BY JANINE CURR
SYDNEY — On February 19, the International Women's Day Collective debated, for the third time in as many weeks, the question of whether men should be encouraged to participate in the IWD rally and march on March 10.
The IWD collective meeting on February 5, attended by members of Amnesty International, the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), Resistance and the Worker Communist Party of Iraq (Australian branch), as well as individual feminists, voted unanimously that all supporters, including men, would be welcome at the rally and march.
It was agreed that the IWD march should be as large and representative as possible and that the participation of men who support the demands of the march would strengthen the movement's ability to win them to support for women's liberation. The collective wanted women from all backgrounds, especially from migrant communities, to feel welcome and reasoned that a decision to ban men would hinder that.
At the February 12 collective meeting, a large group of women who had not previously been involved in organising this year's IWD activities turned up and attempted to overturn the decision. A motion to reopen the question at the next meeting was passed.
The main argument put at the February 19 meeting by the dozen or so separatists, who were mainly students or worked for trade unions, was that men's exclusion from the march and rally would make the event more “inclusive” for women.
This position ignored the fact that many women, especially migrant, indigenous and other working-class women, want their male partners, sons, fathers and political associates to show their support for women's liberation.
As a letter to the IWD collective from the Women's Multicultural Resources Centre stated, many of the issues raised by the IWD march also affect men and they should be encouraged to support women's liberation activities. This argument was echoed by women from the Kurdish Association, the Iranian/Kurdish Committee, the Fairfield Migrant Centre and the Multicultural Family Planning Association.
In her motion to reaffirm the decision to allow supportive men to participate in IWD, collective convenor and DSP member Kim Bullimore pointed out that IWD activities have always and should continue to be decided and organised by women because women, as the oppressed sex, need to lead the struggle for their own liberation. From IWD's inception, march organisers have recognised that, if full liberation is to be won for all women, the movement needs to make alliances with other oppressed groups, including with working-class men who will support the movement's demands.
Within this framework, men have participated in IWD marches around the world since the first march in 1911. In Australia, since the first march in Sydney in 1929, IWD collectives have generally encouraged men to show their solidarity by joining the marches and rallies.
The second argument raised at the meeting by the advocates of men's exclusion was that IWD is principally a “women-only space” which “empowers” women. This argument dismisses the immediate aim of IWD mobilisations — to be as effective as possible in forcing real changes in public opinion and government policy which will make life better for all women every day of the year — and counterposes to it the very temporary sense of personal confidence the (relatively few) women who participate in the march gain.
A compromise motion was adopted by a narrow majority at the February 19 meeting: that men be asked to march at the back of the march or line the route. It was better than barring men altogether, but it still misses the point that, while men as individuals do benefit from women's oppression, men in general, and especially men who support feminist aims, are not “the enemy”.
The men who march under the leadership and banner of the women's liberation movement on IWD are walking proof that working-class men, also the victims of capitalism although to a different degree, can be convinced to sacrifice their privileges and join the struggle for gender equality as a integral part of the struggle for human liberation.
[Janine Curr is a member of the Sydney IWD Collective and the Democratic Socialist Party.]