Ten years on: feminism lives!
AFTER MORE than ten years in existence, the women's movement is still alive and well. This was the conclusion from two very successful national conferences of the women's movement in the Spanish state and France in
November and December 1985. At the Spanish state conference, attended by 4,000 women, an open challenge to government anti-abortion measures was made when it was announced that during the proceedings two abortions had been performed in a closed workshop.
JIDITH RAKER a national level around national initiatives.
Coming out of the conference there was a proposal for a summer university and also for broad activities on March 8, 1986.
Yvette Roudy, Socialist Party minister for women's affairs addressed the conference. She tried to excuse her lack of action on so many issues by saying that she was all alone in power.
The conference showed that feminists are linking up with other struggles, in particular the fight against racism which is very important in France at the moment. A delegation of women and a speaker were sent te -the SOS-racisme demonstration on the Saturday, and the workshop on
JUDITH BAKER
The jornadas feministas in the Spanish state took place in Barcelona on November 1,2,3. Two thousand women were expected and 4,000 turned up. Among them were many young women, who held their own workshop, and also women from the Womens Assembly of Euskadi, representing many different organisations from the Basque country. It was estimated that over 80% of the women were representing local groups of one kind or another, a fact that demonstrates the grass roots support for the movement.
There were workshops on lesbianism, women and peace. (which was attended by 400 women) young women, sexual violence and new reproductive technology, amongst others.
*We have brought you together to tell you that in line with the decision in the workshop on abortion rights in the Spanish State and following on the discussion on Friday in commissions and groups and in the plenary, this morning our commission performed two abortions? This announcement on the Saturday afternoon of the conference brought massive applause and support from women present. [The one dissenting voice came from Lidia Falcon of the Feminist Party.]
This action was a direct challenge to the pathetic law introduced by the Socialist government earlier this year [see International Viewpoint No 76, May 20, 1985], which only benefits about 2 to 3% of women seeking abortions.
When the police arrived in the evening demanding to know who was responsible for carrying out the abortions, the women present shouted abortions, the women present shouted "Todos somos responsables' (we are all responsible'). The baffled policemen had no choice but to retreat.
The stand taken by the women on the abortion issue marks the beginning of a wide campaign to overturn the new law, and the women have announced that they will all declare themselves guilty, thus posing the authorities with severe problems. The abortions were filmed on video.
This incident demonstrates the continuing combativity of the women's movement and its willingness to challenge the state in an active and campaigning way.
Women from the women's move. ment in the Spanish state received a rapturous response also from the conference of one thousand women which met just outside Paris, France on December 6 and 7. Again the conference was attended by hundreds of women active in local groups and campaigns, and was an attempt to draw the movement together on sexism and racism decided to call a day of action on women and apartheid.
Furthermore issues like the new flexibility of work bill which the government is introducing and which will particularly affect working women were taken on board. To counter the increasing violence against women (protests have occurred recently around three particularly serious rape cases) the women in the commission concerned proposed days of action and 'reclaim the night' demonstrations throughout France every third Friday of September, every year.
Both these congresses show that in France and the Spanish state feminism will not go away and cannot be co-opted, but on the contrary will continue to pose a challenge to the esta. blishment, and can begin to show the broad mass of women a way for. ward.
Statement of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), Spanish State section of the Fourth International.
With respect to the two abortions carried out last weekend in Barcelona in the conference commemorating Ten Years of Struggle by the Feminist Movement, we wish to express our total and unconditional support for this action by the feminist movement. If it provoked such a scandal in the media and in the ranks of the right, that is because it touched a wound from which women suffer, and at the same time pointed up the wretchedness of the PSOE's partial depenalization of abortion....
We consider, therefore, that this action represents a very important step forward in the fight for the right to abortion in its clear and resounding denunciation of what has been touted as a progressive law and which has served only to hand aces to the right, the Church, and the middle class to deceive and confuse the people, to deny an elementary right to women, and to force the few who can meet the conditions set down in the law to beg for it. At the same time, the law allows Social Security doctors who refuse to perform abortions to go on doing so with impunity.
We hold that the feminist movement has the full right to force de facto recognition of the legitimacy of its demands by carrying them out in practice. We approve of and support all the actions and methods of struggle that the feminist movement and specifically the Right to Abortion Committees [Comisiones pro Derecho a Aborto] may use to advance the cause of recog nition of women's rights and specifically the right to abortion.
Therefore, we express our solidarity with the actions referred to above, and once again declare our commitment to continue fighting for the right to free abortion on demand, to be paid for by the state health system, until full recognition is achieved of the right of women to make the decisions affecting their lives.
Madrid, November 5, 198