Where Do We Stand In Belgium?

First of all, we must point out that there are two cultural entities living in the nation called Belgium: the Dutch speaking Flemish group in north and west, called Flanders (Vlaanderen) and the French speaking group in the south, Wallonia (la Wallonie). This doesn't facilitate contacts. Moreover the media pay very little attention to the developments within Women's Liberation and the latter has hardly any media of its own giving information regularly.

Fem-soc

In 1970, two groups were founded which may be defined as fem-soc: in Wallonia the "Marie Mineur" (Marie the Minor) and in Flanders "Dolle Mina"; following the example of the Dutch group with the same name.

Marie Mineur has considered feminism part of the class struggle from the beginning.

Dolle Mina's political consciousness has grown in the course of years.

Both groups still exist and are still active: the Marie Mineur group has expanded to another town. La Louviere, where they founded a Women's House.

Wallonia

Other women's groups have been created in Wallonia in the last few years. They have adopted the idea of fem-soc, however, without having formulated a doctrinal program so far. Discussions are developing and the need is felt to meet within one language group as well as nationally in order to work things out. Eight groups are known in Wallonia. Discussions with left wing groups are starting - formerly they took place only on an individual basis.

Flanders

Apart from Dolle Mina, five fem-soc groups were founded in the last eighteen months.

The Flemish fem-soc groups are trying to formulate a common platform. Unfortunately no general meeting has been held so far for this specific purpose. A draft was made by a few women from Antwerp and Gand; a revised version will be distributed in Amsterdam. It should be made clear, however, that this paper was not formulated democratically. Discussions with left wing groups start locally.

Contacts

Contacts have intensified regionally as well as nationally since the Belgian Women's Day on November 11th, 1976, which was devoted to the Belgian hot items: abortion and sexual education.

Many women of fem-soc groups actively participate in the action groups for the decriminalisation of abortion.

Practical contacts with left wing groups

Fem-soc groups participate in demonstrations organised by the left. In return the left wing participated in the demonstration on March 5, 1977 for decriminalisation of abortion and in local manifestations for this purpose.

Participants of fem-soc groups either come from the Communist or Socialist party or belong to the Belgian branch of the 4th International (French branch LRT - Ligue Revolutionnaire des Travailleurs; Dutch branch RAL - Revolutionaire Arbeiders Liga).

International Tribunal denouncing crimes against women

This Tribunal was held in Brussels in March 1976. About 2000 women from 30 countries attended. It resulted in strengthened contacts among feminist women and certainly raised consciousness among many women, even non-participants. The English-speaking group WOE (Women Overseas for Equality) participated very actively in the preparation of the Tribunal and was better appreciated after this event than before.

- The Tribunal led to the creation of a Brussels collective working on the problem of battered wives, in which Belgian and WOE-women joined forces. A Brussels refuge will probably open within a short time. Efforts in the same vein are being made in Malines and Antwerp.

Non fem-soc women's movement, or reformist emancipation.

Developed especially in Flanders, where in 1971 PAG was founded, following the example of the Dutch group MVM (Man, Vrouw, Maatschappij: Man, Woman, Society). PAG: Pluralistische Aktie Groepen voor gelijke rechten en plichten voor man en vrouw, or Pluralistic Action Group for equal rights and duties for men and women. Branches in several Flemish towns were created. Women of any political colour may join; hence the group has no clearly defined political position. It aims at wider female participation in political and public life, coeducation, equal rights in the legal system, permanent education for women and a fundamental change in the classical male and female behaviour patterns. PAG organised quite a number of actions, e.g. during communal and parliament elections, stressing the importance of the vote to women. During 1972 communal elections PAG had remarkable success in its home town Bruges; many women became members of the town council.

PAG also helped organise the first Belgian Women's Day in Brussels, on 11 November 1972, collaborating with a loose Flemish organisation, VOK (Vrouwen Overleg Komitee: Women's Consulting Committee), plus a number of French feminist groups.

Separate Flemish Women's Days were held in 1973 (Antwerp) 1974 (Gand) and 1975 (Hasselt); French days were held in Brussels.

Due to a lack of overall contacts, new ideas and "new faces" PAG is shrinking in number, activities, influence and quality.

OPEN DOOR (Porte Ouverte, Open Deur) was founded in 1929 as a branch for the international Open Door network. Main points: all jobs open to all women - equal pay for equal work - revision of women's wage categories - denunciation of low wage categories for women. Most O.D. members are elderly people; their influence has become negligible.

UNIFIED FEMINIST PARTY. Works together with the same party in France. Branches in Flanders and Wallonia. Radical feminists who work to get women elected to positions of power.

EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK (Salaire egal a travail egal; gelijk loon voor gelijk werk). Was created as a support and study group in 1966 during a famous women's strike in the weapon industry near Liege. Most members are feminists. Little has been heard from them the last few years.

