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Salient. Victoria University Students' Newspaper. Volume 39, Number 23. September 20, 1976

Critique of Feminism ill-reasoned

Critique of Feminism ill-reasoned

Dear Ed.,

A few words of comment on Lindy and Leonie's astoundingly ill-reasoned article "A Critique of Feminism". And presumptuous! So they have the answers about what "really concerns the so-called 'average' woman". How dare they presume to speak on her behalf! What basis has their claim to be more in touch with working-class women?

It is no mere coincidence that the people with the power in this society are men. ("The enemy is obviously not men, but society") Many feminists this concomitance as a reason for an exclusively feminist (i.e. rather than a feminist socialist) stance. (Not to be confused with an independent women's movement working towards a socialist revolution, L & L!).

This power dynamic is, historically, related to the relegation of women to an inferior position by virtue of their anatomy. Of course capitalism and sexism are inevitably connected. No feminist would suggest that her goals could be achieved under a system which is based on inequality.

But after acknowledging that (while hinting that all the other middle-class feminists — sorry. I forgot for a moment that they're not — have missed that major theoretical point) Lindy and Leonie go on to assert that we should build up the family "so that it safeguards the rights of women and children"!! (This sounds suspiciously like the sexist mythology we're trying to escape.)

Capitalism maintains the ideology of the family to support us vital economic function: that of providing the unpaid labour of housewives so that their mates can go out and work, thus getting the labour of two human beings for the wage (and that only a fraction of its real value) of one. It disgusts me to hear anyone supporting one of the most basic units of oppression of the capitalist system. There is no "protection" for women in the family. God knows it's making enough of us crazy.

Lindy and Leonie seem to deny that the oppression of women cuts across class divisions. ("The Women's movement must be led by working class women"). Women will organise around issues that affect them as a sex. We may find (not coincidentally) that they are struggling towards the broader goals of socialism, but they will be struggling basically as women for their demands.

The most absurd claim in this article is that "abortion on demand does not have much support among working-class women because it does not attack the real problems they face"! Are you people Men that you don't see that most women are faced at least once in their lives with the Very Real Problem of an unwanted pregnancy?!

Surely no issue unites women more - and the consequences of all women having full control over their reproductive lives would seem to me to be profoundly revolutionary.

And frankly, the suggestion that "there is a refusal to unite the abortion struggle with the movement for day care" is utter nonsense. I challenge Lindy and Leonie's credentials as having "experienced many different types of feminists organisations".

The whole article smacks of a rather sophisticated form of the old divide and conquer ploy. More analysis of experience, less woolly rhetoric, please.

Marie Buckley.