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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971
1970-09-11 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 2
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We Demand Any discussion of why we make non-cooptable demands must begin with a description of the system in which those demands are made. In the Amerikan corporate-capitalist system, the only important motivation behind the institutions of business and government is profit. If you look behind anything that business or government does, you will find that profit is the reason it was done, and profit is seen as the engine of progress in a capitalist society. You can't tell the difference between business and government because they are run by the same people (men who move from defense contractors to senators or Secretaries of Defense-continued interchanging directors of business and government), for the same ends-- increasing profits. Little ditties appear on the news all the time about how General Motors knows that to put less metal in the bodies of cars endangers life, but they can't endanger their profits. Talk of the social responsibility of of business is a sham. To get what we need in this society we must have money, and to get money we must make a profit off the sale of our labor or by controlling the labor stolen from others. It doesn't matter what gets in the way of profit-making. We know that we cannot exist in this society without money and we do what we can to get it. This kind of behavior on the individual level is necessary when a whole society works this way. When the powerful institutions of society are profit-motivated, the needs of the people fall by the wayside. Big business (and big organizations, big professions) is the pillar of this country and serves the interest of a small number of families - those who inherit wealth and positions and their hired managers who manipulate economic policies resulting in depressions, unemployment, inflation or whatever is needed to prop up the profits of the 200 large corporations. Economic disasters for average people - like recessions and unemployment -- aren't unplanned as big businesses and government would have you believe-- they are planned by people with a class interest. It's socialism for the rich and capitalist competition for the poor in America. The corporate capitalist system is also based on competition. We do not see competition as the means to meeting the basic needs of all people. Cooperation is the only road we can take to assure all people of decent lives. In this system, however, there cannot be enough necessities for all people because there is more profit in providing luxuries and non-necessities for the rich (and for the poor). The nuclear family is an important part of economic society, not something that has and always will exist. Its form has been determined by the changes in economic society to a large degree. The economy depends on competition between nuclear families and it depends on the markets that such privatization creates. The nuclear family also serves to keep women out of an over-crowded job market, or at the bottom of it. It keeps them in a servile position in that labor within the home isn't recognized as useful production (in fact, it amounts to the man's boss procuring the labor of two people for the price of one). Because the little power one has in this society derives from the money obtained from selling one's labor, women are kept down as an oppressed group by the nuclear family which keeps them from social production. Women have to be sold on the beauties of privatization and the concomitant need for more and more goods, and on the function of the husband to provide them. Co-optation is the attempt of the system to appease angry people with reform it has the ability to make. It isn't that these reforms are bad, but that they are irrelevant to the struggle to free all women. Given that the system in an inhumane profit oriented one which metes out material well-being unequally and only to those who are competitors, the government can not grant equality and justice, and this is what we're asking for. It is the nature of power that no one who has it gives it up voluntarily. The reforms the system makes in answer to demands made upon it, are things that can be given without causing a change or disruption within its structure. But without a redistribution of power the inherent injustice and inhumanity as its basic moving force can not meet a demand humanely. Demands that are not formulated so that if met, the needs of all women would be fulfilled, will be turned against us by men in power to increase divisions between women along class and race lines. For instance, the demand for equal job opportunity applies to only those women who are privileged enough to be able to compete in the job market for bearable jobs. Unless we demand the socialization of housework as well, we are being turned against our poorer sister who would be the natural maids in such a system. Being able to compete equally for the dirtiest jobs doesn't alleviate the situation of poor women. Enforced poverty is the problem and only a restructuring of society will relieve it. We for once want a solidarity between all women. We have been kept isolated and apart from each other in the economic