Women's Houses

Brussels started a few years ago. Others are in Arlon, Bruges, Gand, La Louviere, Liege, and shortly in Tournai.

In Brussels it is mainly frequented by French speaking women, although the Flemish Rebelse Vrouwen (Rebel Women) and the English speaking WOE have their regular meetings in the Maison and have contacts with the French speaking women.

Groups that emerged from the Brussels House: • an abortion group offering advice - the group Self-Defense the group Women and Violence. The Maison organises lecture/discussion evenings and various activities: electricity, plumbing, carpentry and sewing courses, physical espression and so on, and provides a meeting place in its bistro. The abortion group resulted in an abortion clinic (outside the Maison). Once a week a female doctor can be consulted in the Maison.

The Self-Defense movement is spreading to other cities.

Publications

Les Cahiers du Grif (rue du Musee 14, B - 1000 Brussels). Several issues a year, each treating a specific subject. A radical feminist, intellectual revue. It makes clear that a different society is necessary to put an end to women's oppression, is entirely independent however from any left wing movement and has - so far - not clearly engaged itself in discussion with the latter. Is not only much appreciated in Belgium, but also in France.

Le Becassines en Lutte (1 E Avenue de la Couronne, 1050 Brussels). Monthly, edited originally by LRT-women (4th International). Women sympathising with LRT without being members have joined the editorial staff later. Offers information - no deep analysis.

Bulletin de la Maison des Femmes (Brussels) Monthly with articles on hot items, and general information about Maison's activities. No political point of view.

De Grote Kuis, Flemish - irregular publication of Dolle Mina.

PAG (Vossekouter 21,3053 Hulderberg). Flemish - irregular, not very interesting.

De Klep, Flemish - edited by Antwerp and Malines emancipatory and rap-groups - rather uninteresting.

This survey is far from being complete; other groups may publish regional or local papers as do groups of Lesbian women.

A group of homosexual, socialist left wing men, the Rooie Vlinders (red butterflies) publishes something from time to time as well.

Bookshops - In Brussels the feminist library La Rabouilleuse opened a few months ago. It sells mainly French and some English books and magazines and records. In other bookshops, whether French or Flemish speaking, the choice of feminist books and magazines is very limited if not non-existent.

BELGIUM: Worldschools Women's Committee, Limburg

Feminism

The history of oppression of woman is older than the history of capitalism. The power and authority of the male sex dates back to centuries before Christ. In the oldest known cultures the woman occupied the dominant position, which still exists with people living in a tribal system.

With the rise of private property profit became larger than was needed for one's own consumption and so the division of work between man and woman came about.

The man took certain territories for his own and the woman was pushed aside to the children and the kitchen.

Throughout centuries we can see politics, sciences, justice and economics in the hands of men.

Every possessor of power reinforces his position by introducing laws, norms, customs... and this men have done perfectly. They transformed the woman into a creature that had only to serve his highness, the "man". The woman became a nurse of his descendants and she is well trained for this purpose (a doll's mother as little girl and later on a housekeeper in his house, typist in his office and mistress in his bed).

This being the duty of woman, she needs several female qualities: sweet, nursing, obedient, lovely, sexy...

Woman and child are man's property. And it is against this we have to fight. To overthrow male culture a real cultural revolution will be needed, which will recreate woman into a human being with every right to her own way of living.

This right presupposes a fundamental revolution in the actual system of roles, i.e. an equal share m housekeeping, equal opportunity in work and education, a new vision of the family.

To reach this, a strongly organised feminist movement is needed.

Nevertheless we are aware that real liberation of woman demands more than the reduction of man-power. In fact lots of aspects of the repression of the female sex are necessary pillars of capitalism.

1. The existence of good housewives is needed to produce effective and fresh labourers (reproduction).
2. Socialisation of the household with community restaurants, laundries, creches, etc., which are necessary for us women, would make the capitalist consuming market tumble down, because it needs the isolated family, each having its own washing machine... with a wife arranging all that.
3. Within the capitalist system, women function as reserve labour troops.
4. Working women are oppressed in 3 ways:
   - in the man-woman relation
   - as "woman" at work
   - in the labour situation (speed, work at the conveyor belt).

We, women, here face two concentrations of power that will keep us down: men and capitalism. That is why we have to struggle on two fronts; the feminist and the socialist one.

The total liberation of woman, and of every human being, will only be possible in a socialist society, that never again will allow a relationship based on power or property.

Just as a labourer can never be the property of the factory so the woman or children may never be owned by the man. But we, women, must never give away to naivity and think that a socialist society automatically guarantees the liberation of women. Socialism is a condition sine qua non for our liberation but the male sex will never give up their age old privileges just like that! Women have to organise themselves in a good organised feminist movement to wrest our claims. Just as the construction of a socialist society needs objectives, strategies and methods, so the feminist movement needs them badly too.

For this purpose a fundamental analysis of the situation of woman is needed. During the last few years a lot of work has been done on this subject.

