CSE Pamphlet 2: On The Political Economy of Women [PDF]

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CSE Pamphlet no.2

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On the Political Economy of Women

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On the Political Economy of Women

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CSE Pamphlet no.2

On the Political Economy of Women

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The Conference of Socialist Economists was organised in 1970 to develop collective work in Socialist Political Economy, to put forward theoretical and practical critiques of bourgeois Political Economy and its implications, and to provide means for people to educate themselves in the area of Political Economy. The work of the CSE is carried on through a thrice·yearly Bulletin, an annual conference, frequent day*schools organised by ongoing groups working in such areas as the Marxist theory of money. the political economy

of women, economic analysis of the EEC, the labour process, or the internationalisation of capital. and local and regional groups. We are now developing a series of pamphlets to supplement the Bulletin in promoting the aims of the CSE. For funher information on CSE groups, publications and other activities,

contact: Ben Fine, Department of Economics. BirkbecUl/ist Economists, SprinJ 1974. Wally Secombe, 'The Housewife and her Labour under Capitalism', Ntw 141 R~jtw. Il. There arc in capitalist society many people whose work is done under production relations other tban those of strict capitalist waat labour: for cu.mplc. artisans, bureaucrats and 'professionals'. It should be noted that this is not acritique of the use ofthe roncepl of the articulation of modes of production in the analysis of capitalist dominance in Africa and Latin America. See, for example, Harrisan 0)). cit. Katl Marx, 18th Bnmwirr 0/ Louis BOflO/HIrtc, Lawrence &: Wishan, 1968. Jean Gardiner, 'Political Economy of Domestic Labour in Ci.pitali5t Society' to be published in Explorations in SocIology, Vol. VI B eel. D. Barker and S. Allcn. See for example R. and R.N. Rapoport, Dwll Carev Families, PenJUin 1971. See for example, Audrey Hunt, Surwy 0/ Womens Employmtnt HMSO (1968). LuC)' Syson and Michael YOUIlJ in 1974 Povmy Report eel. M. Youoa. Department of Employment, Women and Work - a Statistical Sllrvey, Manpower Paper 9.

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Women, the state and reproduction since the 1930s

Introduction This paper is about how and why women's role in reproduction has changed in the period since the 1930s in Britain. We look specifically at the implications for women of intervention by the state in order to assist w as feminists to work out ways of organising around reproduction. Within the current feminist movement the importance of struggling around reproduction has always been stressed. In discussing reproduction in this paper we shall be referring to women's role in child-bearing and in domestic labour which services both the current and future generations of workers. However. it is the domestic labour aspect of women's role in reproduction that we focus on in this paper. There are a number of reasons why feminists think reproduction is a crucial area for political work. It has been generally accepted in the WLM that women's privatised reproductive role is the key material component of women's specific oppression. This follows from an awareness that the entry of women into socialised production, whether capitalist or socialist, does not necessarily lead to reproduction becoming socialised or to any breakdown in the sexual division of labour. The privatisation of reproduction oppresses children and men as well as women but it has the specific effect on women of supporting an ideology wruch makes women feel guilty if they are not putting all their energies into caring for their family. Moreover women are thus isol4ted and divided from each other because of the atomistic nature of the family to which so much of their energy gets devoted. In addition the majority of women, because of their reproductive role, are prevented from developing a strong base outside the family, e.g. the community or trade union. This keeps women politically and economically weak and prevents them from engaging in collective struggle on an equal footing with men. Not only is it essential to organise around reproduction in order to mobilise the mass of women, both those at home with children and those dong the double shift of paid work and housework, but it also is essential for the women who are already feminists and socialists who are prevented from being as politically involved as they want to be by domestic commitments. Finally it is essential to establish the transformation of the relations of reproduction as a crucial component of the struggle for socialism to ensure that socialism does eradicate patriarchy at home and at work.

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The next section looks at different aspects of the changes in women's reproductive role since the 19305 and the implications of those changes for women. We then attempt to analyse why some of those changes occ:urred in

order to undentand better the nature of reforms and the role of the state. We then look at the political implications of our analysis and at the demands of the WLM. FinaUy. we raise some points about reproduction under socialism.

Reproduction since the 1930$ a) Family structure One important factor affecting the structure of families is the pattern of

fertility, In looking at the changes that have occurred since the 19308 two tendencies stand out. The first is the growth in the proportion of women in the population who become mothers at some stage of their lives. The second is the compression of fertility for women within their lives as a whole. Let us

look at each tendency in turn. The increased incidence of maternity amongst women is a change which

has been commented upon much less than the compression of maternity within the life cycle of women. Yet it might help explain the persistence of the ideology of women's primary role being motherhood. The rise in the proportion of women having children has three components. Firstly there has been a growth in the proportion of women marrying especially amongst the younger age groups. Secondly tbere has been a decline in childless marriages. Thirdly there has been a rise in the number of births to unmarried women. The proportion of women muried in the age group 30 to 44, after which childbirth is unlikely to occur, rose from 74.,. in 1931 to 890ft in 1971 . The rise for the youngest age groups was much steeper: from 2'" to 10'" for those aged 16 to 19 and from 250ft to 5807, for those aged 20 to 24.[1)

Table 1 The proportion of females married in Great Britain between 193 1 and 1971 by age group.