classes of our men. Depending on which class we have been in as the possession of men in that class, we have been subjected to the unequal advantages or suffering of that class and turned against each other as pawns in the competitive games staged by a male supremist, profit oriented system. And racism too has been used to divide us - to blind us to our mutual womanhoood. For once we refuse to be bought off with advantages at the expense of our sisters. We must free all our sisters to free ourselves to be more than commodities owned and controlled by classes of men. If we are serious in our commitment to build a society that meets the needs of all people, then we must be careful to set our goals high and formulate the demands of our movement in revolutionary terms so that we will not be co-opted by accepting reforms which can only help the lives of women who already have the privilege of an acceptable skin color and an acceptable pocket book. Everytime there is a strike against institutions like Universities or churches and the people make demands on them, there are always some who point out that these institutions have no power to meet demands such as stopping the Vietnamese War, racism, or sexism. Nor do they have the inclination or money to provide free education for all people, free 24 hour day care and free medical care. They couldn't meet any of these demands without a radical change in the structure and in the structure of the country. We demand day care and medical care, adequate annual incomes, and education because that is the minimum people need to live, but we know it will take a revolution before people get what they need out of this country. If we believe that capitalism is inherently exploitative and that anything short of abolishing that economic system entirely will still leave some people oppressed, then we will be careful to formulate our demands in a non-cooptable way --that is so that we will not think they have been met by just a reform of the system. For instance, the demand for abortion for women is stated two different ways by women's liberation groups. The political consciousness behind the demand is reflected by the way it is formulated. Groups that demand the legalizing of abortion without demanding that it be free do not have in mind the needs of the last first. They also don't have their eyes open. Several states have legalized abortion, but its cost still prevents millions of women from obtaining them. The system has met the demand in a reformist way, but the solution did not solve the problem for all women. The liberal statement of the abortion demand also naively assumes that it will be administered justly by an inhumane government. There is no concern over the genocidal possibilities of legalized abortion: that just as Puerto Rican women were used like guinea pigs for testing the pill, abortion may be used to control the growth of the third world within this country. In formulating our demands we must keep in mind that women--all women have been denied power and control over their lives and that is what is needed. We do not ask to merely be granted the availability of certain medical services but we ask that we have control and decision making power over what those services will be. We feel that the importance of our demands lies not in the ability of the present system to grant or not grant them but in the content of those demands. For if our demands are for things which have advantages due to economic class or race, they will communicate to all women that those of us involved in the women's liberation movement are serious in our desire to liberate all women. And they will hopefully communicate to many women the fact that their needs are not being met within the present system. Most important, the making of demands is a way for us to begin to envision the society we want--the kind of real changes that will be worth the struggle because they will free all women. We begin thus to define the work that must be done before and after a revolution to establish conditions within which all people can live decently. We also begin to define the commitment we must make, the demands on our own time and energy to bring about the liberation of all women. 1. WE DEMAND THAT A SYSTEM OF DAY CARE CENTERS BE ESTABLISHED. 2. WE DEMAND THAT FREE ADEQUATE HEALTH CARE BE AVAILABLE FOR ALL PEOPLE. 3. WE DEMAND THAT WOMEN BE GIVEN FREE SELF-DEFENSE AND PHYSICAL TRAINING. 4. WE DEMAND THAT WOMEN RECEIVE EQUAL PAY, EQUAL WORK AND EQUALITY IN THE JOB MARKET. 5. WE DEMAND THAT EVERY INDIVIDUAL IN THIS SOCIETY RECEIVE A GUARANTEED ADEQUATE INCOME. 6. WE DEMAND AN IMMEDIATE END TO THE SEXISM WHICH PERMEATES OUR CULTURAL MEDIA. 7. WE DEMAND AN END TO TRACKING IN THE SCHOOLS AND THE IMMEDIATE ESTABLISHMENT OF FREE AND RELEVANT EDUCATION. 8. WE DEMAND AN END TO THE DEFINITION OF INDIVIDUALS IN TERMS OF THEIR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS. 9. WE DEMAND AN END TO THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT. 10. WE DEMAND AN END TO THE DISCRIMINATION AGAINST OUR LESBIAN SISTERS. 11. WE DEMAND THE RIGHT OF SELF-DETERMINATION FOR ALL PEOPLE. WORKSHOPS Saturday Sept 12 & Sept 19 10:30 am & 1:30 pm Wesley House 120 N Dubuque Why Womens Liberation? Love & Marriage Lesbian Consciousness This poem on the cover is by Roxanne Dunbar and reprinted from Issue Three of No More Fun And Games. 2 Vol. 1, No. 5 AIN'T I
