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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971
1971-03-12 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 8
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"the BASIC female truth, that women are oppressed and subjugated via the patrilinear family in a SEXUAL manner as economic SLAVES..." [hand drawing] Dear Sisters, Your issue of August 21, 1970 was sent to me here in England about last September. I read it with great interest and attention. I found it most congenial and enlightening. It does my heart good to know so many sisters are into this thing now. I have spent decades trying to think it through, having gone through hell without benefit of enlightenment, learning from errors and developing ideas under my own steam. I am now seriously considering expanding my ideas into a book with abundantly available documentation. I was brought up on and first came to the Woman Question (the name alone is enuf to put you off) on Engels' premise that the solution is to bring women back into public industry. Yes, yes. I nodded my full agreement and espoused The Cause - without ever really going into it deeply. I see that NOW; it came to me recently. After six years of living in Ghana, I have ow spent 3+ in England. Believe me, travel like this - living in various places - does wonders for your views of Reality. For instance, in England, there are unions which gladly campaign for Equal Pay for Equal Work, and employers who pretend to be - maybe ARE - willing to grant it. Will such a victory even TOUCH this "Woman Question"? Bull roar. Everything will be worse than before because the men could then say, "Whaddya yellin' fer? Ya GOT equal pat, aincha?" Without going into how I got there, I have arrived at the point where I see that the CORE of this Woman Question is that woman's MAIN FUNCTION IN SOCIETY is the production and reproduction of labour power FOR NO WAGES. This thing that Karl Marx said about the man's wages covering his own AND the family's subsistence covers up HOW the women is exploited. What is covered up is that women are in fact a CLASS of economic slaves producing the BASIC commodity of the system, labour power, as the chattels of individual MEN - whose names they bear in proof thereof. The METHOD by which this slavery is perpetuated is the patrilinear family, whether monogamous (which in reality it is NOT anywhere in the world, except perhaps legally) or polygamous. If this is so, then the focal point of ATTACK for women in busting up female slavery must be the patrilinear family, the individual care of children, etc. But, of course, it then comes out that if you do this under capitalism not even WOMEN will be with you except for a far-out minority, because women's slaver is the oldest in existence and the most accepted of any form of super-exploitation, including by its victims. So women must ALSO fight to overthrow the whole system of imperialism (WHAT capitalism? My word above is WRONG) which is BASED on the nuclear patrilinear family. This brings up the relations between Wome's Liberation and the rest of the Movement which is, as noted, very much in men's hands. But for women, the central contradiction is, unfortunately, the one that sets her at present against men. As males. Everything has to be worked out and the sisters are hard at it, groping, slicing, incising, wringing, twisting and punching. Good. It is all progress. NOW. If what I say above is true, then here is my comment on what you printed from "The Red Detachment of Women," who seem to me to be mouthing a lot of old whole-swallowed junk: "Women are oppressed at the point of production." Balls. Only those women are so oppressed who participate in production (about 90% of American women, at one time or another in their lives do participate in social production according to the US Labour statistics, so this sounds impressive). However, such participation is NOT women's MAIN oppression, but a secondary one: WHO when both partners in a marriage work stays home if the kid gets sick or the gas gets turned off, etc? So, during the main part of their lives when they are NOT at the point of production, are women still oppressed or not? And if so, how? I very much feel that the answer is: "sexually." But this subject was for a LONG time absolutely tabu in the Left. It still is in such places as China and Korea; it still is in the so-called orthodox Left. None of them like you to mention sex. You will be condemned as "petite bourgeoise," accused of dragging in "inconsequential" issues, and of changing the subject from what THEY say is the MAIN oppression of women, namely the economic. Nonetheless, proof exists that they are quite wrong. For, when they made socialism in Russia, in China and Korea, etc., they formally made women equal to men by law; gave them equal pay for equal work, etc. Yet women are still oppressed in those countries. In an unexpected burst of candour, the Second Secretary of the North Korean Embassy in Accra, Ghana, told me one day in 1965 that, though his country had liberated itself, WOMEN were still oppressed there because, he said, they still had to carry almost the sole burden for the household. Later, this was glossed over in more formal discussions, which went on quite fruitlessly - with the MALES of this advanced little Asian country. The second thing I want to comment on is the reprint of Ellen Willis' excellent and thought-provoking article on women and consumerism...