Starting a RISE Women's Caucus
by Diana O’Dwyer
Article originally published in Issue 3 of Rupture, Ireland’s eco-socialist quarterly, buy the print issue:
RISE is an ecosocialist organisation that places a lot of emphasis on having very democratic structures. We have monthly general meetings of all members that decide our policies. We have local branch meetings. We have reading groups. Our leadership bodies are elected every six months and any member can listen in to their meetings. Proposals, discussion documents, bulletins and meeting minutes are circulated throughout the group. In most ways, this is great. But one problem with all of this is that it can lead to meeting fatigue. So when somebody suggests an additional round of regular meetings, they better have a good reason for it!
A women’s caucus, as the name suggests, is a body for women within a wider mixed gender organisation. In our case, it’s open to all women RISE activists and meets every six weeks for a discussion. When we say women, we always mean trans women as well as cis women. If you think a women’s group should be trans exclusionary, you will not be welcome at any RISE meeting.
We established it for a few reasons. In big picture terms we think it’s important that groups that suffer oppression in our society have a way to discuss that oppression together. In the case of a women’s caucus, that means discussing everything from theories of women’s oppression and analyses of how it operates, to our personal experiences of it.
In RISE we have set out to reexamine some of the major strategic and political issues facing the socialist movement. As with emphasising internal democracy, there’s a downside to this. There’s a lot to discuss and we are a small organisation with a lot to do. There’s huge pressure to come to terms with the most immediately pressing issues first - we have to have something to say about how to deal with Covid or how to approach the existence of a border in Ireland. Particular manifestations of sexism often fall into that category and require quick answers. But it would be easy for a discussion of the underlying nature of women’s oppression to get put on the long finger. A big benefit of having a women’s caucus is that it creates a space where we can start trying to examine and evaluate contemporary Marxist-Feminist theory and make sure that things like Social Reproduction Theory are on the agenda of RISE as a whole.
There are also very pragmatic reasons for creating a women’s caucus. RISE started out as a small organisation with a majority of women members. As we’ve grown we’ve found it much easier to recruit men. That’s the general experience of socialist organisations. In fact it’s the general experience of political organisations across the spectrum. No matter how anti-sexist your policies, if you don’t prioritise talking to women and involving women, you end up with more men. We live in a sexist society. Men tend to have more free time and fewer responsibilities and they tend to be socialised in ways that make them more confident they have all of the answers.
When women do join political organisations they can be nervous about expressing their opinions. Markedly more men than women will jump in and start arguing their views at their first meeting. A women’s caucus can be a welcoming place for new women activists to talk about their ideas and experiences.
We are aware of the danger that a women’s caucus could become a kind of holding pen for “women’s issues”, where men are somehow excused from having to think about or discuss the fight against sexism. Our intention is the reverse of that; to use our discussions to develop our ideas about women’s oppression and place the fight against that oppression firmly on the agenda of the wider organisation and the socialist left.
So far we’ve had two meetings and most of our women members have attended at least one. We’ve had four main discussions. One was about the document from the Fourth International, “The New Rise of the Women’s Movement”, which appears in this issue. The second was based on another Fourth International article, “The Feminist Challenge to Traditional Political Organising”. The third was about the Mother and Baby Homes. And the fourth was about our experiences, as women, of the Covid pandemic. At our last meeting, one of our members shared a poem she had written about women’s oppression, which also appears in this issue. So one each about theory, organisation, history and personal experience, with space for our members to express their politics creatively as well. Our next meeting will celebrate International Women’s Day by exploring craft and visual art created by women in recent feminist movements. If you are interested in coming along to this or future meetings, contact RISE.
