SUPPORT for the movemen cor ference on abortion and DOS LIVC escalating.
On 28 February the South-east Region of the TUC is holding a special meeting to build for the cvcill. Several branches of the Public Employees transport come to London for the 14 March conference. Photo: PETE GRANT (Socialist Challenge) The Labour Party NEC uiscussing its home policy committee to sponsor the conference • the absence of Williams make this a definite possibility.
barely weeks to go the time to get delegated is now!
Here's what some of the supporters conference have to say: JUDY MALLABER, National Union of Public Employees: 'AS we've supported woman's right to choose, occause we nuve so many members and worrier because of our involvement in health. The conference important because we're always on the defensive this issue and at last we're beginning to discuss vay of going forwara We've alway opposed restrictive legislation but we'd like to see there's anything positive we can do. This does not mean we don't carry on the fight against restrictions ur c particularly concerned about the affects of cuts on abortion facilities. RAY COLLINS, Transport and General Workers' Union: 'We fully support the aims of the conterence Any issue which affects the rights of members is of vital concern to us as a union.
yye see. abortion as a matter of democratic rights; not a :=moral issue. think that the be defended, but we also should be made available lo women 'A woman must have the right - • wherever she lives, whatever she does — 1o choose whetner or not to have an abortion.
don't have policy on new legislation support TUC ac poliere is this there need for discussion on ine wuys una meurs o implementing a woman's right to choose.
CHARLES GRIEVE, general secretary, Tobacco Worker's Union.
It is still essential that the labour and trade union movement maintains a campaign in support of both TUC and Labour Party policy on abortion.
The anti-abortionists do not give up easily, despite their recent resounding defeats 1 ne latest alreci altack on abortion rights of the green form which WOlICI obtaining all abortion have to complete. The changes mean record will be kept of how many abortions are done on the NHS.
This is an attempt to cover up le laci ina fewer fewer abortions are done on the health service and an increasing number women have to pay.
The conterence Is a vital step in continuing the fight for a woman's right to choose.
It is being organised by the National Abortion Campaign and the Labour Abortion Rights Campaign. Get delegated!
Further intormation leaflets etc, from : NAC, 374 Gray 's Inn Te 01-278 Rd, L 0153.
tinal inno same tears sin IN RECENT months feminists that women women were to blame for rape).
dramatic way than ever before.
No woman is safe from the threat of rape. Rape is carried out by men of all classes, in all situations. Figures from the annual report of the Birmingham Kape Crisis Centre suggest that there is a one in three chance that a woman will be raped in her own home, and there's a fifty-fifty chance that the man will be KnOWI LO ICE The police cannot be relied upon COTOLECI women from rape. Out of rapes reported England and Wales 1979, only 824 cases were cleared up (26 per cent WELC even vestigated). More than a third of the cases reported to the Birmingham centre were not reported to the police.
The myth that women cry rape to spite husbands or lovers does not square with the facts. New York's all-female rape squad found only two per cent of complainis to be false, about the same level as for other crimes.
However, when look the underlying philosophy of the women leading campaigns against violence against women some questions come to mind. When Women Against Violence Against Women argue men benefit the threat or use of violence against women', what exactly does this mean?
Is it true that all men benefit from rape?
Many feminists have accepted a revolutionary feminist analysis of rape socialists have been detensive about ine issue Individual men get a thrill out of the rape act. Pornographic magazines would not sell if many men did not find the laca or rape titillating. But this phrase is meant to explain more than individual actions and feelings. ascribes the social roots of rape to the power that all men have over women because of their privileged position in society.
Rape embodies male power the revolumen have a vested or class privileges over women, through the use or threat of rape Revolutionary feminists from Leeds expressed inis view in a letter 10 big Flame (February 1981): •Not every man has raped little girls. or made sexist the ACTUAL fices of the Sun to protest at page three; daubing paint in cinemas showing sexually violent films like Dressed to Kill, and collec (as Such protests have focused public attention on the debate about rape in a more jokes, or hit his wife, or bought porn groped women in cinemas. Yet all men benefit financially, legally, sexually socially. fresm the way these ace tivities control behaviour of, and police, all women 'If flashers, bottompinchers. whistlers etc are the bobbies-on-the-beat of supremacy, Yorkshire Ripper IS Commander-in-Chiet.
in I cannot agree with this analysis. like saying inall white propic dir bobbies-on-the-beat white suvichlaly слететоте benefit racial attacks. The racist views held ov many wolle people do, of legitimise racial attacks. But it is the capitalist class that is the real bobby-onthe-beat.
