(en) France, Organisation Communiste Libertarie (OCL) - Courant Alternatif #242 - Nothing is ever granted to women or their freedom or their rights (fr, pt)

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Still, you have to back to work and as Sisyphus endlessly repeat the task, for sure, as 
this old world will stand. ---- Before news of abuses against women hard-won but never 
sustainable it is appropriate to question this male dominance is nothing natural, 
domination being motivated by the benefits it derives from this operation. A confused 
sense dictates the need not to give up the fight, to resume the war against male 
domination but at the same time the dominant ideology tells us that everything would be 
acquired for women here in the land of human rights. In fact, those are the rights that 
are in the best performers in light of the figures on the social situation of women. 
Everything seems immobile, laws that stack to reiterate repeatedly proclaimed equality 
between men and women shall not prevent the assignment of women to household chores, child 
rearing and a double operation home to work.

Family

Normality is to do everything right, to succeed his marriage and his family again until 
it's perfect with a result obligation to each new beginning, but life is more complicated! 
It wants us to keep our good actress and so rid society of the problem of rearing 
children, take care of the house for free, arranging the transportation of children and 
adolescents, why choose a part-time a booster and a lower wage job. We speak globally and 
it is not rare exceptions that will change the lives of women in general. The statistics 
may be flawed to account for a living but they are a good evaluation of morals of a given 
society and each year the status quo remains: 3 out of 4 women in couples earn less than 
their husbands average of least 42% whereas for the single gap is less and 9%, good point, 
this difference appears from the formation of the couple even before the arrival of a 
child where the difference is accentuated even more . Another figure unchanged for years: 
82% of part-time are held by women, 30% of employed women work part-time against 7% of 
men. Women pay twice for the 'privilege' to children in their bodies and their lives and 
social discrimination that anticipates this to all women.

Domesticity

To complete this assignment household and family we see job creation to help the person 
almost exclusively held by women, immigrants, exploited and underpaid for the amount of 
work and responsibility for the actions performed. The current trend is to declare that 
the skincare (care) is recognized, and then turned professional this is the company that 
supports it after women have assumed for decades for free at home, which is still the case 
for many families who can not afford despite financial aid to pay for these services. It 
goes back to the time of domesticity, this form of slavery at home when the working 
conditions imposed by managers associations and beneficiaries of this new and growing 
market is studied. In bourgeois couples, the choice is to employ someone to do the 
cleaning, maintenance of the house and the children in order to avoid the question of the 
division of housework and pacify a latent conflict. The definition of all these jobs is 
very vague but there are no less than two million 'domestic jobs; 9 out of 10 of those 
jobs are held by women including 2 of 5 people over 50 years and working for at least 
three employers with an average salary of 433euros per month! Add to that the sector 
employs close to 70% of immigrant women and loop operation is complete. Whether the wife 
who takes care of her sick husband or whether immigrant women, this is a form of gendered 
exploitation that differs in form but not in substance. And if say and repeat that women 
have the burden of home, children and husband and hers seems hackneyed, the perpetuation 
of these facts proves that patriarchy is still present.

The staging of a certain femininity

What has happened since the women's movement and today? By observing the behavior of women 
today that a decline acquired feminists appear. Capitalism has certainly integrated 
women's aspirations to autonomy, he declined status of women more politically correct but 
of course without questioning its foundation exploiter. We really feel that the 
patriarchal principle remains in place, you need to start over and that among the new 
generations of women their main concern is to meet the orders made to them in order to 
become the perfect woman! Fashion has always more or less spread the futility of women's 
attire, an obligation to put in representation to please, be nice to look at, turn into 
desirable object. Already in the years 80/90 selection criteria for the election of Miss 
who were virtue and beauty, were denounced; we can say we put a cross on the under and 
over! The physical remains, be sexy, the rivalry between the girls, the competition all 
that is in effect today and is reflected in the aspirations and dreams of the sensitive 
teenage glitter. What is sad is that there is little social criticism of this kind of 
female subservience while encouraging adherence fools weight standards and sexy look is 
too far for us to ignore it. The beauty industry knows no crisis and invented every day 
new techniques, products to make the perfect woman according to the interests of commerce. 
Strain on the body: weight, hair, plastic surgery, diets, creams, etc. to look like the 
model: thin blond white woman. This is the commercial exploitation, social amplification 
and display of stereotype that comes to: 'What girls learn, it is not to be desired but 
the other a desire to be desired' said Naomi Wolf. Not only ridicule and enslavement of 
these dogmas are fatal beauty with a complete regression of the affirmation of an 
autonomous identity but all formatting techniques are dangerous to the body even the lives 
of women. The pharmaceutical industry is worth all GMOs in the world especially in the 
field of pharmacy that caters to 90% for women.

