Crisis / Pandemic
We unleash the fury of women!
Assembly of women / workers
About 70 women, workers, precarious, youth from various working realities, from North to South, even from abroad, took part in the online meeting on "crisis/pandemic: unleash the fury of women" on September 17, from 16.00 to 20.30. Most of them participated from home via internet, but many also in presence, from some cities like Taranto and Palermo, from workplaces, even while they were holding a rally in front the factory, such as the workers women in Bergamo.
Almost half of them spoke, the vast majority directly, others, being at work, had sent written messages, recordings. Only the shortage of time - we had to restrict so that we “started and concluded” the meeting all together as much as possible - did not allow many others to speak.
The online meeting, promoted by the comrades of the MFPR and the workers of the Slai Cobas for the Class Union, was good, different, against any return to "normality".
"Beautiful, exciting, with the fighting spirit of women workers” “A meeting that allowed us to know each other and begin to connect, unite", are the most common remarks. A success by no means taken for granted in terms of participation and speeches.
It was the first national-wide meeting after many months of lock-down, but above all the first national
meeting of proletarian women, most of them in struggle (even during the pandemic emergency).The main and different characteristic of the meeting was that above all the workers, precarious women of various sectors, took it into their hands. Since a long time it was not seen a women's national meeting in which most of the speeches were by workers. Usually - see the NUDM's [TN: not one less] meetings - the petty and even middle bourgeois feminists are those who manage and determine them, giving their class imprint.
The meeting succeeded to give voice to the majority of the working realities, often still in struggle: the super-exploited and life-threatened women working in health care system - from the city symbol of the criminal transformation of the pandemic into a massacre, Milan, from Lazio, etc.; the women from the city of the caravans of hundreds coffins, Bergamo, strong and determined immigrant workers as well as the workers of the metalworking factories; the precarious women workers from the South: the workers of the assistance services in the schools in Palermo, the workers of the kindergartens in Taranto, in permanent struggle, as well as women for whom the lock-down also meant to lose the poor work and wage they had; the immigrant women laborers represented by Campagne in Lotta [TN: Countrysides in Struggle], the workers of the agricultural warehouses, both Italian and immigrants, both super-exploited; the women cleaning workers, of canteens, hotels, from South to North; the women workers in the mass distribution in L'Aquila, who continued working in the superstores at their own risk; the women working in post offices, teachers, school staff who have seen firsthand what the smart working really is; the account from London of young women students who had gone abroad to find a job and have lost everything.
Many speeches, especially by health workers, have well represented the difficult and double reality of women: working, leaving children at home, etc. Speeches, contributions came from female representatives of Si.cobas [TN: another non-mainstream union].
A comrade artist who lives in Great Britain reported the life of women under the lock-down in other countries, she also pointed out the need not to delegate communication to bourgeois media, but to organize alternative channels serving the struggles.
The thousands of women from the countries oppressed by imperialism and capitalism working for the luxury TNCs, particularly in the textile factories, were remembered, those who in the midst of the pandemic went on huge strikes, massive protests, from Bangladesh to Pakistan, to India.
A speech particularly referred to the increase femicides during the lock-down - many women risked or lost their lives and not because of the Covid19 but locked up at home with their murderer - and the actual fascist character of violence, rapes on women in these days.
During the meeting, political contributions from women members revolutionary groups and the speeches by the MFPR intertwined. It was important because they brought a broader view by talking about all aspects of women's life, analyzing the pandemic as a product of the capitalist mode of production, condemning the work-family reconciliation policies (from the use of smart working to housewives bonuses) and, therefore, put the need for the general revolutionary struggle of women to overthrow this system. We want to go to the roots of the condition of subordination of women - said the MFPR - and take up again Engels, in occasion of his 200th anniversary, his analysis of the the family, private property, the State, relevant today more than ever.
With a unitary but sharp spirit, the meeting set clear points and gave a perspective.
A delimitation point, first of all in terms of class, put by several speeches and in the conclusions, was the condemning the "desertion" by NUDM, just when women most needed to make their voice heard loud, the protest for the hard conditions both in their life and jobs during the pandemic emergency. Petty bourgeois feminism has accepted to "stay at home", to protect itself, becoming in fact a travel companion of the government measures, unable to speak to common women, who instead can and must be an active, collective part of the emergency solutions of solidarity/mutual aid (and there have been small but significant experiences of this); it has in fact accepted - like all the base unions, except the Slai cobas for the Class Union- the first open attack on the right to strike, in the name of the pandemic crisis.
The proletarian women - it has been said - must not stay at the tail of petty bourgeois feminism, but establish their own platform, line, organization and lead the necessary struggles for the majority of women.
Women cannot return to "normality" nor to "ritual" mobilizations.
For this reason in the conclusions it has been said that female workers, proletarian feminism, must take back in their hands the women's strike, which has to be a real struggle, a block of productive and reproductive work, starting from the jobs, against masters, government, State, so that women become "dangerous". The strike as a form of defense and attack against all the attacks on our lives.
So we must free the women’s strike of from any "normality", routine. The strike must start first of all from support for ongoing struggles, from their extension, from the unity/connection of struggles, from the generalization of exemplary struggles. Following this path we will organize a new women’s strike.
Furthermore, a strong repression is underway against the struggles of female workers - comrades have appealed to support the forthcoming initiatives against the repression of struggles and violence on women. Here too - it has been said - we must make unity and solidarity practical, establishing a "principle": all struggles must be supported, all repressive attacks, trials against the struggles and female workers must find equal mobilization and support and, where possible, actions.
Another important point in the conclusions was the announcement of the platform of women workers, updated in the light of the crisis/pandemic, to submit for discussion. This platform, the result of struggles and direct inquiries, must be specified, we have to decided which objectives today are the most urgent and necessary, which are more possible to be won where women are active; which are the most important for the different jobs and realities of women.
We support all the demands that aim to defend women against attacks on their working and living conditions and help the general struggle against masters, government, state and the men who hate women. We must build solidarity among women, so that no one is alone or locked in the house, usher already today those collective, social solutions that allude to a new humanity, a socialist society in which women too have proletarian power in their hands.
Our goal, however, is not to fight to improve this pandemic capitalist social system, or to get spaces and privileges like the women of the bourgeoisie, but to abolish of this class system of double exploitation and oppression of women.
We set a date for a new meeting (either face-to-face or online, according to the conditions and the concrete opportunities for the participation of the women), approximately for November 3.
In the next meeting we will discuss/adopt the platform and decide which battles are the most important and urgent today. But above all we want to continue, develop, the unity, knowledge, connection between proletarian women and their struggles we begun with this assembly and take concrete steps for the unity of the struggles. It is this what encouraged and gave confidence to whom have participated. At the same time, we will advance in the understanding that the condition of women requires that all life change, all society change, and in turn it requires the autonomous organization of proletarian and revolutionary women, in the feminist movement as well as in the base unions, the revolutionary organizations, etc.
The meeting, opened with some historical and modern songs of the women’s movement, ended with a strong salute “honor to the Turkish comrades who died in prisons and all political prisoners in the world” and listening the moving version of “Bella ciao” played by the Turkish revolutionary musicians of Yorum group.
Movimento Femminista Proletario Rivoluzionario – Italia
1.10.20
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