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SUSAN SONTA G
consumership) must
be
challenged. The economy of affluent countries
operates by a division of function that runs along sexual lines: men are
defined as "producers" and tool-users, while women (and adolescents)
are defined principally as "consumers." Unless this distinction is sub–
verted, the full admission of women to the work men do will just
double the ranks of that great army of psychologically alienated "pro–
ducers" already drafted into the ecologically suicidal campaign of manu–
facturing unlimited amounts of goods (and waste ) .
The rethinking about work that inevitably must take place
could
well be done by the presently existing elites, and women may find that
men have made the key decisions without them. The new structures of
","ork to be devised in the next ,two decades (part of whose charaoter
will
be
determined by the need to have much
less
work of many kinds)
could
still perpetuate the sexist system intact - confining women to
the role of parasitical, deferring helper. This can be prevented from
happening only if women invade the world of work now, even while it
is still "alienating," with a militant feminist consciousness.
6. In what way do you envisage the struggle for women's liberation:
(a) in the framework of a revolutionary/political organization or (b)
exclusively in the women's movement?
It
is good news whenever a radical political organization supports
the cause of women - particularly when the organization is one, like
the Black Panthers, that had been notorious for its blatant sexism. But
I am not optimistic about the long-term benefits of such support. The
alliance seems more natural than
~t
really is. Revolutionary struggle
usually does tend to enfranchise women as historical agents and to
override sexist stereotypes in a quick, d ramatic way. Think of what
women have done (have been "allowed" to do) in the Commune, the
Russian revolution, the French and Italian resistance during World War
II,tJhe struggle to create the State of Israel, the Cuban revolution, the
thirty years of Vietnamese liberation struggle, the Palestinian guerrilla
movement, the urban guerrilla movements in Latin America - in relation
to what women were allowed to do (thought capable of doing) in each
of these societies just before the start of armed struggle. But the en–
franchisement is only temporary. After the struggle ends, whether in
victory or defeat, women are inevitably demobilized rapidly and encour–
aged to return to their
trad~tional,
passive, ahistorical roles. (Later
their participation will be ignored or glossed over by historians and
ideologists - as, for instance, in France, where there is an astonishing
silence today about the numerous fighters and martyrs of the Resistance
who were women.
If
their deeds are told at all, they will be fitted into
imagery that confirms the leadership of men, as in that eminently sexist