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We Demand Any discussion of why we make non-cooptable demands must begin with a description of the system in which those demands are made. In the Amerikan corporate-capitalist system, the only important motivation behind the institutions of business and government is profit. If you look behind anything that business or government does, you will find that profit is the reason it was done, and profit is seen as the engine of progress in a capitalist society. You can't tell the difference between business and government because they are run by the same people (men who move from defense contractors to senators or Secretaries of Defense-continued interchanging directors of business and government), for the same ends-- increasing profits. Little ditties appear on the news all the time about how General Motors knows that to put less metal in the bodies of cars endangers life, but they can't endanger their profits. Talk of the social responsibility of of business is a sham. To get what we need in this society we must have money, and to get money we must make a profit off the sale of our labor or by controlling the labor stolen from others. It doesn't matter what gets in the way of profit-making. We know that we cannot exist in this society without money and we do what we can to get it. This kind of behavior on the individual level is necessary when a whole society works this way. When the powerful institutions of society are profit-motivated, the needs of the people fall by the wayside. Big business (and big organizations, big professions) is the pillar of this country and serves the interest of a small number of families - those who inherit wealth and positions and their hired managers who manipulate economic policies resulting in depressions, unemployment, inflation or whatever is needed to prop up the profits of the 200 large corporations. Economic disasters for average people - like recessions and unemployment -- aren't unplanned as big businesses and government would have you believe-- they are planned by people with a class interest. It's socialism for the rich and capitalist competition for the poor in America. The corporate capitalist system is also based on competition. We do not see competition as the means to meeting the basic needs of all people. Cooperation is the only road we can take to assure all people of decent lives. In this system, however, there cannot be enough necessities for all people because there is more profit in providing luxuries and non-necessities for the rich (and for the poor). The nuclear family is an important part of economic society, not something that has and always will exist. Its form has been determined by the changes in economic society to a large degree. The economy depends on competition between nuclear families and it depends on the markets that such privatization creates. The nuclear family also serves to keep women out of an over-crowded job market, or at the bottom of it. It keeps them in a servile position in that labor within the home isn't recognized as useful production (in fact, it amounts to the man's boss procuring the labor of two people for the price of one). Because the little power one has in this society derives from the money obtained from selling one's labor, women are kept down as an oppressed group by the nuclear family which keeps them from social production. Women have to be sold on the beauties of privatization and the concomitant need for more and more goods, and on the function of the husband to provide them. Co-optation is the attempt of the system to appease angry people with reform it has the ability to make. It isn't that these reforms are bad, but that they are irrelevant to the struggle to free all women. Given that the system in an inhumane profit oriented one which metes out material well-being unequally and only to those who are competitors, the government can not grant equality and justice, and this is what we're asking for. It is the nature of power that no one who has it gives it up voluntarily. The reforms the system makes in answer to demands made upon it, are things that can be given without causing a change or disruption within its structure. But without a redistribution of power the inherent injustice and inhumanity as its basic moving force can not meet a demand humanely. Demands that are not formulated so that if met, the needs of all women would be fulfilled, will be turned against us by men in power to increase divisions between women along class and race lines. For instance, the demand for equal job opportunity applies to only those women who are privileged enough to be able to compete in the job market for bearable jobs. Unless we demand the socialization of housework as well, we are being turned against our poorer sister who would be the natural maids in such a system. Being able to compete equally for the dirtiest jobs doesn't alleviate the situation of poor women. Enforced poverty is the problem and only a restructuring of society will relieve it. We for once want a solidarity between all women. We have been kept isolated and apart from each other in the economic classes of our men. Depending on which class we have been in as the possession of men in that class, we have been