Socialist school: ‘Feminism must be an integral theme of Left politics’

LAHORE:

Activist Sarah Suhail on Wednesday cautioned against essentialising male and female social roles. She said it was empirically flawed to argue that men were good at some tasks (like physical labour) and women at others (homemaking). “There is ample evidence to suggest that women can do all kinds of work,” she said. She said women’s ability to give birth to human life was the only (biological) difference between them and men. “It’s likely that scientific advancements in coming years will undo this,” she said.

Suhail was responding to a comment at a session, Marxist-Feminism, on the first day of a two-day political school arranged by the Awami Workers Party (AWP).

Earlier, moderator Aima Khosa had opened the session by highlighting a difference of opinion among women activists on whether or not to associate themselves with a political party. She said in her conversations with veteran activists she was frequently told that there was no women’s movement in the country currently was comparable to the one witnessed during the 1980s.

Suhail said the lack of a movement on issues concerning women should be understood in the context of the dominance of civil-military bureaucracy and its dislike for democratic forces. She said incidents of violence against women were not limited to sexual assault. “There is also everyday harassment in public spaces.”

Suhail said research suggested that capitalism and patriarchy were interdependent. “Male domination of females can be traced to the emergence of the institution of private property. Men dominate women because they control means of production,” she said. She said the modern-day family institution facilitated men in this allowing the emergence of a social division of labour between men and women.

Suhail went around the hall encouraging the audience to share their perspective on feminism. Aiman Bucha highlighted the need for feminists to understand personal privileges and constraints before forming an understanding of the (patriarchal and capitalist) society. She said there was a dearth of public space where one could openly talk about issues concerning gender.

There was consensus among the participants that it was incorrect to say that feminism was about women’s issues only. They said concerned a society’s attitude towards gender and thus concerned both men and women. “Feminism also recognises that sexual identity is not restricted to male and female subjectivity,” one of the participants said.

Awami Workers Party general secretary Farooq Tariq stressed the need to discourage suggestions that women were to blame for their sufferings. He said such excuses were raised by some men to perpetuate their dominance.

AWP finance secretary Shazia Khan said she had yet to see a conscious effort in the organised Left in Pakistan to identify feminism as an integral theme in politics. She said there was still a tendency to see women activists as fit to work only among women. She said she hoped that the discussion would lead towards a change in this regard.

Earlier, AWP senior vice president Khalid Mehmood spoke on the concept of historical material.

He said history could be best studied by viewing humans as agents of change in their capacity to engage in productive economic activities. “Material conditions of a certain time and space dictate these [productive economic] activities,” he said. He said such a viewpoint was opposed to assigning of agency only to a few men in positions of power.

The day started with an introduction to marxism by AWP general secretary Farooq Tariq. 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2015.