Irish feminism: a third-world model?
IRELAND solutely clear that this small nucleus will not develop into a feminist movement of semi-mass proportions as it has done in Europe, and that it would be wrong to use the model of a European feminist movement and transplant it onto Irish society.
But if imperialist domination is the key to understanding Ireland's economic and social underdevelopment, a major feature of
THE THIRD International Inter-disciplinary Congress on
Women took place in Dublin on July 6-10 this year. Over
1,000 women attended, for the most part from Europe and North America, but also from the underdeveloped countries.
The following article from the autumn issue of An
Réabhlóid, the journal of People's Democracy, Irish section of the Fourth International, was their contribution to the conference that aimed to open up a discussion on feminism in Ireland.
SUE PENTEL
HESE ARE challenging times for
T
Irish feminists. Since 1983, women have suffered a series of defeats on abortion and divorce:
women now bear the brunt of unemployment, cutbacks and the recession. Women political prisoners in Maghaberry Gaol still suffer the degradation and torture of strip- searching.
So it is important to look at the development of Irish feminism and its relationship to the major political question facing the
Irish working class today — the unresolved national question and the partition of
Ireland into two unstable and reactionary statelets.
the debate which took place around the question of feminist solidarity with the
Armagh political prisoners in the late
1970s. This debate on the way forward for the Irish feminist movement was eclipsed along with the independent anti-imperialist feminist current, by the hunger strike....
The discussion between Irish feminists and Irish republicans has somehow got stuck. Perhaps stuck between a tendency to look at two models of development for feminism. One, the European model of a strong movement and, secondly, the Latin
American model of women participating in mass and revolutionary struggles.
People's Democracy believe that we must move forward to develop an analysis of the unique problems that Irish women face. Looking to European and Latin
American models can be useful, but Irish feminism must chart its own way forward.
Learning from international experience will shed light on what this involves.
In our approach to analyzing Irish women's oppression and their responses, we are using the Marxist method which situates the oppression of women in the rise of class society and firmly places the responsibility for fighting this oppression on the working class. In Ireland, a country dominated by British imperialism, that responsibility falls to both the working class and anti-imperialist forces.
The feminist movement in Ireland arose as part of a general upsurge in the late 1960s. However, the movement in Ireland has always been small and weak compared to feminist movements in advanced capitalist countries. In order to understand why we must look at the roots of the women's movement that grew to such strength in England, Europe and North America.
Rejection of the family
Essentially, those movements were based on the contradiction between increased educational and job opportunities for a layer of young middle-class women (as a result of the post-war boom), and their role in the family. In a sense, feminism, a movement of women organized autonomously around their oppression as a sex, can be characterized by its rejection of the family. Thus feminists internationally have prioritized questions relating to women's role in the family, sexuality, reproductive rights and
But the social and economic preconditions for a similar widespread radicalization of middle-class women do not exist in Ireland. In addition there are severe political and ideological obstacles in Irish society to the development of feminist ideas. These are directly the result of imperialist domination, reflected in the backwardness of the economy, the ideological hold of the
Church and the effects of partition.
Because of all these unique features of Irish society, the women's movement that does exist is small and fragmented. It is abthis is the hold of the Church. The imposition of partition led to the establishment of two artificial state, locked in the grip of religion - Catholicism and Protestantism.
The lack of democratic rights of all Irish women, North and South, is a direct result of this artificial division of the country. The commonly held view that women in the North live in a "liberal" society is patently untrue. The domination of the Northern Stormont parliament by the mediaeval ethos of Ulster Unionism (who were, for example, against the opening of public parks on Sundays) was as restrictive to women in the six counties as the Catholic Church was to women in the 26 counties. In the North divorce was severely restricted, abortion and homosexuality illegal, nursery facilities for working women almost nonexistent. While there have been reforms under direct rule since the abolition of the Stormont parliament in the fields of divorce, on homosexuality and legislation on domestic violence, in both states abortion is still illegal, and the levels of economic and social problems faced by women very similar.
Irish women suffer a common oppression. While partition created two difference legal and political entities, it also divided working class and progressive movements. We must fight this disunity and build a 32county movement based on our common goals.
In looking at the role of the Church in Irish society, it is analogous to the situation in Latin America. The power and influence of organized religion is especially strong in the colonial and semi-colonial countries because of the economic backwardness and protection of the religious hierarchies by imperialism. In many countries, as in Ireland, there is no separation of religious institutions and state. Even where there is official separation, religious dogma and customs retain great weight.
Again, both here and in Latin America, the Church's specific power rests in its historic political association with the struggles of an oppressed people. In Latin America, the Roman Catholic Church is in crisis, split between the pro-Vatican section and the Liberation Theology section.
