No Woman, No Revolution, Part 7
Gender
Men and women are
biologically different, but socially equal.
Any differences that are
attributed to men or to women that are not biological are called “Gender”.
Discrimination between people
on grounds of gender is wrong.
Opposition to
gender-discrimination is not the entirety of women’s concerns. Opposition to
gender-discrimination is a “human rights” matter that may be dealt with by law.
Women’s concerns as women go
beyond opposition to gender-discrimination. Women should organise as women so
as to become a free-willing collective subject that can act positively, and so do
more than merely restore prescribed human rights.
Women organised
democratically as women, and especially as working women, can be a revolutionary
force. It is this revolutionary force of women that the communists need to
bring into being.
The establishment of “gender
desks” is not sufficient for revolutionary purposes. “Gender desks” can
partially, but not completely, restore equal (bourgeois) rights to bourgeois
women, but will not succeed in the task of mobilising proletarian women for the
overthrow of capitalism, which is the only full emancipation available to them.
·
The above is to
introduce the original reading-text: What do we mean by 'Gender',
Tweedie, 2012.
