: ESOLUTION ON WOMEN IN
LATIN AMERICA
Dynamics and
convergence of mass
movements and
feminist currents
-troduction - ÷ RTING with a critical look at the 11th World Congress resolution, "The
•sist revolution and the struggle for women's liberation", this resolution -: to be a guide to action for our organizations in their central task of orga-
=¿ a women's liberation movement — alongside the masses of Latin • -erican women, other feminist sectors and other revolutionary organiza-
-: - that can take its place and play a decisive role in the revolutionary * cess and in building a socialist society. • The Latin American peoples are subjected to imperialist domination, with ::orresponding poverty and distorted development of our societies. But : relationship with imperialism is changing, continually creating more
..a. economic and political contradictions leading to the emergence of :. movements and a rise in the consciousness and strength of the masses — -ing them women - about their capacity to change things. The last 30 years have seen deep and sudden changes in our countries, ages that have transformed the face of the sub-continent and the life of its aces, in particular those of women: • massive migration to the cities has resulted from the structural crisis in
• semi-proletarian masses have emerged in the big cities as another group
• the model of capitalist accumulation based on import substitution has
• imperialism has implemented a strategy of low-intensity conflict — controlled transition from military dictatorships to "democratic" civilian govern-
• later, the invasion of Grenada and panama and the growing use of US military bases directly on Latin American territory, often with the excuse of
All of this has meant growing impoverishment, increasing violence and the
At the same time, the triumph of two revolutions, in Cuba and Nicaragua.
despite the problems they are experiencing, represent a possibility for change
It is in this context, that of the 1980s, that Latin American women have
I. The crisis, the state, the church and women's
2. In the context of the economic crisis the responsibility for family spending and domestic work, socially assigned to women, has increasingly become more difficult. Hyper-inflation means housewives in the cities having to go from market to market searching for the lowest prices, eating less so that their children can have a little more and facing the anguish of simply not having anything to give their family at mealtimes. In the countryside, domestic work is increased by the work involved in caring for animals and preparing
The lack of basic public services in the Latin American countryside means that domestic labour has to be carried out in brutal conditions. It means covering huge distances to find water or wood, and chronic and endemic suffering from curable diseases, especially for children. In the poor urban neighbourhoods women carry out their domestic work very often without water or electricity, in insalubrious conditions, without enough schools for their children, without medical facilities. Women's workload is multiplied
104 International Marxist Review agriculture and the uneven industrial development;
of the dispossessed;
• the debt crisis;
• the erosion of the populist state;
ments combined with repression;
the "war against drugs".
in the eyes of the masses in the sub-continent.
entered onto the political scene of the sub-continent.
oppression products to sell.
changed to that of secondary export and modernization;
exacerbation of social differences and contradictions.
- namics and convergence of mass movements and feminist currents 105
=ese conditions. : The growing pauperization of the masses has forced women to seek an
- me so that the family can survive.
- he majority of Latin American countries, from 1950-1980 the percent- f women in the workforce went up. In addition, in the majority of cases • *e we have data, between 1975 and 1984 women's participation in the • sorce increased in relation to the total active population. ÷ The possibilities of peasant women finding paid employment have :aiteased, forcing women to become unwaged tenant farmers, day-workers
-enants at the same time as taking on the tasks in the home. = = some cases, for example Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay, women have re into industry in significant numbers. But, even in these cases, women
-erally go into all-female departments where they suffer discrimination in • a conditions, wages and promotion opportunities, while at the same time
-nuing to do "women's work" in the home (double work day).
i th the sole exception of Brazil, women who enter the workforce swell *a ranks of the active population mainly in the service and informal sectors. • * nost of them this means more work, but not a proletarianization in the it sense of the word. These changes are very evident in many large cities, • are in recent years the numbers of itinerant salespeople, beggars and pros-
-ies have increased. With a dearth of stable salaried jobs, women have re into the streets to earn their living any way they can.
men and the state :. it ith the economic and political crisis, the Latin American bourgeoisies - i their governments are continually trying to create new bases of consen-: to maintain their domination over society. Insofar as women have *creasingly entered public life over the last few years, although the majority :...find themselves locked away in the home, the bourgeois governments try egitimize themselves in women's eyes, negotiating with the organized • nen's movements and presenting themselves as champions of women's mocratic and civil rights. This has meant an ideological offensive from - iny governments and bourgeois forces towards women in general, demonFated by their electoral discourse and in the appointment of women to state :.s. • In some countries, like Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Uruguay, the ruling urgeois parties have encouraged the creation of institutions and organisms - cose objective is to develop programmes specifically directed at women as
106 International Marxist Review the oppressed sex. The majority are devoted to research, propaganda and proposing legal reforms, without having any executive powers as such. 8. Most countries adhere to the United Nations Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. This has been followed by the express recognition at a constitutional level of equal civic rights for men and women.
In addition, many governments have introduced legal changes on their own initiative concerning to formal equality and social rights, such as divorce.