Age 16-19 2IJ.U 25-29 31J.44 45-59 6IJ.74 75 and over All ages . Souroe: SocitJl Tnndl 1972.

Percentage married 1931

1951

1961

1971

2.3 25.4 57.8 73.9 69.6 47.5 17.2 40.7

5.1 46.5 76.1 81.9 72.6 48.0 19.8 48.1

8.4 57.3 83.6 86.8 76.6 49.8 18.1 49.3

10.0 58.0 84.2 88.8 80.3 53 .3 1&.2 49.3

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• Women, staleandrep,oduction

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As weD as a rise in the marriage fate there has been a slight rise in the number of children born alive to married women since the 1930s. This is partly due to a decline in childless marriages. Whilst IS'Ia of women

married between 1935 and 1939 bad no children, only 90/, of women married between 1955 and 1959 were childless. [2] Table 2 Distribution of family size (live births occuring to first marriages) in Great Britain. No. of children live-born in TflQrriage

o

1 2 3

4 5 or more Average no. of children

Percentage of Women Married in the Period 1935·39

15 26 29 · 15 7

8 2.07

1955·59 9 18 34

20 11' 8' 2.38·

·Part Estimated Source; Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, Report 0/ the Population Panel. Cmnd 5258, 1973.

Thirdly there has been a growth in childbirth outside nwriage. In England this rose from S.S births for every 1000 unmaried women aged IS to 44 in the mid 19305 to 19.1 for every 1000 in the years 1961·1965.[3) The second tendency since the 19305 has been a compression of fertility within the life cycle of women. Although the average number of children born to each married women has risen slightJy the childbearing period has tended to shorten. Thus whilst women .married in 1930 had an average of 1.69 children after 10 years marriage and 2.15 only after 25 years marriage, women married in 1960 had an average of 2.16 children after only 10 years. This means that more than half of all babies are now born within the first five years of marriage and more than three quarters within eiaht years.[4] The typical mother spends about four years only now in a state of pregnancy and in nursing a child for the first. year of life. [5] It is arguable that the shortening of women's childbearing and infanHearing period which has occurred has added to the physical and emotional strains on mothers of young children to an extent that is not necessarily offset by the medical and material improvements which have undoubtedly occurred during the period. We will discuss some of the implications of these changes for the development of the current women's movement in the section (e) of this paper. Here we will merely note their effects, along with that of changes in the dependence of yong and old people on the family, on household structure. (Household is here taken to mean a group of people who live

20 Table 3

Mean family size (number of children) of women married once

only at ages under 45. Great Britain 1930-}960. Year o[ maJ'tiage

Marriage duTtltion (exact yean )

5 1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960

1.17

1.09 0.97 1.26 1.27 131

1.47

10 1.69 1.63 1.63

1.81 1.87 2.02 2.16

15 1.98 1.97 1.90 2.09 2.15 2.26

20 2.12 2.07 2.00 2.19 2.25

25 2.15 2.09 2.02 2.21

Source: Annual AbstrQct of StDt/stics 1973.

together and benefit from a common housekeeping, or a person living alone.} Between 1951 and 1971 there was a striking increase in the proportion of households containing only one or two people, from 38'1, to 49'11 of the total.{6] This is due to the compression of fertility. to young people leaving home at an earlier age than before and to old people living apart from their children. By 1971 only 50'" Of households were families with children (430ft married couples plus children, 7tJ. single parents with children).[7] These changes have implications for the women who are primarily responsible as housewives, full- or part-time, for the care of the household. The fmt is a decline in necessary housework with tbe decline in household size. The second is a detachment of housework. from childcare for a growing proportion of women. Whilst this has no doubt lightened housework tasks it may have contributed to a sense of unfairness and point1essness in the work. By 1971 over half of married couples bad no dependent children.(81 Anotber related cbange witb implications for women bas been tbe growing geographical dispersion of kin, resulting from bousing and employment policies as well as increased dependence of old people on the state. This concerns the relationship between bousebolds rather than their composition. As extended families have become dispersed women bave lost the traditional support and companionsrup that they derived from female relations. This has increased the isolation and individual responsibility of housewives. b) The Welfare State Four important points might be made concerning the development of the Welfare State and the way it affects women. First1y it has undoubtedly led to a rise in living standards. Improved health, education and social security, for instance, have been a direct benefit. Secondly, these material improvements however have not altered tbe basic dependence of women, whether 00 their husbands or on means tested benefits. Thirdly, they have Dot included the socialisatioD of chiJdcare or housework. except in the war.

