Equal Fights
Carolyn Leckie MSP speaks to Bridget Morris
In an astonishing broadside at women in the SSP, Tommy Sheridan last week
compared the party to a `gender-obsessed discussion group' but, for party
member Carolyn Leckie, gender is at the very heart of everything.
GROWING up in a Gorbals council house, I was always politically aware. My
mother, as well as raising four children, was a machinist. My father, a shop
steward at Weirs, was also involved in the Orange Order and president of the
Rangers Supporters Club. An ardent Rangers fan, I'd argued with him for ages
about the fact women weren't allowed on the supporters' bus. When the 1975 Sex
Discrimination Act went through, I took a stand and insisted I was now allowed
to board the bus, much to the embarrassment of both my parents. I was nine
years old.
From an early age, I considered myself a socialist, and spoke out about
inequality, class and poverty. For as long as I can remember, I've also been
assertive about gender issues. I soon learned that for some people on the
left, there could be tensions between these two areas.
Seeing the industrial action in which my father was involved during the early
1970s, I became aware that it was usually women who had to deal with the
practical repercussions of strikes. They were the ones who had to send the
weans out to wait in the bread queues and make sure there was food on the
table. There was almost a privileged role for the men in conducting the
struggle. But while the women enabled it to happen by keeping the family
going, their vital role never seemed to be properly valued, though it's now
recognised that if it hadn't been for the magnificent work done by women in
the miners' strike, the men wouldn't have been able to stay out as long as
they did.
At 17, living in Castlemilk and working in local government, I became an
active trade unionist. Years later, as a Unison branch secretary, I found
myself organising strikes among hospital staff. It was noticeable that even
when the strikers, such as medical secretaries, were mainly women, they were
still expected to go home after a day on the picket line and make the dinner.
The situation hadn't been reversed: the men weren't playing that supportive
role, doing the housework, looking after the children and ensuring that food
was on the table. There were exceptions, of course, but tensions often
resulted when women, empowered through being involved in strike action, were
no longer prepared to cook the family meal. Some relationships broke up as a
result.
Gender issues have long existed within the class struggle. To pretend
otherwise is nonsense. But although there has always been a lot of political
sectarianism within the left – a tendency to pigeonhole people according to
their friends' political allegiances, and use vocabulary that could seem
intimidating to anyone who wasn't conversant in the language of Marxist
analysis – in Scotland, we moved on. I joined the Scottish Socialist Party at
its inception in 1998, attracted by what seemed to me a broad-based, pluralist
party which brought left groups together, and developed inclusive aims and
principles. The party supported independence, which was important to me, as
was its commitment to gender equality.
Policies on gender are enshrined within our constitution. We have continued to
hold debates challenging orthodox thinking, and thanks partly to our 50:50
policy, which ensures that women and men are equally represented on the lists
for the Scottish parliamentary elections, two-thirds of the SSP's MSPs are
women.
At the same time, however, the SSP is part of society. Joining the party and
calling yourself a socialist doesn't inoculate you against all the prejudices
that exist in the world. So naturally, there will be people in our party who
express some of these attitudes. We have tried to deal with these issues in a
friendly, open, democratic way.
For some people, of course, there is a difference between what they agree to
in theory and what they are able to put it into practice. That's where
patriarchal power structures are in conflict with what we're trying to achieve
as a party.
Two major strikes in recent years revealed much about the left's attitudes
towards male and female contributions within the movement. Before they'd even
been out for a single day, the firefighters – most of whose 5000-strong
Scottish workforce are male – had received massive coverage, from the
left-wing, as well as the mainstream, press. Meanwhile, Scotland's 5000
nursery nurses spent days on the picket line, yet very little was written
about their action, even within the radical media.
In the SSP, it was women who worked at raising the profile of the nursery
nurses. To be fair, the firefighters' action was UK-wide, and was seen as a
direct challenge to the government. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion
that the initial lack of interest in the nursery nurses' strike reflects the
lack of value placed on what is seen as a woman's role. If female labour is
valued less than the work that men do, then the struggles that women engage in
to get the rewards for that work are valued less, and considered less
politically important to the struggles conducted by men.