The modernizing offensive of many states is reflected in the labour field, where they evoke "egalitarianism" with the aim of making it easier to exploit women even more, and thus helping to legitimize their economic policies. 9. It is at the level of their economic programmes that governmental policies are increasingly affecting women's lives.
In many countries the state has implemented programmes which tend to legitimate and institutionalize the informal labour market: training and loans so that women can earn additional income without leaving the home. This disguises unemployment, saves the bosses paying workers and makes it more difficult for workers to organize.
Some governments have introduced temporary employment programmes originally directed at men. But it has been women who have filled them, without any job security and receiving "emergency" wages.
Alongside their modernization programmes, some governments have set up plans "to combat extreme poverty" using voluntary female labour power to carry out public works. 10. In many countries, the state has carried out an aggressive populationcontrol policy, using the indiscriminate distribution of contraception and forced sterilization. This policy is often directly tied to its dealings with international financing agencies and requests for foreign credit. The lack of left alternatives defending women's right to decide on having children makes it that muich easier to apply this policy whose goal is to lower the birthrate and convince the population that its poverty is because "we are too many". 11. Some governments have established specialized police centres for dealing with battered and raped women. The aim is not only to try and put over the image that they are champions of women's well-being, but also -and especially —to broaden and legitimize their repressive apparatus. The church 12. The weight of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America is enormous
Dynamics and convergence of mass movements and feminist currents 107 — politically, socially and culturally. But during the last 20 years the church - Latin America has been thrown into crisis. This is shown by the existence
: various currents within it, including that aligned with the Vatican and its =eological and political orientation, and the current known as liberation theogy, with its many tendencies.
The hierarchy linked to the Vatican in general supports measures tending to - sintain the current ruling system, and thus has a very conservative position - relation to women -- for example opposing legal changes on divorce, conFaception and abortion. In various ways it promotes a policy of strengthen-e the existing family system and the submissive role of women within it.
The current identified with liberation theology is in general linked to the -iress of self-organization of the poor masses. As a general rule, a very high * portion of the members of the Church base communities and bible study - ups are women. Because of this some priests are more sensitive to the spe-
= oppression they suffer and the need to take political action around it. :.: their political vision is limited by the contradiction between their adher::a to a traditional moral view from which they do not distance themselves -i women's concrete and changing needs, especially concerning sexuality, therhood and fertility control. There have been few theological contribuas from women's point of view and its relation to the overall road to liber..en envisaged by this current. = the last few years there has also been an increase in the activity of differ:: protestant groups in Latin America. There are liberation theology cur*as among them which have had an important femionist theoretical *duction, particularly in academic spheres. However, most of them are : angelical sects characterized by an extremely conservative social and ratical outlook, which is particularly reactionary in relation to women. - : jamily *3. All these changes in society have had profound effects on family life for he whole of the Latin American masses. There are strong pressures towards *e disintegration of the family, with no material possibility of adopting the " -rgeois family model in practice. :: the countryside, millions of families still make up productive units, gen: -ly with a rigid distribution of roles according to sex, placing women on ** lowest rungs of the power hierarchy when it comes to decision-making, uch formally and in practice. But women are nevertheless part of the produc• = community, although this is relatively isolated from the rest of the world. At the same time, 26 million indigenous Americans, mainly concentrated
in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala and Mexico, maintain their own customs, traditions and ways of communally taking responsibility for productive work to different degrees. The pressures on these nationalities to abandon their culture are enormous, but they are resisting "Latinization".
However, the structural crisis of agriculture and a relative capitalization of the countryside exercise a strong pressure towards the disintegration of the peasant family as a self-sufficient unit of production, without this meaning its
With the concentration of the population in the Latin American cities and the strengthening of capitalist relations of production, within the big and small bourgeoisie and sections of the industrial proletariat a bourgeois family has formed. However the big majority of the emigrados do not form part of the working class properly speaking: quite simply, underdeveloped capitalism has no other use for its labour force than as a gigantic reserve army of
But even in those families where one or more members manages to get a paid job (as a manual or white-collar worker), it is rare that the wage is enough for each worker to maintain their own nuclear family, even though
In other cases the pressures are such that the family simply disperses, giving rise to the mass phenomenon of abandoned children. In addition, women
Alongside this, the crisis generates tensions at a social level, leading not only to an increase in the number of assaults and rapes but also to more and
II. The dynamic of the Latin American women's move-
14. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the first organizations of women as such appeared on the basis of an initial identification between women in the same immediate community who shared immediate
• women organizing in support of workers' struggles since the last century.
• women's struggles for the right to work, particularly in "women's"
industries which have produced thousands of experienced cadres for the
• local mothers' clubs to deal with specific community problems.
