Weekly, February 26, 2003.
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