Education

The issue of education seems essential in the endless reproduction of the differences 
between girls and boys. According to some studies, it appears that the child understands 
his genital sex by the age of 7 years, demonstrating that social gender precedes sex. 
Before this age, it most often turns to the mother, the woman who is responsible to do 
everything at home because it is easy to blame him for his ability to reinforce social 
norms. The educational treatment varies boy or girl in accordance with the standards 
carried out; whichever way we turn the cultural, economic, moral, political, girls do not 
have the same course as the boys for them to assign the women like it or not: unless 
renounce transgressing, to object and there is not the role of the mother! Yet the 
question remains on how easily this kind of instruction is followed by girls and boys. A 
recent survey (October 2013) with 1,284 women claim that 88% of them believe that the 
family is responsible for gender stereotypes. In fact (and fathers too) mothers reproduce 
gender codes to comply with the social environment and that the child is not stigmatized 
by a demonstrated difference. In some institutions, the insult that comes to mind in the 
playground is 'fag'! Advertising comes second to propagate gender stereotypes that 
everywhere on TV, in movies, games, children's magazines, etc. Transgression toys only 
works in one direction, so the girls can play with boys or with toys categorized radius 
boy but the opposite problem. Parents can buy a building set for their daughter but not a 
doll for boys. Here we find an expression of patriarchy that values what is masculine 
either games or jobs and devalues it for girls or women. Differentiation colorful codes 
much in force today and pink is not a color for pants of a boy. Yet we are told that in 
the Middle Ages the pink variation of red was the color of the soldiers and the blue of 
the Virgin Mary so women! Everything is reversed half of the 19th century white one keeps 
for small children, a symbol of purity but also pragmatism face repeated washings! One 
study found that children of different cultural backgrounds overwhelmingly adopted the 
culture of the host country at odds with the principles taught within the family unit. We 
can imagine that girls and boys ?manciperaient maternal education. But then what to see 
when the dominant social culture integration and emancipation is only repeating and 
amplifying gender codes? And the ABCD school notebooks equality through interdepartmental 
Convention for equal signed for 2013-2018, will not be included in the action plan for 
gender equality in schools that Government is expected to announce Monday, June 30 
Experimentation in 275 schools since September 2013, they were denounced by the 
traditionalist circles.

