In the weeks leading up to the M1 protests against corporate tyranny, the big-business media waged psychological warfare against those who might be thinking of attending, arguing that the protests were useless, violent, undemocratic and just plain wrong.
This is nothing new for the voice of the ruling elite, who have employed various tactics to convince all of us not resist their policy agenda. For the majority of women, this pressure is particularly acute.
From an early age, women are taught to undervalue our own judgement. This means that by the time we are exposed to radical politics we are already politically under-confident. We hold back from expressing political opinions for fear of being ostracised. At the same time, we are told by the media and people around us to stay away from the hairy, lefty ratbags. Capitalism peddles various myths to keep women away from radical politics.
Myth #1: “You shouldn't worry your pretty little head about it.” We are told we can't understand economics and we should leave politics to the “professionals”. But who are the professionals? Older men, like John Howard, George W. Bush and Kim Beazley, who are in the pocket of the capitalist elite. The media try to convince us that they will look out for our interests, in an attempt to convince us to let them screw us more.
Myth #2: “Good mothers stay home for their kids.” This justifies the vast amount of domestic work that women perform without payment (usually in addition to paid work). This includes washing, child care, cleaning, cooking — chores that would be a social responsibility in a better society. The strain of attempting to carry this work leaves most women with little time to get involved in politics, and then the capitalist media attempts to make us feel guilty when we do.
Myth #3: “Feminists are hairy and ugly.” We are taught to measure our self-worth on the basis of how many whistles we get when we walk down the street. We are pressured to remove hair, to diet, to wear expensive trendy clothes and paint our faces every morning, all in a quest to look more attractive to men. We are told that men don't like women with strong opinions, and particularly not feminists. The constant emphasis on how we look is designed to lower our personal confidence and make it harder to value our own political judgement. Feminists openly reject this oppression of women — we encourage women to be confident about who they are, not what they look like.
Myth #4: “Marx's name was Karl, not Carla.” One of the most stupid reasons not to be a female revolutionary that I've ever heard is that the most famous revolutionaries are men. In a constant drive to convince us that history is made by exceptional individuals, not ordinary people working together, the capitalist media portrays revolutionaries as a small group of exceptional men — Che, Marx and Lenin for example.
But women have played a huge role in fighting for social change. What about the Bolshevik Alexandra Kollontai or Indonesian radical trade union leader and socialist Dita Sari or Cuba's Vilma Espin? And, in Australia, what about the masses of women who have lead campaigns to legalise abortion, to fight corporate tyranny and to close down Australia's refugee detention centres? Sure, we might not be well known like Trotsky or Kollontai, but famous dead people are not in the position to change society — we, the mass of working-class women, must do this ourselves. Otherwise, nothing will change.
The net effect of these myths is to keep women, particularly working-class women, under-confident enough to remain politically passive. That is why Resistance actively rejects these myths and attempts to help all women to develop their political confidence. This can come through being actively involved in grassroots campaigns to change society, and working with others.
We know that it is possible to change society, and by working together we can do it. We need to get more and more people, including women, involved in events like S11 and M1. Women were deeply involved in both S11 and M1 in the organising collectives, on the blockades, on the stage, on megaphones, as legal observers, distributing information and as police liaison officers.
So instead of feeling intimidated by sexism and other corporate bullshit, let's let it make us angry enough to struggle for fundamental social change. It's up to us to be active and fight for a better society — because no-one else is going to do it for us.
BY SOPHIE FISCHER
[The author is a member and one of the organisers of M1 in Sydney.]