There is also a certain tradition of women organizing around their demands
108 International Marxist Review transformation simply into a unit of consumption.
labour.
they are obliged to face the labour market as individuals.
are increasingly becoming heads of household.
more violence within the family.
ment today workers' movement in general.
problems and common concerns. This led to traditions of:
Dynamics and convergence of mass movements and feminist currents 109 -: a sex. Bourgeois women organized from the end of the last century around := right to education, access to the professions and, in some cases, around he right to vote. But in the framework of the general peaks of the class strugșe there were mass women's organizations based in the working class which ught for demands like the vote, land, work and education for women in the pula layers. 15. In the 1970s and 1980s many feminist groups emerged of the type also : merging in Europe, the USA and Canada, and influenced by them. Although - Brazil there was the emergence of a mass feminist movement for a short iriod at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, in Latin America • process was not at all general and did not generate the building of an canically constituted movement with a mass character
. he majority of these groups were characterized by ideological and theoret:. discussion, and concentrated their activity principally in consciousnesssing and propaganda, introducing for the first time for many years the " oman question" into intellectual and left circles and society as a whole.
However, even though in some cases the work of the feminist and con•iousness-raising groups was able to stimulate a mass response, it did not sult in building general structures with a more permanent character among *erent layers of women active at the time, which could have maintained := continuity of a specific movement. The activities of feminist groups were - io concentrated in the big cities or even, in some countries, limited to the • -Pital cities alone. . he dedication to discussing and propagandizing around "themes" related women's oppression — housework, violence, sexuality, abortion — did :ich on vital issues for all women. But because they had a fundamentally ::pagandist vision and of building the movement by the multiplication of -all groups this made it difficult to establish a platform that could unite the ups, or that was attractive and accessible to the majority of women. The vast majority of women were, and are, permanently organized around == question of the survival of themselves and their families and around the -astion of democracy, their situation determined by the semi-colonial charswer of our countries and the resulting poverty. In addition, the middle layers •ave not suffered from contradictions in a sufficiently massive way to proke a louder response in this sector, which is relatively big. This situation led to a crisis of political perspective for the "autonomous Foups" ', and in many cases to their disappearance or absorption in govern-ental projects.
110 International Marxist Review 16. But some groups and many individual women began to create other types of instruments to express their feminist concerns:
a) Aid and/or educational institutions, mainly financed by international agencies. Their central activities vary a lot. They do not always explicitly define themselves as feminist, but they have an important weight in feminist currents through their work, made easier by the funding they receive.
b) Non-funded projects of support/relations to women (centres providing various services, social activities, meetings, film clubs, local groups, or work with peasant or indigenous women, for example.
c) Groups publishing various journals.
d) Christian women's groups.
e) Trade-union commissions or groupings.
f) Women organized inside left political parties.
All these expressions of feminism have prospered in the 1980s insofar as their work has been guided by an attempt to relate to Latin American reality today and women's day-to-day lives. 17. The daily life and world outlook of millions of Latin American women have been transformed. They have been forced to emerge from the shadow of the home and throw themselves into public life, trying to sustain their families via activities they would never previously have contemplated.
A whole generation of young women has been raised in conditions of crisis, in general by mothers who have lived through these changes. For this reason, their frame of reference in practice is not the model of a woman whose life is confined to the four walls of the home.
At the same time, the extension of public education and the penetration of the means of mass communication into the countryside and the city in recent years has meant that millions of women's horizons have been broadened although sometimes in a distorted way. 18. With their growing participation in the labour market, millions of women have been forced to try to find a collective solution to deteriorating living standards and democratic rights — given the impossibility of finding individual solutions. Consequently, they are increasingly involved in political and social movements in general, which can involve millions of women, often giving them their first experience of struggle.
At present, the majority of women are organized in relation to their social situation, around their living and working conditions (family survival, conditions of domestic and paid work), and around the most brutal political problem, the struggle against repression, for human rights and democracy.
Dynamics and convergence of mass movements and feminist currents 111
In the last 15 years, new movements have emerged whose base of support =ad activists are almost exclusively women: the urban struggle and the fight ar freedom for political prisoners and the disappeared.
The popular and civic urban movements fight for solutions to the problems housing, services and high prices suffered by millions of people who live = extremely precarious conditions. Women, being responsible for all aspects : family care and mostly not having paid jobs — with its corresponding -sence from the home — are both the most motivated and the most availa= to participate in this type of movement, which is centred in the *aghbourhoods.
