SOCIALIST UNITY

Anna Chen in today’s Guardian.

An excitable Martin Bashir landed himself in trouble last week when he gave voice to the apparently sexist undertow of his inner world at a journalists’ banquet in Chicago. It’s not so much that he addressed the assembled women as “Asian babes” that so appals, or even that he did everything except demand that his co-host, Juju Chang, drop to her knees in front of him when he said a speech should “be like a dress on a beautiful woman - long enough to cover the important parts and short enough to keep your interest - like my colleague Juju’s”.

No, it was saying all this to the Asian American Journalists’ Association that was hilarious and stupid enough to justify a gold in the Doofus Olympics.

Bashir also declared himself “happy the podium covers me from the waist down”. Chang’s impressively restrained response was, “See what I have to put up with?” Indeed we do, Juju.

Most guys keep this sort of thing to themselves, rather than blurt it out under a spotlight and into a microphone. “Gee,” the fried meanderings must go, “I’ll just whisper sweet nothings and get all these sweet, sexy Asians aroused and compliant just like in Patpong.”

Asian women who aren’t soft-spoken, submissive and permanently on heat seem to short-circuit many western males’ brains. If you are tall, opinionated and transgressive they call you a ladyboy.

Among many things, I’m a babe to my nearest and dearest. And I’m Asian (in the US, “Asian” is shorthand for east Asian, unlike in the UK, where it is more likely to refer to someone from the Indian subcontinent). But put the two together and you’ve got a fistful of top-shelf porn. “Asian Babe” reeks low-life desperation born of economic disadvantage: not the best description of a hall full of high-powered media professionals. Certainly not of journalists from the east Asian ethnic minority who have had a gut full of fighting ultra-low status with ultra-high achievement.

Whatever I may enjoy in the privacy of my own home, no bloke with his hand on the patriarchal helm is going call me an “Asian babe” and live.

The Southall Black Sisters (SBS) had planned a protest at Ealing Town Hall on 1st April, but they cancelled this demonstration at the last minute, (28 March 2008) becasue Ealing Council decided to postpone its decision about funding for domestic violence services in Ealing until May 2008.

The Council used the reason that they are unable to decide which organisation to award the funding to!

Although it is extremely unlikely that the grant will be awarded to SBS (who have made it clear that they need the funds to continue to meet the needs of black and minority women in Ealing), it does show that the campaign is making a difference. It is making it difficult for the Council to take decisions! This means that there no decision will be made at the Council’s Cabinet Meeting on 1 April 2008 and SBS will be given an interim grant for a further two months.

At the end of May 2008, SBS will still be faced with the need to cut or severely reduce services to black and minority women in Ealing. Further support is therefore still vital, especially as legal proceedings are still contemplated on the grounds that Ealing Council has acted unlawfully by not carrying out a proper race equality impact assessment.

SBS will now be planning a demonstration in May.

Nick Lowles from Searchlight reports that although Nick Eriksen was originally defended by the BNP Press Officer and deputy leader, Simon Darby claiming that his writing was just a bit of satire. Darby claimed the accusations were a ’smear’ and that Mr Eriksen’s remarks had been taken ‘completely out of context’.

BUt last night, the party was trying to remove him as a candidate in a bid to limit the fallout. Erisken is currently number two on the BNP’s London list, and could be elected to the GLA if the BNP get 9% of the vote across London. Yet Today’s Evening Standard reports that Erikson still remains the BNP’s London organiser.

Nick Lowles and David Williams write:

“Rape is simply sex.” That is the appalling view of the BNP London election candidate Nick Eriksen. Writing on his own blog, under the name John Bull, Eriksen claims “men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the feminazi myth machine into believing that rape is such a serious crime”.

He goes on to say: “Men who go along with the rape myth are either morons or traitors”.

Eriksen is not only number two on the BNP’s London-wide list, and so stands a chance of getting elected to the London Assembly, but is also the party’s London organiser. This means he is in charge of the whole London BNP campaign.

Eriksen is a recent recruit to the BNP but has been a controversial political figure for some time. As a former Conservative councillor in Southwark, his views were so extreme and divisive that his surgeries were regularly picketed.

