Saturday, November 30 and Sunday, December 1st, 2013, in Montréal
An invitation from the Proletarian & Revolutionary Feminist F
A CALL FROM THE MONTRÉAL REVOLUTIONARY & PROLETARIAN FEMINIST FRONT:
To Fight, We Need Proletarian Feminism!
On November 30 to December 1, Montréal will hold the First Conference
for a Proletarian Feminist Movement.
We are calling for a dynamic movement that unites a multitude of groups and
collectives according to common principles and objectives of struggle.
For this inaugural conference, we invite working women of all ages and of
diverse origins, indigenous women, women who are unemployed as well as poor
students, queer and trans proletarians, to discuss and vote on a draft
manifesto. This manifesto will serve as the basis of unity for the establishment
of proletarian feminist groups across Canada, whether they are organized on a
neighbourhood, city or regional basis.
We believe that there is an urgent need to consolidate and unite the women of
the proletariat and their allies in recognizing the material reality of the
class struggle, and thus the need to link the struggle for women’s liberation
with the struggle against capitalist and imperialist exploitation.
This is what we mean by proletarian feminism.
Whether or not we engage with the current debate among feminists on the
“secularism” of the Québec Charter of Values, the question of sexual
exploitation and prostitution, the recent elections in Canada, where women now
lead the 5 richest provinces in this country… while more and more women are
falling into poverty at the same time, these facts are catching up with us.
Profound differences in the material realities of women exist, and these
determine the degree to which women are willing to fight, in one way or another,
for a fundamental change in the existing order.
It is primarily this will to change the existing order that must unite us in
fighting to the bitter end for the emancipation of all women,
particularly the most exploited and oppressed among us. Currently, no real
feminist movement exists in the political arena. For the past 20 years, feminism
mainly existed in forms of services or lobbying groups, in official
institutions, in academia and among petty bourgeois currents, but seldom did
feminism exist in actual struggle. To quote the American sociologist, Barbara
Epstein: “Feminism today has become more of an idea than a movement, and one
that lacks the visionary quality it once had.”
And it is precisely because this “historical” feminism, which sought to unify
all women on the sole basis of gender without regard for any other condition,
has reached the limits of what it can offer that we are calling for the creation
of a new movement. This movement would apply to the multiple realities of women
in the imperialist world today, to the capitalist reality in a rich country like
Canada.
We are reminded of the imperialist nature of Canada:
where indigenous women more than anyone else, continue to live in
unspeakably poor conditions and are being killed every day while nobody cares
about it;
where Canada supports and participates in unjust wars of domination;
where companies flourish by exploiting women here and elsewhere, destroying
and killing them every day, forcing hundreds of millions of women to migrate,
and thus profoundly transforming their lives and those of their families;
where the global economic crisis exacerbates the vulnerability of the poor,
where women are in the vast majority: they form the majority among those earning
minimum wage, the majority of those working part-time jobs, the majority as
single parents;
where the meagre gains in social housing, education and health are
constantly under attack, where living conditions are further deteriorating,
particularly among women with disabilities, elderly women or single parents;
where prostitution, sexual exploitation and sex trafficking are being
trivialized;
where violence against women (whether verbal, physical, psychological) is
part of our daily lives;
where sexism is displayed full-page in advertising, media and TV shows;
where, in social reality, even if it becomes more complex, the class that
has everything continues to oppose the class that has nothing;
where the class that exploits us also includes women, women who are leading
political parties, governments, and financial empires such as Walmart,
Laurentian Bank, Sun Life Financial, Suncor Energy, the Federation of Chambers
of Commerce, the Desjardins Group.
Apparently nothing has changed for proletarian women, even with the
replacement of male exploiters by female exploiters…
For those among us promoting proletarian feminism, the struggle for women’s
liberation is inseparable from the general political struggle against capitalism
and for peoples’ power, that is to say, for proletarian power! These go hand in
hand. One cannot exist without the other.
Revolutionary or anti-capitalist organizations require the participation of
proletarian women in the struggle to transform society. If we want to fight for
a socialist, egalitarian society that is free of exploitation, then women are at
the forefront!
Similarly, a feminist movement, even a proletarian one, can’t transform
society without fully participating in building a revolutionary movement to
fight against capitalism.
A place for education, organization and struggle
In order for these women to participate in a revolutionary project, we need
organizations made for them, where they can not only transform themselves
through struggle, but also take effective measures to stop oppressive and sexist
behaviours around them. We need places where women can freely express
themselves, speak about their oppression or the violence they are subjected to,
where women can learn to be assertive, to discuss politics and to fight on equal
footing with men.
Women must defend their right to assert themselves, to fight and to
participate fully, to organize and develop their leadership in the struggle.
These are the goals for the kind of proletarian feminist group we are calling
for.
At this inaugural conference we call on women to unite around A MANIFESTO
FOR A PROLETARIAN FEMINIST MOVEMENT.
We want to build new proletarian feminist fronts, groups or
collectives:
that will mobilize, in an openly anti-capitalist and class-oriented
perspective, women of all diverse origins, employed or unemployed, queer
and trans women, and any women activists committed to fighting against all the
specific oppressions, including gender, sexuality, and race;
that will develop through investigation and discussion, demands that meet
the specific needs of women in their communities;
that will fight through political action (demos, calls, rallies, actions of
all kinds) against any attack on women’s rights from a class perspective;
that will lead the struggle for proletarian feminism and its program for
women’s liberation into becoming an essential part of the general program of
revolutionary organizations fighting against capitalism and imperialism;
that will initiate events and actions this coming March 8, International
Women’s Day, or to mobilize in great numbers for planned activities in order to
make proletarian feminism in action as visible as possible!!!
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