Capitalism Degrades Women – Communism Builds Respect for Our Human Family
USA, October 9— Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s assault on her touched a deep nerve with many other women who have also endured sexual assault. It has raised questions that cannot be swept under the rug.
Sexism Comes From Class Society—Communism will Eliminate it
Sexism is inherent in the capitalist system and in class society since it began. Working-class women all over the world—from Iraq to Mexico and beyond — suffer sexual humiliation, assault and even murder. (See p. 4 about India).
Before class society, humankind was collective. People shared the products of their labor according to need. Women’s and men’s work, while often different, were valued equally. Men and women had equal status and respect.
With the rise of private property, class society and exploitation, women and children became men’s property within the family. Often husbands were allowed—even expected by custom or religion—to assault wives who were “disobedient.” Rapists were only punished when the rapist had a lower social status than the woman. In the United States, masters commonly raped enslaved black women —and profited by selling their children.
Capitalism intensified this sexism. With the rise of wage labor, housework and childrearing were degraded as unpaid “women’s work.” Capitalists used super-exploited female wage slaves to drive down wages for men, too.
Capitalism treats all workers as objects to be used to generate profits and then thrown away. Capitalist culture teaches men to treat women as objects to be used and then thrown away. This is the Brett Kavanaugh mindset.
Communism will eliminate private property, the material basis of sexism.
To end sexism in all its forms we must eliminate the source: class society. Men as well as women have a material need to end sexism, which (like racism, but in a different way) divides us, distorts social relations, and sustains capitalist wage slavery. This understanding is the basis for sharp comradely struggle.
We need to eliminate the wage system with a communist revolution so we can organize society on a collective basis. To do this we must build the unity of working people of all races and genders. We must fight ideas and behaviors that hold this back.
In communism, we will build healthy collectives of women and men to plan and produce everything needed and to raise the next generation. Social relationships won’t be based on money or control but on respect and helping everyone develop their full potential in working to meet the needs of all.
All health care including birth control and abortion will be as safe and as available as possible. No one will be forced or pressured to have a child—or not to have one. Childrearing will be collective.
In communism, we will struggle, as we do now, and more sharply, against sexist attitudes, insults and practices. We’ll fight hard against the particularly vicious assaults on women of color.
And we’ll raise a new generation who will see everyone as part of a larger human family.
Supreme Court can’t be fixed
Kavanaugh’s confirmation has led many angry women and men to say that the US Supreme Court, Presidency, and Senate are broken. Many hope to “fix” them by voting, including for a constitutional amendment.
But government institutions in the US and every other capitalist country never worked for the masses. They have never been neutral. Capitalist governments guarantee the interests of the capitalists: to keep workers as obedient and/or terrorized wage slaves so that profits keep rolling in.
The veneer of neutrality has been ripped from the US Supreme Court. But it was never neutral.
In the Dred Scott case in 1856, the court ruled that black people have no rights that white people are bound to respect. In 2018 it decided in favor of the Muslim travel ban and against unions. Even its so-called “progressive” decisions helped the rulers maintain stability, build patriotism and prevent revolution.
We can’t “fix” capitalist institutions to serve the needs of the masses. We need to destroy them with communist revolution. We need to build a mass party of millions to create and run an entirely different world – a communist world.
Capitalist Crisis Creates Revolutionary Opportunities
World capitalism is in crisis. US imperialism is in decline. It faces rising rivals China and Russia. The US rulers can no longer rule in the old way. Their disagreements about how to best exploit and control the working class and prepare for war are in the open.
The ruling class uses its government institutions – especially the Supreme Court – to fight out its differences and reach compromises. As the crisis intensifies, this is more difficult for them to do. They are forced to mobilize the masses into the political arena to defend their system and their policies.
This is a big opportunity to mobilize masses for communism.
Both sides wrap themselves in the flag. One side, represented by Trump and Kavanaugh, is mobilizing angry white men around violent racism and sexism. They hope to use them as fascist shock troops to terrorize other workers and to fight coming wars. Reactionary religion – including opposition to abortion and birth control—is one of their tools.
The other side is mobilizing for an inclusive patriotic liberal movement, also in the service of imperialism. They aim to divert the angry anti-racist, anti-sexist masses into the ranks of the Democratic Party. They will organize their base to defend access to safe abortions, immigration reform and other policies that, they hope, will win the masses of working-class youth to fight their imperialist wars.
We must have confidence that many of those angry masses, whether or not they vote, can see that capitalism cannot meet their aspirations. We must build strong ties with them and share our vision of a communist world without sexism, racism, wage slavery, environmental catastrophe and war.
If you are one of these many, please join and build the ICWP! Spread Red Flag! Mobilize for a communist world!
El Salvador