Feminism Motion
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I don’t think those behind the motion want to admit non-socialists or reformists but, to be perfectly honest, I do think they want to attract women who think that capitalism should be defined as a “male-dominated class society” and that “capitalism and patriarchy are aspects of the same thing” (the terms in inverted commas are from their own circulars).
But objectively speaking is it not the case that there IS discrimination under capitalism. For example in terms of the gender pay gap. I dont think it is unreasonable to talk of a “male-dominated class society” in this sense providing it understood that the primary factor in the equation is class – the domination of one class (which of course includes both men and women) by another. Subsumed within the broad framework defined by class domination there is a tendency for males to “dominate” females such as expressed in such forms as income distribution etc
Gender discrimination is derivative from or enabled/buttressed by capitalism and the way in which class interreacts with all sorts of other contingent factors in the context of capitalist society. But it does exist and its does have a real impact on the lives 0f the working class women. It would be foolish to just sweep it under the carpet and pretend it doesn’t exist
“there is a tendency for males to “dominate” females such as expressed in such forms as income distribution etc”
I think you are struggling there a bit, Robbo, to try to defend a proposition that has been decisively rejected by the Party.
Of course there is discrimination against various groups under capitalism (for various, contingent historical reasons) and we are against it, denounce it and say that the emancipation of the working class through socialism will mean the emancipation of all humans.
Maybe this is just a question of language again, but to talk of “domination” raises the question of who is doing the dominating. The working class, men and women, are definitely dominated by the capitalist class including female capitalists but do males dominate women in the same sort of way?
The term is best used for actions by a state. Otherwise you get into the absurd situation of saying that one section of the working class (men in this case) dominate and oppress another section (women); in which case there is a gender struggle as well as (or, in the case of the narrower kind of feminist, instead of ) the class struggle.
In any case, women struggling for equal pay is not a struggle against “male domination” but an entirely legitimate trade-unionist struggle against employers.
“Or how about “is it possible to be a socialist and sexist”? Perhaps that was the point of the resolution.”
The fact that you have to say perhaps, means that even you are in doubt about what the motion was intended to do and if the intention was that, it was a flawed way of doing it.
In my view what exacerbated the situation even further was the stance taken by some proposers of the motion at conference. Instead of holding their hands up and admitting that it had been badly worded, they doubled down and rather than trying to understand the misgivings of fellow comrades started to try an instruct members about various terms used to describe feminism!
Perhaps it would have been better for the Lancaster Branch to admit they’d dropped a bollock and explain exactly what they meant in the clearest possible terms, this should have been quite easy for them, after all apparently they’ve read an A level Sociology text book
Maybe this is just a question of language again, but to talk of “domination” raises the question of who is doing the dominating. The working class, men and women, are definitely dominated by the capitalist class including female capitalists but do males dominate women in the same sort of way? The term is best used for actions by a state.
I dont think anyone is suggesting males dominate women in the same way as the working class is dominated by the capitalist class. But that does not mean, of course, as a broad generalisation that there is not some way in which you can say “males dominate women” in capitalism. If there were not it would be difficult to explain why something like, for example, the gender pay gap should even exist. Demanding equal pay – a trade union issue as you say – doesn’t quite address the point since this has to do with equal remuneration for the same kind of work done. The gender gap has more to do with the fact that women tend to be pre-dominant in certain lines of work that are relatively low paid rather than others and the gap would not disappear even if men doing these same jobs were paid exactly the same (which I think they have to be by law anyway, no?)
But yes I agree that what we are talking about probably does boil down to a question of language. The actions of a state and the overt or threatened use of force is indeed an example of what the term domination can mean but it is not the only way in which this term can be usefully understood. For instance, one could say “the news was dominated by the story about the royal marriage” or the “city skyline is dominated the construction of this new high rise building”. Here the term domination has quite different connotations
Talk of a “male dominated class society” does not necessarily have to mean what you think it means if you move away from this conception of “domination” as exclusively denoting the actions of a state involving the use of force Class domination is indeed the basis of capitalism – no question about that – but it meshes with and amplifies other forms of domination that form part of lived reality of workers under capitalism.