But the feminist-socialist movements have urgently to consider the following questions: How to start the conscientization of women, how to organise them? (method). What kind of women do we want to reach? Which steps have to be taken on the short and long term? The success of the feminist-socialist movement largely depends on these three factors.

We and the Left Movement

Our women's group results from the movement "Wereldscholen" (world-schools), that opts for a socialist society.

The original core of the group consisted of ordinary members of this movement and were militants of different groups of "Wereldscholen".

How did the actual women's committee come into being?

In the beginning of 1975, during the preparations of the national congress of WS a small group of women of WS came to the conclusion that not one word about the oppression of women was mentioned in the congress texts (300 pp.). There was also a lack of any vision on the family, the education of children, the position of the housewife, etc. The reason is not difficult to guess as the congress texts were made by men and those men apparently consider the family and the children as women's problems.

Yet there was great dissatisfaction among quite a lot of women, especially because the engagement of their husbands in the movement was so intense that we women didn't get one chance for any commitment as we had to stay with the household and with the children.

We were praised mainly for giving our husband such opportunities. With regard to this, we organised the women of WS-Limburg and this meant the start of our women's committee. Then we began to examine the position of women in our organisation WS.

The results were very sad:

- more than half of the WS-militants are women, though the political line is mainly stipulated by men.

Causes for the men: they feel superior, especially in theory. For the women: they feel inferior, especially in theory, with the result of an under-occupation of women in the policy-making levels of the movement.

- Concerning concrete engagement in the movement, the woman stands in the second place in the family as the man takes more interest in his commitment to the movement, and as the household and education tasks are not equally divided between husband and wife.

- Hardly any or few initiatives arise from the movement to facilitate the commitment of women to the movement, e.g. babysitting. Until now, children were of no importance in the movement.

At the congress we were rewarded with great applause for presenting our remarks and there the matter rested.

But we had learnt a lot from this, namely that a socialist movement is not a feminist one and that is the reason why WS-women began to organise separately, with the purpose:

• to make known the problems of women
• to show the movement that feminism cannot exist without socialism;
• to reinforce the position of women in our movement and to stand up for our rights;
• to start a conscientisation process among other women through the women's committee, in the communities
• to organise education courses. Partly we have succeeded, but we can not congratulate ourselves yet. It will demand a continuous engagement and struggle.

Nevertheless we, WS-women, find it very important to be part of a left movement and this because of several reasons:

1. Unity of the Left

        The weakness of the left in Belgium is due to too much dispersion. If the women's group organises again separately as a feminist-socialist movement and splits off from the movement WS, this will affect once more the fist of the political left. That does not mean that we women may not organise ourselves in one front, but we rather consider this as temporary front, which will probably be of long duration. Vet the link with a socialist movement is strategically of great importance.

2. Field of Action of the Left Movement

We have experienced quite well within our own movement that there is a lot of work left as regards to feminism. Most of the left theories, strategies and so on have been thought out by men's brains which is perfectly perceptible. They take no account of the oppression of women. The child is not taken into account in any of the existing theories. The personal life, the man-woman relationship, relationship of man to man, the whole personal question are apparently considered as inane and non-political, what can lead often to contradictory situations. E.g. a man who is propagating at every meeting the right of self-determination of every human being and who at home is an authoritarian person, who doesn't give his wife and children equal opportunity.

It is also typical that the organisational structures of many left movements have been blindly taken over from traditional organisations, simply because the members have been educated as men and indoctrinated by these structures.

On this subject women can do a lot of progressive work as they are not yet spoiled by rationality and by traditional structures.

Because women can still think with their brains and with their feelings - for them personal things are political as well.

If the building-up of a socialist society really wants to mean an alternative in all fields, then women have to cooperate strongly because otherwise it will become a socialist society modeled upon men.

3. Openness to all the Problems of Society

For we women, it is very important that we work at our own situation, but this may not imply that we turn away from the rest of the problematic of our society. An openness and commitment in every field is needed as socialism implies solidarity against every form of repression.

To be members of a left movement can partially guarantee this.

As WS-women, we never wished to separate from WS, because the organisation WS can make our women's group stronger. Because when we plan a certain action, we dare to demand that the whole organisation back us and this can reinforce our political fist.

The continual confrontation with theory, the functioning of the movement, cooperation with men, oblige us to stand strong with regard to contents and organisation, which is not always easy. But it will benefit the struggle of women. Nevertheless we still think it is very important that women organise themselves separately, and on this subject we are not quick to concede because we are convinced that we stand in a oppressor-oppressed relationship.

The history and the daily reality have taught us very well that oppressed people only become free if they organise themselves against the oppressor.

Continual cooperation between the different women groups and movements that opt for a feminism-socialism is very necessary in order to bundle the forces of women to fight for our rights.

These groups and movements should work rather autonomously but cooperation between socialist movements is essential.