Over 800 women attended the Women's Liberation National Conference in Bristol last weekend. The size of this gathering and the level of debate both indicated the positive development of the movement in the present period. The conference focussed on some of the most important questions facing the movement at this point in time, and some of the most important debates were conducted within a generally Marxist framework.
The structure of the conference, however, placed some serious limitations on its political effectiveness. Each day was divided into one plenary and two workshop sessions, with a total of forty workshops on different topics. The workshops did not report back to the plenary sessions but simply duplicated and circulated their minutes to the whole conference.
This tended to fragment rather than unify the different experiences and plans that exist within the movement. For example, the campaigns that are taking place around racism, family allowances, and housing should be linked up. But this was something which the structure of the conference made very difficult.
CAMPAIGNS
The main need of the women's liberation movement at present is to develop campaigns which can unite those women who are already politically involved and forge links with other organisations actively engaged in the struggle against various aspects of capitalist oppression and exploitation. This is the way the movement will be able to reach more than just the most politically aware, and gain an audience among the mass of women.
Some of the activities in which the women's movement are currently engaged could have great potential - in particular, the Family Allowance Campaign. A weakness in the present conduct of the campaign, however, is the attempt to link it with the demand 'wages for housework.' This demand does not reach the root of the problems facing women who are trapped in the home.
There are three separate problems involved here: (1) the need to shift responsibility for providing the resources necessary for the care and upkeep of children from the individual parent or family on to the capitalist state; (2) the need to end the crushing burden of individualised housework on women; (3) the need to ensure some measure of financial independence for women.
Neither of the first two needs is adequately met by 'wages for housework.' The social responsibility for the care and upkeep of children is not just a matter of providing the necessary cash, but is one of actually carrying out the various tasks connected with child raising in a social fashion: demands such as subsidised, socialised child care facilities are the main ones in this respect. The same applies to the problem of housework. What is needed is not cash compensation to women for having to bear this burden, but steps to actually relieve them of the need to bear it at all; the need to establish subsidised and socialised facilities to take over as many as possible of the tasks presently making up 'housework.'
REAL QUESTION
The problem of financial independence is a real one. But the formula put forward by some, 'money is power,' confuses rather than illuminates the real question. Working women do not have 'power' simply by virtue of their separate income. The oppression of women is a feature of the capitalist system, and the only means of acquiring 'power' for the oppressed is through organisation in the fight against that system.
Financial dependence is not a problem limited to women: it is, for example, shared by all the victims of the welfare state - the old, the low paid, the unemployed. What is needed is not a demand that separates the problem of housewives off from other oppressed groups, but a set of demands around which all the victims of the 'social security' system can be brought together in the fight for financial independence. The demand for an end to all forms of discrimination against women in social security benefits would be central to this.
This is the type of problem which the movement has already started to debate. But what must be done now is to develop a clear perspective for the political activity of the movement. The 22 September conference of socialists in the women's liberation movement should turn the debate in this direction and start to solve these problems.