)Why do we say that we need a proletarian revolutionary feminist movement?
We are feminists because we want to collect, be an expression of rebellion and relate ourselves to the rebellion of all women on all aspects of oppression, exploitation, sexual violence and all other fields: “the whole life has to change” - against a social system of "middle ages".
We talk about feminism, because this is the definition that the women who fought in the past have historically assumed, clashing openly with the social and cultural horizon in which they lived.
But we are proletarian feminists because women are not all alike: there are the bourgeois, the petty bourgeois and proletarian women, feminism is characterized by the class characters of women, we want a women's movement expression of the majority of women who are proletarian workers, precarious of today and tomorrow, who are oppressed inside and outside the family, women who have nothing to defend but have double chains to break. A proletarian feminism because this social capitalist system is classist, this State, Government, these parliamentary parties are classists, their policy is based on a daily class struggle, because sexism, clericalism, fascism are expression of a capitalist, barbarized and rotten class. The proletarian feminism asserts the incompatibility of women with every economical, political, social, cultural, ideological aspect of this bourgeois system. We affirm the proletarian feminism against the petty bourgeois feminism who struggle just to carve out spaces for themselves in this social system.
This proletarian feminism can be nothing but revolutionary: through all various aspects of oppression and violence against women, it emerges the "systemic" violence of this capitalist society, which cannot be reformed but must be reversed with a revolutionary process, in which women - since the beginning - are the soul and the more generalist, more coherent, more radical strength, of a revolution which goes till the end, a revolution in the revolution which disrupts and transforms earth and sky.
Proletarian women are the ones who, unlike the bourgeois women, have nothing to lose but their double chains; they have not spaces to carve out within the family and the bourgeois society, they have not the myths of women emancipation and entrepreneurship to chase, they have not "equal opportunities" or "reserved quotas" to claim. For these reasons, when they decide to rebel they express a radicalism and a determination that have no equal; for these reasons when the consciousness that "rebellion is right" replaces the fear, the silence, blackmails, a great revolutionary potential breaks out in proletarian women.
The revolutionary proletarian feminism is more than "feminism" because feminists must assume the concrete conditions of most women, who are workers, proletarians and are the most exploited and oppressed on all aspects, not just material but also psychological; they must assume a class vision in the struggle for the liberation of the gender; because they have to struggle in a revolutionary perspective, because women have to break not one but all chains; it's more than proletarian because proletarian women must be feminists to get rid of all oppressions of this system, they must take a point of view of women on all matters and all aspects; it's more than revolutionary because revolutionary women who are not also feminists and proletarian often take dogmatic ideology, policy and practices, apparently classists but limited in reality, and they also fall into reformism.
Women are the masses. In every struggle, women bring in their whole condition (family, etc..) and the experience of emancipation won in the struggles within their familial status. So, talking about women is talking about the whole condition of exploitation and oppression of the masses.
Women bring objectively and subjectively when they fight a general critique of the capitalist system, a need for radical transformation of the here and now, that's why the movement for women's liberation is incompatible with every reformist idea and practice.
The essence of the issue of women is that women are the "masses"; only if we face the problem of women, Revolutionary Communist Party can be the mass party; only if we face it like this there is the mass line. Women carry more masses, children and families.
Women's strike
For women, any attack on life and working conditions is never just an economic or a "trade union" attack, because it is always imbued with ideological motivations, reactionary conceptions and policies. While they delete the rights to / at work, oppression, subordination, the legitimacy of a general climate of a modern Middle Ages are increasing. While the work is denied to women, women workers are sent back home, the government and the Vatican are used to celebrate the family and the role of women in it, they transform the family more and more in a "social dumper" instrument but also of control, normativity, of women subordination; this kind of family reinforces the supremacy of men over women, it develops highly oppressive and sexist conceptions of the property of men on women, and that's why too this family becomes even more the principal ground of violences and killings of women.
Women's strike is a fighting instrument with historical value, strategic, of rupture. A new, an unexpected rupture for employers, government, unions, and workers themselves.
The strike of women intertwines the issue of class to the gender issue, the feminist aspect has to be intertwined to the proletarian aspect: breaking the double chains! A struggle to affirm the point of view of women in all fileds and our protagonism and double determination. That's why it's irreconcilable and radical against every economicism and reformism.