~4~------------""""""""""" Women. stote and reproduction 21 Fourthly, State intervention has increasingly taken ideological forms. A major function of social work, for instance, is to maintain the family. to encourage women to cope with their oppressive role in the home. Improvements brought about by legislation in the 19405 perhaps benefited women particularly. if only because their material situation before the war was so very bad. The welfare provision introduced by Uoyd George around 1908 was primarily directed at insured workers and infants. Unemployment and sickness pay and free health threatment on the 'panel'

were intended to keep the workforce fit and state supervision of midwives and district nursing for mothers at the time of childbirth were aimed at maintaining tbe population in a period of imperialist expansion. Few

women were insured workers however. especially since agricultural and domestic workers were excluded. In the 19205 payments to the wives and children of sick or unemployed insured workers were introduced, although there was still no free health treatment -for them. Wives of unemployed workers who did not contribute to a voluntary insurance scheme simply could not afford to go to a doctor. Moreover in the 19305 married women who were insured workers had their benefit stopped and the household assessments were introduced. This meant that parents could be made dependent on their working children and vice versa, with the result that the household budget was even more diff1CUlt to manage. In this period the birthrate declined, infant mortality rose, 36Ofo of children were considered unfit and 8OOJo anaemic. Women's health was probably appalling although statistics on women's health are unreliable if not unavailable, since so few women in poverty could afford treatment.(9) During the Second World War all sorts of provisions were made for children to enable women to work. School meals and milk were intended. to save cooking in the home, together with local authority restaurants, and nurseries freed some women from the care of pre-school children. Cod liver oil, vitamins, free orange juice and ens were introduced to improve and maintain the health of children in lean years, and maternity benefit was intended to make sure the mother could care for her infant for the fust few weeks of its life without impoverishment. In 1941 an interdepartmental committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services was set up, headed by Beveridge. He was determined, given the political upheavals in the 19305 around reproduction, unemployment and pensions, the shocking facts of working class poverty revealed by the evacuation of city children during the war, that 'This is a time for revolution, not for patchina'(10). Beveridge calculated that the greatest cause of want was the interruption of earning power through sickness or unemployment, and that the next greatest cause was the fact that income was not related to family size. He therefore urged children's allowances, State provided health and rehabilitation services and the maintenance of full employment. Growth in the birthrate was to be encouraged by maternity benefits. He proposed that 'there should be an allowance sufficient to provide for all the necessaries of life' for children, but his ,uuested 8/ · was reduced to 5/· on the grounds that several benefits were

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being given in kind, for instance school meals and clothing grants. and that responsibility for children must be shared by the family and the State, and not taken over by the State. Most afthe welfare services introduced after the war were established on the principle of universality. The National Health Service provided free health treatment and heavily subsidised dental and optical services for every member of the population. Child allowances were universal. School milk and Setondary schooling were universally free, dinners, clothing grants and

higher education means tested. National insurance also provided for a universal pension scheme and pensions were intended to gradually climb up to well above subsistence level, to provide a dignified standard of living. Even council housing was spoken of as a right for all.

Some of these intentions were barely attempted. but severe cutbacks began in the 19605. Then charges were introduced and subsequently

increased for prescriptions, dental treatment, school milk was made discretionary and the price of school meals much increased. Local authorities currently administer 47 means tests. Pensions have to be supplemented by social security and heating allowances, concessionary fares, reduced tarrifs on home helps, and vouchers for butter and beef. Benefits for women are still structured around the institution of marriage so that the dependency of women has Dot altered. Social security is cut off from women who are found to be living with a man, on tbe assumption that any man must be responsible for the woman he lives with. Married men get tax allowance for their wives whether they are working or not. Until this year. married women received less unemployment and sickness benefit and paid lower contributions. Women who marry receive pensions on the strength of their husbands contributions. This also applies to women who marry Jate and who have paid contributions independently for many years. It is curious that the fact that improved services would not alter tbe subordinate and dependant position of women was not taken up by women in the 19305 and 19405, even though a few radical women had made this point in the 19205. lite SteUa Brown. Eleanor Rathbone in her campaigns for family allowances was constantly attacking the dependence of women and emphasising how this had increased rather than decreased over time. Yet her actual proposals, measures which were adopted in the Beveridge legislation, only served to provide mothers with more resources to carry out their domestic tasks better. Family allowances were paid to women although this had to be fought for, and it is only this year that child tax allowances ceased to be paid to husbands. Nor have any of the services relieved mothers from their 24 hour responsibilities for children. It seems that only when women are needed in production is there any awareness of women's role in reproduction. Thus the war produced nurseries and canteens which were closed immediately afterwards. Since the late 1960s there has been renewed interest in nursery provision, some employers providing their own creches and some local authorities somewhat increasing nursery provision. But this provision is still for priority cases dermed as deprived or at risk, such as one parent families, and in no way as a universal

