Our speech on the the feminist fight day demonstration 2017 in Leipzig.
Dear comrades,
In view of the uninterrupted persistence of worldwide patriarchal oppression and the resurgence of regressive perceptions of women and family, we assemble today for the international womensday. Patriarchy is men’s domination of women and everyone, who doesn’t fit into the binary gender ratio. The binary gender ratio is a dominating, social construction that needs to be dissolved in its rigidity. Without ignoring differing social realities of women, we want to hold on to the category “woman” here, in order to render visible the differences, we need to refer to in political battles. It can be observed – without equalising the global differences – that there is no place on earth, where patriarchy has been abolished. That is why taking to the streets today is a necessity.
Albeit the necessity of protesting against men’s domination today, it is also vital to ask the question, how the unbearable state of patriarchy can be ended once and for all. Therefor we firstly need to shed light on the structural causation of patriarchy under terms of capitalist production and secondly take a look at the history of the women’s movement. Only then we can tie in with them adequately and ensure, that these fights will bear fruit.
Though patriarchy has been existent before capitalism, it takes a specific form under the reign of capitalism. The reproduction of labour after its value adding exhaustion through the capital is a fundamental component of capital accumulation. Under capitalism, pre-capitalist patriarchal dominance continues by declaring reproductive tasks as women’s private affair. The involvement of women in work occupation mostly leads to a double burden of reproduction tasks and paid labour, or other, socially disadvantaged, mostly migrant women are being saddled with the reproduction tasks. Amongst single parenting parents, the majority is female. They are especially affected by these circumstances. It doesn’t come as a surprise, that their families are affected by child poverty most often. Until today, in leading positions you seldom come across women.
Inferentially it can be said, that capital enters a successful marriage
with patriarchy, through profiting from the oppression of women in
various ways. Even the constrictive possibilities for emancipation
benefit the capital, as the problem with the double burden shows.
The women’s movement in the course of civil revolution since the end of the 18th century, advocated the realisation of women’s civil emancipation. Hereby they focused mainly on the legal equalisation of women and the gain of their economic independence from men through integration into the work sphere. The topic of women’s emancipation was widespread since its formation in the labour movement in the 19th century. The reformist wing built primarily on legislative change, but also represented reactionary politics: in times of unemployment women should do the (unpaid) domestic work in order to not take away work from men.
A serious alternative draft, in our opinion, was the proletarian-revolutionary women’s movement. The revolutionary wing of the female labour movement and its protagonists, such as Clara Zetkin, fought for legal equalisation – for example the general and equal voting right – as well. But additionaly they were aware of an entanglement of patriarchy and capitalism, due to their underlying critique of capitalism: To them, the topic of women’s liberation couldn’t be handled independently of the topic of social liberation. Thus, they demanded a revolutionary collectivisation of the means of production accompanied with the collectivisation reproductive work.
In a communist society, socially required reproductive work should be a common, socially approved task that would be performed by all society members regardless their gender. Contrary to Capitalism, where reproduction is just a means to an end in order to prepare workers for production, the production should be a mean for the satisfaction of needs that is to say for reproduction.
The international womensday, for which we assemble today, also is a
product of the revolutionary women’s movement, it was brought into being
on the second international conference of socialist women in 1910. The
reformist workers movement, chumming up to state, nation and capital, as
well as the revolutionary communist movement with their “real
socialist” approaches in the 20th century failed.
The latter generated powerful authoritarian, patriarchal and oppressing regimes, where there could be no talk of emancipatory overthrow of the production process. Although there where important attempts, the countries of “real existing socialism” leastwise with Stalinism, where no breeding ground for feminist practice. The new social movements and the mainly student-based new feminist movement contributed crucial aspects to developing new feminist theory and practice since ’68: Reflecting on continuing patriarchal domination in left political structures, the subdivision of main- and side contradictions was rejected by feminists, meaning that capitalism as “main contradiction” didn’t need to be eliminated first, before there could be any feminist politics.
Besides and often against the Marxist focus on economic aspects of the involvement of patriarchy in capitalism, an analysis and critique of cultural symbolic and social psychologist aspects of capitalism was established. These theoretical-practical developments continue until the formation of queer movements and their demand to dissolve gender binary and the demand for complete solidarity with everyone who is negatively affected by patriarchal structures: Women, lesbians, homosexual, inter- and transsexual.
This, however, bears the danger of dropping materialistic critique completely and reinterpreting emancipatory politics in a neoliberal fashion. What does all of that imply for us today? We think that there is a need to tie in with the demands of the proletarian-revolutionary women’s movement and the since the 68th developed positions as well as the demands of the more recent queer movements.
The demand for a revolutionary takeover and collectivisation of capital
goods as well as reproductive tasks is of fundamental importance. Only
then, we can overcome patriarchy and capitalism and bring forward
women’s emancipation in particular and emancipation of humankind in
general.
The failing of the communist movement of the 20th century thereby needs to be reflected and the term collectivisation needs to be filled with new content: it mustn’t be defined as nationalisation in a sense of state property. Rather, the question for an organisation of the whole social production and reproduction that is as grassroot-democratic as possible needs to be asked. This needs to be done through a way of production that focusses on need satisfaction instead of capital accumulation, and could possibly be structured in councils. Furthermore, a communist movements needs to have feminist practice in their existing structures, empower women and put men in their place in order for their principles to be more than just empty phrases, to learn from it and point towards communism. Feminism mustn’t be postponed until “after the revolution”!
Patriarchy can’t be reduced to economic conditions completely, it is present in our structures and needs to be reflected and fought constantly. Furthermore, we need to strive for a constant theoretical and practical scrutiny of binary gender categories in general. All of that needs to be combined with the demand for revolution! A serious feminism must be communist, as well as a serious communist movement must be feminist!
Thus: No revolution without feminism! No feminism without revolution!