A total strike of women, because autonomously built by women workers, precarious, unemployed people, girls, housewives and because in its reasons and in its platform it has the whole women working and lives conditions.
Women's strike is in distinction / critique with the line and the practice of unions, including base trade unions.
We consider that, on the women's issue, the workers should not limit to express support and solidarity with women's struggles, but make a practical struggle against sexism. A worker cannot fight to improve his material condition and take no position on the sexist discrimination, a worker cannot report the unsafe condition in factory and keep quiet about sexual harassment; a class-conscious worker has to take on this fight too, both because those aspects of oppression are another manifestation of exploitation and repression of the capital, and because any revolutionary perspective that doesn't own the revolutionary transformation of women, would be a revolutionary perspective mutilated.
The participation of workers to the fight doesn't concern only an aspect, it's never just "tradeunionist" but it brings a complaint of the more general condition. In this sense, women have to fight even against workers to let the issue of gender forcibly enter in the class; who is not a "feminist" is sexist. Also this is the role played by the "women's strike".
(punti di elaborazione del MFPR Italia; spunti dal libro “Guerra popolare e liberazione delle donne in Nepal” della Parvati)
FROM MFPR
We are feminists because we want to collect, be an expression of rebellion and relate ourselves to the rebellion of all women on all aspects of oppression, exploitation, sexual violence and all other fields: “the whole life has to change” - against a social system of "middle ages".
We talk about feminism, because this is the definition that the women who fought in the past have historically assumed, clashing openly with the social and cultural horizon in which they lived.
But we are proletarian feminists because women are not all alike: there are the bourgeois, the petty bourgeois and proletarian women, feminism is characterized by the class characters of women, we want a women's movement expression of the majority of women who are proletarian workers, precarious of today and tomorrow, who are oppressed inside and outside the family, women who have nothing to defend but have double chains to break. A proletarian feminism because this social capitalist system is classist, this State, Government, these parliamentary parties are classists, their policy is based on a daily class struggle, because sexism, clericalism, fascism are expression of a capitalist, barbarized and rotten class. The proletarian feminism asserts the incompatibility of women with every economical, political, social, cultural, ideological aspect of this bourgeois system. We affirm the proletarian feminism against the petty bourgeois feminism who struggle just to carve out spaces for themselves in this social system.
This proletarian feminism can be nothing but revolutionary: through all various aspects of oppression and violence against women, it emerges the "systemic" violence of this capitalist society, which cannot be reformed but must be reversed with a revolutionary process, in which women - since the beginning - are the soul and the more generalist, more coherent, more radical strength, of a revolution which goes till the end, a revolution in the revolution which disrupts and transforms earth and sky.
Proletarian women are the ones who, unlike the bourgeois women, have nothing to lose but their double chains; they have not spaces to carve out within the family and the bourgeois society, they have not the myths of women emancipation and entrepreneurship to chase, they have not "equal opportunities" or "reserved quotas" to claim. For these reasons, when they decide to rebel they express a radicalism and a determination that have no equal; for these reasons when the consciousness that "rebellion is right" replaces the fear, the silence, blackmails, a great revolutionary potential breaks out in proletarian women.
The revolutionary proletarian feminism is more than "feminism" because feminists must assume the concrete conditions of most women, who are workers, proletarians and are the most exploited and oppressed on all aspects, not just material but also psychological; they must assume a class vision in the struggle for the liberation of the gender; because they have to struggle in a revolutionary perspective, because women have to break not one but all chains; it's more than proletarian because proletarian women must be feminists to get rid of all oppressions of this system, they must take a point of view of women on all matters and all aspects; it's more than revolutionary because revolutionary women who are not also feminists and proletarian often take dogmatic ideology, policy and practices, apparently classists but limited in reality, and they also fall into reformism.
Women are the masses. In every struggle, women bring in their whole condition (family, etc..) and the experience of emancipation won in the struggles within their familial status. So, talking about women is talking about the whole condition of exploitation and oppression of the masses.