On the other hand, women are the rank-and-file driving force for the com-tees of relatives of political prisoners' and the disappeared, mainly from sentification with their role as mother and wife and their responsibility for *seing their children, husbands and brothers from the clutches of repression. The development of trade-union and peasant struggles has also involved - iny women. In sectors where there is an almost exclusive concentration of • irking women, thousands have taken to the streets for the first time. Peasant and indigenous women, on the other hand, often organize as wom- :o take up problems linked to the need for better conditions for carrying -: domestic work and for the well-being of their families, such as fighting - heir own rights to land and loans, and the need to have their own income increase family revenue. -9. This entry into public life in distinct forms and at different levels creates • :entradictory dynamic at the level of women's consciousness: the majority into public life as wives and mothers; a minority, but a politically signifi:: minority, enter as young women workers. Leaving their homes and neighbourhoods, they come up against the gov:.ment, the employers, the trade-union bureaucracy, the para-military #ups and the local bosses in the countryside and the city. In sum, they do actly what prevailing values say a woman should not do. The central contradiction which millions of Latin American women con-int is the need to fulfil the traditional role of women in the family, in the me. and in domestic work in its fullest sense, and the impossibility of so tung given general living conditions without breaking with this tradition. -e existence of this contradiction is the objective basis for the perspective • building a mass women's liberation movement in Latin America and the - 7bbean. Conditions are being created at a mass level which open up the possibilities
112 International Marxist Review for an increase in women's consciousness of their oppression as women. When they take to the streets, motivated by both necessity and solidarity, this brings them up against obstacles for realizing their objectives. If they realize them, if they succeed, they have to change their behaviour, their conception of themselves, their conditions of struggle. To establish new conditions of solidarity, and thus improve the conditions of struggle, they have to confront their own oppression as a sex. There will be no positive solution to this contradiction without breaking with the social, political and personal conditions that create and maintain the traditional model of women — as mother, wife and housewife — on the basis of the political struggle of the masses, of which women are in the front ranks and the leadership.
This contradiction is sharpened by:
• Today the mass of women have access to the means of mass communication and, despite its deficiencies, millions of women also have access to formal education. By both these means, they are aware of the enormous possibilities offered by today's world for individual development at the same time as the models which are presented for women - both traditional and "modern". • This new knowledge, and the models themselves, are in open conflict with the reality of their lives.
• For the first time; millions of women have access to contaception, which makes it possible to envisage controlling their own bodies, and to make choices concerning maternity and sexuality no longer determined by procreation, despite all the risks implicit given that they have this access because of a policy of controlling births that is dangerous in its motivation, and undemocratic in its application.
• The establishment of governmental programmes on sexist violence, at ine same time as being a way of broadening and even legitimizing the repressive apparatus of the state, also legitimize the social character of sexist violence, the testimonies exposing the brutality and high number of cases which exist.
• Bourgeois propaganda around women's equality — albeit to back up a birth-control policy, to win votes, to legitimize a regime in the eyes of the international community — introduce at a mass level as never before, and in some cases for the first time, the idea that women and men have equal rights before the law and in society. At the same time, within the independent mass organizations which struggle against state policy and the bourgeoisie, and particularly those raising the banner of the struggle for real democracy, women encounter discrimination and marginalization in most cases both from the rank-and-file and from the leaderships.
Dynamics and convergence of mass movements and feminist currents 113 30. But recognizing these contradictions and overcoming them through a -enscious struggle for liberation is not automatic. It depends on many factors = the social struggle, on the degree of organization among women and of the :ass struggle in general: the general relationship of forces between the bourgeoisie and the workers; the capacity of the bourgeoisie and its state to prozose demobilizing and self-legitimizing policies to women; the ¿evelopment, strength and relations of the revolutionary and reformist organzations with the women's movements that emerge and their positions on the _uestion of women. All these factors influence the development of a sector of he women's movement capable of linking up in practice the project of buildng a mass movement with a feminist character and the more general starting *ints of radicalization and mobilization of women. However the existence :: this contradiction is the objective basis for the advances of the last few : ears towards building a political women's liberation movement in our continent. 21. In general, the central dynamic of the situation today in Latin America coints to this contradiction being resolved favourably. Women are participatng as never before in political and social struggles; they are organizing creasingly as women by social sector; there exists a growing and renewing reminist fringe or pole of the women's movement; and non-bourgeois politi: al organizations are increasingly under pressure to confront their traditional anti-women's liberation positions. Taking into account the advances and setracks in each country in terms of its specific situation, the general dynamic is awards the formation of mass women's movements with the emergence of a arge number of groups of different types which, as part of their platform of struggle and basis of unity, increasingly tend to raise gender demands in : ombination with demands relating to survival and democracy. 22. In the course of the struggle for their immediate demands, the mass of women continually confront obstacles flowing from their specific oppression: they are restricted by "not having permission" to go out of their houses :o activities, having nowhere to leave their children, feeling guilty for "abanJoning" them, being insulted by men in meetings of the movement; their organizations are weakened by the competition among women and the lack of self-confidence and training of their members. All these obstacles are worse inside mixed organzaitions of women and men. Also they are even more despised and humiliated by the authorities than men, and they raped by the police and military. These obstacles have to be overcome in order to go forward. Sometimes they constitute such an insuperable obstacle that thre is a
114 International Marxist Review regression in the struggle. But at other times they lead to attempts to propose practical solutions in the form of collective demands.