(She says) "For women, buying and wearing clothes and beauty aids is not so much consumption as work." What interests me is the sentence that reads, "Similarly, buying food and household furnishings is a domestic task; it is the wife's chore to pick out the commodities that will be consumed by the whole family." This is true, but I think we have to stress, bang, holler, its central MEANING. WHY is it "the wife's chore" to do precisely THESE things regarding precisely consumerism? Because this is THE focal point of the "wife's" existence; this is HOW she goes about producing labour power. It may be her chore to spend the money, but - as Ellen Willis notes - the DECISIONS regarding the spending of the husband's money (for that is what it is) rest with HIM. And that is because she performs her function of producing labour power in the patrilinear nucleus called "the home" as a SLAVE owned by the husband, whose name proclaims his ownership to the world. The big point here is this: it is NOT clarifying to keep mouthing the phrase "Women are oppressed at the point of production" except as a prelude to demolishing it with facts, because it is a partial truth unrelated to the BASIC female truth, that women are oppressed and subjugated via the patrilinear family in a SEXUAL manner as economic SLAVES, and that this is their MAIN, not a secondary, occupation in the imperialist system. It is a KEY function within that system, for if ever that function could be massively disrupted, it would in turn massively disrupt the system. But women could ALL go out on strike from their jobs in industry and absolutely nothing would happen to the system except to alienate a few more women from each other and a few more men from us. Perhaps nobody will agree with me. But ever since I fought my way through to these points, everything about women's position in this society has made sense and been explicable. I want to share these ideas with as many women as possible, because every bit of self-knowledge is a step in the direction of ultimate, far-off Freedom for us. If we don't understand that we are literal slaves, we will have illusions about what constitutes freedom or how to attain same. If we don't see WHY we are slaves, namely to produce the commodity labour power for the ruling imperialist class at no expense to them - we won't know what freedom IS when we come to struggle for it. I'll be interested in your comments. Yours in sisterhood, Hodee [hand drawing] Flat 26 Gerard Gardens Rainham Essex RM13 8HX England ...He seems to be sure that it is his view that is the right one: our vagaries, deviations. And if his view is the right one. God knows there is nothing to live for: not a greasy biscuit. And the egotism of men surprises and shocks me even now. Is there a woman of my acquaintance who could sit in my armchair from 3 to 6:30 without the semblance of a suspicion that I may be busy, or tired, or bored; and so sitting could talk, grumbling and grudging, of her difficulties, worries; then eat chocolates, then read a book, and go at last, apparently self-complacent and wrapped in a kind of blubber of misty self-salutation? Not the girls at Newham or Girton. They are far too spry; far too disciplined. None of that self confidence is their lot. Virginia Woolf 8 Vol. 1 No. 13 Ain't I
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"the BASIC female truth, that women are oppressed and subjugated via the patrilinear family in a SEXUAL manner as economic SLAVES..." [hand drawing] Dear Sisters, Your issue of August 21, 1970 was sent to me here in England about last September. I read it with great interest and attention. I found it most congenial and enlightening. It does my heart good to know so many sisters are into this thing now. I have spent decades trying to think it through, having gone through hell without benefit of enlightenment, learning from errors and developing ideas under my own steam. I am now seriously considering expanding my ideas into a book with abundantly available documentation. I was brought up on and first came to the Woman Question (the name alone is enuf to put you off) on Engels' premise that the solution is to bring women back into public industry. Yes, yes. I nodded my full agreement and espoused The Cause - without ever really going into it deeply. I see that NOW; it came to me recently. After six years of living in Ghana, I have ow spent 3+ in England. Believe me, travel like this - living in various places - does wonders for your views of Reality. For instance, in England, there are unions which gladly campaign for Equal Pay for Equal Work, and employers who pretend to be - maybe ARE - willing to grant it. Will such a victory even TOUCH this "Woman Question"? Bull roar. Everything will be worse than before because the men could then say, "Whaddya yellin' fer? Ya GOT equal pat, aincha?" Without going into how I got there, I have arrived at the point where I see that the CORE of this Woman Question is that woman's MAIN FUNCTION IN SOCIETY is the production and reproduction of labour power FOR NO WAGES. This thing that Karl Marx said about the man's wages covering his own AND the family's subsistence covers up HOW the women is exploited. What is covered up is that women are in fact a CLASS of economic slaves producing the BASIC commodity of the system, labour power, as the chattels of individual MEN - whose names they bear in proof thereof. The METHOD by which this slavery is perpetuated is the patrilinear family, whether monogamous (which in reality it is NOT anywhere in the world, except perhaps legally) or polygamous. If this is so, then the focal point of ATTACK for women in busting up female slavery must be the patrilinear family, the individual care of children, etc. But, of course, it then comes out that if you do this under capitalism not even WOMEN will be with you except for a far-out minority, because women's slaver is the oldest in existence and the most accepted of any form of super-exploitation, including by its victims. So women must ALSO fight to overthrow the whole system of imperialism (WHAT capitalism? My word above is WRONG) which is BASED on the