have 50% women in all the elected assemblies, from the municipalities to the National Assembly?" Pierre Juquin introduced a new issue by making this a central proposal in his campaign. If this appears as a bright new idea, it is indicative of blind spots in egalitarian thinking up until now which has ignored this problem.
However, the facts are particularly shocking. Some 5.5% of members of parliament are women (less than in 1946); in the general councils, it is 4%, and in the
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municipal councils 14%. In this area, France comes at the bottom of the list in Europe, just before Greece.
For a long time, this situation did not seem to bother anyone. The idea that women were not interested in "public affairs" has been one of the most widely shared of notions. The "apolitical" attitude of women was considered by the right to be congenital and by the left to be a social reality. The rigidity of the institutions poses the problems more sharply today because the social status of women has changed, with the result that their electoral behavior has become very similar to that of men and their centers of concern have shifted.
The gap between this reality and the place of women in the so-called "representative" assemblies is becoming scandalous. Women are appalled by this situation, and are telling the pollsters that. In this way, they are reflecting the manifold repercussions of the feminist struggles in recent years. Whether they get a hearing is another matter, since the institutions and political parties are the most unassailable of male bastions.
Right wing offensive on woman's role
THE CAMPAIGN in support of Pierre Juquin for the presidential elections in France has taken off since the beginning of the year. Juquin is the leader of the "rénovateurs" current that recently broke away from the Communist Party, and the campaign around his candidacy has brought together a number of left organizations and a wide range of independents. Over 600 Juquin support committees are now active up and down the country, in localities and workplaces, presenting a political alternative to the bankrupt policies of the Socialist and Communist parties. Pierre Juquin's proposal that women should make up at least 50% of national and local publicly elected posts has sparked off a heated debate both outside and inside the campaign. The following article on the debate is from the February 11 issue of Rouge, newspaper of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, the French section of the Fourth International. 22 DANIELE LACOSTE International Viewpoint • February 22, 1988
The absence of women from the political scene inevitably raises the problem of their place in society. The multiplication of varlous artifices, distorting mirrors, whether they are called "women's posts," or the "age of women winners, has changed nothing. Equality remains a snare for some and a struggle for others. The sexual division of labor, without which the system could not function, has in no way been changed; and the "woman as mother of the family" is again becoming a major theme of the right.
The fact that the responsibility for household tasks and childcare is put on women is not without consequences ("it takes as long to cook for an activist as it does for a bourgeois"). One of the main problems for women, the quandary they face every day, is how to manage in the time they have. In this framework there is not much time for participating in political life.
Moreover, the spectacle given by politics is not the sort of thing to arouse women's enthusiasm, being a thousand miles from
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a struggle for others CITOYE
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their lives and their aspirations.
The last 20 years have shown how much the independent mobilization of women involves a challenge to society as a whole. Very rapidly, those women that participated in such action came to a new understanding, summed up in the statement "the personal is political." This conception harked back to Marxism. It linked up radical criticism of bourgeois democracy, which is based on the separation of political citizenship and social existence. It talked more about destroying the institutions than getting into them.
When the declared objective is 50% women in the institutions," this stakes a claim on democratic territory. But it would be absurd to see this as a retreat pure and simple, or a sign of a revival of parliamentary illusions. As long as political life is seen as something for men, women will be would undoubtedly not be such a bad thing, and one should not see this either as a diversion from the struggle, or conversely as a major instrument of feminist struggle.
Decisive battlefield is outside the institutions
The decisive battlefield lies elsewhere, outside the institutions, in the mobilization of women themselves. And the only grave illusion would be to fail to recognize that the problem is to change the daily lives of women, as well as to change political life so that they can take their rightful place in it. "I am well aware that a law will never solve such a problem," Pierre Juquin rightly said.
In this regard, a massive reduction in worktime and the creation of quality
FRANCE milestones on the road to real equality. The problem remains that politics as they are today exclude not only women but the majority of the population.
The rules of the bourgeois constitutional game are based on the lack of power in the hands of the "citizens," who are supposed to remain mute between elections for the benefit of uncontrolled "experts." It is these rules that have to be changed. It seems hard to talk about "50% women" without confronting this problem, without proposing rotating posts (as the German Greens do, for example), or the monitoring of elected officials.
At the same time, the idea needs to take hold that in order to achieve "full" equality it is necessary to end the oppression of "real women, " who are consigned socially to their place in the family, as well as the oppression of female "citizens," who are perceived as pale copies of their male the losers..
Equality at all levels is a right, full stop.
Wanting such equality is not in itself creating illusions about the role of the in-
Juquin campaign stitutions. No one, or almost no one, today advocates a thoroughgoing refusal to parwomen's festival ticipate in the municipal councils or in parliament. Why should this possibility be denied to women?
On February 28, the Women's Commission of the campaign to support Pierre Juquin for the presidential
Broad debate on political elections is organizing a day-long festival at the Cirque equality
D'Hiver in Paris. The event, entitled "Ten Hours for
The first effect of proclaiming an objec-
" will kick off with a panel of speakers from France tive of 50% women in all elected bodies and abroad - both well-known feminist activists and was to expose the social situation of women. Moreover, it is not unimportant to note women involved in struggles that the women activists involved in Pierre
Four forums will be held: on work, violence; racism and
Juquin's campaign have drawn another conclusion from this — the need for havsexism; and women, politics and power. In addition, ing "50% women at all levels of the electhroughout the day there will be videos, exhibitions and toral campaign." This is a matter of feminist coherence and militancy!
women entertainers. Food and drink will be available all
The fact remains that a broad debate has day, as well as a creche for the kids. The festival will finish been opened up on the means for achievwith a concert by two all-women groups — Les Girls ing political equality, for achieving the objective. Whether or not the constitution
(Antillian music) and Les Goulues (rock music).
should be changed is not the root of the problem.
The Woren's Commission, who are hoping that about
Should a law impose equality in the in-
5,000 people will attend, describe the event stitutions from above, without the causes themselves of women's marginalization
"as a rally to bring together experiences, struggles, and being attacked? Everything here depends different generations for a broad discussion around our on the involvement of women in this proaspirations" * cess, on their determination whether or not to make use of such measures in order to advance and and collectively reinforce the struggle against their oppression. That is creches and social facilities are necessary
Women"
counterparts. *
10 HEURES difficult to prejudge.
Feminist activists themselves are divided about the opportuneness of such a law.
Some of them see it as a demagogic meas-
POUR LES ure. At the same time, others fear that, in the name of balance, it will prevent all-
FEMMES women's slates from being proposed. The arguments are often well founded.
It seems, however, that such a law would make a lot of waves in the political parties, shake up the male bastions a bit, and allow women to "get a foothold." This
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23 February 22, 1988 • International Viewpoint