In these cases the natural leaders of many women's movements, and often the organized women's groups themselves, search for elements which explain the existence and the dynamic of the obstacles in order to be able to overcome them. Moving closer to more feminist sectors in general gives them the possibility of understanding and building the necessary instruments of struggle and organization to confront their contradictions as women. At the same time, many feminist groups have been participating in the popular organizations. On the other hand, in the last ten years a significant number of feminist activists have emerged within the political parties who have succeeded in maintaining a much more organic presence in the women's movement, over and above their struggle to change the mentalities of these parties on gender oppression.
All this has begun to generate a social and political recomposition of the feminist pole in the women's movement. Undoubtedly many active women still mistrust feminism. But many others are beginning to identify with it as such, identifying with feminist ideas and recognizing their usefulness for understanding and changing their reality. On the other hand, the traditional feminist sectors can no longer deny the "feminist legitimacy" of women who combine their activity in the women's movement with party activity, as they tended to do in the past.
Empirical proof of this recomposition can be seen in the increasing attendance by women from the popular sectors in the Encuentros Feministas Latinoamericanas y de Caribe (Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meetings) from 1981 to 1990. It has been this combined dynamic of contradictions in women's struggles in the popular sectors for class demands and the interaction with feminist layers of the women's movement — including more and more who are primarily mobilized around class demands or as party militants — which has made it possible in many sectors to put forward gender demands in the programmes of struggle and as the basis for the mass mobilizations of women in the last few years. 23. The forms of coordination between the different sectors of the women's movement vary a lot in their objectives, scope and duration.
Sometimes permanent coordinations exist, fundamentally to provide a space for political discussion, contact and mutual support rather than around actions or campaigns, although these can result from the same coordinations. Other forms of coordination, which at times combine clearly feminist forc-
Dynamics and convergence of mass movements and feminist currents 115 * with both political parties and the broader women's movement, have merged in the context of particular national political situations.
A series of working networks have also been formed both at national and ab-continental level around the campaigns or ongoing activities of their -embers. In many countries, contacts between feminist groups have been mited to local, regional or national conferences, sometimes resulting in -formation networks between groups being established without the exisence of any common political platform.
The majority of women who are involved in permanent coordinations tend :a be so on the basis of their social situation.
Although at the beginning of the 1980s the initiative for events around March 8 or November 25 or other general activities was taken by layers inked to the small feminist groups, the social composition of these these activities and the initiatives for them are much more frequently start from • omen linked to the popular and trade-union sectors of the movement.
On the level of the sub-continent, there have been various contacts and ipportunities for discussion, basically in the Encuentros of Latin American and Caribbean feminists and the three conferences of the Continental Women's Front Against Intervention. There has also been a multiplication of inter-ational meetings and events which play the same role. It is in this type of event aht the Cubans and Nicragauans have had growing contact with the _atin American feminist pole. 24. The general dynamic of women's lives today is: a) that more women han ever before are entering social and political struggle; and b), that they ind themselves objectively in contradiction with their oppression. But in making the big jump from transforming these conditions into a political novement of women for their liberation, there are a series of political probems that have to be analyzed and overcome: al The diverse demands of women in struggle
Women's initial demands usually have a specific local focus, which makes it difficult to unify their struggles. This lack of unity and, for the same reason, contact with many more women, not only creates difficulties for winning the immediate struggle but impedes their thinking about their oppression as a social question.
However, although there are immediate demands that unite the women of a whole sector, this does not mean that a general political movement takes shape which sees itself as a women's movement. Obviously, the unity of women organized as such, even by sector, has a big multiplying effect in oth-
116 International Marxist Review er sectors. But, insofar as the movement is not politically extended to unify women from different sectors, there is a big danger that even stronger sectors can see their gains pushed back. Finally, where the different popular organizations advance gender demands these are also very different and difficult to unite in struggle. And it is in struggle and through progress around their concrete rights that women will appreciate the usefulness of organizing for their demands as a gender. b) Clientelism and self-helpism: two dangers in building the movement
Women, particularly in the neighbourhoods and peasant communities of Latin America, have two ways of surviving: by making demands on external agencies or trying to find a solution through their own resources.
Placing demands on the state in relation to social and political problems has the enormous advantage of putting the responsibility where it should be, on society as a whole and its institutions, and more easily gives mass action a political character. Successful struggles and mobilizations advances both their overall consciousness and their strength and confidence in themselves.
Practice has taught us, however, that reliance on the state is not without its dangers. On the one hand there could be a clientelist dynamic and, on the other, in partially winning certain demands women can become absorbed into administrative tasks of providing services.
The other form of self-organization for assuring survival, that of seltsolution/self-administration, has the advantage that it is a process of cooperative self-organization which presents immediate solutions to urgent problems and gives greater value to domestic labour, creating the seeds for its socialization.
But it also has two real dangers: the legitimization of the established role of women as those responsible for domestic tasks and family well-being, and apolitical self-helpism. c) The difficulties for the political participation of women workers
It is clear that there is no automatic correlation between the mass entry of women into the labour market and their involvement in political and/or trade-union struggle as workers:
• They basically work in "feminine" industries and sectors, such as services and in the informal sector in general. As in the rest of the world, their jobs are often similar to the work they do in the home, or require great meticulousness.