Over 50% of the population are female, and we will never improve society
unless we offer dramatic changes to these women's lives, and take the
inequality problem seriously. You can't say to half the population: "Just hang
on and put up with this injustice until we've achieved socialism." Clearly,
there are people on the left – including a minority within the SSP – who still
think that, come socialism, all of these oppressions will be sorted out. But
historical precedent doesn't support this.
The Russian revolution, for example, brought the working class to power, but
it took three years for specific steps to be taken to help the cause of
women's emancipation. Only one woman in the central committee of the Bolshevik
party, Alexandra Kollantai, had permission to do that work, and she had to be
subordinate and accountable to the male-dominated central committee. Within
the socialist movement in Scotland today, there remains a minority that
doesn't accept the need to self-organise around specific oppressions such as
ethnicity, disability or gender.
There are lots of progressive, right-on, feminist-thinking men within the SSP.
But a few members still seem to resent the progressive gains we've made as
women, particularly over the 50:50 issue. I was surprised by Tommy Sheridan's
recent comment that "we are a class-based socialist party, not a
gender-obsessed discussion group", because I understood he supported 50:50 at
the time the policy was agreed, although he wasn't an active participant in
the debate.
You hear a lot of partriarchal, macho language within the Scottish Parliament.
That kind of chest-beating appeals to some people. But to me, and other women
within the SSP, the important question is: how are we going to change society
– by having competing strong leaders, or by empowering every single member of
society so they can change it on an equal basis?
I think it's a mistake to put up with inequalities within an organisation
which exists to eradicate those very problems in the wider world, in the naive
belief that, should that it ever achieve power, it will sort itself out.
Organisations that want to change society need to be constantly evolving,
critically examining themselves, challenging power imbalances and prejudices
which exist internally. That can't be put off until another day.
It would be unfortunate if comments about "gender-obsessed discussion groups"
were seen as representative of the SSP's views on women's issues, because that
would be inaccurate. Our party has progressive policies on gender. We have
talented, committed women who are upfront and arguing on that terrain, at the
same time as they are fighting on the picket lines and in their communities
against hospital closures, school closures and privatisation. I don't accept
that you can't do all of that while also tackling gender inequality, racism
and other oppressions.
In 2004, I was criticised for speaking out in the parliament about hypocrisy
over breastfeeding. Yet double-standards in society, and among politicians,
have to be challenged because we are living at a time when women are
increasingly under attack. In America, fertility and abortion rights have been
almost obliterated. Worldwide, rape is being used as a weapon of war. There
are similarities between the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay,
and the kind of brutal and violent pornographic imagery that's becoming
commonplace on the newsagents' shelves. Increasingly, women are being
objectified and pressurised to accept a definition of their sexuality which
has nothing to do with intimacy, or their sexual needs, but has everything to
do with a representation of sexuality which is about an abuse of power.
Young girls are under enormous pressure to portray themselves in a sexualised
way, yet women raising these issues are accused of being moralistic and
puritanical. Too many men have a double standard over the behaviour they
expect from women in order to obtain sex, and the behaviour they expect of
women who are family members. This kind of injustice needs to be tackled in a
political way. Yet the left itself is not immune from such attitudes. Within
the trade union movement, for example, I witnessed countless examples of women
being subjected to macho, bullying behaviour or inappropriate comments and
sexual language.
How can you liberate the working class without liberating the half – or more
than half – who are female? Compared with the left in general, the SSP has
been phenomenally successful in advancing women's issues. With progress,
however, there is always a competing tension. Right now, the party is under
tremendous strain, and those tensions are in unusually stark relief. The next
few weeks and months are going to be a white-knuckle ride. But I am confident
that we'll come out the other end intact.
We have to, because we live in a hideously unequal society. A third of our
children and a quarter of our pensioners still live in poverty. Women on
full-time pay earn 80% of men's earnings. Huge inequalities persist. It is
crucial that there is a party like the SSP pushing all of these issues within
Scotland.
So we will survive, because there is a demand for a party such as ours.
Because all the problems we are trying to tackle within society, are not going
to go away. They may be about to get worse.
June 2006
> > home page > >