Women bring objectively and subjectively when they fight a general critique of the capitalist system, a need for radical transformation of the here and now, that's why the movement for women's liberation is incompatible with every reformist idea and practice.
The essence of the issue of women is that women are the "masses"; only if we face the problem of women, Revolutionary Communist Party can be the mass party; only if we face it like this there is the mass line. Women carry more masses, children and families.
Women's strike
For women, any attack on life and working conditions is never just an economic or a "trade union" attack, because it is always imbued with ideological motivations, reactionary conceptions and policies. While they delete the rights to / at work, oppression, subordination, the legitimacy of a general climate of a modern Middle Ages are increasing. While the work is denied to women, women workers are sent back home, the government and the Vatican are used to celebrate the family and the role of women in it, they transform the family more and more in a "social dumper" instrument but also of control, normativity, of women subordination; this kind of family reinforces the supremacy of men over women, it develops highly oppressive and sexist conceptions of the property of men on women, and that's why too this family becomes even more the principal ground of violences and killings of women.
Women's strike is a fighting instrument with historical value, strategic, of rupture. A new, an unexpected rupture for employers, government, unions, and workers themselves.
The strike of women intertwines the issue of class to the gender issue, the feminist aspect has to be intertwined to the proletarian aspect: breaking the double chains! A struggle to affirm the point of view of women in all fileds and our protagonism and double determination. That's why it's irreconcilable and radical against every economicism and reformism.
A total strike of women, because autonomously built by women workers, precarious, unemployed people, girls, housewives and because in its reasons and in its platform it has the whole women working and lives conditions.
Women's strike is in distinction / critique with the line and the practice of unions, including base trade unions.
We consider that, on the women's issue, the workers should not limit to express support and solidarity with women's struggles, but make a practical struggle against sexism. A worker cannot fight to improve his material condition and take no position on the sexist discrimination, a worker cannot report the unsafe condition in factory and keep quiet about sexual harassment; a class-conscious worker has to take on this fight too, both because those aspects of oppression are another manifestation of exploitation and repression of the capital, and because any revolutionary perspective that doesn't own the revolutionary transformation of women, would be a revolutionary perspective mutilated.
The participation of workers to the fight doesn't concern only an aspect, it's never just "tradeunionist" but it brings a complaint of the more general condition. In this sense, women have to fight even against workers to let the issue of gender forcibly enter in the class; who is not a "feminist" is sexist. Also this is the role played by the "women's strike".
MFPR Italy
reading the book “People's War and women's liberation in Nepal” Parvati
Women are a powerful force of the revolution. Women were the first to be subdued in the history of humanity, will be the last to be released, hence their push to bring the revolution in higher forms, from the revolution of a new democracy and socialism to a revolution in a revolution. Therefore women are a strategic force that not only prevents the counter-revolution but also pursues an ongoing revolution.
The concept of continuous revolution until communism has strategic importance for women, because only when private property is abolished, it will unleash the creativity of women.
The various concepts: rebel is right, the Cultural Revolution, uninterrupted revolution, total revolution, mass politics, etc.. all exert a strong appeal for women who must implement them for their double oppression. They need to be sensitive and alert to discover any counter-revolutionary or revisionist act because they have seen the achievements of their rights slowly eroded with each position of the capitalist parties in Russia and China.
The vehicle of the transformation of society are women. For those who want to maintain this status quo are always trying to stop this vehicle.
It's important to note that in a family, for example, if a woman becomes part of the party there is a greater possibility that the whole family is politicized.
By virtue of their double oppression they have a proletarian spirit higher than that of men of the same class.
Many wives have left their home and their husbands to bind to the movement, leaving the children to serve the cause of building a different world.
Women who have decided to return home have become more economically independent and more politicized
The absence of men, along with the atrocities of the police, has made women loyal to each other;
the repeated kidnappings, harassment by the police and the protection given by the scabs and the kidnappers revealed the character of class and gender oppression by the State.
...with the people's courts now women feel safer in the home and away, as the defaulting husbands and vagabonds are punished properly ... women have become very knowledgeable about the legal rights and their state of oppression.
The people's war has helped to consolidate progressive norms in the life of the people. Today the new generation of women activists do not accept the system of shotgun wedding and opts for love marriages on ideological grounds. "They are no longer upside down to have children."
