Weekly Worker 585 Thursday July 14 2005

Fighter for women’s rights?

Introducing Lindsey German to the meeting on ‘The history of women’s liberation’, the chair commended her for her writings and for her commitment to the “practical application of her politics”. Lindsey fights in the here and now for the emancipation of women.

In her talk comrade German focused mainly on the struggle for women’s rights prior to the 1960s and 1970s. She discussed the importance of the struggle for the vote and the struggle for women to have the right to be educated. So many of the things that we now take for granted are political rights won through militant struggle from below. She gave the example of suffragettes who died on hunger strike in Holloway prison and spoke of the degrading and despicable way in which women who wanted democratic rights were treated.

She also spoke of the change in the lives of women during World War II and their experiences in the workplace. Women began to have different expectations and resented being pushed back into the home in the aftermath of the war and told to behave like good little wives again. She concluded her talk by discussing some of the experiences of the women’s liberation movement and the struggle for abortion rights. The way in which attitudes had changed was all to do with the struggle to win those rights. But they could not be taken for granted and the struggle for women’s emancipation must go on.

Speaking from the floor, I agreed with Lindsey’s closing remarks. However, I put it to her that it had therefore been remiss of Respect, and her as a Respect candidate, not to enter into the debate on abortion rights during the general election campaign. I reminded the meeting of the storm that had broken out when Michael Howard had pledged to ban late-term abortions. The row that ensued dominated the press for almost a week. National religious leaders and other politicians had weighed in behind Howard and gave their fulsome support. Blair himself had expressed his personal opposition to abortion but, with the row gathering momentum, feared that it would be too controversial and damage his election campaign. He finally managed to intervene and get the question sidelined until after the general election.

With the controversy dominating the headlines, Respect launched its election campaign - but with a significant silence on this subject. George Galloway had previously made overtures to the Muslim Association of Britain on the basis that he is against abortion. Although Respect’s formal policy is ‘to defend the right to choose’, in practice so far it has not done so.

There was an angry response to my criticism. Ghada Razuki, who had been Lindsey’s campaign manager in Newham, leapt to her defence. She argued that Michael Howard had created a storm over many issues and it had got him nowhere. She condemned me for raising such questions and said that the things that divide us from muslims should now “fade into insignificance”. Indeed she went so far as to accuse me of “bordering on racism” - for what I was not sure. Still it was enough to win her a clap from loyal SWP members present and rally them behind her. Use of such slurs is unsurprising and shows, more than anything else, the brittleness of SWP politics.

She was backed up by another SWP member, Elaine Heffernan, who claimed that abortion rights had not been an issue in the Newham general election campaign! Very strange. Women in Newham are not concerned about any change in the abortion law? And didn’t Respect run a national election campaign? I do not know whether some SWP members were inwardly cringing hearing this, but I did see a number of comrades looking distinctly uneasy.

Interestingly Elaine then went on to bemoan the sex industry and the “so-called idea of choice” for women who work as lap dancers or porn models. A number of other SWP women speakers made similar, apparently rehearsed points. In her response German welcomed these contributions and regretted the continuing “objectification of women”. Fair enough, but little point complaining when you refuse practically to take an active stance in defending our basic right to control our own bodies - an issue that surely lies at the heart of the matter. Without such a clear stance anything else is just prudishness - and it just so happens that organisations like MAB will agree with the comrades on porn and lap dancing - but from a rather different perspective.

In her final remarks Lindsey showed herself unable to respond directly to my criticism. Instead she argued that late abortions were not a major issue, as so few women have them. She wondered why it was that Respect was being attacked when “we are the only party that defends a woman’s right to choose”. In effect the “practical application” of her politics on this question was shown to be non-existent. The claim that she is a fighter for women’s rights is, to say the least, up for debate l

Anne Mc Shane

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