They gain higher profits cheap They maintain control of society encouraging divisions within the pressed. It is their police which harasses Diacks Similarly with women.
In treating women as inferior beings, legitimise violence against women. Despite the servicing role that women pro vide in the home, men do 'all Constel materially benefit as a group or class from female oppression in same way as ao tic capitalists Men think of women as their property because Do AND HOI MEC Institute of Contemporary Arts women have been subordinated for centuries and because the capitalist system encourages them to view women that way. The marriage relationship coottes that oppression. The wife, having tracted ticular man, becomes the possession of LUla. man! the of As Alexandra Kollonand tai explains in Sexual Relatrom tions and the Class strug.
gle: 'It is the bourgeoisie who have carefully idea the absolute the absolute possession of the tracted partner's emo tional and physical "l' thus extending the concept property rights to clude the other spiritual and emotional opSexual double are reflected in the rape laws Inese Ves ble in law for a man to rape his wite because the holl marriage vows mean that a COLISCHI forever and she is now the property of her husband. This contempt womens Dol all hilliale characteristic of men. It is a product of centuries of oppression discrimination which women have faced, parSpraying paint onto sexist photographs displayed at the ticularly their social and economic dependence on This is daily reinforced by the roies women men are ascribed the patriarchal family; by the respon sibilities that are still accorded worth childcare and domestic Rather than entrenching maie prejudice against women by looking only at the conservative attitudes of men, why not try and break male collusion bourgeois con- about women?
It is the capitalist class which gains most inwomen s cneao abour and free domestic labour, trom women's reticence Ic identify stan- unionists.
Our job is to show how much better the lives of the entire working class would be if both women and men earned decent wages. want both sexes to join in the fight against the bosses and the government secure their rights for freedoms Would not both sexes be better if women were allowed to grow up and pressing their personality and sexual desires to full? Wouldn't working class men be a whole lot better off if women were liberated?
The class which con and trols power through parliament, the courts, the press, the army - - is quite preparea to use violence le defend privileges. for fact the capitalist system encourages male canaren to ássociate the violence. rape. assertiveness at a very ly age. It is not a male which does this bu capitalist one . is not possible treat the state as an im tial arbiter that can be ed on to defend wo against male violence women who call for death sentence for ra imply. Any strengthe of the repressive appar of the state can potent be used against any gi which prepared challenge the capit class's monopoly The arrests and e mous fines that wome latel all I at sexually violent show this to be the ca For this reason we l to come out clearly ag any form of censorshi want to give the state right to decide on t matters. Banning above will not solve problem It is not possibl evolve strategy fighting rape that sir isolates male power a independent social for values society.
Demands need to placed on the state ra than concentrating out men as individual the capitalist class is le and the hook you can en Will retormist stra trades for . fighting rape main question beco fighting patriarchal titudes, demanding hi sentences for convi rapists.
Socialists have to honest in discussing ra There will alwav and to rape in Class nere winds as long as sexual rela between the sexes alienated. It is only wi ex- the framework of a to society the tions between the sexe free relations, entered and continued financial, social or se compulsion women are lo dependent on men -we can talk of ending r That new society be coloured how fight in this society an ne son o social It is vital that a stre popular and indepen women's liberation m ment is Igning on al aspect female oppress because this car that women's concern like sexual violence not pushed aside at stage in the struggle socialism.
ink win the ytem.
have to throu capitalist parasites establish a new power power of male and fen In workers. This has to our long-term goal, when
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A lot of people want you to come to the abortion conference
Labour Movement Conference ABORTION and POSITIVE LEGISLATION London NA LAR
country have taken action to explain their at- titude to sexual violence: occupying the of-
tively challenging press and police dictats should stay at home