The right to dispose of the body

Motherhood has become an unsurpassable standard woman's fate is no longer an exceptional 
act rewarding; there would be a certain acceptance of delivery, a normalization of the 
different reproduction 60s where motherhood was obvious today is medicalized and refers to 
a couple's choice, choice presented as a mark of freedom. As a corollary there is little 
information about this event, nothing is explained how this happens; women should go home 
after three days without aid or assistance as if everything was natural, fashionable home 
birth is a good thing for those who are surrounded and for others it means that every 
woman should know how a baby and deal naturally if it becomes a pathology and medical and 
socio-educational meddle. If the number of children per woman has declined, the number of 
women per child has increased. The planet is not in danger of depopulation then what 
justifies this propensity to reproduce? Motherhood is presented as a self-fulfilling, as 
an ultimate goal of earthly life as a pledge of immortality as something left us after 
death. But why let the genes and not a work, a book, a fight? Who remembers the company? 
The mother of Virginia Woolf, one of Simone de Beauvoir or Louise Michel, Louise 
Bourgeois, Rosa Luxembourg, Olympe de Gouges, ...? We understand that in this environment 
the right to abortion or just ignored, denigrated and seen as a failure of management of 
his body by a woman. Yet abortion is a necessity as well as in the 60s because the 
behavior of accidental progenitors has not progressed as to their involvement in an 
unwanted pregnancy, there is no shared responsibility for contraception. And the company 
has not made much progress in this field: the 1920 law is still not repealed, it is a 
legal tolerance, there is no free movement in male contraception and agreed by the social 
security , advertisements for contraceptives is still prohibited, no education or sex 
education in school worthy of the name. Nothing changes in this area and this is indeed a 
sacred retreat of wild hopes feminist years. The information on sexuality is inadequate 
and poorly done in schools. During the years of the women's movement and activism in 
family planning, texts or brochures, training and information sessions were held with then 
without euphemism about using specific words like vagina, penis, clitoris, orgasms, enjoy 
, penetration, ejaculation, ... we called a spade a spade! Today everything seems watered 
down, it must remain on the surface of the subject and do not get into specific and 
concrete explanations, November 1st tongue somehow is used to return to the science and 
out of real life. It is true that this work was carried information together in a sense of 
control and empowerment, and the school now -to from external interveners pertinentes-, 
the program addresses the theme, since we must do, but the goal of giving youth the tools 
to control the biological, to overcome the constraints of nature and build a life in 
freedom and conscience. The teachers are also being monitored es by parents and lobbies of 
any kind as was seen with the controversy over the teaching of genre. This demonstrates 
once again a regression of acquired in any decline in educational practices. The right to 
abortion is not yet fully achieved, it is enough to see in Spain a plan to restrict the 
right to rape women who filed a complaint or if a significant threat validated by 3 
doctors including two outside the abortion center. In Italy, they are opposed to abortion 
doctors who declare their conscientious objection: 70% of them did so in 2010 in this 
country, illegal abortions would be increased from 20,000 in 2008 to nearly 40,000 in 2013 
with all the serious consequences for women's lives. In France the anti-abortion have made 
web page and if you type abortion or abortion on a search engine, first and link to the 
official website of the Ministry of Health, appears IVG.net site, designed and hosted by 
the association called "SOS distress." This site conveys messages anti-abortion, often 
misleading and feel guilty for women. This search of information is often used by young 
women because it is anonymous and accessible but by logging on to these sites cleverly 
presented as no information is given in order to abort as soon as possible and instead 
doubts moved (this is discouraged), the short time and puts in risk the woman to the point 
that the government could create a hindrance to the offense of abortion against these sites.

The place of women in the city

Urban space is not immune to gender discrimination and women from an early age learn to be 
invisible to move quietly through the streets. No, there is no question of full veil but 
strategic postures observed in studies on the behavior of women in urban areas. Walk fast, 
because parking can be seen as an invitation to put it flat heels but walking should be 
neither too fast not to express a fear, not too slow not to tease. Steps have been taken 
in some countries to allow women to move quietly day and night, are protective measures 
that put them out of reach of risks. The argument is that "if the girls are not encouraged 
to go out, they will stay in the retracted position. And the street remains the dominion 
of men. "" You would have thought that in the modern city women, who began to work, would 
access to public spaces, and no, they were still male. Remember a long time there were 
only urinals and no toilets for women! It begins in childhood, is observed in the 
playgrounds more boys than girls. After menarche girls stay at home or nearby. (...) This 
finding is unfortunate, especially since many women have built and do not claim a 
welcoming and accessible city, each and each and every one! So yes, the city has a sex 
which is male. She is domineering and violent women. "(Clemence Pajot, Ile Resource Center 
for Gender Equality Hubertine Auclert). Demonstrations organized feminist night trying to 
highlight this fact. And it is concerned with the politics of the city, expanding the 
fields of claims beyond the personal (group) that feminism should engage in combat budgets 
that emphasize sports equipment used predominantly by boys often more expensive than gyms, 
dance or rock climbing walls; projects that emphasize movement distances motorized 
dangerously narrow sidewalks or eliminate altogether in peripheral areas, etc. which 
penalizes those who make many short trips between home and school, for example.

