Socialist-Feminism and the Labour Party: Some Experiences from Leeds

Abstract

The past decade has seen an influx of socialist-feminists into the Labour Party, particularly in the larger towns and cities where the women's movement has succeeded in building a strong community network. Several factors were involved in women joining at this time. By the late 1970s a hostile political and economic climate was increasingly threatening the progress of the women's movement. For many feminists it seemed imperative that alliances be made with other movements similarly threatened if gains won were to be defended and the movement progress. Secondly, some socialistfeminists felt that the women's movement was itself in an impasse. Questions were being raised about how to increase the constituency of the women's movement, particularly amongst working-class women and women from ethnic minorities, and more generally about how to link class and gender issues and how to establish a significant feminist dimension in the theory and practice of the socialist and Labour movements. Many of us had gained enormous experience and confidence through our involvement in feminist politics and felt more able to enter (or in some cases re-enter) the more formal arena of Labour Party politics and make our voices heard. Thirdly, the Labour Party too appeared to be in the process of change. The campaign for Labour Party democracy was pressing for changes in the constitution, in the structure and practices of the party both to make the Labour leadership more accountable to its rank and file and to democratize the process of policyand decision-making. Heavy electoral defeats at the same time were leading to a renewed debate around the need to reformulate socialist theory and practice and to question some of the assumptions of existing statist and bureaucratic socialist models. Decentralization and the extension of local government democracy were seen as ways of both resisting Thatcher and of building real community support for a socialist programme in the future. All of this appeared to offer a more favourable terrain for socialist-feminism to develop than had been the case in the past. What, then, has been the impact of feminism on the Labour Party?