Sexism: A Tool of the Ruling Class ---- Around the world, young men are
being drawn into far-right politics by sexist billionaires, politicians,and media companies. In Australia, the government responds to rampant
domestic and sexual violence - including by police, some of the worst
offenders - with empty words and inquiries that go nowhere. Activists do
their best to confront sexist attitudes and deal with the symptoms of
living in a sexist society, but aren't able to challenge the system at
its root.
As feminists, we believe fighting the class struggle and fighting sexism
are two sides of the same coin. Working class power is the best weapon
we have in the fight against sexism, and working class solidarity
between people of all genders will be needed if we're ever going to
overthrow the rotten system that perpetuates it: capitalism.
As long as capitalism exists, it will generate sexism, simply because
it's so useful to keeping the whole system going. Capitalism needs
workers who are ready and able to work. It needs workers to turn up fed,
alert, and reasonably healthy. It also needs us to have kids, so that we
can raise the workers who will replace us in the future. This all needs
to be done at the minimum possible cost, so that the bosses can maximise
their profits. Capitalism's solution is to adopt a sexist division of work.
Capitalism established heterosexuality and the nuclear family as the
expected way of life. It pushed men into the factories while women
slaved away at home, unpaid. Men were encouraged to think of themselves
as superior to the women they "provided for" through their wage. Women
made sure that men were ready to turn up again the next day, and that
their children were being raised to be future workers themselves.
Only sexism could hold together a system which forced half the
population to cook, clean, and raise children for free, so that men
could be exploited at work more profitably. Today, sexism is still able
to convince young working class men that their real enemy is the women
who won't put up with this anymore. The promotion of sexist ideas, and
the illusory benefits of 'male privilege', keeps the working class
divided - and a divided working class is powerless.
Sexism Today
Sexism today looks different to the oppression women faced during the
20th century. Women now make up a larger proportion of the workforce,
contraception and abortion services are far more accessible and the
right to a no-fault divorce has been enshrined in law. The number of
women politicians and CEOs has significantly increased. These women
might still face discrimination, but they are protected by their class
position from the worst of sexism. Working class women, on the other
hand, experience the sexism of capitalism every day. Women are still
expected to put up with lower pay, discrimination from bosses, and to
carry on doing the majority of housework and childcare without adequate
parental leave.
Working class women aren't just victims of exploitation, but agents of
change.
When we organise together at work, we build the power to fight for
higher, equal pay. We can put sexist bosses in their place, and even get
them thrown out of the company. Working class power can win more time
off from work, for parents of any gender, so that taking care of things
at home comes at the bosses' expense. When the fight against sexism
takes the form of class struggle, we are able to fundamentally undermine
capitalism's sexist division of work.
Anything outside the 'typical' heterosexual, nuclear family is a threat
to the sexism inherent to capitalism. In a queer relationship, it isn't
possible for the man to earn a wage and the woman to do the free
housework. Trans and non-binary people, by simply existing, destabilise
ideas about gender which have allowed capitalism to thrive. Capitalism
has tried to adjust to (and profit from) the advancement of queer and
trans rights by allowing a few individuals into the ranks of the ruling
class. But a right-wing reaction is growing around the world.
Transphobia is the tip of the spear for a broader, sexist attack on
growing solidarity among workers of all gender identities and
sexualities. Trans and intersex people are a tiny minority of the
population, and so can't fight back against this alone. The
disproportionate experiences of homelessness, denial of healthcare, and
workplace discrimination won't be changed without a united working class
movement.
Fighting Back: The Class Struggle Approach
Rather than appealing to women and gender diverse people in the halls of
power to save us, we want to see workers united on picket lines, in our
unions, and in the streets.
Take the example of the Victorian nurses' union, whose members walked
out for 50 days in 1986. Their strike won them a pay rise and better
working conditions, while also overcoming sexist ideas that had
pigeon-holed nurses as subservient angels and not militant trade
unionists. Today, women in the CFMEU are proving the same thing, by
standing against the Labor government's attempt to crush the union
through administration.
Anti-sexist class struggle can't just be left to women though. The
Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) showed what solidarity looks like by
fighting to allow women to work on building sites. They also imposed the
first 'pink ban' industrial action in solidarity with a gay student
activist who had been expelled from his residential college. This
tradition of anti-sexist class struggle is still alive, and still gets
results. The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) recently won the
right to annual gender affirmation leave at over 17 universities across
Australia. This was only possible because workers got organised and took
strike action. We should work to build links with community
organisations, and fight for rank-and-file control in these community
groups. But ultimately most of our power as women and gender diverse
workers will be built by fighting the bosses.
Anti-sexism in our unions and campaign groups isn't automatic. Building
a united, anti-sexist working class takes conscious effort and a
commitment to building solidarity in good faith. We should intervene to
draw out the threads of solidarity that connect all oppressed and
exploited people in the struggle for a better world.
As women on the frontlines of struggle have demonstrated time and time
again - from the women workers of Petrograd who sparked the Russian
Revolution, to the women workers of Myanmar and Iran, who were at the
forefront of uprisings in their countries - the rising of women is the
rising of us all. We argue that a woman's place is not in the home, or
at a boardroom table, but in the class struggle. Working class women
aren't just victims of exploitation, but agents of change.
The fights against sexism and queerphobia aren't 'side issues' or
'separate' from the class struggle. They are part of it. As long as we
live under capitalism, there will be a need by capitalists and
governments for sexism. And as long as we tolerate sexism, we will never
overthrow capitalism. To struggle for a better world, and to ultimately
transform it, we need to be united as workers. When women, men, and
gender diverse people stand together on a picket line, we hold the
cards. If any link in the chain is broken, we all lose.
https://melbacg.au/a-womans-place-is-in-the-class-struggle/
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