Women must fight on two fronts: the perspective of class and gender: the vindication of gender rights and class rights.
Having regard to the broad level of participation of women reached and the influence of imperialism in urban areas, there is a danger to the women of the middle class to be influenced by sectarian feminism, having regard to their class backgrounds they may be more sensitive to the vindication of the rights of sex than by the class rights, ending with reformism or the right deviation in the party ... counter this threat, bringing the element of class to play a leading role in the women's movement.
It doesn't exist a "female specificity" as an abstract issue of gender, regardless of the actual socio-economic conditions that determine the lives materially.
BUT, be careful that the gender issue is not delayed because of an excess of zeal in the application of class consciousness. This would lead to sectarianism and adventurism of "left".
Both the radical tendencies must be stopped, making women of the petty bourgeois class more conscious, and those of the lower classes more sensitive to gender issue ... purpose of the exclusive organization of women in the organization Marxist-Leninist-Maoist is primarily to prepare activists women who have class consciousness and are also sensitive to gender …
We have to fight two trends:
The tendency of the right wants to make women's participation in a secondary force. It uses the feminine force as a tactical force when the situation so demands, or when their specific skills are needed.
The dogmatic revisionist trend, which appears on the left but it's right in essence, does this with radical slogans, extreme positions, swearing on the class and only on the class. It underestimates the specific problems of women and sex discrimination, while the practical difficulties that women have to endure more are romanticized (for example, pregnancy as an opportunity to prove their "challenge"), but when they do not respond to expectations are gradually marginalized in the name of the necessity of revolution. For this falls into the trap of denial of the strategic role of women in the PLA.
The relationship between sexual and class contradiction lies in the relationship between women's liberation and revolution: the liberation of women is part of the revolutionary process, but the revolutionary process can not happen if we do not unleash the power of women. For us, "class" is synonymous with revolution. To say this means that we unleashed the rebellion of women even within the proletariat.
The question of women is not a specificity of class struggle. It brings an overview of the class struggle. The women's struggle is a struggle for itself but at the same time for everyone, a struggle that calls to deal with that kind of society we want to build, who calls to deal on the conception of life, the relationship between people, between women and men; it is a struggle that more than others alluding to communism. They take objectively and subjectively, when they fight, a general critique of the capitalist system even before the revolution. For this they're strategic for the revolution in the revolution.
The issue of women becomes of crucial importance for all classes. In today's class war, the imperialists are trying to use women as bearers of peace, to maintain their status quo, while the forces are moving mlm women violently against the system that was responsible for their double exploitation. Therefore we cry: "workers of all countries unite. You have nothing to lose but your double chains! "
The participation of women in the People's war and the PLA:
First, it has removed the psychological fear and the feeling of insecurity, creating a strong base to erode religious and superstitious beliefs within the family.
Second, it has destroyed the feudal basis that the woman was impure soul, sick and in need of help. With the acquisition of strength, both ideologically and physically, women not only have become proud of their body, but have begun to take responsibility to keep in shape.
Third, it has aroused the thirst for knowledge among women
Fourth, it teaches women through the practice the character of gender, of class, of the ruling class. The people's war is able to combine gender issue with class issue, linking them with the process of development of ideology.
The people's war is able to use the social, communal and cooperative natures that women gained from their being reproductive, as well as productive force, for the benefit of the new popular state, paving the way for communism.
Fifth, it changes the traditional division of labour ... There are cases in which wives are on the battlefield while their husbands take care of other, sometimes wives driving their husbands on the battlefield. Today, women account for 30/50% of the strength of PLA.
To increase their confidence and develop the leadership of women in the PLA specific sectors of women are made, sometimes platoons or even companies. "From the house to the front."
The nature of class oppression and exploitation of women has a long duration, this is why long-term people's war attracts a lot of oppressed women. Long-term People's war helps participation of women, because this guerilla war is the method used by the weak part of society to fight against the strongest forces of state. Within the process of people's war the ongoing changes, the overthrow of the feudal culture and the control of imperialist culture help women in realizing their value as human who have dignity.