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q Women, state and reproduction 23 right. The greatest increase in provision has been in the submerged childminding section which is scapegoated by the State for its inadequacies in the way that private landlords are. Already in the 19305 Eleanor Rathbone noted the increased state

supervision of mothers in the home[ll]. She pointed out that at any time health visitors, school inspectors or rent collectors could 'drop in unannounced. putting pressure on the mothers to improve the quality of labour power she produced and holding legal sanctions against her if she failed to meet the prevailing norms. Since the war the ideological pressure on women in the home has increased enormously and a veritable army of

social workers has been trained in family case work. In 1968 local authority children's welfare and mental health departments were combined to provide an integrated family service. Until recently the basic premise that educational development and personal stability depend on satisfactory mother-child relationships and that all manner of social ills from mental illness to criminality to workshyness to politica1 non-conformity can be explained by childhood experiences in the family has been uncritically taught to teachers, social workers, personnel officers, medica1 personnel, the police etc. The media, especially women's magazines, also continually develop and reinforce the view of the normal mother who stays at home and creates a loving and stimulating environment for her children. Since the 19605 there has been increased assistance in this task through 2 hour playgroups and nursery classes, but in general the responsibility of women for their children has probably increased. Labour mobility and rehousing policies have led to the breakup of the extended family and the supportive community. This has resulted in many mothers caring for their children in isolation with little support in the way of babysitting etc. c) Housework Housework has undoubtedly become much less arduous since the 19305 with the increase in mass·produced foods and clothes, the spread of launderettes, vacuum cleaners and kitchen gadgets, the development of cleaning agents such as detergents and more washable fibres, the increase in central heating etc. Standards and expectations have also risen however so that the pressures on women to perfonn hours of domestic labour are still very great. Women without children can probably complete their housework in many fewer hours than they used to. But the 24 hour responsibility for women with pre--school children, and the all non·school hour responsibility of women with school age children remains unchanged. There is no evidence to suggest any significant shift in the sexual division of labour in the home. Sociologists like Young and Willmott who have tried to show this have based their conclusion on the fmding that 85'10 of husbands 'help' their wives with one task at least once a week.[121 Ideological and emotional factors affecting women as well as men, are important here. Since housework and care of the family are inextricably linked with emotional relationships, women sometimes resist men taking a greater share of domestic responsibility even when that would greatly ease their work load. .

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d) Wage work

The changes that have occurred in women's role in reproduction in the period since the 1930s have been accompanied by a massive increase in the proportion of women in regular paid employment. The growth has mostly occurred amoDgSt married women in the age groups 3.5 and over and

amonast women whose children are old enough to be at scbool.[13] However from the mid 60s there has also been a rapid rise in employment of women with prc-school children.[14] The female labour (orce before the Second World Wax was predominantly young and single. Now two thirds are married women who nonnally have major domestic responsibilities.[IS] From 1960 onwards nearly all the growth in women's employment has been in part-time work which has continued to expand since the economic crisis of the late 60s and 705.(16) A high proportion of part-time workers are women with children at school.111] The divergence between school hours and working hours makes it especially difficult for these women to reconcile full-time jobs witb domestic responsibilities. Part-time work is of course aenera11y even more low paid and difficult to oraanise than women's work in aeneral. Despite the arowtb in importance of women's employment, women's earninp as a whole did not rise at all relative to men's up to the early 70s. AmOIlJSt full-time manual workers the ratio of women's hourly earninas to men' s remained at 61'Tt from 1955 to 1971.[18J The sexual division of labour in paid employment has. if anythina:. been reinforced with the expansion of female employment. Most of the arowtb has oc::ci.med in the service sector in occupations that have become established as women's work e.,. shop work, secretarial, nursing, teachina:. In manufacturina there has been a decline in the proportion of women doing work which is defmed as skilled work. It is widely recognised that the arowtb in women's employment has meant a double shift for increasina numbers of women. This is because it has not been accompanied by any sipificaot socialisation of housework or childcare or any sipificant shift in the sexual division of labour in the home. e) Implica/ions ol/~ clulnges lor /h~ WLM AmOllPt the chan&es we have described two tendencies appear to have special relevance for the development of feminism in the current period. On the one band there is the rise in the proportion of women who bear and rear children at some stqe of their lives at a time when maternity has become quantitatively less and less sianificant in women's lives. One the other there is the rise in the proportion of married women and mothers in the paid labour force and with it a rise in the proportion of women doina a double shift of housework and paid work. As a result of these changes the traditional cboices which women were expected to make between 'work' and family. poUtics or family. trade union or domestic involvement. have become less and less meaninaful. The WLM has cballenaed the need to make such choices in a way that the broad stream of the 19th century

