France: #NousToutes

A few days before 25 November, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the French collective #NousToutes called for the organisation of several demonstrations in the country on Saturday 20 November, which was also World Day for the Protection of Children and International Transgender Day of Remembrance. In Paris, tens of thousands of people responded to the call, including a team of activists from International Socialist Alternative (ISA), who distributed the following leaflet and other material.

In 2020, an average of 67 rapes per day were reported in France. Almost 3 per hour, and that’s just the victims who have filed a complaint, the reality is even more horrible. From harassment to femicide, gender-based violence is omnipresent. It is a societal problem, rooted in the DNA of the capitalist system itself, with terrifying personal impacts.

Capitalism perverts every social progress. Sexual liberation has been distorted and women’s bodies have become commodities, marketing objects. This objectification feeds rape culture. In the recent survey by the #NousToutes collective, nine out of ten women “say they have experienced pressure to have sex”.

Capitalism distorts human relationships. People may be forced to stay in relationships for financial reasons or because they are worried about the stigma of divorce, single parenthood, etc. By destroying public services and social security, austerity policies are helping to shift all the pressure of society onto families, with all the risks that this entails with the accumulation of daily hardship, as illustrated by the increase in cases of domestic violence during lockdowns.

Capitalism uses sexism to keep half the population in a second-class position. For example, prejudices about the so-called natural role of women are used as an excuse for low wages in the care sector, where women are over-represented.

Capitalism uses sexism and LGBTQIA+phobia, as well as racism, to divide workers and continue to exploit them. The unity of the exploited and oppressed and their taking action in defence of an alternative is the best way to fight capitalism.

Enough words: action and public investment

- Sexist and LGBTQIA+phobic violence must be unequivocally condemned. Stop blaming the victims!

- To stop being treated as objects: stop the commodification of our bodies. For the use of advertising space for social purposes (prevention, culture...) and not for commercial purposes.

- So that no one is left in distress without support: a public investment plan to help victims, based on needs.

- To stop leaving victims of domestic violence without a place to stay: sufficient emergency shelters and social housing.

- So that we are no longer regarded as second-class citizens and for our financial independence: decent jobs, a collective reduction in working hours without loss of pay and with compensatory employment, and a general increase in wages.

For a combative feminism

Capitalism is increasingly being challenged around the world: from the re-emergence of youth climate strikes to workers’ strikes for better wages, from revolutionary uprisings in Colombia and Myanmar to the struggle of indigenous peoples against the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. In all these cases, women have been at the forefront of the struggle.

Specifically, on women’s rights, millions of people have demonstrated, struck, and participated in occupations with the NiUnaMenos movement in Latin America to demand real abortion rights and an end to femicide. The right to abortion was won in Argentina and later in Mexico. In the Basque Country, 3,500 workers went on strike in October at Mercedes against gender-based violence after the femicide of a colleague, Erika Tavares. In response to anti-abortion bills taken up by the US Supreme Court and the outrageous abortion ban in Texas, tens of thousands of women demonstrated on 2 October. In Brasilia, over 5,000 indigenous women demonstrated against the secession of land from their communities to mining companies. These struggles are sources of inspiration for our fight.

We need to pay particular attention to the triple and quadruple oppressions suffered, for example, by working-class women who are also discriminated against because of their origin, gender identity and/or sexual orientation. We need to fight for a democratic movement that is representative of all, that defends the rights of all oppressed groups, and in which everyone can participate. But we need to look at what unites us rather than what makes us different: that is, our position as members of a social class that is capable of tearing down the capitalist economy through strikes. If the pandemic has demonstrated anything, it’s that it’s the workers who make the world go round, it’s time they take it into their own hands!

For socialist feminism

We defend a feminism whose objective is a society free from oppression, inequality, and violence: a democratic socialist society based on the satisfaction of the needs of all in respect of the environment.

By nationalising the big companies and banks under the democratic control and management of the workers, we can use the monumental wealth that exists today to meet the needs of the majority of the population. It would be possible to massively increase wages and to collectively reduce working time so that it can be shared out, without loss of pay, so that everyone has good living conditions and enough free time.

Such economic liberation would make it possible to reconcile work and family life in a harmonious way. It would also make it possible to end an abusive or simply unhappy relationship at a time of one’s choosing. The massive refinancing of public services and their extension would allow a maximum number of domestic tasks to be taken over collectively (neighbourhood canteens, laundries, crèches, etc.) while really opening up access to free health care, including free abortion and contraception, for everyone. But this is still only one aspect of the issue. By transforming the economic system, we can also fundamentally change attitudes towards women that are rooted in class society and the power relations that flow from it.

If a world without billionaires is a world you’d like to defend, you’re probably a socialist feminist! Find out who we are and join us today!

Join International Socialist Alternative!

International Socialist Alternative (ISA) is a revolutionary socialist organisation that helps build movements against the capitalist system in over 30 countries around the world. We also develop our own initiatives and actions, notably through the international feminist socialist network ROSA.

In particular, we have led an international solidarity campaign against the systematic sexual violence perpetrated by the army in Myanmar in the context of the repression of the uprising against the military coup.