The hold of the Church and the relative strength of the family unit in this context
(although the family is no longer the predominant economic unit in Irish society)
pose political problems for feminists in these countries. The problem of unwanted pregnancies in Latin America is a problem of catastrophic proportions for masses of is also true in Ireland. Thus, women have 21 women, but it does not mobilize them. This
November 9, 1987 • International Viewpoint
IRELAND far less control over their reproductive functions than women in advanced capital-
If we look at the position of women in the workforce we see, as with partition, features unique to Irish society. While Irish women in the workforce remain weaker and more vulnerable to crisis than women in advanced capitalist countries, they are clearly in an advanced position in comparison with the majority of underdeveloped countries. Recent figures show that 27.6% of the 26 County workforce is female compared with an EEC average of 37.9%.
Employment of females in Northern Ireland is just above the EEC average of
While this has brought more women into the workforce, their role in trade unions is generally less developed than in, for example, Britain in terms of union positions, women's committees and so on - although women workers have been to the fore in some notable struggles such as Dunnes Stores and the protests against health cutbacks.! When we look at the pattern of women's participation in working class struggles it is strikingly analogous to the experiences in Latin America.
### Analogous to Latin
American experience
Historically, the struggles of women in Latin America have developed in close relation to social movements in general. Women have come on to the political scene in the key moments of Latin American history from the colonization period up until
Faced with massive economic crisis, deteriorating standard of living and democratic rights, women have been forced to respond. In the trade-union and peasant struggles the mass opposition has involved millions of women. At the same time, the growth of shanty towns and rings of poverty around the cities has resulted in popular social and civic urban movements, whose base of support is almost exclusively
On the issue of human rights women have again come to the fore. The committees of families of political prisoners and of the "disappeared" have been formed in different Latin American countries, the best-known being the "Mothers of the Plaza del Mayo", who have become the vanguard of the movement to re-establish democracy in Argentina. Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and many other countries have seen groups of this type
Around the basic questions of survival women have also organized in their masses: the struggle for milk in Brazil, the communal kitchens and food cooperatives in Chile, the people's canteens and the Vaso de Leche (Glass of Milk) committees in 22 Peru, women's role in the urban popular movement (CONAMUP) in Mexico International Viewpoint • November 9, 1987 which also experienced a successful strug-
In Ireland women have played a leading role in the working class and anti- imperialist struggles, particularly at moments of great social upheaval and crisis
For example, the Ladies' Land League, whose general secretary was Anna Parnell, was created because of repression of the all-male Land League. Founded in 1881, it had over 500 branches in 1882 due to its militant policy of fighting the evictions of impoverished tenants and organizing independent committees for that purpose around the country. Children's branches were also instituted, their function being to teach children Irish history.2
In every major struggle of the Irish working class, women have been to the fore, from their involvement in the 1916 rising in the Irish Citizen's Army organized by
James Connolly; in the suffrage struggle, in
Cumann na mBan [the women's organization of the republican movement], in the formation of Relative's Action Committees (RACs) in support of political prisoners in the six counties, fighting the British government's criminalization policy.
The RACs bear some similarity to the committees of relatives of prisoners and the disappeared in Argentina and Chile.
Women's activity in these committees was a direct extension of their role in the family — they got involved as wives and mothers.
In becoming active in this way women were at the same time challenging their traditional family roles and would come up against traditional male attitudes at a family and local level. Yet this did not automatically lead to a leap in ideas from being an activist to embracing feminism. Here the similarity ends. While the form of struggle is similar, the scope and political developwomen's struggles in Latin America is much broader, corresponding to the more advanced level of revolutionary struggle in that continent.
Although in some Latin American countries feminism remains small and isolated, in others, such as Chile and Mexico, a national network of women's organizations, which includes women in popular struggles as well as feminists, are developing. Thus the weakness of Irish feminism can be related to the overall weakness and lack of development of the Irish anti-imperialist struggle, and, in particular, the weakness of Irish revolutionary Marxism.
The gains that women can make when the revolutionary tide is high can be clearly seen in Nicaragua. Women were organized relatively shortly before the revolution, but advanced by leaps and bounds with the acceleration of huge popular mobilizations from 1979. Women form part of the revolutionary leadership and became active at all levels of struggle. Through this women made major political gains after the revolution in legislation on equal pay, abolition of patriarchal laws relating to the family and abolition of illegitimacy and a ban on sexist advertising...
By comparing Irish women's lives to women in Europe and Latin America we can see that Ireland combines many features of the neo-colonial societies with outward similarities to European countries.