p

4 Women, stale and reproduction 2!5 feminist movement did not. The earlier movement which fought to break the male monopoly over professional occupations, and did Dot question the role of women within the family. drew a large part of its strength from single women from professional families who did Dot expect to many or have children. The current feminist movement has on the other hand stressed the negative implications of marriage, maternity and the family for women in our society and rejected as a solution that women might choose between equal opportunities for work with men and having children.

The ideology of motherhood as women's primary role and the economic inequality associated with that ideology and embodied in the welfare state and the labour market has generated increasing resentment among women.

The foUowing comment from the Finer Report on One·Parent Families, although revealing ignorance about the extent of women's paid and unpaid work in the period before the demographic changes we have been describing, is interesting as an example of recognition of the significance of . these changes outside the feminist movement. 'Women's work used to be undertaken in the interval between school and motherhood and the sting of occupational inequality was mild. Today. motherhood is taking place in the interval between school and work and the sting of inequality has become sharp indeed.'[20] The WLM has developed primarily amongst women with relative economic ndependence who seem to have the greatest possibility for achieving sexual equality. Yet material, ideological and emotional factors work together to prevent them from achieving it.

Analysis 0/ changes in Reproduction This section represents an attempt to pull together some strands of an analysis of women's role in reproduction since the 1930s in Britain. In doing this we distinguish between the economic requirements of capital on the one hand and the political pressures on the state on the other since the two are not the same and do not always work in the same direction. This approach differs from an economic determinist position which sees aD reforms and political changes that occur in a capitalist society as a direct product of the capitalists' search for higher profit. At the same time it recognises that a constant and fundamental political pressure on a capitalist state is the requirement that profit be maintained and expanded. It has become obvious that to go further than we have as yet been able to, requires greater understanding of the capitalist state, e.g. how has the state changed from the 1930s? what is the extent of political pressure the working class and social movements can bring to bear on the state? to what extent are state policies a product of the economic requirements of capital? are the various economic requirements of capital mutually consistent or contradictory? We have only just begun through our reading, discussion and writing to tackle such questions as they apply to women and reproduction. In concentrating on the economic and the political aspects of !he problem

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we are conscious of neglecting the important ideological component.

Let us look first at how the economic requirements of capital have affected women's role in reproduction and production since the 1930s. Firstly there is capital's need for reproduction of a healthy labour force with the required skills. As was indicated in the section on the welfare state, this need was not being adequately met during the 19305 on account of the poverty which $0 many families suffered . Moreover. new technological processes and speed-ups demanded greater dexterity and concentration, yet much of the workforce was seriously debilitated from long unemployment,

sickness and malnutrition. Industrial fatalities and accidents increased. Apprenticeship and training declined to the detriment of industrial production when the recovery occurred.C21] Given such experiences in the lOs. the proposals for social legislation embodied in the 1942 Beverldge Report clearly reflected capitalist interests. They committed the state to intervene to make up for the inadequacies of the wage system in guaranteeing the maintenance and reproduction of labour power. The crux of the policy was the elimination of poverty deriving from male unemployment on the one hand and the non-correspondence of wage payments with responsibility for dependents on the other. The social legislation dealing with insurance for unemployment, sickness arid old age and with maternity. infant and child maintenance had to conform with the economic requirements of capital (as did legislation on health, housing and education). Two JSpectS of this concern us. One is how the scheme was to be fmanced. The other was its perpetuation of women's economic dependence and domestic labour. The Welfare State of the late 1940s was premised on both male full employment and economic growth. Full employment was important for two reasons. On the one hand it offset the tendency for unemployment insurance to reduce the incentive to work. On the other it was an essential prerequisite for keeping down the costs of unemployment benefit provision relative to employee contributions. Economic arowth was essential to disguise the fact that state welfare benefits were fmanced through redistribution of working class incomes: from the healthy to the sick, from the employed to the retired, from single individuals to families etc. For a major economic requirement of the welfare state from a capitalist viewpoint was that it should not be fmanced out of profits. In the 19505 this sytem worked relatively well, (although never to the standards Beveridge intended) since wages were generally rising considerably faster than the burden of taxation and insurance contributions. With the growing economic crisis of the 19605 and 70s, this ceased to be the case. Firstly rising wages were increasingly eroded as they were caught between inflation on the one hand and ever hiaher taxes on the other. with the result of heightened waae militancy amongst wider and wider sections of workers. [22] Amonst these were many state employees whose increased demands raised the costs of welfare at the very time when the state was attemptiq: to economise on its expenditure on reproduction and to direct more resources into industrial investment and exports e.g.