He went on to be a founding activist with Right Now, a magazine aimed at the far right of the Conservative Party. Its first editor was Ralph Harrison, a close collaborator of one of Britain’s most important postwar racist and antisemitic activists, the Dowager Lady Jane Birdwood. Harrison was followed in 1995 by Derek Turner, a former activist in the Social Action Initiative, a small fascist group active in the Irish Republic.

In some early issues Eriksen wrote openly under his own name but he later submerged his identity in the deeply odious John Bull column, in which he raged against multiculturalism, women’s equality and political correctness.

Eriksen also voiced his obnoxious views on his John Bull blog, which he started in April 2005 just before the general election. In August of that year he turned his attention to the date-rape drug Rohypnol.

“It turns out that these stupid tarts are simply getting blind drunk, taking ‘recreational’ drugs themselves, and then having sex,” spouted Eriksen. “Next day they wake up with an almighty hangover and a deep feeling of shame and regret. So what do they do then? Why, cry rape of course, and try to get a poor innocent man sent to prison in order to save their ‘reputation’ – as if they had one!”

Under the heading “Assault with a friendly weapon”, he continued in similar vein.

“Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal. To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that force feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched.”

Eriksen obviously hates women. In another article the following day he wrote: “Men are more intelligent than women – it’s a fact. Let’s be proud of it, let’s celebrate it, let’s take advantage of it, and let’s not tolerate women who seek to deny it.”

But his violent misogyny does not stop there. Eriksen believes that figures that show women are the victim in nearly four fifths of domestic violence incidents are a lie and that men are the real victims. In an article in November 2005 entitled “Give her a slap”, Eriksen attacked campaigns that try to heighten awareness of the domestic violence and abuse as an attempt “to vilify men”. Eriksen believes that “Very few men have any inkling of the hatred and contempt which most women have for them” and that “Feminist talk about ‘equality’ is just a pretext – their real agenda is to try to gain superiority over men”.

Concluding this particularly odious piece of twaddle, Eriksen endorsed physical violence against women. Commenting upon a very public fracas in which Rebekah Wade, editor of The Sun, was arrested following a fight with her husband, the actor Ross Kemp, in 2005, Eriksen advanced his own solution. “Come on Ross,” urged Eriksen, “let’s see if you’re as tough as your on-screen persona – give your wife a good slap!”

With statements such as these it is not surprising that his blog profile states that he takes a “‘right-wing’, nationalist, patriotic, traditional viewpoint, promoting men’s rights and the national interest of the British people. Opposed to all forms of political correctness.”

In Eriksen’s mind, when not being raped or beaten women have one role in life. “Let’s be honest,” he wrote on 16 September 2005, “for a woman to consider a job or career more important than having children is, quite literally, unnatural. Of course having children usually leads to women’s careers being disrupted, but so what? … Instead of complaining that nature prevents women from having successful careers women should embrace the career nature has ascribed to them – motherhood.”

In this view he fits neatly in the BNP. The racist party has long argued that women should not work but stay at home and bring up children.

The married womens’ rate of national insurance was abolished in May 1977 but the repercussions of that archaic legislation is still felt by thousands of women. National insurance in relation to women was based on usually the breadwinner in a marriage, the man.

A woman’s employment was secondary and more likely seen as earning “pin money”.

Women could choose to pay the full national insurance rate and “married woman’s stamp”. If women opted to pay less then they would save on a couple of quid but it would impact on their later pension. It would be assumed that the married woman would rely on her husband’s pension.

This lack of a full state pension is affecting women hitting retirement age now. Even when it was abolished in 1977, women still could continue to pay the lower rate of NI.

Age Concern, argue that women were given bad advice from employers and from the Pension Service. The government has no plans to rectify this inequality. The Lords overwhelmingly voted to amend the Pensions Act 2007 to allow some women to buy back into the full NI scheme. It would cost the government £30million a year, a drop in the financial ocean to rescue women from the potential grip of poverty.

Women are still not full independent equal human beings to men. The Equal Pay Act was over thirty years ago yet women are still paid less then men and it is a scandal that married women are still seen in terms of their husbands.These women face a double whammy as they were paid a fraction of what men earned during the post-war years and now many don’t have money in their own right instead are appendages of their husbands. And some women will have to rely on means tested benefits.The pensions scandal exposes an entrenched form of sexism from the 1940s still reverberating in 2008.

