By Marina Carman
SYDNEY — Last year a proposal was raised in a number of left student groups that only women members should vote in candidate preselections for women's officers. This position was adopted by the Activist Left group on Sydney University and by the newly formed Broad Left of the NSW branch of the National Union of Students.
It was argued that it is more democratic for women to preselect candidates for women's officer. In one left group meeting, a man said he felt unqualified and unable to choose candidates who were to be elected to represent women.
In deciding how to approach this question, the first thing to work out is what sort of movement we are trying to build. Resistance argues that the women's liberation movement should involve all those willing to fight for women's rights, but that it should be led by women.
Because this sexist society teaches women to follow, rather than lead, women-only organising groups and positions are useful as a means to increase women's confidence to lead and direct the women's liberation movement, and indeed all progressive movements. For this reason, Resistance advocates women-only organising collectives and defends the existence of women's rights rooms and women's officers.
The role of women's officers
Some of the misunderstandings about the best way to fight for women's liberation are reflected in ideas about what role campus women's officers should play.
Women's officer positions were won on many campuses in the 1970s as a way to strengthen the campaign for equal rights for women. They were used to organise women students, lead campaigns and ensure that gains won by the broader feminist movement, such as more child-care facilities, flowed to campuses.
Women's officer positions opened the possibility of women students' representation on various university bodies, but this was not, and should not, be seen as their major function.
If the left does not view the primary role of these positions as organising campaigns, then the women elected to these positions will find themselves administering and "representing" a rapidly diminishing number of rights and gains.
The best way to "represent" women is to build campaigns that can win gains for all women. And the best, most effective, way to do this is to inspire, organise and mobilise all students who support women's rights into campaigns — both women and men.
Mr Women's Officer?
Consistent with the idea that women have to lead the movement for their own liberation, the left should defend the position that only women be elected as women's officers.
However, it is not enough that they are women. The left needs to fight for women's officers who are feminists and will actively defend all women's rights.
Does support for women-only women's officers mean that when left student groups preselect their candidates for these positions, only women members should vote?
Membership of the broad left groups mentioned above is based on agreement with the groups' constitutions, including support for women's rights. Members of these groups — men and women — are expected to support and advocate women's rights, so why should they not all have a say in what policies regarding women's rights the group adopts and how they should be implemented?
While women are more likely to be aware of the discrimination facing women, drawing the conclusion that this inequality is systemic and that feminist organisation and struggle is necessary to eradicate it, is far from automatic for all women. It is a matter of political understanding.
Certainly, among left students, debates around women's rights are seldom had out along biological lines: many women are just as likely to agree with some of the men as with some other women.
There are two ways that most women's officers are elected: by direct election, and from amongst the elected general student representative council members at its first meeting.
The idea that only women should vote in women's officer elections is more obviously detrimental in the latter case, in which right-wing women would have the right to vote while left-wing men who support women's rights would not.
Direct election is more democratic because students have more direct control over who their officer will be. But again, the only way to justify only women students voting is the argument that the women are voting for the officer who will "represent" them.
The general rule in all these cases is to assess what will advance the women's liberation movement. Having a male women's officer would undermine the need for women to lead the movement for their liberation. Excluding men from voting for women's officers undermines the potential to educate and involve broader layers of people in the movement's activities.
Finally, it must be remembered that a stronger, more successful feminist movement on campus, one that draws on every available source of support for its campaigns for women's rights, makes a direct contribution to a stronger, more successful and broader movement to defend and extend all students' rights.