nuclear patrilinear family. This brings up the relations between Wome's Liberation and the rest of the Movement which is, as noted, very much in men's hands. But for women, the central contradiction is, unfortunately, the one that sets her at present against men. As males. Everything has to be worked out and the sisters are hard at it, groping, slicing, incising, wringing, twisting and punching. Good. It is all progress. NOW. If what I say above is true, then here is my comment on what you printed from "The Red Detachment of Women," who seem to me to be mouthing a lot of old whole-swallowed junk: "Women are oppressed at the point of production." Balls. Only those women are so oppressed who participate in production (about 90% of American women, at one time or another in their lives do participate in social production according to the US Labour statistics, so this sounds impressive). However, such participation is NOT women's MAIN oppression, but a secondary one: WHO when both partners in a marriage work stays home if the kid gets sick or the gas gets turned off, etc? So, during the main part of their lives when they are NOT at the point of production, are women still oppressed or not? And if so, how? I very much feel that the answer is: "sexually." But this subject was for a LONG time absolutely tabu in the Left. It still is in such places as China and Korea; it still is in the so-called orthodox Left. None of them like you to mention sex. You will be condemned as "petite bourgeoise," accused of dragging in "inconsequential" issues, and of changing the subject from what THEY say is the MAIN oppression of women, namely the economic. Nonetheless, proof exists that they are quite wrong. For, when they made socialism in Russia, in China and Korea, etc., they formally made women equal to men by law; gave them equal pay for equal work, etc. Yet women are still oppressed in those countries. In an unexpected burst of candour, the Second Secretary of the North Korean Embassy in Accra, Ghana, told me one day in 1965 that, though his country had liberated itself, WOMEN were still oppressed there because, he said, they still had to carry almost the sole burden for the household. Later, this was glossed over in more formal discussions, which went on quite fruitlessly - with the MALES of this advanced little Asian country. The second thing I want to comment on is the reprint of Ellen Willis' excellent and thought-provoking article on women and consumerism...(She says) "For women, buying and wearing clothes and beauty aids is not so much consumption as work." What interests me is the sentence that reads, "Similarly, buying food and household furnishings is a domestic task; it is the wife's chore to pick out the commodities that will be consumed by the whole family." This is true, but I think we have to stress, bang, holler, its central MEANING. WHY is it "the wife's chore" to do precisely THESE things regarding precisely consumerism? Because this is THE focal point of the "wife's" existence; this is HOW she goes about producing labour power. It may be her chore to spend the money, but - as Ellen Willis notes - the DECISIONS regarding the spending of the husband's money (for that is what it is) rest with HIM. And that is because she performs her function of producing labour power in the patrilinear nucleus called "the home" as a SLAVE owned by the husband, whose name proclaims his ownership to the world. The big point here is this: it is NOT clarifying to keep mouthing the phrase "Women are oppressed at the point of production" except as a prelude to demolishing it with facts, because it is a partial truth unrelated to the BASIC female truth, that women are oppressed and subjugated via the patrilinear family in a SEXUAL manner as economic SLAVES, and that this is their MAIN, not a secondary, occupation in the imperialist system. It is a KEY function within that system, for if ever that function could be massively disrupted, it would in turn massively disrupt the system. But women could ALL go out on strike from their jobs in industry and absolutely nothing would happen to the system except to alienate a few more women from each other and a few more men from us. Perhaps nobody will agree with me. But ever since I fought my way through to these points, everything about women's position in this society has made sense and been explicable. I want to share these ideas with as many women as possible, because every bit of self-knowledge is a step in the direction of ultimate, far-off Freedom for us. If we don't understand that we are literal slaves, we will have illusions about what constitutes freedom or how to attain same. If we don't see WHY we are slaves, namely to produce the commodity labour power for the ruling imperialist class at no expense to them - we won't know what freedom IS when we come to struggle for it. I'll be interested in your comments. Yours in sisterhood, Hodee [hand drawing] Flat 26 Gerard Gardens Rainham Essex RM13 8HX England ...He seems to be sure that it is his view that is the right one: our vagaries, deviations. And if his view is the right one. God knows there is nothing to live for: not a greasy biscuit. And the egotism of men surprises and shocks me even now. Is there a woman of my acquaintance who could sit in my armchair from 3 to 6:30 without the semblance of a suspicion that I may be busy, or tired, or bored; and so sitting could talk, grumbling and grudging, of her difficulties, worries; then eat chocolates, then read a book, and go at last, apparently self-complacent and wrapped in a kind of blubber of misty self-salutation? Not the girls at Newham or Girton. They are far too spry; far too disciplined. None of that self confidence is their lot. Virginia Woolf 8 Vol. 1 No. 13 Ain't I
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