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When women stand together we are a formidable force

Communist Party women’s organiser CAROL STAVRIS explains the aims of a forthcoming conference – Sisterhood Socialism and Struggle and encourages readers to get involved and take part

ON Saturday May 8, women of the Communist Party of Britain present Sisterhood, Socialism and Struggle — Communist Women Rising, their free online conference, open to women and men.

The ambition for this conference is truly huge. The enormity of the predicament women face in the brutal neoliberal world system demands it. 

For working-class women living in the capitalist countries of the world, especially those under neocolonialist domination, authoritarian patriarchal rule or in imperialist war-ravaged countries where their lives are constantly threatened, the situation is beyond desperate. 

Capitalism faces enormous problems it cannot resolve peacefully — on the economy, on the environment, or providing any of the essentials that people need. 

As the system’s endemic crises sharpen yet still driven by the need to increase its rate of profit, the oppression of women becomes increasingly intense.

Male violence against women is on the rise, it blights our lives. In extreme cases, it kills us. When we come onto the streets to protest, we are harassed, physically abused and arrested. Capitalism is toxic for working-class women.

SS&S is our call to action — finding ways to build a strong, united feminist movement in Britain, to build the fight against ever-rising tide of sex-based violence, misogyny and racism and demand true equality in work and society.

This movement has to be an integral part of the class struggle for a sustainable, environmentally secure, socialist future; fighting corporatism, imperialism, colonialism and war and we must stand together with our sisters around the world in their struggles for liberation and emancipation.  

We have invited leading women speakers from Brazil, South Africa, India and Canada to join us in live session.

We must win over the men of our class and bring them with us to support us. We welcome their participation on the day.
    
When women stand together fighting for full equality and defending hard-won rights, we are a formidable force.  

Even though we are often remembered for our involvement in the struggle to change society only as carers for family, or in subordinate roles. 

In countries on the brink of radical change, women have often played decisive and equal revolutionary parts, both as fighters and theorists. 

The women of Cuba had every reason to support and fight alongside their men for the revolution that had begun in the early 1950s against the brutal Batista dictatorship. 

Tens of thousands of women were driven to work as prostitutes by the harsh economic conditions they faced.  

The overthrow of Batista and the birth of their socialist state produced measurable economic, social and political advances for women and continue to do so to this day, safeguarded by the strength of their women’s federation. 

Lauren Collins from the Cuba Solidarity Campaign will explain in Women and the Environment how women’s voices are heard in Cuba’s journey to sustainability and their country’s preparation for climate change.    

Women are super-exploited at work and oppressed by patriarchal society, and Mary Davis, author of Women and Class, will give a Marxist-feminist perspective on the Roots of Women’s Oppression. 

She will be joined by Sonya Andermahr, teacher of women’s studies and women’s writing and Charlie Weinberg, community activist for women’s and girls’ rights.

Our fierce struggles waged through the trade union movement have wrung many economic and social concessions from a ruling class in crisis.  

Gains which the system attempts to claw back whenever they think the working class is weak. 
    
Conference sessions will call for unity around the progressive campaigning strategy of the Charter for Women, pulling together its central themes and raising their significance for the tasks ahead.  

Helen O’Connor, who worked in the NHS as a nurse for 28 years and now organises across the workforce in NHS trusts in south London and Surrey for the GMB, and Sarah Woolley, general secretary of BFAWU will speak in Women in the Workplace, joined by Lauren Conway, a local activist from the north-east.   

As well as suffering disproportionally from a whole range of problems in work and in society, black and Asian women face racist prejudice and discrimination.   

Pragna Patel from Southall Black Sisters, speaking on racism and migration, will be joined on the Women in Society panel by Mollie Brown of Durham People’s Assembly and Kellie O’Dowd, Northern Ireland abortion rights campaigner.

Heather Wakefield, former Unison head of local government, police and justice; Sarah-Jane McDonough, chair of TSSA Women in Focus and Annette Mansell-Green, TUC general council (personal capacity) are our Women in the Labour Movement panel.

SS&S takes place during the 150th commemoration of the Paris Commune (March 18 to May 28 1871) when working-class women played a heroic and central part in the establishment and defence of the Commune, calling for better education and pay for girls and women, pensions for widows, political rights and legal divorce.  

They took their place on the barricades, in the front line and fought the last battle alongside their men.  

We are honoured to welcome Lydia Samarbakhsh, head of the International Department of the Parti Communiste Francais.

So do look at the Programme on the Party’s website and sign up: www.communistparty.org.uk/sisterhoodsocialismstruggle.

Take part in this feminist debate, tell us your experiences and commit to the ongoing socialist struggle. Sisters, we are rising — we have a world to win! 

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