[page 18]
Extract from the Manifesto of the Ligue Communiste translated by G. Harney.
For the liberation of women' Women were traditionally under-rated and reduced to slavery in the old 'civilisation' of the West. Far from breaking with this tradition, capitalism gave it new strength with economic and ideological justifications, such that the emancipation of women is not conceivable without the destruction of the capitalist social order. At the economic level, capitalist society is incapable of providing the social services necessary to sustain the labour force, and therefore uses women as unpaid domestic servants who donate between 30 and 70 hours of free labour every week looking after their husbands and children. It is easy to understand why the bourgeoisie is so full of praises for traditional family life! The existence and strength of the family unit allows them to continuously make savings as far as the value represented by the domestic labour of women is concernAt the social level, women find themselves essent- ed ially assigned the role of reproducing the species. By virtue of this, they are confined to the role of social preservation, both in the family and in society as a At the ideological level, the 'second' sex is presented whole.
as a luxury object in the shop windows of the consumer society; a commodity bought and sold like Thus in their everyday life, women endure double everything else.
oppression: what capitalism as a whole imposes on them as workers, as well as what they have to put up with from the so-called stronger sex. This double oppression manifests itself in a persistant and scandalous way in the distinction made between "women's work' and work done by men: where everything else is equal, the vast majority of women receive a wage 30% less than that of men; and in addition, the cond itions for training, employment, dismissal, in fact the conditions of work in general, are tougher for women.
The pretexts given for this discrimination against women - absenteeism, the necessity for maternity leave, • are a crude revelation of the role of women as supplementary labour power: a reserve army of labour.
The bosses see them fitting very nicely into this role.
To the extent that the exploitation of women in the work-place and their exploitation in the home are complementary, it is obvious that the emancipation of women requires the abolition of this double exploitation. That is to say that it requires the total destruction of the social system which gives rise to it - not a mere reaarangement of the system. This is what those hardened reformists of the French Communist Party simply refuse to recognise when they speak of harmoniously' reconciling the functions of being a mother and being a worker, and expect as a result of this happy reconciliation a revival of the traditional family which even the bourgeoisie doesn't dare to hope for. We think that in a society which has abolished the class domination of hte bourgeoisie, the economic funetions of the family will wither away as the domestic services, the provision of food, and the bringing up of children, are taken in hand by the community. In this way, women will be able to play the full role which is theirs by right in social and political life. The family as a group of individuals will also lose its authoritarian and repressive function of adapting children to fit in with the society, and will become a simple emotional community whose evolution it is impossible for us to predict. Whilst we are aware that the above represents the only real solutions for the emancipation of women, neverthe less here and now we must take up the struggle for the - For the recognition of the social function of mother- following: hood, and for its burdens to be borne collectively through the socialisation of domestic work: public services (restaurants, laundries, etc.,), which are both free and of high for the abolition of all the penalties which a working quality. mother has to endure: we need creches open 24 hours a day, including for children with mild illnesses. - for women to have access to work in conditions of real equality: abolition of all discrimination in relation to access to, or subject matter of, professional training! Equal training for all! Equal pay for equal work!
for women to be able to live out their sexuality, not just in its reproductive function, but in the pursuit and practice of pleasure. The necessary (though in themselves insufficient) preconditions for this are: centres of information and for distribution of contraceptives in work-places, schools, colleges and universities, which should be open to minors as well! Free abortion on demand, inciuding for minors! because the marriage set-up sanctified by the bourgeoisie constitutes a means of judicial and moral constraint on one's way of life, as well as a means of general social discrimination (social advantages reserved for legally married couples), we demand that divorce by mutual consent be reduced to a free administrative formality.
The emancipation of women is not just a concern of half of humanity but of all od it. Thus children must be able to live for themselves, and notas objects of vocation, consolation or compensation for their parents; their mothers, frustrated and excluded from social life, reproduce in their children the same loss of dignity which society inflicts on them.
In no circumstances is it possible to limit the question of women's liberation to a democratic demand compatible with the continued existence of capitalism. It is indissolubly bound up with the destruction of class society. The role played by women in the great revolutionary movements of the past.
shows how the shaking of the status quo serves to raise their hopes. They were on the streets in 1793, on the barricades the Commune, and they were in on the beginning of the stration by women, and today they are in the trenches of Russian revolution of 1917, which started with a demonIndochina; tomorrow women will prove the most resolute of the gravediggers of a system which reduces them to the slaves of the slaves of the masters of capital.
[page 19]
Peter Harrap (Report)
The Women's Vigil: Led by the Irish Women's Group, several