• The informal sector usually means working in isolation or in small workshops, where there is very often a paternalist relationship with the employer
Dinamics and convergence of mass movements and feminist currents 117
• Even in those cases where women have entered big industry, the majority
*e to put up with a double workday as well as having other restrictions in he time they can allocate for trade-union or political participation.
• The working woman continues to see herself primarily as a mother and/
* wife and not a worker, even when she is the family's only breadwinner.
• Fellow workers often apply pressure to prevent her participating actively
- Tade-union life; and the trade-union leaderships are not only unconcerned
•: women's specific conditions, but frequently openly block women's
• Most women who become trade-union activists are unmarried or child-
*. Because of this, they usually identify less with the majority of women
Aside from these difficulties, in many places little attention is given by rev-
For all these reasons, the organization of working women has not increased
- ne same tempo as their incorporation into the labour market.
in the case of countries where the state has a relatively aggressive policy
: wards women, the need to respond with alternative political proposals that
=engthen the mass movement is obvious. Without presenting a political
_ernative to state initiatives it will be increasingly difficult to maintain class
- Jependence, because the state will appear to be more useful than the move-
The predominance of sexism in the leaderships of the mass movement
Insofar as the initial rise in consciousness of most women comes through
*e struggles of the more general movements, usually led by male leaderrips, the machismo of these latter is a big obstacle to their advance. This is
= articularly important in the absence of a specifically women's political z.ovement which raises at a national, unified level the gender demands that
-omen in various sectors are beginning to put forward today. In its turn, the eaderships' sexism is an obstacle to building this movement.
25. Over the last few years, the non-bourgeois mass leaderships have hanged their approach to women's situation and their role in society and in
In many countries the crisis of the Communist parties includes questioning he old Stalinist conception of the women's movement as an "auxiliary" to
- TOSS.
::-icipation.
- rkers.
-ent in the eyes of the masses.
struggles.
-tionary organizations to women's trade-union work.
: The state's attempts to coopt
118 International Marxist Review the mass movement in general.
At the same time, revolutionary organizations are discussing revolutionary strategy, a discussion in which the role of women and the struggle against gender oppression is also raised, at least potentially. However, in almost all cases these leaderships reject this point as part of the strategic discussion and strongly resist any serious consideration of the subject.
However, within all types of left political parties there are feminist nuclei and currents emerging which are putting forward different alternatives around the need for women to fight for gender demands. They influence the orientation of their parties, not only in line with their political capacity, but also in function of the more or less democratic traditions of discussion, the social insertion of the party and its overall political capacity to recognize and confront the real problems of women in struggle. 26. The discussions within the women's movement and its feminist pole have evolved positively, passing from the initial examination and affirmation of basic points on oppression to defining the routes for building mass women's movements around their specific demands.
Elements of broader debates on politics and society in general influence this discussion. Thus, existing political tendencies exert a certain pressure on the discussion on feminism:
• Modernizing bourgeois ideology, which legitimizes competence as a social norm and reduces democracy to the relationship between the citizen and the state, divorcing it from social classes and problems.
• Social-democratic positions, today accompanied by a poltiical offensive throughout the sub-continent, which support gradualist and institutionalist tactics.
• Imperialist propaganda which identifies market mechanisms with democracy on the one hand, and socialism with dictatorship on the other.
• Perestroika and the crisis in Eastern European countries, which as well as reaffirming the false distinction market/democracy VS. socialism/ dictatorship, has brought pressure to bear on revolutionaries, thus weakening the influence of a perspective of revolutionary rupture as a solution to the problems of the Latin American masses.
Given these pressures, some feminists have been incorporated into bourgeois projects, particularly with the controlled transitions to democracy that have taken place in several countries. Given the weakness of feminism and the anti-feminist positions of the majority of the socialist and left oppositions, they have placed their confidence and/or decided to work in bourgeois
Dynamics and convergence of mass movements and feminist currents 119
"omen's projects in order to "really change women's situation" in relation to he regime. Among many of them positions predominate based on the neces-
"omen" within it. Others identify with ideas around the "feminine essence"
• something morally superior to the "masculine essence"
i denying the need to build an autonomous mass women's movement.
However, the great majority of feminists are independent of the bourgeoiie and the state, and consider themselves as being in some way on the left,
• ith a broad range of positions that identify with the elimination of capitalim and a socialist perspective. In this sector, which in general takes the road women's movement as its point of reference for the struggle against gender oppression, the debate is particularly diffuse, thus making it difficult
• The relation between gender oppression and class exploitation/
• The validity or not of the concept of the vanguard in a strategy for
-7. Confronted with any form of oppression, the only solution is the self-
-ganization of the oppressed to fight it. The case of women is no different. It
: the independent self-organization of women themselves that can impose aforms to the law and to current government economic policy, and changes
- the social and political organizations of the masses, to improve their imme-
-ate situation and encourage and create better conditions for their continued muggle. On the basis of self-organization, as the fundamental foundation of
::eir liberation movement, they can reach the numerical strength and politi-
:a development necessary for having a favourable influence on future
It is only through a process of self-organization that women can succeed in
-ansforming themselves, collectively and individually, in public and private,
= such a way that the traditional role filled by women can be replaced with a rew concept and a new reality of what is woman, creating this through the sity and possibility of "democratizing the state"
:: characterize the currents within it.