One of the most disingenuous aspects of Chris Harman’s document about the crisis in Respect, is his discussion of alleged sexism in Tower Hamlets.

As Chris Harman writes:

One very disturbing feature of this meeting was the attitude of Galloway’s supporters towards women members of Respect. Rania Khan, at 25 the youngest councillor, recalls:
We had about 50 women that night and they had valid membership cards but they were not allowed to take part. It was raining and cold outside and they had small children with them, and someone who was close to the council group leaders said to one of the women queuing up outside, “My wife doesn’t come, why are you here?”[22]
This was not the first time such attitudes had been displayed towards to Respect members, and particularly young women. Lufta Begum says that Respect council group leader Abjol Miah “shouted at me”. Paul McGarr says, “Some of the young Muslim women have been repeatedly insulted and bullied.” He adds that he does not see this as a particular characteristic of Muslim men—it was how women would have been treated by Labour officials in the mining village he grew up in 40 years ago. The point, however, is that the left have always sought to resist such behaviour.

Now there are a number of things that need to be said about this.

Firstly, the excellent observation from Louis Proyect about the use of “hearsay evidence” as atrocity stories. Who committed the alleged offence? “someone who was close to the council group leaders”. Who was the victim: “one of the women queuing up outside”. Forgive me if I am not totally convinced.

Secondly, let us look at this: “Lufta Begum says that Respect council group leader Abjol Miah “shouted at me”. Paul McGarr says, “Some of the young Muslim women have been repeatedly insulted and bullied.””

Harman says: “The point, however, is that the left have always sought to resist such behaviour.”

Let us look at what happened in Bristol two years ago. Three comrades resigned from the SWP, Ann Thomas, Paulette North and Richard Tucker over the gross sexism in Bristol District SWP, and the way the SWP at a national level refused to do anything about it.

Ann Thomas is an extremely well respected comrade in Bristol. A former left-wing Labour Party councillor, who resigned from Labour when they implemented the Poll Tax, and shortly after she joined the SWP, which she then worked to build for sixteen years. Paulette North was another long term SWP cadre, who was the lead candidate for Respect in the South West region in the 2004 Euro elections. Richard Tucker is also a long term SWP member.

The issue they left over was SWP leading member in Bristol, Pete W, repeatedly shouting, insulting and bullying the women members. Jo Benefield, who was herself being shouted at by Pete W confronted him about how such sexist behaviour is unacceptable in a socialist organisation.

Unbelievably, Pete W complained to the SWP’s internal disciplinary committee about Jo Benefield. Let Ann Thomas take up the story herself:

“Yes, I and Paulette left and so did Richard Tucker. We were all disgusted with the way the SWP handled Jo’s complaint - actually she tackled Pete directly about the way he treated women, particularly Paulette and me and Jo, and it was Pete who went to the party to complain about Jo criticising him!! Remarkable. Pete would always resent any political interference by me in the College where we both work. The party dragged it out for so long and punished Jo too! Pat Stack and Martin Smith chose to believe pete over Jo and me and Paulette. I left January 2006 while it was still going on because of their contempt for us.

“Just because an organisation says it’s against sexism doesn’t mean it doesn’t behave in a discriminatory way. It’s OK if you agree with everything the party says, then you can speak out, but if you want to disagree then you’re seen as ‘difficult’ or not really ‘one of us’. Consequently many of the women are tolerated, but the men always dominate the meetings in Bristol. Look at the way Jo was portrayed as ‘hysterical.’  The night of the coup [in Respect] the speakers were all men with the women as silent partners.”

Eventually a disciplinary hearing to discuss sexism involved only four men, who talked to Jo Benefield, and they sided with Pete W, for the good of unity within the SWP. Can you imagine any other labour movement organisation that would hold a hearing about complaints of sexism, with no women on panel? If an employer tried that, the union would have them for breakfast.

There are of course much worse examples of sexist behaviour from leading comrades in the SWP being tolerated, and it takes a certain chutzpah from Chris Harman to bring the can-opener too close to that can of worms.

