Marxism and women's liberation

Support trans people’s rights!

The AWL has been discussing the theory and politics of transgender identity and rights. This is the policy we have passed; we are continuing our discussion. 1. We support transgender rights and express our solidarity with trans people. We oppose prejudice, hostility and discrimination against trans people, and advocate support and compassion towards them. 2. We accept people in the gender they identify as (including non-binary identities). 3. We reject the assertion that individuals’ genders are defined by or are bound to the genders to which they were assigned at birth, or to their past or...

A split in Iraqi socialist group

Nadia Mahmood of the Worker-communist Party of Iraq spoke to Martin Thomas about a split within her organisation. Nadia: The resignation of our comrades Muayad Ahmed and Yanar Mohammad was announced after the central committee’s decision to take away Falah Alwan’s membership of the party. MT: There must have been some political issues behind it, like the referendum? Nadia: We always have different political views in our party. We always take decisions based on votes. That is basic. As regards the referendum, we had our differences but we set them out. So it wasn’t an issue. And the referendum...

Capitalism, socialism, and women

First section of chapter 2 of "The Case for Socialist Feminism" Women have been oppressed for thousands of years. Possibly they resisted the beginnings of this oppression with violence. For sure individual women have always kicked back and stood up for themselves. But the programme of women's liberation dates from capitalist society. Mary Aspell put it like this in 1706, linking women's liberation to the democratic manifesto of the bourgeois revolution: "Is it not partial in men in the last degree to contend for and practise that arbitrary dominion in their families which they abhor and...

Stop the "anti-prostitute" vigilantes! (1994)

LEAVE ASIDE for the moment the question of whether or not they should do such a thing. What hap- pens when you set a gang of men - any men - to roam the streets as vigilantes, harassing, bullying, and intimidating prostitute women? They will soon be harassing, bullying, and intimidating women who are not prostitutes - women who by their gait, clothes, make-up, or behaviour, or where they happen to be on a street or in a neighbourhood, look to the gang of men "like prostitutes". Already here we have crossed the line from facts — women known for certain to be prostitutes — to the judgement of...

From radical feminism to lesbian chic

Over the last decade, much has changed in the political culture of the 'lesbian community'. Ten years ago, the dominant voices were those of 'radical feminists'. Click here to download PDF

Marxist ideas to turn the tide: fighting for liberation

The opening plenary of Ideas for Freedom 2013 explored key "Marxist ideas to turn the tide". Unite activist Elaine Jones discussed the idea of a workers' government, Unison shop steward Ed Whitby explained the meaning of "transitional demands" such as the call for the expropriation of the banks, and Greek revolutionary Theodora Polenta shared recent experiences of struggle and workers' control in Greece. RMT Executive and TUC Disabled Workers' Committee member Janine Booth argued for class-struggle liberation politics - on race, gender, sexuality, and disability - to be at the heart of the...

The Marxists on oppression

The fourth part of a review article looking at the themes of John Riddell’s new book of documents from the early communist movement. The week Paul Hampton looks at how they debated women’s liberation and other issues of oppression. The early Communist International’s focus was on working class self-liberation and this was reflected in the time spent on discussions on party building, work to transform the labour movement and on the specifics of class struggle strategy. But the Bolsheviks had made their reputation as tribunes of the people, taking up any and every matter of injustice and...

Marxism and feminism

Workers’ Liberty have been organising a series of meetings to discuss Marxism, feminism and the fight for women’s liberation today. In Britain and internationally there is a revival of feminist ideas and activism. In past women’s movements Marxist ideas have played an important role but this isn’t so true today. It’s time to renew the link! And it is time for Workers’ Liberty to renew its Marxist feminist ideas. With that in mind this series of workshops discusses issues ranging from what a Marxist analysis can offer to our understanding of women’s oppression today; to the question of whether...

"The case for socialist feminism" pamphlet

Originally published in 1989 "What is the relationship between sex and class in the oppression of women? How useful is the concept of ‘patriarchy’? How do we assess developments in feminism, and what are the prospects for women in the years to come? "This pamphlet addresses these questions and many more. Beginning with a survey of different theories of the origins of women’s oppression, it goes on to examine the history of the theory and practice of the Marxist movement in relation to women. The pamphlet then assess the [then] current dominant theories in feminism, including an analysis of the...

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