Under discussion, among other things, are:
apression.
• The struggle for democracy and feminist demands.
• What sort of power do women want?
• Women as political and social subjects.
cange.
Ill. Our orientation
:.ents, both today and after the revolution.
truggle itself.
", and creating "space for
, which is one way
120 International Marxist Review 28. A thoroughgoing, consistent feminist struggle is not simply to achieve formal equality between women and men, but to completely revolutionize relations between them, eliminating the historico-social construction of gender. This change cannot be fully realized in the framework of class society, particularly in the present Latin American context of exploitation and oppression in countries that are dominated by imperialism. In this sense, it is in all women's interest to struggle for the overthrow of the oppressive patriarchal capitalist system and for building a socialist, democratic and pluralist society. Only such a revolution and a new society can lay the bases for completely eliminating the oppression currently experienced by women.
However, women's oppression is not automatically eliminated either with the anti-capitalist revolution or in post-capitalist society. For women to be able to transform their own lives, to be revolutionary subjects in the taking of power and the overthrow of the present bourgeois regimes, and to have the strength to favourably influence the events in a post-revolutionary society, it is necessary now that they build a political movement based on their demands as a gender.
The formation of this movement will transform them into a political subject, which fights for its own interests; women's objective historical interest in eliminating patriarchal class society laying the basis for their transformation into a revolutionary subject. This transformation could in practice go along with the political development of the movement itself and its vanguard. 29. To build this movement today, we have to start from the conditions, the forms of organization and the demands that women feel to be theirs, whether they are gender demands or not. Self-organization of women by social sector around their most pressing demands is an essential element in strengthening women socially, collectively and thus individually, creating greater possibilities for the development of consciousness of gender oppression, even though this is not automatic.
Undoubtedly, women's struggle for their own demands will be closely linked to the struggles of all working people, even with the rise of their own political movement. In building this movement general class demands will combine with gender demands as the basis of unity. Nevertheless, this dynamic will certainly include ups and downs in the promotion of specifically feminist demands.
A better level of organization of the popular movement will encourage greater recognition of women's struggle for their own demands. This is because a better level of coordination and unity not only means more chance
Dynamics and convergence of mass movements and feminist currents 121 af winning but also a higher level of politicization, the establishment of a nore global basis for unity and an understanding of the need to organize in in ongoing way, not just for tackling one problem but a whole series of
In practical terms, it also creates the possibility for a better division of abour within organizations of struggle and for giving more attention to seri-
The coming together of forces whose objective is extending women's conviousness of their specific oppression is more effective in reaching larger
But there is no mechanical relationship between the general popular movement and women's advance. Women have to have their own political exprescon. And they will only succeed if there is a conscious effort in every
=.ovement to promote the growing discovery and politicization of gender apression, which we can call the feminization of the demands, organization
30. In the very process of building the movement, different problems are
11 Given the diversity of demands, which reflect not only different needs
: -t also different levels of consciousness, we must take every opportunity to ing together struggles and establish a system of demands that can move wards the formation of an increasingly clearly defined political movement.
3 Given the dangers of clientelism and self-helpism, we have to reinforce
=e internal democracy of both the mass organizations in general and the celitical space and organizations for women, as well as ensuring democratic
_actioning in the women's movement as a whole. On the other hand, the colitical nature of women's demands should be emphasized — they cannot
*e met by charity — along with the absolute necessity of keeping the move-
:: Despite the difficulties faced by women workers in terms of their politi-
:.. and trade-union participation, this should not lead to the conclusion that
-eir involvement in the women's movement is not central. The numbers of
- men who have gone into the labour market has meant that, despite all the estacles to their participation, more women are active in trade unions than
* er before. And when they enter into a collective process of consciousness sing and struggle around their oppression as women as well as workers, rey advance politically more rapidly and consistently than other sectors ecause of their living and working conditions and their numerical concenaroblems.
rusly analyzing their reality.
- umbers of women.
•aised:
ind political dynamic of the women's movement.
-ent independent from the bourgeoisie and the state.
122 International Marxist Review tration — in sum, their social situation.
d) Given the attempts of the state to coopt the women's movement, particularly its feminist pole, in addition to strongly maintaining its autonomy for historical reasons there must also be political perspectives for the type of changes considered necessary from now on at governmental level. We should promote the following criteria for these within the movement. Distinguishing between two things: services that the state is obliged to provide with the greatest control on the part of the users; and a position of accepting or promoting the state organizing women (the example of the Women Today programme in Argentina). In the case of legislative proposals, it is more feasible to maintain the independence of the women's movement in proposing or supporting this or that draft law. But at the level of the executive (ministries for health, justice, social or family welfare), the form of the relationship between the movement and particular state programmes is more complicated. If we demand a programme of maternity healthcare, for example, and win it, we cannot simply leave the state to determine its form, content and application. But neither can the movement take full responsibility for it. The criterion that we can adopt is proposals for and vigilance over such programmes, but without accepting direct responsibility for their functioning.
