ANNE KANE is an activist She explains the importance of women's peace movement to all socialists — men and left who argue against supporting the women.
With the arrival Greenham, the women's peace movement is yet again leading the fight against the missiles. leadership dithered over the freeze, women from Greenham and all over Britain organised to cut down the fence and reclaim the base on 29 October, took Reagan to court November, and held a huge Sound Around Greenham' on I December.
The Greenham women shown that is is not necessary to water down aims to get mass support. The support of thousands of activists in the trade unions, the women's moveand the Labour Party is what CND should also be building on, up trying to woo the SDP electorate with half-hearted, impractical demands.
These Greenham actions are only the latest ones in a year which has seen the women's peace movement push cruise and disarmament right to the Iront or bruisa pontes.
December's embracing the through the 24 Women's Dav of Disarmament. to the July blockade, women have made Defence Secretary Heseltine sit up and take note.
They Heseltine cannot just scare off the Greenham camp. For the second time this year, the government has had to DECLARE propacanda demanding television space to present the media has done to date. Thanks to Greenham, 'Ministers seem to worried at their failure to persuade the public that CND has argument' (Guardian 5 December).
But socialists in Britain have had diverse, and often negative, responses to this huge and
Tine fight
Socialist. Workers the ment for 'excluding men'.
worst scorned, women.
Greenham While CND's Brigades Union.
The on 9 ISUCDa have Greenham. Divisive What IS relationship to struggles?
drive?
base, autonomous movements, La waole.
week's issue! that The forbears tarians, in • The offensive, WU r be the women's peace lost the what it has achieved.
disapointingly militant movement of women. While Greenham women have been leading unle Party has been preoccupied with attacking the moveMilitant supporters in the Labour Party have at best ignored, and at the Greenham (Presumably, for understanding the central importance of the top 200 monopolies!) This con- pected flicts with the response of the mass 01 trade unionists who have actively supported the women's peace movement: from the limex strikers earlier this year, to national support from unions like NALGO, NUPE and the Fire women's peace movement has pushed unilateralism inside the putting the bureaucracy on we spot by uclalding action, not just resolutions. But parts of the left have dodged the main along to concentrate on attacking at the root of this hostility? Is it true that the women's peace movment is divisive. or has no 'real' working class stereotypical views of women, and do we lack a class analysis of the war Beneath these attacks lie a deepLOVININ especially autonomous movements of women. In addition, Militant derides CND as tion The arrival of cruise got a brief mention on page two of that Feminists will find nothing new in Ine claim unal uney are being urvisive:
of today's left secSocial Democratic Federation and in the Labour Party, turned against the mass movement of campaigned for their right to vote in exactly the same way. Such critics would do better to judge Hovellelon yv nat unites une lent crucs in tel hostility is a failure to understand the relationship between women's oppression in capitalist society and their leading role in the fight against imperialist wars. Some may ask what this has to do with the issue of the missiles.
war drive is linked to an economic system capitalism which is in crisis. Consequently, lays ever-greater economic and social demands on the working classes of canitalist countries. Women's oppres sion is rooted in the family. We are exto be the unpaid unrecognised providers of system's social needs housewife, mother and nurse.
the being which What led by the left movement Salvador. It is neither reactionary nor particularly relevant, women perceive their role in terms of being a mother.
I's Just socialists to children's pictures fence at Greenham and snap 'reinforrevolu- cing stereotypes'. As socialists, our stalments and actions of individuals, must to the material basis of political currents, and to what they achieve objectively.
share an opposition to a society which can afford cruise missiles but expects them to carry the burden of publi sector cuts. tionary understanding! Our responsibility is to unite behind Greenham as World View 1984 - £7.95 The mass of trade unionists have actively supported the women's peace that some that fight now. good enough for point to nappies or pinned the women.
beyond 1177.
Women who support Greenham March; 10/Sun I1) a This is hardly a reacChristmas books Rainy Day Biff - £2.95 The If Chronicles - Steve Bell's latest - £2.50 More Frustration - Claire Bretecher - £3.95 Mae West is Dead, Recent Lesbian & Gay Fiction -Adam Mars-Jones - £3.50 A Very British Coup, Political Thriller to Read Over Christmas - Chris Mullin - £1.75 The Clever Princess. Christmas Book for Young Readers - Diana Coles - £2.50 Sexual Dynamics of History - London Feminist History Group - £4.95 Women Draw 1984 by 66 Women Cartoonists - £2.95 A View from the Bandstand - Greta Kent - £3.95 The Left and the Erotic - Eileen Phillips (ed) - £3.95 Also 1984 diaries, calendars and Christmas Cards.
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London 328 Upper St. London N1 telephone 01-226 0571 Special Christman opening times Dec 19-23 10-7 Birmingham 137 Digbeth Birmingham B5 telephone (021) 643-5904 Open - Mon-Sat 10-6 Closed Wed a symbol of continuing resolve to fight cruise, and as a focus for those activists who see the need to step up • Start organising now for the mass Holy Loch, on Saturday 21 January, 1984. Further information is available from Glasgow Women's Centre on 041-221 • Following the successful Faslane women's demonstration on 6 March this year, moves are afoot to make International Women's Day 1984 nearest weekend is Sat Women Against the Missiles day of action. Start now by putting resolutions of support for this through your trade union branch.
Dec 24 10-3
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in the Glasgow Women for Peace group.
women — and takes issue with those sections of the
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