Irish feminism has much in common with small and scattered groups of feminists throughout Latin America, overshadowed as they are by massive social struggles involving women. Yet despite this, the existence of Irish feminism is itself due to the strength and weight of the feminist movement in the advanced imperialist countries.
Feminism is an international movement and we must draw strength and support from that. It is the autonomy and independence of the feminist movement which initially allowed it to develop. Yet it will develop no further in splendid isolation...
### Feminism is an international movement
Women are asserting their freedom and organizing themselves to take their struggle forward. Despite the weakness of the Irish feminist movement, it strikes terror into the hearts and minds of the men who lead the bourgeois political parties, who lead the Church, who lead the trade-union movement, who lead the anti-imperialist movement.
Of course, this is intimidating and has the effect of locking women into their different traditions. Only if the feminist movement turns outwards towards the struggle of the working class and anti-imperialist movement can it begin to break out of this mould.
These leaders must be challenged and they must be challenged on issues of importance to women such as the right to choose and the Defend the Clinics campaign. Only in this way will the issues of women's liberation be taken to the heart of the anti-imperialist and workers' movements. Perhaps a quote from a Chilean in exile, Gladys Diaz, sums it up: "We understand that our liberation will not occur within capitalist society. The struggle for liberation will only really begin seriously when the working class has conquered power.
"We are convinced, and history and experience show us, that our liberation as women is not a gift that will be given automatically with socialism. Our struggle is a long one, as long as the history of the enemy's ideological presence within us, within our compañeros and within all of society; and that is why the struggle is necessarily long and difficult — that ideological battle to erase distortions, prejudices, obstacles which the present situation of women in society has created and which women suffer even in the relationship with their mates." * 1. On the Dunnes Stores strike of women shopworkers who refused to handle goods from apartheid South Africa, see /V 99, May 19, 1986. 2. Unmanageable Revolutionaries, Margaret Ward.
"Che personifies the soul of the revolution"
CHE GUEVARA's death twenty years ago has been commemorated all over the world. On October 21, the
Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR, French section of the Fourth International) held a highly successful rally to remember Che's life and political
### LCR pays tribute to Che
Guevara OVER 1,500 people crowded Into the LCR meeting in Paris on October 21 to hear a series of speakers and singers pay tribute to Che Guevara. In addition to Janette Habel [see main articlel, a leading member and founder of the Tupamaros, Raul Sendic, flew from Uruguay to be at the rally. Also on the platform was Jean Zeigler, a member of the executive of the Socialist International.
Speaking first, Jean Zelgler quoted Rosa Luxemburg in the last issue of Red Flag, the revolutionary movement is unique in the world In that it advances only by its defeats. The death of Che and his comrades was a terrible defeat, but it was transformed into a victory because all over the world men and wom en are commemorating his life and reading his works.
Raul Sendic received a standing ovation when he rose to speak, and an even longer one at the conclusion of his speech. Through an Interpreter, he addressed the rally in a voice severely strained due to an injury to his throat after being hit by a bullet in the 1960s. He explained that Che remained in the hearts of the people, and that every day he was reincarnated because his ideas lived on.
Raul also spoke at length about the problems and tasks facing revolutionar es in the imperialist heartlands, referring to Che's dictum recounted earlier by Zeigler: You were born in the brain of the monster - It's there you must struggle. *
T ONIGHT should not be just a
memorial service, a routine and mechanical ritual. For people today, Che embodies above all the immediate relevance of the revolution in his time, a time which he described as "an illogical moment in the history of humanity". Today, when revolutionary prospects are not as clear as they were 20 years ago, it is more necessary than ever to draw on Che's lessons and teachings.
We identify with Che because of his militant ideals, his understanding of the revolution, his conception of socialism and communism, and his rebellion against the established order. Che personified - and personifies — the soul, the reality of the
It is no accident that the emblematic fig ures of the JCR [the LCR's predecessor and the LCR were and Luxembourg, Lenin, Trotsky and Che Guevara. You might think that this isn't much for a whole century. But if you look hard, few others had a revolutionary record so spotless, a message so relevant. This is why we should not talk about Che in the past tense, nor turn him into a monument or
As always there are those for whom the only good revolutionary is a dead one. Georges Fournial, for instance — an old unrepentant Stalinist - for whom Che Guevara was a "petty-bourgeois revolutionary". He manages in a recent issue of l' Humanité to pull off the tour de force of saluting Che's physical courage and moral values without a word about his revolutionary ideas.
There are others in the right-wing press — and even the so-called left press - who claim that Che was a victim of his own