Please read the short essay, or just click the answers to these simple questions. You may need to *enable popups.
1. Which Communists support the full emancipation of women?
a. All of them in theory and practice
c. All of them in theory, but not completely in practice
d. All Americans, but not completely in Europe and Asia
e. All of them after the women's liberation movement, but not before
2. What caused women's oppression?
a. It has always been the case
c. Unfortunate ideas of chivalry during the Romantic Period
d. Southern notions of femine vulnerability
3. When will women's oppression end?
a. Under socialism and when women have a full role in production of wealth
b. When women force men to re-evaluate
c. When women overcome men and rule
d. Never, because it is the natural state of relations between the genders
e. When men give up their notions of superiority
4. Which of these is not true?
a. Communists support maternity leave, equal pay for women, abortion on demand, and divorce on demand
b. Communists oppose prostitution, forcing women to work in unsafe jobs, and legal distinctions between "legitimate" and "illegitimate" children
c. Communists must begin immediately to practice free love and total promiscuity in our personal lives
d. Communists realize that women are essential to revolutionary struggle
e. Communists do not believe that democracy is attainable without the full emancipation of women
*If popups don't work when you click on the answers, you will probably get a yellow line across the top of your screen. Click on it and choose "temporarily enable popups."
|
Communists Fight for the Emancipation of Women
|
"The experience of all liberation movements has shown that the success of a revolution depends on how much the women take part in it."
--V.I. Lenin, Izvestia, Nov 20, 1918
Marx, Engels, Lenin, and all Communists stand for the complete emancipation of women. This may seem remarkable when one considers that American women, considered the most advanced of all the democratic nations, didn't even win the vote until 1920 and continue to lack full rights and equal pay even as this is written 92 years later.
Education Committee Chairperson Dee Miles wrote in 2002, "Male supremacy has many purposes: the main one being extra profits and the domination and control of women. We cannot claim to be steadfastly opposed to bourgeois ideology yet embrace and promote male supremacy in any form. We cannot claim the goal of freeing the working class without working to win to the side of the working class all of the forces who seek freedom as well. To begin the process of freeing humanity from exploitation and oppression is the task of socialism. Socialism can not be allowed to fail women. It will not work; it cannot be done; it will not last!"
Women were not always oppressed, and their oppression today has nothing to do with their physical differences. The historical roots of women's oppression were revealed in Engel's classic work, Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, which is summarized here in this school.
Engels explained that women were subjugated when private property began. Specifically, men who owned property wanted to be certain who were their heirs and thus invented monogamous marriage and the subjugation of women. Through the ages and today, women have been held to a strict standard of monogamy while men are allowed considerable leeway.
As women take a full role in the production of wealth, they free themselves from degradation and servitude. This has been true even under capitalism and is quite noticeable in the improvement of women's rights in America since World War II. But their full emancipation, like the general emancipation of all, awaits the end of capitalist rule.
While the women's movement resembles other movements, it has unique characteristics. For one, it is potentially the largest of all movements against a particular form of oppression. Unlike civil rights struggles, though, where most of the participants are working class, women activists may be of any class. This mixup of class interests, especially among women leaders, can lead to some confusion.
V.I. Lenin deals with specific questions related to women's emancipation in the pamphlet, "The Emancipation of Women" with "Lenin on the Woman Question" by Clara Zetkin/ Preface by Nadezhda K. Krupskayha. International Publishers, NY, 1966.
Two years after the Bolshevik revolution (11/22/19), Lenin said, "We in Russian no longer have the base, mean and infamous denial of rights to women or inequality of the sexes, that disgusting survival of feudalism and medievalism which is being renovated by the avaricious bourgeoisie... in every other country in the world without exception."
The program of Lenin's party stopped employers from using women in jobs that were injurious to their health. Full maternity leave, before and after birth, were mandated. Prostitution was forbidden. Lenin wrote, "...as long as wage slavery exists, prostitution must inevitably continue. Throughout the history of society all the oppressed and exploited classes have always been compoelled (their exploitation consists in this) to hand over to the oppressors, first, their unpaid labour and, secondly, their women to be the concubines of the 'masters'."
Women could divorce their husbands without impediment. Lenin objected to thinking of abortion as a method of population control, but affirmed support for "unconditional repeal of all laws against abortion or against the distribution of medical literature on contraceptive measures." He advocated better pay for women. Their right to vote was uncontestable. There were to be no legal distinction between "legitimate" and "illegitimate" children. He recommended that women serve in the militias that were to replace police and standing armies in the Soviet Union.
In the pamphlet, Lenin made it clear that he had no countercultural illusions about "free love," which he said was misunderstood by many. He objected to men and women who attempted to implement socialist ideas in their private lives instead of fighting for socialism for all.
Lenin's call for "Abolition of all restrictions without exception on the political rights of women compared with those of men" was a fundamental part of his overall revolutionary strategy. He said, "Unless women are brought to take an independent part not only in political life generally, but also in daily and universal public service, it is no use talking about full and stable democracy, let alone socialism."
Can one imagine a successful revolution that ignores the rights of half the population? Can one imagine that subjugated people will join a revolutionary struggle without being certain that it will result in their own emancipation?
If you have finished all the modules in the ABC section, you might look over the "Economics" section next.
Please let me know how to improve this module by filing out the form, or just send email