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Walter Mothapo, 26 September 2013 Gender as a terrain of the class struggles "The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles". Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 1848 1. Gender and class struggles: their origins The question of gender is primarily a matter of the evolution and advancement of humanity. Its original perspective lies in understanding the historical phases of society as outlined in historical materialism, which is an essential component of "The Communist Manifesto". Indeed as "The Communist Manifesto" asserts, gender struggles are as old as class struggles themselves. From the beginning of humanity there had always been struggles between two contending forces. During communalism in particular, there were struggles between the strong and the weak, between those who had a means and ways to obtain food and resources for survival and those who were too weak to do likewise and thus dependent. As such the history of humanity in itself is embedded in a struggle between two opposing class forces that will always antagonise and contradict each other; either being the slaves and patrician, serfs and the lords, the coloniser and the colonised, the capitalists and the workers. That is why our conviction is that communism as the highest phase of human development will be free from backward patriarchal tendencies and oppression of one man by the other. 2. The early years of industrialization After the Anglo-Boer War, British capital was channeled to sponsor a racially exclusive industrialization process in South Africa. Even before the founding of the Union of South African in 1910, British capitalism was already a superstructure. The formation of the Union of South Africa was merely to reinforce the exploitation of the black working class by white ruling class. Hence, it was not a coincidence that the first real legislation following the exclusion of blacks in governance was the Natives Land Act of 1913. The architects of this draconian law had one goal in mind, to dispossess blacks of their land as a means of production so that black males will essentially be forced to leave their households to sell labour in the mines and live in compounds. Their wives were destined to remain at home as bearers and caretakers of children. Now clearly in the formative stage of the Union of South Africa we can see a clear collusion between capital and the state in the oppression, colonization and exploitation of the black majority. Responding to these developments the CPSA drafted a document entitled the "Black Republic Thesis". The communists of the time already visualized the anti-thesis that part of a response to white capitalist domination was an establishment of a state that is led by the black majority. 3. The context of the South African Liberation Struggle In order for us to dissect the concept of gender we must first understand the nature of the South African Liberation Struggle. Indeed, ours is first and foremost a class struggle. It is a struggle of one part of the people against the other. It is a struggle between those who own a means of production and those who are forced to toil. The SACP's "Path to Power" (1989) document clearly articulates the vision of our struggle and how gender forms an integral part of that perspective. Its characterization of the South African political context as Colonialism of a Special Type (CST) is premised on a perspective that the struggle for national liberation must be intertwined with the struggle to overcome the system of capitalism. Hence the "Path to Power" was the first paper to point out that "in the case of the majority of South African women, they suffer from triple oppression - as women, as blacks and as workers". It further called upon women to "fight shoulder to shoulder with their brothers against colonialism and exploitation for a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa". This was a quest to demystify the notion that gender struggles belong to women only with an emphasis that it's a struggle for both sexes. Hence the "Path to Power' document was succinct in its call for society to stand against the distortion of African traditional and cultural values to legitimise women oppression. 4. Gender perspectives by Engels Friedrich Engels in the "Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State" (1884) argues that during the early age of societal formation, women were oppressed in a crude and barbaric manner as there was no state, no laws and no instruments to regulate human behavior. Engels's argument is that even during the era of civilization as expressed by the existence of a state the structural oppression of women will never change since the state is an instrument of the ruling class meant for holding down the oppressed, exploited class. Actually Engels paints a paradoxical structural societal phenomenon that contrasts barbaric and civilized periods in the oppression of women. What Engels said some centuries ago still resonate the truth 'till present days. King Mswati, will in the name of culture, custom and tradition abduct an eighteen year old girl and forcefully marry her as a wife. You will imagine that a King who benefitted from First World British Education System would think twice before evoking such traditional patriarchal tendencies; but alas as a member of the monarchical ruling class in the context of Swaziland he is actually presupposed to what Engels would coin 'barbaric tendencies'. 5. Pre and Post-Apartheid Gender Constructs Gender scholars often refer to a concept of "masculinity". The latter happens when men see themselves as having insatiable rights over women. The South African Constitution guarantees rights to dignity for both men and women. But because of the economic muscle and social standing that men have attained over time they believe the rights enshrined in the democratic Constitution speak to them more than women. Men believe such rights are for them to exercise, whereas the duty of women is to comply with them. Thus, women generally are still regarded as reproductive more than productive beings. As such even at workplace women are seen to be adding value only if part of their "informal job-description" is to sleep with their male bosses. Men will go to an extent of blaming women for enticing them to commit acts of sexual misconduct or adultery. In this context, the masculine gender has all the permission and rights to behave as recklessly as they wish but a feminine gender's duty is to comply. Nothing in societal masculine idiosyncrasy ever points to men as initiators or triggers in cases of sexual misconduct. Women are always to blame as instruments and social weapons used by sinister forces to overthrow men in their hard-earned positions of power. Actually it is more like "Eve causing Adam a sin" and not vice-versa to evoke Biblical interpretation. The colonial apartheid social fabric affirmed a white male as "baas' and black male as 'garden boy'. The same was the case with white females as 'madams' and black females as "kitchen girls'. The whole notion was that the real men and women were whites in contrast to blacks who were demeaned and denigrated as less masculine and feminine. Interesting that in the post-apartheid set-up the concept of "masculinity" has evolved from historically privileged white males to economically empowered black males who now see women as objects who must aggrandize their newly attained socio-economic status. This is exactly what Engels coined the oppression of women both in barbaric and civilized times. 6. Our immediate tasks It is the duty of all those who regard themselves as progressive people or revolutionaries, to advance gender struggles with a consciousness that they are an essential and integral part of class struggles. This calls upon us to practically undo constructs such as 'masculinity', that lead to 'objectification' of women and a deliberate attempt to confine women in the reproductive rather than productive spheres. Trade unions in particular are inherently central to the dialectical pursuit of gender struggles as class struggles. . Walter Mothapo is a member of the Provincial Executive Committee of the SACP in the Limpopo province and a member of the "Ike Maphoto" Branch of the ANC in Polokwane. These are his personal views! From: http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=4 07150 <http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid= 407150&sn=Detail&pid=71616> &sn=Detail&pid=71616 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. 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