英国女性重新争取女性解放

“国际妇女节，我们发出了21世纪的女权运动宣言”

按语：

相比100年前，21世纪的英国妇女在工作和生活方面起了明显的变化，但是仍然深受资本市场所剥削，与真正的妇女解放越走越远。透过分析各阶层妇女所受的压迫，再提出我们的远景，就是真正的妇女解放运动，必需与阶级斗争相结合，才能改变世界。

作者介绍：

Lindsey German是英国反战组织Stop the War Coalition的召集人和左翼运动活跃份子。她撰写过两本关于妇女解放的书《物质女孩：女性、男性和工作》（Material girls: Women, men and work,2007）和《性、阶级和社会主义》（Sex, class and socialism,1998）。

Nina Power是英国哲学家、作家和学者。她是罗汉普顿大学哲学系高级讲师。2009年她出版的《单维度的女性》（One Dimensional Woman）。两人都持社会主义女性主义（socialist feminism）的观点。

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2010年3月8日英国《卫报》（Guardian）

张光明　译

梁佩雯 校对

    1975年为纪念国际妇女节，女性主义杂志《Spare Rib》曾发表了《4000女性向伦敦东区游行》的文章，照片为游行现场的女性。

    今天是国际妇女节100周年纪念日。100年前的今天，在哥本哈根召开的一场社会主义女性会议上，为了更好地争取广大劳动妇女的权益，与会代表一致同意将3月8日定为国际妇女节。100年后的今天，现在的妇女在生活各方面相比于其祖母、曾祖母一辈人已经有了天翻地覆的变化。但由于这些在工作和生活方面的变化已经完全被市场的需求所扭曲，它们已经与真正的妇女解放相去甚远。

    在21世纪的英国，虽然有少部份女性的工作仍比较具挑战性和舒适，但是对于大多数女性来说，她们的工作仍然集中在商店、办公室、电召中心和工厂，而且经常面对长工时与具大的工作压力，被利润极大化的资本家压榨出更多的生产力。职业女性数量的剧增（多于1200万人）很大程度上是由于大量母亲的加入，但是作为在职母亲，她们在照顾家庭和孩子方面的角色长期以来一直都没有根本的变化。

    这样母亲既要在外面全职地工作，还要承担购买居家用品、喂养和照看孩子等责任，为此很多母亲不得不经常长途奔走，甚至要轮班工作。五十年代的男性对女性的要求很单一，要么有个好相貌，或是有个好脑筋；但现在既要求女性相貌好、能力高，还要求烹饪水平能达到“谁来掌厨”（Come Dine With Me,）节目的程度，更要能够全身心地教养好孩子。

    女性被要求照顾好男人生活的方方面面，如果在工作和生活上遇到错败，亦被归咎为女性的个人因素所引致。能够在方方面面做得好的都是些雇用别人（通常也是女性）为自己分担部分或全部责任的少数有钱女性。有一支劳动妇女大军为她们提供服务，如做饭、保洁、照看孩子、熨洗衣物、超市购物、餐馆就餐和私人服务，目的就是让她们的生活得更轻松。然而，这些基层劳动妇女却经常无法好好照顾自己的家庭。

    这就是劳动妇女的现实生活。现在社会舆论经常谈论“天花板效应”（限制女性的晋升），但少有关心那些整日为生计而奔波的底层女性。女性（及男性）之间的生活质素差异很大，只有少数人享受着工人阶级创造的社会财富。

    另外，社会的性化问题也非常突出。性化虽然被中产阶级所厌恶，但却被广告和媒体出于牟利本能而大肆宣扬，色情文学和艳舞正是他们赚大钱的工具。与此相适应的是，强奸、家庭暴力和性虐待事件持续攀升。在保护女性自主生活方面我们还有很长的路要走。

    今天藉此国际妇女节之际，我们呼吁要继续争取女性解放，这事业必须与争取人类解放的运动、争取劳动者能自主其劳动成果的解放运动相结合。也就是说女性和男性都要为了解放而斗争。不通过斗争，我们是不可能赢得胜利，因为有太多的利益集团在阻挠我们。我们已经看到越来越多的人开始参与反气候变迁、反战、反对不平等和争取女性解放的运动中来。有见及此，我们特此发表一项 21 世纪的女权运动宣言，呼吁大家为实现真正的平等而奋斗！

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Recommit to women’s liberation

On International Women’s Day we launch a manifesto for 21st-century feminism

Lindsey German and Nina Power

Guardian

8 March 2010

Marking International Womens Day 1975, the feminist magazine Spare Rib reported: ’4,000 women marched through London’s East End.’ Photograph: Red Women’s Workshop

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of International Women’s Day. First agreed at a socialist women’s conference in Copenhagen in 1910, its aim was to campaign for the rights of working women. Today, the lives of women have changed beyond recognition compared with those of their grandmothers and great grandmothers. But the changes in work and personal life have been distorted by the needs of the market and have fallen far short of women’s liberation.

The experience of work has been challenging and invigorating for a few, but for most women in the shops, offices, call centres and factories of 21st-century Britain it has been more likely to represent long hours, constant pressure, and growing attempts to squeeze more productivity and profit out of them. The big increase in the numbers of women working (more than 12 million today) has come from working mothers. But there has been no similar change in how the family and childcare have been organised.

So while mothers work outside the home, often full-time, they are also often expected to shoulder the needs of shopping, feeding and caring for their children. This is on top of sometimes long journeys to work, and of the demands of shift work for many. Whereas the old sexist dichotomy of the 50s was that women could either have looks or brains, now we are expected to have both, plus cooking skills at least to the level of Come Dine With Me, and an all-seeing eye to ensure that children behave at all times.

Women are expected to juggle all aspects of their lives and are blamed as individuals for any failing in their work or family life. The only people who can begin to succeed in doing this are those who can afford to pay others (usually women) to carry out some or all of these tasks. So an army of working-class women cook, clean, care for children, do ironing and washing, work in supermarkets, wait in restaurants, perform personal services, all to ensure the easier life of those women who “have it all”. Often in the process they neglect their own families to do so.

The way in which women’s working lives are portrayed reflects this. There is much talk of glass ceilings, but little about those women who are falling into the basement, struggling to work and maintain families on poverty wages. The life experiences of women (and men) are radically different, with a small minority sharing in the profits made by working-class men and women.

Alongside work has come increased sexualisation of society – now greeted with horror by respectable middle-class opinion, but much encouraged by advertising, the media and the profit motive itself, where porn and lap dancing are now big business. The other side of this sexualisation is the continuing high levels of rape, domestic violence and sexual abuse. We are still a very long way from women controlling their own lives and sexuality.

This International Women’s Day we should recommit to a women’s liberation which is connected to a wider movement for human emancipation and for working people to control the wealth they produce. That’s why women and men have to fight for liberation. We won’t win without a fight, because there are many vested interests who want to stop us. But more and more people are beginning to connect campaigning over climate change, war and inequality with fighting for women’s liberation. That’s why we are launching a manifesto for 21st-century feminism to begin to organise for real equality.