What feminism?

Being a feminist today is considered to be a fight rearguard since everything would have 
been earned or sexism and exclusion of men. It would now more than a single case since all 
the tools are accessible liberation of women: reproductive freedom, labor, economic 
management, parental status, cultural expression ... Nothing is prohibits women, then what 
prevents them like men? Just maybe not wanting to do the same as men! We lost the right to 
be different, to be happy and fulfilled without having to meet the "female" established by 
patriarchal society codes. We lost the political support of men who feel little concerned 
by a struggle of women decaying. Equality is not assimilation (immigrant people know this) 
we may want to live differently and demand equal rights. But we do pay women their 
biological difference and not to men because they are their power and determine what is 
the model, the standard, neutral, universal, namely them! All this has been demonstrated 
by feminist research accompanying the women's movement, but there are no upheaval ended. 
And defend the rights of women and fight for them, does not exclude other rights? In the 
absence of social movement on this and also in the absence of real social movements 
currently, it is not "politically correct" to bring back the covers. One gets the 
impression that it is useless to claim that it is enough to speak, train, help women cope. 
A framework law for real equality between women and men was adopted on second reading June 
26, 2014 by the National Assembly legislate on gender equality, the fight against the 
specific vulnerability of women, protection of women against violence, the image of women 
in the media and political parity and in social and professional responsibilities. Over 
time, the transcript of feminist victories resulted in laws that tell and retell what the 
Constitution and Bill of Rights stipulate at the outset: every human being is born free 
and equal to others! So no need to add anything on the legislative front, but texts are 
piling up, pointing atavism resistant in all areas. As if there were not questions asked 
upstream, as if these women were not us, who heroically overcome the shortcomings of this 
company. There swinging and losers, each for himself and the patriarchal order will be safe.

Rethinking our struggles

Feminist struggle must politicize and internationalize because of the release levers are 
not looking only in itself, the persistence of inequality has a logical explanation in the 
overall organization of our societies. Numerous tracks are presented to guide an effective 
and united struggle between the exploited. Feminism is not reducible to a single 
definition for us who want the destruction of capitalism and the destruction of patriarchy 
it is to orient the axes of the struggle to achieve the cause of the subjugation of women 
in the world. Internationalism was a component of the women's movement but it turned into 
compassionate support for the suffering of the 'other' women, not a united fight against 
the root causes leading to the same effect at any latitude. Economic globalization has 
saddle a new colonial order that exploits the wealth by throwing people into poverty and 
relies on the wars if necessary to better enslave whole nations. And it is women at the 
bottom of the ladder who are losing what little they had for social peace here on the back 
of the assignment of women is maintained. Equal rights and revenues is a valid claim for 
all women of the planet. About violence against women must also exceed that of rape or 
domestic framework to address violence in international economic forums: World, IMF, Bank 
...; the violence of development projects; that wars and military interference to create a 
favorable economic order to the great powers. Meddle in international affairs, 'foreign, 
demand accountability on the Armed options in resolving conflicts, articulate women's 
struggles around the leaders of the order of the world and leave the bitter fact of our 
defeats to consider the fight against source of inequality, this could be the axes of 
struggle to decline here against our leaders. Internationalism is inevitable as the status 
of women is repeated around the world, to fight against the exploitation of women in the 
third world that manufacture the products used here should be an objective that combines 
women's liberation and emancipation of the proletariat. The list is long of the 
convergence of struggles between exploited es industrialized countries and countries of 
the third world or emerging is similar as women's submission to the dictates of the 
performance, beauty, reproduction, consumption, private and public violence, etc. Women's 
Division serves and maintains the power mechanisms of female exploitation, we must break 
free thinking beyond our own environment that does not prevent continued struggles but 
more collectively and out feminist borders or physical, declining to base the class 
struggle must for any release.

That many women experience in their body male domination must ask ourselves not their 
weakness, but this domination. What holds it in place anyway, which perpetuates, which 
does not allow emancipation of its kind, to remain assigned to a biological determinism 
even and especially (paradoxically) when we transgress.

Chantal - OCL Toulouse, June 2014