, Women. state and reproduction 27 through investment grants. The abandonment of the principle of universality in favour of selectivity was partly a response to these growing contradictions in a period of economic crisis. The post·war welfare statc's perpetuation of women's dependence and domestic labour also has an important economic rationale from a capitalist viewpoint. as is indicated in the following quote from the Beveridgc Report. 'In any measure of social policy in which regard is had to the facts the great majority of married women must be regarded as occupied on work which is vital though unpaid without which their husbands could not do their paid work and without which the whole nation could not continue'123] The costs of reproduction borne by the statc would be infinitely greater both if adequate socialised care were provided for all the dependents, both children and others, that have remained women's responsibility within the family and if women were to receive equal state benefits in their own right. State acceptance of more of these costs of reproduction has only happened at times when women's role as reproducers has been brought into conflict with the need for women to be wage labourers. This latter need has been a crucial economic factor in the postwar period. As mentioned above, male full employment was an important premise of the post·war welfare state. Full employment of women has at no time, except during the war, been a goal of state policy. Women's unemployment is conveniently, to a large extent, hidden on account of the non·registration of married women for unemployment benefit. Male full employment has, however, had important implications for women's employment since it has resulted in a steady growth in the female labour force. Married women workers provided the only labour reserve, apart from the brief period when net immigration from Third World countries was allowed at the end of the 19SOS and early 1960s. The existence of a female reserve was important from a capitalist viewpoint since it modified, although did not undermine. the increased bargaining power of male workers during the period. The growth in married women's employment initiated during the boom years of the SOS continued into the crisis years of the 60s and 70s when the major area of expansion became part-time work (under 30 hours per week). Women's wage labour has played an important role in the process of cheapening labour costs borne by capital and the state: the capitalist way out of the crisis. This has worked in three ways: I . The low level of female wages; 2. Married women's earnings supplementing the male wage and reducing pressure for higher male wages; 3. Married women's earnings reducing the costs to the state of benefits to very poor families. (All family income is included in assessment for eligibility to meanHested benefits.) Finally in our discussion of the economic factors affecting changes in reproduction it is important to note the effects of capitalists' search for growing markets for consumer goods and services on the technology of housework. Now let us turn to the political pressures affecting reprodu~ion in this

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period. especially those operating in the 19408 and in the late 19605 and early 19705. The earlier period saw an important political shift within the trade union movement which was a product both of industrial changes that bad been occurring in the interwar period and of the experiences of the 2nd World War. Industrial change resulting from capitalist attempts to pin greater control of the labour process and to reduce labour costs had resulted in a slow erosion of the skilled workers position both in numbers and bargaining strength and an expansion of semi~skilled labour. By the 19408 many skilled workers unions had recognised the need to ally with the

semi-skilled. This change undermined the skilled workers' traditional. opposition to state welfare benefits which bad been based on their own ability. because of relatively high wages and relatively low unemployment, to provide benefits for their members, and opposition to paying additional

contributions to fmanoe insurance for tbe more needy semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Greater unity amongst male workers in the 1940s increased the political pressure from the labour movement for state insurance and other welfare benefits. The setting up of the Beveridge Committee in 1941 happened in response to a deputation from the rue. In addition the 2nd World War gave the trade unions, or sections of them, both a new relationship with the state and a new conception of its potential benevolence. It inaugurated state consultation with trade union leaders on a wide range of political matters. It also illustrated bow state intervention to plan the economy and improve the welfare of the people made possible both full employment and an attack on poverty. That the benevolence of the state was premised in large part on a context of wartime class collaboration was clear only to the small minority of marxists in the trade union movement. After the depression of the 19305 the experience of the 2nd World War created expectations in the labour movement which demanded to be met at least in part by the post war government. The fact that it was a Labour Government strengthened these political pressures. However an important pOint to stress is that the form tbese political pressures took reflected tbe continuing male domination of the trade union movement despite the siJnificant growth in women's union membership during the 2nd World War. The major demands were for male full employment and adequate insurance for male workers, for themselves and their families. Although there were certain women's organisations pressurising the state on behalf of mothers and married wocmn, their political weight was insignificant. [241 The failure of the post-war welfare state to question women's economic dependence on the family must partly result from the political and economic weakness of women at the time. Despite the key role of political pressure from the trade union movement in setting up the post war welfare state there has been little systematic attempt by the trade unions to defend the gains it embodied from the attacks on it in the 60s and 70s. Although there has been a considerable increase in trade unions' strength since the 2nd World War their power has not surprisingly remained largely based on grass roots organisation around workplace wages and conditions. Because of this, one response to the

