The deepening of the crisis of social relations brings unprecedented apportunities for revolutionaries to help advance the struggle for the liberation of women and gay people. The time is ripe for a comprehensive offensive against sexism - the ideology and practice based on the sexual division of labour within the family.
maintain and justify sexual oppression, creating a fundamental division which weakens the ability of the working class to fight for socialism and sexual liberation. If we fail to seize the time, the working cluss will be vulnerable to the forces of reaction represented by Sir Keith Joseph, SPUC, etc. who seck to bind it more firmly to the bourgeois order by strengthening the family.
THE FAMILY The family is the motor of opp ression for women and tay people within capitalist society. Within the family, women's labour is privatised and the division of labour is structured along sex lines: the wife bears responsibility for ensuring that the husband is adequately fed, clothed, eta, so that he can go out to carn a wage, and that her children are reared to take their place among the future generation of workers. Even when the wife works outside the home as well, the care of the family still remains her primary responsibBity. For these reasons, we may say that women experienpe a common oppression arising out of the sexual division of labour within the family, and that the position of the woman in the workplace is dialectically linked with her position in the family.
As the social, economic and poiitical crisis takes on new dimensions, of the deepening capitalist crisis, its impact on the development of the class struggle and the objective needs which flow from this. On the basis The existence of sexist structures and ideas in the working class helps to we have to go beyond our basic analysis of the oppression of women under capitalism in order to develop a strategy and tactics which meet the needs of the working class and pose a revolutionary anti sexist alternative. Starting from an analysis of the political significance of sexism at the present time, examining factors such as the emergence and consolid ation of reactionary forces, the crisis in the Welfare State, inflation, unemployment etc., we consider the effect of each of these in generating contr adictions between the bourgeois connitment to the family and the needs of the working class. This framework provides a global and comprehensive view which can be integrated into our overall perspective —and in which gay oppression can be properly situated.
Our analysis throws into sharp relief the contradictory positions of the reformist and stalinist organisations on the question of the family. The Labour Government's pro1. Revolutionary socialists work out their political line from an anlysis TENDENCIES 'A' AND 'B'. IN THE LAST FEW WEEKS RED WEEKLY HAS PUBLISHED VARIOUS CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THREE TENDENCIES INSIDE THE INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP TO THE DISCUSSION LEADING UP TO THE ORGANISATION'S NATIONAL CONFERENCE AT THE END OF THIS MONTH. THIS WEEK WE PUBLISH FURTHER CONTRIBUTIONS FROM abortion on demand', which has been a demand of the WiM since its first national confererence in 1970, illustrates This Tendency A pinces work inside the. WIM among IMG priorities it the coming period. Our stalegy should be to help arin the militants in the WLM with a revolutionary perspective and assist in the development of tactics which link their struggle as ainst sexism with other working class strugales We should also participate in movements against the penetration of sexist ideology, such as the Anti-Sexist Code in the media unions, relating them to the demand for workers control in our Action Programme PRIORITIES AND DEMANDS The key objective needs of the struggle against seism and for wonen's and gay liberation fall into tac inter related categories:
1. Crisis in the Welfare State and ine demands against the erosion of existing social facilities with demands for the extension of these facilities and for qualitative changes in the way they are orpanised A major priorit!