The problem is that by seeing everything through the lens of class – crucial though it is to our understanding of capitalism – you are in effect denying or suppressing those other aspects of the lived reality that many workers experience – like the discrimination that women or black workers experience in their daily lives. This creates a conceptual gap between us and these workers who we want to appeal from our exclusively class-based perspective when really what we want to do is accommodate their concerns and acknowledge the discriminations they are subject to WITHIN this perspective. But we dont really do this or we dont really do it enough. Its almost like saying to these workers that the discrimination they face in their daily lives doesn’t really matter. Its like a whole layer of lived reality has been stripped out of the discussion as far as these workers are concerned and this makes it much more difficult for them to relate to what we are saying.
Perhaps this is the reason why we have so few female and black comrades within our ranks and perhaps, also, this is was what prompted Lancaster branch to put up that motion for conference . Dont get me wrong – class is the master key (if I can put it in these pseudo-sexist terms) in our analysis of capitalism. The only real and lasting solution to all these kinds of discriminations is the abolition of capitalist class society. But we dont do ourselves any favours by downplaying or ignoring the important role these discriminations play in perpetuating this society. A good enough reason to confront them head on and proactively and vigorously oppose them
The problem is that by seeing everything through the lens of class – crucial though it is to our understanding of capitalism – you are in effect denying or suppressing those other aspects of the lived reality that many workers experience – like the discrimination that women or black workers experience in their daily lives. This creates a conceptual gap between us and these workers who we want to appeal from our exclusively class-based perspective when really what we want to do is accommodate their concerns and acknowledge the discriminations they are subject to WITHIN this perspective. But we dont really do this or we dont really do it enough.
The argument that you are making, about “accommodating their concerns and acknowledge the discrimination they (sic) are subject to, sounds like Trots who tell us that we stand aside from the class struggle.
Of course we face the lived reality of discrimination and face the consequences of it ourselves. For example where I live there is a very small ethnic minority population who for the most part they are in quite high salaried jobs, so the don’t stop and search based on colour, they stop and search based on postcode or which council estate you live on.
I have been on a first aid course where the trainer thought it was funny when people were doing the introductions to say to me “well at least you’ll know how to deal with gunshot wounds”, when he found out where I was from.
If you live in certain areas up here, speak with a strong Geordie accent, you don’t get the job.
I’ve got an Irish surname and I had a boss who thought it was hilarious, during the time that Sinn Fein were banned from TV, to say “is that you, or is that the voice of an actor” and then in meetings say pointedly how much he enjoyed going for a drink at the Orange Lodge (they have one or two here as well)
How many party members have disabilites and face the daily discrimination that comes with that, how many party members are elderly and face the discrimination associated with that?
I’m not saying for one moment that it is as bad as the race discrimination faced by millions of people, but it does mean that party members know fully well what discrimination feels like.
Yes we do see things through the lens of class, we recognise that we can’t get rid of of the rancid consequences of capitalism (including the discrimination you describe) by any other way than through eliminating class society. We are not like the snake oil salesmen/women of the identity politics movement, futilely trying to equalise poverty. The concern of lots of members is, that with the motion that was passed, we sound like we might be.
The other problem with the Feminism motion (and the fellow traveller one, to be honest) is that to a lot of members it looked like an attempt to look “cool and trendy”. The problem with that is, that if you have to try and look cool, by definition, your not cool, you just look like a twat.
As anticipated, the resolution on undefined feminism has been rescinded:
https://groups.io/g/spintcom/topic/report_of_the_results_of_the/76540036?p=,,,20,0,0,0::recentpostdate%2Fsticky,,,20,2,0,76540036
All this is being discussed again on the Libcom forum: https://libcom.org/forums/organise/spgb-2019-conference-patriarchy-feminism-10022019
Where the view that “men in general oppress women in general” can lead:
[From the part behind the paywall] “Feminists often treat misandry as a joke. I found it interesting to explain that we have good reason to reach that point,” she said. In the book, she notes that “allegations of misandry are a … way of silencing the sometimes violent and always legitimate anger of the oppressed towards their oppressors.”After all, wouldn’t you hate those who you thought were oppressing you?If a far right-winger judge is elected to the supreme court of the USA, many reforms obtained by women in the USA are going to wipeout
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