Breaking down the barriers to political awareness for the masses of working class women is one of the major jobs facing communists. Besides the oppression of working basically two jobs (one in the shop and one in the home), the woman faces the various forms of discrimination and degradation piled on by the employers. Working class women face rising unemployment; and while unemployed they have to cope with the welfare cutbacks, the forced labor programs, the child-care cuts, and on and on. And above all, it is the nationally oppressed women who bear the heaviest burden of this crisis. On the job, they are the last hired and the first fired; often being placed in the heaviest and most arduous jobs. Neglected by the male chauvinist labor aristocracy, of 3.7% of all working women today are in the unions! Of the major unorganized areas of work in the U.S. today, many are comprised largely of minority women, such as in the service industries (maids, hospital workers, restaurants and hotels), sweatshops like the garment shops of the Chinatowns in the major cities and the small textile and garment factories in the South and Southwestern states; where Afro-American and Chicana women are currently beginning to organize.
In view of the rapid development of activism among working class and nationally oppressed women in the past year (in the movement against welfare cutbacks, in the food price movement, in the Farah and Oneita strikes) new opportunities for work among women are opening.
The major trade unions have adopted positions of support for the Equal Rights Amendment for women. Many women are entering new jobs in heavy industry. This has added greatly to the militancy and consciousness of these women; and has also pushed some of the unions to start women’s rights committees (such as the U.A.W.).
While agreeing in general that the E.R.A. would benefit the working class and other women as well, the workshop also noted that the communist forces must prepare the workers to resist any attempts to take away labor protection laws under the guise of “equalizing the conditions of men and women in the shop.”
Rather, it was pointed out, labor protection has never extended to or been enforced for the Black women workers and other minority women who have been subjected to harmful working conditions, sexual abuses and jobs often dangerous to their reproductive systems. More than one workshop participant had heard a foreman say, “I wouldn’t allow my wife to do that job,” and then assign a Black woman to it!
Special attention is needed for the severe and brutal forms of oppression of minority women; who have been denied equality to a more severe degree.
This means that in addition to fighting for equal opportunity for all in pay, hiring, promotion and access to the skilled trades we must pay attention to the position of the minority women. We must formulate special ways to educate and fight discrimination in these cases. For example, even in shops like the GM body shops, where men and women are getting equal pay already, we find Black women being assigned the heavy lifting of parts and equipment, whereas the white women often get easier work.
We must get the unions to actively push for the advancement of working women and for the passage of the E.R.A. They must also be moved to fight for the preservation and extension of protective labor codes for women. It was pointed out that the CPUSA bases its opposition to the E.R.A. on the grounds that it will put an end to special protection for women. Women do indeed need special protection due to their physical characteristics, but this should not be an obstacle to unity and opportunity. The protective laws have not been enforced either for nationally oppressed women; especially for the thousands in unorganized shops. To speak of the extension of labor protection must mean–not only extension to men, but to the majority of working women who are still totally unprotected.
Male workers sometimes feel their interests are threatened by the emergence of a women’s rights demand in the plant. We should patiently educate them as to why they should support it. “Most men are too proud to ask, ’how is it going to help us?’ But once they understand it, they’ll generally get behind us,” one woman said. In the case of Afro-American women, since their demands for equal treatment are for the betterment for their entire people, they have often received support from Black men in their fight.
One of the male participants in the workshop noted that the task of doing this education among the men is a special responsibility of male communists. Women working in industries where there are only a few women related some of the problems they were having carrying out political work with men workers. ’The more help we get from men, the easier the job,” said one female steel worker. Generally, she had not encountered open hostility on the job, although the company had tried to promote it by spreading rumors about the women “taking away men’s jobs.” By placing emphasis on getting to know the men’s families, she hoped to meet more working class women and do away with some of the social problems of working with mainly men.
“Don’t think of women as ’backward’,” said one workshop member, “think of them as being ’held back’, under this system.” Special efforts must be made to involve women due to the double job and heavy burdens which hold them back. Thinking of women as being politically backward has sometimes resulted in neglecting the working women in the plant and paying attention only to the more outspoken-male workers. Having been by and large excluded from the trade union movements and particularly from their leadership, the union can be one avenue to start to mobilize the women in a shop. The caucuses and other organizations built by or worked in by revolutionaries cannot be strong and whole unless they consciously seek to involve, and speak to the demands and needs of women.
In addition, some other ways to advance womens’ political consciousness are:
–building of special organizations of women based on the struggle for democratic rights and the need to fight back against the worsening living conditions.
–getting involved in the personal and family lives of the working women. Learning from their experiences as well as raising their level. While not confining our work with women to talk of the family, babies, food, etc., we must not ignore such matters for they are matters of life and death which fall on the women’s shoulders. With the deepening of the economic crisis, these are good opportunities to educate the women and to build mass movement. We must pay attention to and learn from these problems which preoccupy many women.
–utilizing the Farah strike to educate women about the relation of the class and national struggles and the struggle for women’s rights.
–providing child care for meetings and trying to get union locals to do the same, to encourage female participation, –meeting women through their husbands and showing housewives the importance of their role, getting them involved through the food crisis.
–special propaganda and literature for women is needed to draw them out, capture their interest and protect their rights.
–education about the severe forms of oppression of minority women, not just inside the shop: sterilizations, the cutbacks and the forced workfare programs should be exposed to all the workers, men and women, in order to promote unity and support for the women and anti-fascist feeling among all the workers.