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Organise! - ASF Women's Commission Statement:
Patriarchy and Feminism in Ireland.

Many issues which disproportionately impact on women, particularly working class women, have been labelled 'women's issues' and are often presented as separate from issues which effect the working class as a whole. 'Women's issues' are often seen as self contained and cross class. We regard women’s issues as working class issues, we are building a movement based on solidarity between all members of the working class.

Patriarchy has a negative impact on women, the working class, and the development of individuals, male and female, within that class and throughout society.

Many of the issues identified as 'belonging' to women are often issues which effect the family; child care, disproportionate distribution of domestic labour, etc. The predominance of women in 'grey economy' jobs, gender discrimination in the workplace and in obtaining employment, the gap between women's pay and men's pay for the same or similar work, sexist attitudes displayed by working class men and sexism in our movement must ultimately be addressed by our movement and society as a whole. However, while such discrimination impacts more specifically on women as a gender we feel that separate organisation by and for women can be necessary. Women undoubtedly bear the greater burden in relation to these issues and separate organisation is needed to challenge, confront and overcome patriarchal values and discrimination within wider society and our class. This does not mean we are 'separatists', it means that we recognise that those of us who are women are particularly well placed to identify the problems and propose solutions to those problems. The implementation of those solutions is everyone's responsibility. We believe that an injury to one is an injury to all.

Low levels of participation of women in the higher levels of society is a symptom of patriarchy. We do not see dealing with these symptoms as providing any meaningful solutions for working class women. Regrettably the manner in which the majority of the Feminist/women's movement in Ireland has sought to deal with these issues has presented no real threat to the establishment – nor does it attempt to. There is no real challenge to the system of capitalism. Conditions of 'powerlessness', economic and political exclusion and oppression, and alienation for members of our class regardless of gender are therefore perpetuated. The politics which predominate the Feminist movement in Ireland are not about any real or meaningful change to existing social relationships. Instead they are based on an approach geared towards a more 'equitable' participation in an oppressive and exploitative social system based on capital and state. As Anarcho-Syndicalists we do not want more female masters we want no masters.

Feminism devoid of, and sometimes even in opposition to, any semblance of a class perspective, becomes nothing more than a struggle for more 'gender balance' at the top of society. Quotas must be met for more women bosses, judges, politicians, top civil servants, as unaccountable bureaucrats and quangocrats. Perhaps even our police force can be improved with more women 'taking responsibility' for its administration, with the inclusion of more women on policing boards, maybe even a female chief constable one day, and certainly with more women as rank and file officers in the force. This is sarcasm but regrettably it does reflect what a great many Feminists dream of. Of course the Republican Feminist would want more police reform before they could even consider bringing their all improving 'femininity' to bear on the PSNI.

This type of Feminism provides the establishment with nothing more than a handy smokescreen to distract from other basic and pressing inequalities at the heart of society, inequalities which will be maintained no matter how many women bosses we see employed, bureaucrats appointed or politicians elected. They are the inequalities which modern society is built upon, those of class. While these debates about women in power may gain some space for issues effecting working class women the root causes go largely unchallenged. This presents no real threat to the establishment nor does it attempt to.

Anarchism, Anarcho-Syndicalism and the tradition of Anarcha-Feminism have little in common with the limited goals and political terms of reference of much of the Feminist movement today in Ireland. Much of which could be described as reactionary in so far as it often helps to prop up and maintain centralised state and capitalist institutions rather than oppose or challenge them. Such a limited Feminism has little to offer working class women. It must be the role of an Anarcho-Syndicalist organisation to confront the inadequacies of the current Feminist movement, while tackling the negative impact of patriarchy and gender discrimination on a class basis. This includes taking on the sexist attitudes and practises of many working class men. We need to begin the task of eroding the encroachment of the state around issues effecting working women’s lives and to promote a healthy movement for the emancipation of all – based on growing self reliance and providing a necessary alternative to the stranglehold of state sponsored co-option.

The Women's Commission of Organise! - ASF has initially identified the following issues which we should be dealing with in this organisation and in the wider movement:

The need for us as anarcho-syndicalists to deal with the subordination of women in Irish society, particularly where patriarchal structures and prejudices impact on the lives of working class women, to the detriment of our class as a whole.
The debate and concerns of the Feminist/women's movement in Ireland seems to be dominated by issues of women in 'power' coupled with the assumption that 'men' operate a monopoly on power as a gender and not as male representatives of specific (ruling) class interests. That they are male 'representatives' is symptomatic of the wider impact of patriarchy and should be recognised as such but we should not get sucked into the false logic of demanding more women in positions of ‘power’ and must oppose such reasoning.

We recognise that there is a real need to challenge and tackle the subordination of women. Working class women must be free to organise and work together as women, promoting and pursuing particular interests and struggles with the support of the movement. This is not counter to the inclusion of this struggle as part of the broader class struggle, indeed for working class women, and men, the two are inextricably linked.

The role of women's groups and forums within the various political parties and unions ranges from that of a lobbying group to increase the profile of women in the organisation, to providing space for women to discuss issues which they identify as important. Following the completion of this report we should examine the successes and shortcomings of these models of organisation and discuss the future form and purpose of the Organise! - ASF Women's Commission.
Church and state, their roles in the continued subordination of women in Irish society should be examined and exposed.
The effects of 'the troubles' on the lives of working class women requires additional research by our organisation.
Rape and sexual abuse is an issue for society as a whole, both men and women. We need more specialist research in order to assess and develop some frame of reference in dealing with issues around rape and sexual abuse. This is also true of domestic violence.

The Women's Commission also recommend as an immediate step in the redressing of exclusion of parents, particularly lone and female parents, from political activism that all major events our organisation is involved in have child care provision and that this organisations AGA provide childcare.

The Women's Commission endorses the decision on ‘Work and Childcare’ of last years AGA, which states that;
In order to facilitate the maximum access to employment for parents, particularly single parents, the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation supports calls, in the short term, for employers to provide childcare facilities (in the form of crèches etc.) for workers. In the long term however we see childcare provision as part of the role of an independent and increasingly self sufficient Anarcho-Syndicalist union and we pledge ourselves to that goal.
Additionally we demand the realisation of the aims of this statement regarding self reliance wherever this can be realistically achieved.

Research on these areas is currently being carried. The Organise! - ASF Women’s Commission recommends that this research is completed within a 2 month period and that we then commence publication of it along with our analysis in a pamphlet on Women and Irish Society.