So within their own organisation there is actually firm evidence of sexist behaviour, shouting at bullying of women, and the SWP has colluded with the sexists and not backed the women.

A well respected woman member of the SWP wrote in the first SWP pre-conferecne Internal bulletin:

“The record of Tower Hamlets is far from perfect but it points to some success in encouraging women to take up leading roles. The male candidate who did go on to win the Shadwell by-election had Maggie Falsaw as his elections agent. The Respect councillors group appointed Eileen Short as their political advisor, In the last London Council election 18 of the 48 candidates were women, 38%. In neighbouring Newham, which the Central Committee describes as a model Respect organisation only 14 of the 61 candidates were women, 23%.

“If the comrades felt that the sexism at the July selection meeting was something more sinister than the usual discussions they should have not waited for months and then simply raised the situation at an internal SWP meeting. The elected officers in Tower Hamlets Respect could have brought the problem up at many different meetings, both local and national. We undermine our ability to influence the direction of Respect if we demonise members as rightwing, sexist or homophobic, or even communalist,, the same language as used by the Islamophobes.”

So the interesting thing, is that whatever they claim now, the SWP did not seek to argue against alleged sexism within Respect, until they could use this charge as a factional football.

There is a political reason for this. As Alex Callinicos wrote right at the beginning of the Respect adventure:

“Respect is a coalition—a federal organisation that individuals can join and to which organisations can affiliate while preserving their autonomy. The programme, while principled, is relatively minimal, meaning that Respect is a pluralistic organisation in which diverse viewpoints coexist. This structure is critical if the existing forces within Respect are to have the breathing space they need to work together, but even more so if others— particularly wider sections of the trade union movement—are to be drawn in.”

Now there is an inherent problem with this type of structure, because it potentially freezes the political character of each component, without any dynamic towards convergence. As the SWP preserves its own political and organisational autonomy, it symmetrically has to respect the organisational and political autonomy of everyone else. This is precisely the worst type of structure for debating through any tricky issues like personal sexism and seeking to hold people accountable.

From the English Collective of Prostitutes

END CRIMINALISATION OF SEX WORKERS

We send our deepest felt condolences to the families and friends of Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Annette Nicholls, Anneli Alderton and Paula Clennell. Sadly, a year after the tragic murders which took away five precious lives, and despite the unprecedented public outcry which demanded that ‘never again’ should women in Ipswich or anywhere face such violence, women are no safer. The crackdowns which force sex workers further underground making women more vulnerable to violence and exploitation and deterring them from reporting attacks, have returned.

Increasing numbers of people have been pressing for an end to the criminalisation of prostitution. Together with the Royal College of Nursing, Women Against Rape, National Association of Probation Officers, church people, residents from red light areas, anti-poverty campaigners, drug reformers and others, we have formed the Safety First Coalition. But the government continues to target sex workers and increase criminalisation.

Clause 72 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill (CJIB ) now in parliament, introduces compulsory rehabilitation under threat of imprisonment . Clause 72 requires anyone arrested for loitering or soliciting to attend a series of three meetings with a supervisor approved by the court “to promote rehabilitation, by assisting the offender to address the causes of their involvement in prostitution and to find ways of ending that involvement.”

Women will be asked to demean themselves by revealing their most intimate circumstances while no resources are being made available “to address the causes”. Yet lack of benefits, debt, homelessness, low wages, loss of child custody, domestic violence, drug or other addiction and a record for prostitution offences which prevents women from getting other jobs, are known factors in driving women into prostitution. Failure to attend the meetings results in a summons back to court and a possible 72-hours imprisonment. If the CJIB is passed, magistrates will have powers to make subsequent orders so that women may end up on a treadmill of broken supervision meetings, court orders and imprisonment. Magistrates will still have the power to impose fines and send women to prison for non-payment of fines. Even the Magistrates Association has expressed concern.

The government and particularly women ministers claim to be concerned with women’s safety. But since 1997 they have:

Deterred women from reporting attacks with increased criminalisation.

Increased maximum fines for loitering & soliciting to £500 for a first offence and £1000 for subsequent offences.

Promoted the use of ASBOs which have reintroduced prison sentences for street offences by the back door.

