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Recent articles by Bongani Maponyane
Cómo se convirtió la prostitución en la profesión más moderna del mund... Dec 26 16 8 March, International Womens’ Day Mar 08 16 How the West Undermined Women’s Rights in the Arab World Feb 02 16 Anarchism and the Continuing Struggle for Women's Freedom international |
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opinion / analysis
 Wednesday January 27, 2016 17:27 by Bongani Maponyane - TAAC, ZACF tokologo.aac at gmail dot com
 Published in "Tokologo: Newsletter of the Tokologo African Anarchist Collective", numbers 5/6, November 2015 As anarchist-communists, we oppose sexism whenever and wherever it exists, although we also realise that class position differentiates the experience of sexism. We salute all the woman freedom fighters, and the older generation of women, many our mothers, who bear the scars of the gruesome battles in which they stood firm, fighting the oppression imposed on the African native by colonial conquest. CAPITALISM'S GUILT It is now 20 years into the era of parliamentary democracy, but the oppression of women continues to haunt society. We live in capitalism, and capitalism has a major impact on the current situation. The oppression of women lets the bosses have a flexible work force, it makes it easy to hire and fire women at will. Women don't really have job security, and they are often fired when they fall pregnant. The bosses justify lower wages and job security for women, saying that men are the breadwinners. This is one major reason that women are concentrated in low-wage and insecure jobs as domestic workers, seasonal farm workers, contract workers and in factories - all areas where the wealth of the economy is being produced, where they are exploitated severely. Working class and poor women are oppressed, not just as members of the working class, but as women. They face problems that men do not. However, their special oppression as women is in many ways due to their class position in the class system of capitalism and the state. CLASS EFFECTS We realise through capitalism a wealthy woman can afford many things, and has full access to things like cars, credit cards and a "maid". And we know that many of the struggles to end women's oppression are dominated by middle-class and upper-class women. But since upper class women have an investment in capitalism and the state, they cannot fight against the deep causes of women's oppression in the system. They are part of the system. HOME-GROWN OPPRESSION Building a strong working class movement requires tackling the stumbling blocks working class and poor women face in society to date. When we men exercise a degree of power over women, it is unethical, immoral and insensitive - yet this home-grown oppression is manifested so widely in people's lives that it's seen as normal. But who benefits from this behaviour? It is the ruling class. All these hierarchies support one other, and collectively serve the same purposes: keeping the working class exploited, divided and controlled, to the benefit of the big business-state alliance. The long history of women's oppression continues to haunt modern day society. While women are expected to work as hard, even harder than men, they earn less, and have less security, as well as many household tasks. Yet in our movements we do not have enough women in leadership, some even asking if women are competent for these positions. And because women working class and poor face so many burdens, it makes a difficult situations, like limiting their participation within their unions and movements, and this in return makes them vulnerable and silenced from voicing our some of their specific grievances. RIP UP THE TREE OF PAIN Thus we as anarchist-collectivist oppose sexism wherever it exists. But only a powerful, united working class movement can rip up the tree of women's oppression, growing in the soil of capitalism. But such a movement can only be built by fighting against attitudes and systems that oppress women.
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Front pageSolidaridad y Defensa de las Comunidades Frente al Avance del Paramilitarismo en el Cauca A Conservative Threat Offers New Opportunities for Working Class Feminism De las colectivizaciones al 15M: 80 años de lucha por la autogestión en España False hope, broken promises: Obama’s belligerent legacy Primer encuentro feminista Solidaridad – Federación Comunista Libertaria Devrimci Anarşist Tutsak Umut Fırat Süvarioğulları Açlık Grevinin 39 Gününde Recordando a César Roa, luchador de la caña Prison Sentence to Managing Editor of Anarchist Meydan Newspaper in Turkey American Anarchist and Wobbly killed by Turkey while fighting ISIS in Rojava Attaque fasciste sur la Croix Rousse et contre la librairie libertaire la Plume Noire Red November, Black November – An Anarchist Response to the Election 1986-2016: 30° anniversario di Alternativa Libertaria/fdca El feminismo es cuestión de vida o muerte International | Gender | en Mon 06 Mar, 13:43
International Women’s Day is a day when the women’s movement around the world celebrates social, political and other achievements of women. It is also a good day for women to take a closer look at the oppression that flourishes through the double bondage of capitalism and patriarchy, and which is still an unfortunate and undeniable reality for the majority of women today. We strive for a society in which one person or group of people do not dominate or exploit another. In such a society there would be no basis for sexual oppression, domination, or class exploitation. We must work to replace the institutions of power, the nation-state, and capitalism with a worldwide system of grassroots empowerment and self-management of all facets of social and economic life.
One hundred years ago today, on March 8, 1908, thousands of women left their jobs in the sweatshops of New York City's Lower East Side and took to the streets to demand their rights as women and as workers. In 1917, their sisters in Russia followed suit, and helped to bring about the revolution that overthrew the Tsarist autocracy. And in Spain in 1936, the anarchist women of Mujeres Libres helped to free their sisters from centuries of oppression.
If 8 March - International Women's Day - is not to remain simply an annual recurrence, we must smash these chains by means of ever-stronger solidarity and class consciousness, in the knowledge that the liberation of women will never be complete until all of humanity is free from its oppressors, from tyrants, churches, States and bosses. In the knowledge that the freedom of all comes through the freedom of women. [ Italiano]
Flora Célestine Thérèse Henriette Tristán y Moscoso Lesnais (1803-1844) was a French writer of Peruvian descent. Little known in official historiography, probably intentionally forgotten because of the rebellion and desire for freedom that emanates from her writings. Among her works were Peregrinations of a Pariah (1839), Promenades in London (1840) and the booklet The Workers' Union (1843). [Castellano]
Ultimately we believe that people should have the freedom to dress whatever way they like. This means freedom from state interference and freedom from religious interference in how one should dress. Anarchist reflections on the debate around the banning of the veil in French schools.
Article from "Alternative Libertaire", March 2005 issue, contributed by Klito, a women-only feminist collective.
International Women’s Day is a day when the women’s movement around the world celebrates social, political and other achievements of women. It is also a good day for women to take a closer look at the oppression that flourishes through the double bondage of capitalism and patriarchy, and which is still an unfortunate and undeniable reality for the majority of women today.
We strive for a society in which one person or group of people do not dominate or exploit another. In such a society there would be no basis for sexual oppression, domination, or class exploitation. We must work to replace the institutions of power, the nation-state, and capitalism with a worldwide system of grassroots empowerment and self-management of all facets of social and economic life.
One hundred years ago today, on March 8, 1908, thousands of women left their jobs in the sweatshops of New York City's Lower East Side and took to the streets to demand their rights as women and as workers. In 1917, their sisters in Russia followed suit, and helped to bring about the revolution that overthrew the Tsarist autocracy. And in Spain in 1936, the anarchist women of Mujeres Libres helped to free their sisters from centuries of oppression.
If 8 March - International Women's Day - is not to remain simply an annual recurrence, we must smash these chains by means of ever-stronger solidarity and class consciousness, in the knowledge that the liberation of women will never be complete until all of humanity is free from its oppressors, from tyrants, churches, States and bosses. In the knowledge that the freedom of all comes through the freedom of women. [ Italiano] |
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