subjected to the unequal advantages or suffering of that class and turned against each other as pawns in the competitive games staged by a male supremist, profit oriented system. And racism too has been used to divide us - to blind us to our mutual womanhoood. For once we refuse to be bought off with advantages at the expense of our sisters. We must free all our sisters to free ourselves to be more than commodities owned and controlled by classes of men. If we are serious in our commitment to build a society that meets the needs of all people, then we must be careful to set our goals high and formulate the demands of our movement in revolutionary terms so that we will not be co-opted by accepting reforms which can only help the lives of women who already have the privilege of an acceptable skin color and an acceptable pocket book. Everytime there is a strike against institutions like Universities or churches and the people make demands on them, there are always some who point out that these institutions have no power to meet demands such as stopping the Vietnamese War, racism, or sexism. Nor do they have the inclination or money to provide free education for all people, free 24 hour day care and free medical care. They couldn't meet any of these demands without a radical change in the structure and in the structure of the country. We demand day care and medical care, adequate annual incomes, and education because that is the minimum people need to live, but we know it will take a revolution before people get what they need out of this country. If we believe that capitalism is inherently exploitative and that anything short of abolishing that economic system entirely will still leave some people oppressed, then we will be careful to formulate our demands in a non-cooptable way --that is so that we will not think they have been met by just a reform of the system. For instance, the demand for abortion for women is stated two different ways by women's liberation groups. The political consciousness behind the demand is reflected by the way it is formulated. Groups that demand the legalizing of abortion without demanding that it be free do not have in mind the needs of the last first. They also don't have their eyes open. Several states have legalized abortion, but its cost still prevents millions of women from obtaining them. The system has met the demand in a reformist way, but the solution did not solve the problem for all women. The liberal statement of the abortion demand also naively assumes that it will be administered justly by an inhumane government. There is no concern over the genocidal possibilities of legalized abortion: that just as Puerto Rican women were used like guinea pigs for testing the pill, abortion may be used to control the growth of the third world within this country. In formulating our demands we must keep in mind that women--all women have been denied power and control over their lives and that is what is needed. We do not ask to merely be granted the availability of certain medical services but we ask that we have control and decision making power over what those services will be. We feel that the importance of our demands lies not in the ability of the present system to grant or not grant them but in the content of those demands. For if our demands are for things which have advantages due to economic class or race, they will communicate to all women that those of us involved in the women's liberation movement are serious in our desire to liberate all women. And they will hopefully communicate to many women the fact that their needs are not being met within the present system. Most important, the making of demands is a way for us to begin to envision the society we want--the kind of real changes that will be worth the struggle because they will free all women. We begin thus to define the work that must be done before and after a revolution to establish conditions within which all people can live decently. We also begin to define the commitment we must make, the demands on our own time and energy to bring about the liberation of all women. 1. WE DEMAND THAT A SYSTEM OF DAY CARE CENTERS BE ESTABLISHED. 2. WE DEMAND THAT FREE ADEQUATE HEALTH CARE BE AVAILABLE FOR ALL PEOPLE. 3. WE DEMAND THAT WOMEN BE GIVEN FREE SELF-DEFENSE AND PHYSICAL TRAINING. 4. WE DEMAND THAT WOMEN RECEIVE EQUAL PAY, EQUAL WORK AND EQUALITY IN THE JOB MARKET. 5. WE DEMAND THAT EVERY INDIVIDUAL IN THIS SOCIETY RECEIVE A GUARANTEED ADEQUATE INCOME. 6. WE DEMAND AN IMMEDIATE END TO THE SEXISM WHICH PERMEATES OUR CULTURAL MEDIA. 7. WE DEMAND AN END TO TRACKING IN THE SCHOOLS AND THE IMMEDIATE ESTABLISHMENT OF FREE AND RELEVANT EDUCATION. 8. WE DEMAND AN END TO THE DEFINITION OF INDIVIDUALS IN TERMS OF THEIR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS. 9. WE DEMAND AN END TO THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT. 10. WE DEMAND AN END TO THE DISCRIMINATION AGAINST OUR LESBIAN SISTERS. 11. WE DEMAND THE RIGHT OF SELF-DETERMINATION FOR ALL PEOPLE. WORKSHOPS Saturday Sept 12 & Sept 19 10:30 am & 1:30 pm Wesley House 120 N Dubuque Why Womens Liberation? Love & Marriage Lesbian Consciousness This poem on the cover is by Roxanne Dunbar and reprinted from Issue Three of No More Fun And Games. 2 Vol. 1, No. 5 AIN'T I
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