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Women. state and reproduction 29

I

failure of the welfare state to establish and maintain adequate social benefits on a universal basis has been increased. emphasis on company sickness and pension schemes which have been fought for alorlJSide higher wages and other fringe benefits. Defence has therefore mostly taken the fonn of sectional struggles to force employers to pay higher wages or to finance social benefits for their workers. However. on the issue of state pensions. there has been a more unified political strategy within the unions e.g. the Transport and General Workers Union call for industrial action over pensions, and a considerable although still inadequate rise in pensions has been achieved as a result. This particular campaign, although limited to pensions, indicates the potential power the trade union movement can have in influencing the development of the welfare state. The other crucial political developments in the late 60s and 70s are of course the WLM and the growth of militancy and self-confidence amongst women workers. The state has responded to these developments by introducing an Equal Pay Act and proposing Anti-Discrimination legislation. neither of which question in any way women's reproductive role. Such reforms promise equality whilst leaving untouched the fundamental causes of women's oppression. Despite their limitations they are likely to raise women's awareness and expectations further and thus stimulate further pressure for changes which will cballenge the ways in which capitalism has traditionally relied on women's specific role in reproduction and in production . Political Implications One of the eternal problems of the left is how to regard refonns, and to decide in what sense they are progressive. Many women, for instance, are ambivalent about increased state provision of nurseries. given the power that might give the State over the early ideological formation of children. Many people also feel that the material advantages of the Welfare State have been almost outweighed by the repressive wsays in which services have been administered. and the social control exerted through them.. But history is a dynamic process and the outcome of refonns is Dot predetermined. It depends rather on struuJ.e around them.. Welfare services have not been entirely repressive. One contradictory outcome for instance has been that those very services designed to support and maintain the family unit have in many instances provided women with sufficient means to break away from it, to bring up their children independently of their husbands. And the more remedial benefits are introduced for single parent families. the more parents in unsatisfactory relationships are likely to separate and the weaker men's sense of obligation as breadwinnen for their families may become. The concept of equal pay may well also change men's attitude to their wage packet, alteri.na their dermition of it as a family waae. Certainly ",eater welfare provision for the elderly has reduced the sense of responsibility of children for their parents. There are several reasons why the repressive aspects of the Welfare State

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have not been more effectively combatted. One is that until recently state sector workers. mostly women, have been very poorly organised. Another is that in the euphoria of the post war period of reform the labour movement was unaware of how repressively those services might be developed and how far the level of provision might be undermined. At that period. the notion

of democratic control by workers and users was not discussed. Furthermore, the left has never placed much emphasis on struaaIc in the sphere of reproduction, either domestic or socialised. Recent organisation of hospital workers. teachers, local government workers, some of whose strugales are now concerning the content of services they provide. struggles against the private sector of the health service for instance and amoDg social workers against many professional assumptions and practices. are a very excitina departure. There are limitations attached to reforms, but reforms also set up new contradictions and new possibilities for struggle. The question we should therefore ask is not whether changes in legislation since the 30s or 40s have improved the position of women. Rather we should ask of any particular reform what new contradictions it sets up for women, how these affect their consciousness and the ability to oraanise. Generally it seems that women' s moments of potential power have coincided with periods of crisis. Both world wars brought about radical chanaes in the role of women. But in the crucial immediate post war years, there was no sufficiently strong feminist current to maintain and further the pins for women, except of course for the successful struggle for suffz'sae after the rmt world war. The ideological onslaught sawt owmen's independence was extreme in the 40s and SOS. As in 1918. women were required to band over their jobs to the war heroes. And how could they demand such luxuries, as they suddenly became dermed, as nurseries and childcare facilities amidst the housing crisis and the enormous task of reconstruction? Those were the year which aave birth to Bowlbyism, glorification of the mother-dilld relationship and of homemakina. Similarly now the upsUfJe in feminism since the late 19605 has run into direct conflict with world capitalist recession and Britain's particularly unfavourable position in that. Thus the Government is forced to make concessions to women in the JUise of the Equal Pay and Anti-Discrimination reforms, while trying to enforce the Social Contract and limiting increases in public expenditure. out of which childcare facilities would have to be rmanced. to 4'11 per year. There are contradictions on both sides. While the capitalist class try to outmanoeuver the reforms through job evaluation and employing women part-time etc, the reforms themselves accelerate ideoloJical change in favour of women and result in increased pressure for full implementation of the existing legislation and for further change. Within the workina class, there arc also deep conflicts however. While women and those sympathetic to feminism strugale for equality in work, childcare provision, abortion etc, and force trade unions to take up these issues. countervailina: political and trade union forces try to limit changes to those allowed by the Social Contract. and many male workers,

