International Socialists

Dear Socialist Review,

 

We are writing to try and draw some attention to issues we as a group are ignoring. This was highlighted at two recent branch meetings: one on women's oppression and one on the life of Eleanor Marx. At both of these meetings some of us brought up the need for us to be self-critical, and to look at how we might be unknowingly continuing sexist behaviour ourselves from this sexist society. We need to look not just at the economic, but also at the personal - how women can be made invisible, how their ideas and contributions can be forgotten. Without actually looking at how sexism operates in our own lives, how can we begin to fight it?

 

The criticism of this was made by some members that this kind of approach was too "inward looking," and that we should either be focussing on doing things about it or going back to the economics. But at the same time, the issues themselves were not being taken seriously.

 

The discussion didn't actually seem to be a discussion where people were listening to these ideas of self-criticism, and looking at our own sexism in order to fight it in the wider society.

 

Is this because people don't actually want to look at these issues in their own lives? Fighting sexism is revolutionary.

 

It's just as important as the anti-globalisation movement - probably more so. And the place we have to start fighting women's oppression is in our own lives. Sexism is an issue in any group in patriarchal society today, whether we like it or not. Whether that is people wanting to "move to the economic" instead of facing how we might be being sexist, males talking over females, waiting to speak instead of actually listening, making women invisible and so on. If a group that calls itself revolutionary can't face up to the daily sexism we reproduce, then there is no way it will be able to fight these forces in wider society.

Shomi Yoon

Alison Stoddart

 

 

 

Dear Socialist Review,

 

I really enjoyed reading the last issue of the magazine. One of my favourite sections was the debate on feminism between Penny Hayes and Rae Sinclair. I think both comrades raised many good points and sometimes I had trouble working out where they were disagreeing! But there is one point I do wish to raise in response to Rae's contribution.

 

Rae suggested in her article that because the words "oppression" and "liberation" were associated with the wave of feminist criticism and activism that burst over the world in the late 60s and early 70s we should abandon them because they now seem outdated. But isn't this exactly how the ruling class want us to think? Don't they tell us words like "class," "exploitation," "struggle" and "revolution" are outdated too? In other words, they try and make the ideas and concepts that explain how our class can win its freedom seem irrelevant to today.

 

But they're not irrelevant at all. Socialists should cherish the idea of "women's liberation" no matter how unfashionable it is. Because it means that, unlike the liberal "feminists," we won't stop struggling until every rape, every bashing, every act of discrimination has been eradicated from this earth and women and men alike have created a society of genuine social and sexual equality.

 

For that reason, "liberation" is a word I love.

 

 

Yours for liberation,

Dougal McNeill