People's war prepares women to insurrection war where speed, surprise and focused efforts are needed to the ending grip of the central government.
In the PLA women are stronger, are able to more privacy, less than men fleeing from the battlefield. Similarly, success is not easy to dare alla testa as well as the defeats do not bend them easily. They hardly refuse the assignment given to them, we always try.
The participation of women not only helped to counter the militaristic tendency, but also to prevent the soldiers turn into aimlessly fighters. This has made light work of the militarization of the masses. Their involvement has an effect of "self cleaning" in the PLA. Their inclusion in the PLA is a friendly power to the genre and with class consciousness. With the involvement of women in construction, typically male works, and with the involvement of men in jobs considered typically female (food preparation, etc..), The PLA has been able to break the traditional division of labour.
Women often take time to decide to join the movement, but once they have taken part they will remain fully involved, more than men .... This may be due to the fact that women have more to gain than men in this movement, for them it's not just to escape the oppression of class, but also by gender oppression.
Women need to conduct a longer battle because of the double oppression, efforts are needed.
After all, breaking the double chains requires a greater force and a stronger will …
The PLA has expanded the sphere of activities of women from the uterus to the universe. All this reminds one of the things that Lenin said, "war transforms in ten days what requires 10 years in normal times."
The participation of women in the PLA has also given a mass character to army, making it multifunctional, multicaratteriale, making it a true people's army ... not only the centre of combat but also of the organization and production. The multifaceted work that women have done in the home and the community has assumed a public character.
But not enough for women to be combatants, must be offensive on the ideological front. The ideological point of view is as important as the material combat in the battlefront.
The men are not so excited to see established the authority of women in the PLA, they do not want to involve them in the development of new plans, policies and tend to relegate them on the traditional gender-specific jobs. Women have to work so hard, twice, even three times more, to establish their authority in the PLA.
Women still have to work hard to exercise their authority so that the masses accept them as leaders. They must know that their hard work, to be simple and practical, is not enough; they must conquer the minds of the masses, it is necessary ideological and political acumen. Without this, they can inadvertently fall into the trap of bureaucratic method of dealing with contradictions.
The management of women is essentially the realization of political ideology.
The revolutionary movements have always provoked the fury of women, but they have not been able to focus their energy in producing a lasting direction of Communist women. Why there are few women leaders when Marxism offers so penetrating analysis and a solution to the oppression of women? Because despite the growing objective conditions, it is reduced to a factor "case" the question of direction.
Before the people's war women preferred to the front in the face of mass of women than in the party. Today it is more important to be in the party, because the counter-revolution starts first at the party machine before invading all the other fields ... (But) when there is no ideological knowledge they fall into the trap that leads to correct only the technical aspects, without seeking an adjustment of ideology, which is the main aspect.
Patriarchal values in the Communist Party. They consider the role of women as 'support'. As a result, the party often overestimates the class struggle at the expense of exploiting of genre, forgetting the dialectical relationship between the two aspects. There are cases of delay in the formation of separate organisms of women .. there are cases where at the mass front of women has not given the requisite degree of freedom as required by their programs. In this way, the theft of their creativity and the power of their own initiative happens. This in the final analysis creates alienation and khvostism in the party ... you can see the conservatism of the party even when women are relegated to the political work related only to women …
formal acceptance by comrades of women management, while it is not accepted in the essence.
On the practical this leads to spontaneity, so women's issues are mentioned but not addressed, leaving the solution to circumstances, and this leads to gradualism.
Other side of existence of the traditional division of labour (mental work to men, manual one to women): men and women must be considered exactly the same without being sensitive to the special status of women;
or being overprotective on the safety of women, when it is not guaranteed, or taking the place of the mental work of women.
To assert the power of the 'half the sky' must be an 'unequal right', we fight for a power that doesn't realize the "equality "but the" inequality "and through the inequality realizes true equality.
The movement of proletarian women needs the support of all those who not only have rebelled against their vision of the class but also against their stereotyped sexist image.
Mao: "Continue to be dissatisfied, the world belongs to dissatisfied." This is even more true for revolutionary women who must cross a revolutionary class struggle and gender even more complicated, a struggle within the party and an inner struggle.
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