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Women, state and reproduction 31 particularly those most threatcned by redundancies, short-time and fallback

in wages, react with hostility to pressure for jobs and resources from

women. The important difference between the current crisis and that after the second world war is that the present moment of potential power for women derives from their own strength. Women experience the crisis even more sharply than men, since they are threatened not just at their place of work but also more directly than men in their domestic role, from risina prices squeezing their household budgeting and from the decline in health, welfare and education services. which they, as primary reproducers of labour power mainly deal with. But despite women's continuing difficulties in trade unions they are organised on an unprecedented scale and rapidly becoming more so. This means that they can argue with men for solidarity from a

position they have not held before. They comprise a much larger proportion of the workforce than ever before, and appeals to unity and against the weakening of working class struggle by the exclusion of women are therefore very powerful. What should our demands be?

Reforms in the sphere of employment and in social legislation since the 19305 bave failed to alter the exploitation of women in domestic labour. Other major problems for women are associated with this; the continued division of labour in production as well as in the home, the position of economic dependence of mothers, whether on a man or on the State, as well as the subordinate position of women in trade unions. It is the domestic labour of women which continues to be the material basis of women's oppression generally in society. We therefore support the demands of the Working Women's Charter, and make the following points. We feel that struggles around the position of women in the home to sOCialise the reproduction of labour power are of the utmost importance. The purpose of this is not just to free women from their privatised situation, but .to free the dependents from it too, whether children, the handicapped or the elderly. A major priority to fight for is free, socialised and democratically controlled daytime provision for all dependents, and full national insurance coverage for all those who are still at home. Breaking down the division of labour between men and women in tbe borne is important as a first stage in easing the unequal share of solitary evening babysitting done by women, but eventually the redesign of housing will be necessary if a rational solution to this problem is to be found. The fight against the sexual division of labour must be carried out in employment, in the unions and in the home. Concessions should not be made to the argument that this is demanding sacrifices from men at a time when they themselves are threatened. The struggle of socialists is not to ask one set of workers to make compromises for another, but to direct their anger in unity against the capitalist system. Conflicts between workers for jobs must be used for revolutionary purposes so that all workers understand

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32 the way the oppression of women in the home and in employment, in the reproduction of cheap labour power serves the interests of capital, divides the working class and can only be eliminated under socialism. The Reproduction

0/ lAbour Power under Socialism

lbroughout this century there has been little energy on the left directed into discussing with workers the nature and potential of socialist society. The result is that socialism and communism are often associated with grey uniformity and rule by bureaucratic clites. In order to fight for feminist demands, however. it is essential to discuss the reproduction of labour power under socialism. It is not sufficient to destroy the family, it is necessary to replace it. The working class has very deepseated beliefs in the naturalness of the family and very good reasons for defending it. They are not likely to ft&ht for feminist issues, which necessarily presuppose fundamental chanaes in the family. unless they are convinced that a preferable alternative is attainable. It is difficult to predict in detail what social relations would be like under socialism since presumably we would all relate to each other qualitatively dirferently. Public and private life would be less separate, 'work' would be less alienated and therefore the family would not have to be the refuge it is to so many people now. The family would no longer have the function of authoritarian repression and certainly children would have much freer lives, more choice of where and how they lived from a much earlier age. Childcare would be much more flexibly provided for. People who wanted to bring up their own children certainly could, but there would be much more support both in the form. of socialised provision for all those who wanted it, on the basis they want it, and in the form of shared help from tbose living in the same or neiJhbouring households. There would be a less possessive relationship between parents and children and a greater sense of collective care from those around, in line with the new ethos of collective solidarity and in contrast to the competitive individualism engendered by capitalist society. Housing would be quite differently designed, not to eradicate every bit of privacy and intimacy but to make possible more collective living and therefore the collective reproduction of labour power. Cooking, cleaning, washing, repairing, childcare etc, therefore would no longer be done by sin,gle households and living groups. It would either be shared in collective households and living groups or it would be more formally and publicly performed by brigades of workers, men and women , in nurseries, playcentres, laundries, restaurants etc, and by cleaning and mending brigades who could service whole streets, but whose labour would be reaarded as essential as any other and comparably rewarded. The role and concept of the housewife would pass out of existence. The low status, the isolation and the sexual division of labour characteristic of the reproduction of labour power under advanced capitalism would become a historical curiosity.

Women. state and reproduction 33 In many respects, therefore. a great many more resources would be allocated to the reproduction of labour power and to the care of people. But on the other hand capitalist society engenders many costs specific to its system such as mental strain and illness, industrial accidents and disease,

social case work, police. A great deal of capitalist expenditure under the broad category of Social Se