[Anarchafeminists] Class , childcare and the Women’s Liberation Movement.

[butterflea at riseup.net]

Below is the text of a leaflet circulated today at the WLM at 40 conference
at Ruskin Colege, Oxford.
http://www.wlm40conference.org.uk/booking.html



Class, childcare and the Women’s Liberation Movement.


Anticapitalist feminists have written a letter to the organisers of the
wlm at 40 conference, raising concerns about the price of the event and the
lack of childcare at the conference.

According to the call for papers

“The aim of this conference is to create a space for debate about the
issues facing feminists today and celebration of feminist work. WLM at 40
will capture the energy, vibrancy and vision of the first [Women's
Liberation Movement conference held at Ruskin College in 1970], building
on the foundations that it laid. This conference will reflect on the
historical significance of the 1970 (and later) conferences, share
information and skills for contemporary feminist activism, create and
celebrate feminist art and look to the future of feminism(s). Speakers
will cut across boundaries of age, class, location and sexuality and
voices that were originally absent will now be heard.”


It is hard to imagine how a conference that is so prohibitively expensive
will cut across class boundaries.


To be working class often means that we do not have access to the funds to
do the things we would like to do and many things are put out of our
reach.

As women living under capitalism, all our work is undervalued and
underpaid and we receive no income for the work as carers we often do.
Many of us in the UK are dependent on paltry state benefits and those of
us who are in paid work are facing increasing strain on our already
stretched budgets.

The feminisation of poverty is something that we are all aware of, and
much grass roots feminist activism targets this fact.

Much of feminist activism is unpaid, we do it for free and in our spare
time, because we care about women and the conditions we face. The majority
of feminist groups, organisations and campaigns are underfunded, if funded
at all.

As feminists we recognise the oppressive and inherently exploitative
nature of capitalism, we feel its effects in our everyday lives, so we act
in solidarity with those around the world who experience the far worse
effects of the capitalist nightmare -- death, poverty, ecological
destruction, etc.

The past few years have seen an increase in feminist activism around the
UK, much of it anticapitalist, and it is only right that this should be
celebrated. The first conference 40 years ago was dynamic and historically
significant, and it would be great if this conference could build on this.
We need to rebuild the Women’s Liberation Movement in order to effect the
societal change we need. However, we cannot build a movement if only those
with the privilege of ready cash get to contribute. We should always be
about accessibility and inclusiveness, after all we are organising around
the very fact that patriarchal society is not inclusive of women, and
actively excludes people on the basis of gender, class, race, sexuality,
ability, age, etc.

The means must reflect the vision. How we organise must reflect the vision
of what we’re fighting for, anything less is counter-revolutionary. That
means that events must be accessible, affordable and always inclusive.


In relation to childcare at the wlm at 40 conference

The original conference had a free crèche that was organised by men. This
conference will have no childcare, but will instead offer parents or
carers a list of registered local childminders with whom they can place
their child, and presumably pay for this themselves.

One of the first four demands of the Women’s Liberation Movement, which,
ironically, were formulated at the first Ruskin conference in 1970, was
the demand for free 24 hour childcare, because feminists have always
recognised that many women have always been unfairly excluded from much of
mainstream life by their childcare and caring responsibilities. The demand
for decent, free childcare for all has always been one of the basics of
feminist activism. How can we demand this of society in general, if our
own events are lacking in decent free childcare?

Women who are parents and carers are often in underpaid work, or are
dependent on state benefits; the money we do have has to pay for our
families, and not just ourselves.


The price of this conference will rule it out for many working-class and
lower paid women, especially parents and carers, and the lack of free
childcare is a double insult.

Because of the way this conference has been organised, most of us are not
here, although we would very much like to be.

Will we be missed?

Radicalfeminists4wlmat40 at hotmail.co.uk