In the case where the left controls municipalities, the objective of its programmes should be to increase the possibilities for self-organization of the movement, as was done with the Glass of Milk programmes in many municipalities in Peru. The simple implementation of the programme, without women's self-organization, will neither guarantee its future nor strengthen the women's movement or the long-term objectives of the left itself.
e) Because of the prevailing sexism in the mass movements and their leaderships, mechanisms have to be established within them to increase women's space and promote discussion — not only around concrete action proposals and demands, but also around the origins, manifestations and solutions to women's oppression: that is, a theoretical discussion. 31. To enable this process to move forward, the feminist pole in the women's organizations and movement has to be strengthened:
a) Strengthening the recomposition of this pole to include more women leaders of the mass movement so that they — along with the women of the autonomous groups, the non-governmental organizations, the political parties and the youth who today would like to get involved in this struggle — can forge a real vanguard of the whole women's movement.
Dynamics and convergence of mass movements and feminist currents 123 b) Establishing more opportunities for political and theoretical discussion in the vanguard through conferences, coordinations around concrete campaigns, publications, seminars, and so on.
c) Orienting this pole so that its priority becomes the relationship with the general women's movement, so that it can:
• take advantage of each opportunity to put forward unifying gender demands;
• take advantage of each opportunity to unify the women's movement;
• ensure the continuity of the movement;
• encourage reflection and theoretical production — a collective memory for the movement;
• develop independent alternatives to the proposals of the bourgeoisie and the state.
To do this there has to be the development of a political alternative within he feminist pole in alliance with other sectors which have a simular vision. If other revolutionary currents and parties which are today absent from this political elaboration become convinced of feminism this will also help the Jevelopment of this alternative.
If the clearly feminist expressions of the women's movement are weakened, in time the organization of the mass of women will also tend to be undermined. The mass sectoral organizations will tend to disperse or be manipulated for other ends, which implies a political weakning which will in time lead to an organic erosion. 32. The reason for the existence of our organizations is to be a useful political instrument for our peoples organizing themselves, proposing and implenenting their own projects as a nation in line with their interests, against the interests of the bourgeoisie and imperialism. The revolution and the new ¡ocialist society that we seek to create can only be the work of the toiling peoale as a whole, and for this reason our revolutionary Marxist current has a conception of feminism that encompasses a profound transformation, the subversion of the existing order.
For this reason we must be the foremost promoters of the women's liberation movement and of the discussion within the mass movement and the left — particularly the revolutionary left — around the necessity of building this novement and the ways of doing so. 33. In nearly all our sections women's work is being reorganized and we are reformulating our political perspectives for building the women's novement.
This fits into the general framework of the need to tackle the question of building our organizations with greater effectiveness, and is part of this task.
In particular, in relation to women's work the reorganization must confront
• To a greater or lesser degree, our sections did not understand the central dynamic of the radicalization of the majority of women and have had to make a turn towards the mass sectors, working on the basis of immediate demands.
• The fact that feminism did not develop on a mass scale, the noncentralization of the general women's movement as a political movement and the sexist pressures of society as a whole are strong countervailing pres-
• Today there are many comrades, men and women, who have not been formed in our programmatic feminist vision and this makes the elaboration of a concrete political orientation for the movement difficult.
• All this means that the objective difficulties which all women comrades face have been inadequately considered by the leaderships, leaving comrades
• Consequently, little effort is made to include in political leadership tasks.
Obviously, the possibilities for each section resolving this situation vary with its social insertion and accumulation of cadres and the degree of
34. Our general objective must be to elaborate concrete political strategies and implement them in the struggle itself. But to do this we need to:
b) clarify our theoretical positions in line with the central discussion in each
• ensure efficiency and not overload comrades doing women's work with
• ensure that the whole of the party, and in the first place all women comrades, participate in elaborating the political orientation for women's work.
d) Counterbalance, within the limits of our possibilities, the obstacles
• making it easier for comrades who are mothers to participate;
• consciously promoting women to take on tasks, in particular seeking to establish a proportional relationship between the number of women on the leadership bodies and the membership, which will mean using a system of
124 International Marxist Review the following problems:
sures to our maintaining consistent feminist positions.
to confront them individually.
progress in forming a leadership team.
country, in order to intervene with the greatest clarity;
tasks;
which confront women comrades:
• special education measures for women comrades;
targets or quotas in elections.
a) educate comrades in our feminist programmatic vision;
c) develop adequate organizational forms in each case to:
-ESOLUTION ON