re: Class trumps gender?

["Tom O'Lincoln" <red_sites@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Nancy: What exactly are you saying here? That in >cases of workers' actions to 
>protect themselves from >the greed of the ruling elite, class trumps
>gender everytime? Of course class trumps gender in >the case of workers' 
>actions to defend themselves -- >the struggle was a workers' struggle in the 
>first >place.

Tom: This is a fair point. I've been dissatisfied for some time with the 
argument that "women are on both sides of the class struggle". It's true, of 
course. But then white workers can be on both sides of the black struggle, male 
workers on both sides of women's struggles and so on. And in fact workers are 
on both sides of the class struggle, because the bourgeoisie does not do its 
own scabbing -- it often uses the less conscious sections of the working class.

The argument needs another dimension. Which form of struggle has the potential 
to challenge capitalism? For the reasons Marx outlined I think it's class 
struggle. In summary: because workers have a strategic location at the point of 
production; because they can not only bring industry to a halt but can take it 
over and run it; because organised labour is capable of mobilising all the 
oppressed in the way no other group can.

Only if you accept this premise (as I do) does it follow that class "trumps 
gender".

>Viveka: My own observations about the workplace is >that lines are drawn first 
>along
>class, with, certainly, men getting the lion's share >within each sphere.  To
>focus one's efforts on increasing the proportion of >women withIN each sphere
>does little to move us forward toward a classless >society.

Nancy: Are you saying that in the workers' struggle, the addition of more women
would do little to move us forward toward a classless society? I disagree. More
women means more people, numerically, on the picket line. And more women means 
more
families in support of the strike in other ways -- economizing so as to live on
less as long as there is no income for the family, bringing sandwiches and 
coffee
to the picket lines, etc. It is obvious to me that a strike with women is 
stronger
than a strike without women.

Tom: Some good points again. My concern though is that both of you seem to see 
women as secondary to the class struggle (bringing sandwiches, yet). No, they 
are workers and fighters themselves, millions and milions of them. And in 
Indonesia, where I'm involved, they have emerged repeatedly as *rank and file 
leaders* of the labour movement.


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