Women comrades in South Africa report that sexism is still very much still a problem. Even when we praise the heroes of the struggle, we tend to mention the male freedom fighters and seldom mention the women freedom fighters, conveniently forgetting that it was their selflessness that forced the then-president, Hendrik Verwoerd, to listen to the Black people.
The anti-apartheid struggle did not have as a goal the emancipation of women through the abolishment of a capitalist, commodity system and the creation of a communist economy and social order. Its goal was to end the oppressive economic, social and political system of racial separation known as apartheid. By doing this, the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party created a government where a few Black South Africans became major, national office holders, apartheid laws were abolished, and capitalism remained in South Africa.
Sexism cannot be fully eliminated under capitalism. We must do away with wage slavery and create a communist social, economic, and cultural organization of society. This will create the material basis for men and women to live as comrades and to fully develop our human potential.
Women still face discrimination on their jobs.
Sometimes you will find that the female worker is more qualified than the male one, but the bosses will give the post to the male worker.
Sometimes you will find that a woman is in charge but the males don’t give respect to her as much as they would a male.
Some males still think that they can say and do as they please to a woman. They touch her and she complains. The answer is, “You must be happy I touched you. That shows you are a real woman because women are made to be touched.”
At home men simply make it a woman’s job to raise and train children. Even when a daughter of the family becomes pregnant before time, the woman, the mother, gets blamed.
Some males still think that a woman’s place is in the kitchen. They will sit at home and wait for the woman to come back from work and cook and clean the house, forgetting that she is equally tired.
Some comrades in our collective still have the mentality that women should do household work. Some of them still feel that what they say is more valuable than what a female comrade says. But we are not giving in to that.
We are struggling within the party against these sexist practices and against the history that has taught us all sexist attitudes and behaviors that hold back the fight for communism. One struggle has been with the students, who began as an all-male collective, to make the internal changes necessary for the collective to include women. The report above shows that we are making strides in that direction. Aluta continua!
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