Doubled the number of women in jail. Mo st are there for ‘crimes of poverty’ including offences related to prostitution.

Dropped the proposal that women should be able to work together from premises – which is 10 times safer than working on the street.

Increased the penalty for running a brothel – two women working together often with a maid who provides security – from six months to seven years!

Used anti-trafficking legislation to increase deportations of immigrant sex workers. Women ‘rescued’ in police and immigration raids are not given resources and helped to apply to stay, but deported.

Widened the gap between rich and poor. Most sex workers are mothers, mainly single mothers are supporting families. While benefits for children have gone up the benefits for mothers and single people have not: a single mother with one child is expected to live on over £16 a week less than the government poverty threshold; a single woman is on half; debts and sanctions are imposed for truancy and proposed for lone mothers who cannot take up work, make their poverty even worse.

The Home Office has reported that survival is the overriding motivation for prostitution, yet they have introduced asylum legislation which deliberately makes women, including mothers, destitute.

Safety? What safety?

At our socialist film club on Monday we showed the mainstream Hollywood film North Country.

The first job I ever had was as a hospital porter at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, as a young lad of eighteen in 1979. There was a very strong and militant union, and an active left in the workplace, with about eight members of the CP, one member and one supporter of the Militant, myself in the SWP, and of course several active Labour left wingers. (the Militant supporter is now a senior official in Unison in the South West)

But what strikes me now looking back on it, is what an awful culture of bullying and machismo there was. The bullying was both verbal and physical, and people who didn’t fit in could be regularly humiliated and even shoved about. This sat side by side with really good trade union solidarity. We had quite frequent short strikes, and afterwards the bullying would subside for a while, because people had stuck together.

I found it a very intimidating atmosphere, and had a hard time myself at times because I was a bit more articulate, and a leftie, so I was different; but generally my shift mates stuck up for me. The dynamics of bullying are interesting because there is a sort of survival instinct that makes you want to be on the side of the bully that you have to consciously fight against. And of course lots of people now that the bullying is wrong, but do nothing about it.

This is all a bit of a digression, but all this came flooding back to me watching North Country, because it deals with the terrible sexist bullying of the first women working in the iron mines of Minnesota – the North Country so evocatively conjured up by the Bob Dylan song of the same name. (I include it here just because it is such a brilliant song, and I think influenced why I enjoyed the film so much!)

the performance by Charlize Theron as a single mother is very convincing, and Frances McDormand’s performance as a woman trade union rep is brilliant. The union, which in the film is called the Affiliated Steel Workers (the name has been changed to protect the guilty?), does nothing, as most of the workforce believe that the women are stealing men’s jobs.

Of course because this is a mainstream Hollywood film the issues are personalised and sentimentalised, but that artistic convention has its own validity, and also means the film received a much bigger audience for its important story. Director Niki Caro build the tension really well, and I couldn’t help be reminded how few women fim directors there are! There are some weakness in the narrative, especially as some of the characters do make very sudden and seemingly unlikely changes of opinion, but this is a minor quibble.

The structure of the film revolves around a court case, as the story is based upon the Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co, which was America’s first sexual harassment case brought by Lois Jenson, which succeeded in extending the right of protection from harassment to women workers.. Actually the adversarial nature of the court room drama works quite well because the lawyer for the mine and the lawyer for the women are able to articulate the different class perspectives as a commentary.

Obviously the dominant message of the film is liberal, based upon the dignity of the women as individuals enforced via a court; rather than as women workers acting through their union. But women do have a right to be treated with respect, and the courts are a useful way of enforcing it. What is more, even within the coourt case structure, they can only succeed if they stick together for a class action.

The very fact that the debate within the union local, and between the union stewards is portrayed means that the question of the women being workers and the responsibility of the union for defending them collectively is highlighted. And it is only when the union fails to act as it should that the individual solution of court action is used.

The dynamics of bullying in the workplace are realistically shown, which makes it quite harrowing at times. It is also interesting that when Charlize Theron tries to go around the union and see the big boss individually this is shown to be a disastrous tactic.

I think it is a good film and I would recommend it, there are far too few films that take workplace issues seriously.

More details of the real life case can be found in  the book “Class Action: The Story of Lois Jensen and the Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law” by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler