NOTE: We were asked to write this paper at short notice, so it is based upon a combination of the papers we have collected over the years plus memories of conferences we attended. Inevitably, therefore, it is by no means a complete history. We do think however, that,the events and conflicts which we outline here do reflect, in general, the development of the Socialist-Feminist current within the Women's Liberation Movement.

The late 60' saw the emergence of the Women's Movement in Britain. In 1969 in London the Women's Liberation Workshop established itself, developing consciousness raising groups and attempting to articulate and understand the ways in which women felt themselves to be oppressed and exploited. In the same years, a group of socialist women active in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign started producing a journal called "Socialist Women", whose aims were to impress upon the left the importance of the "Woman Question", to publicize the struggles of women in Britain and internationally and to try to develop a socialist analysis of women's oppression. It was to be distributed through the newly formed Socialist Woman Groups.

The first Women's Liberation Movement Conference was held in Oxford in 1970. It was felt that the movement had already grown sufficiently to need a national structure in order to co-ordinate the increasingly diverse activities of women's groups around the country. Women in left groups saw this as an opportunity to influence the political development of the Women's Liberation Movement and managed to dominate the national committee. This Women's National Co-ordinating Committee formulated four demands which were adopted by the Women's Liberation Movement - equal pay, equal educational and job opportunities, free contraception and abortion on demand, and 24 hour nurseries for all under 5 years. However the Women's National Co-ordinating Committee degenerated into sectarian squabbles between the different left factors represented and was disbanded by the Skegness Women's Liberation Movement Conference in 1971. It left behind a great deal of hostility amongst feminists towards socialist women and a deep distrust of structures and methods of organizing which were associated with the male left. Instead the small, relatively unstructured consciousness raising group was taken to be the model for structure and organization in the Women's Liberation Movement. There were however, many women who regarded themselves as both feminists and socialists. Those who were in left groups were getting hammered for being "bourgeois feminists" by their groups; those who were not in left groups but were active in the Women's Liberation Movement were getting hammered for being "male dominated socialists" by their sisters in Women's groups. Thus when a group of women in Birmingham who had organised their own Marxist study group called a conference on "Women's Liberation and Socialism" in March 1973 several hundred women attended both from left groups and from non-aligned women active in The Women's Liberation Movement. All agreed on the need to analyse the position of women from a Marxist perspective and most agreed that the existing analysis was inadequate for understanding the specific problems raised by radical feminists in the Women's Liberation Movement.

A series of Women's Liberation and Socialism Conferences were planned. Four conferences took place: London, September 1973 on Autonomy or Separatism?; Oxford, March 1974 on the four demands of the Women's Liberation Movement; Birmingham, September 1974 on Women in the Family; and London, March 1975 on "Perspectives on the Women's Movement". There was also at least one day conference organised - on the Working Women's Charter, Leeds, November 1974 - and probably others. "Red Rag" a journal for socialist feminist women was also started in 1972.

At first the political differences between those women whose primary political orientation was within the Women's Liberation Movement were obscured behind the collective euphoria generated by discussion of new ideas and new understandings. However, by the Oxford Conference, these differences were becoming more obvious and the final conference in London 1975 saw the alliance between the two tendancies end in bitterness and anger.

What were these differences?

They related both to ideas about organisation and structure of the socialist current and to its orientation how should we be organised and who should be organising.

     a) Non-aligned women felt that the Women's Liberation Movement had a great deal to offer the left in terms of how meetings should be structured; that it was important for socialist-feminists not to separate themselves off from the movement in any organised way and that the Conferences were useful in drawing together and developing a socialist-feminist theory and practice within the Women's Liberation Movement.

     Left group women felt that conferences should be organised in the traditional structured way and some felt that the socialist current should be more independent of the Women's Liberation Movement in terms of structure, orientation and programme.

     b) Non-aligned women took the position that since all women were oppressed and exploited by capitalism It was essential to organise around issues relating to women at home and in the community as well as those in paid employment.

    Women in the left groups, however, tended to take the position that socialists should orient themselves to the working class only - by which they meant women at the work-place - struggles around working conditions, unionisation, pay etc.

These political differences were exacerbated by differences in the degree of organisation of the two tendencies. The women from left groups were part of organisations in which issues could be raised, discussed and positions worked out. They had the facilities to write and produce papers together and they had the experience of articulating their views at large meetings. Non-aligned women were on the whole politically isolated within their women's groups around the country and thus had little opportunity to get together with like-minded sisters and had relatively little experience in putting forward their positions in large meetings. Thus these differing political perspectives were never argued out on an equal footing and women from left groupings increasingly dominated the discussion and decisions at the Conferences.

At the last conference, the only papers produced were from left groups and both their content and the manner in which they were presented finally so alienated the nonaligned women present that many just walked out. The conference came to a premature end amid confusion and chaos.

For the next two years there appears to have been no more collective discussion of socialist-feminist theory and practice within the Women's Liberation Movement although Red Rag, the Socialist-feminist theoretical journal, was still being published and several of the left groups were putting out women's papers.

Many socialist-feminists devoted their time and energy to various campaigns - in particular the National Abortion Campaign and the Working Women's Charter.

In retrospect, the manner in which the Charter was taken up by the socialist current is very illuminating. It came originally from London Trades Council and was adopted at the Oxford Women and Socialism Conference - it was more or less siezed upon by sisters as a way of focusing the energies of the socialist current because it appeared to be a practical way of relating to working class women and to the trade unions movement; a way of uniting 'home' demands with 'work' demands.

As a non-aligned woman said at the Leeds Charter Conference eight months later:

"There is no doubt that many in the socialist current took up the Charter without enough thought and discussion .... The politics of the Charter were treated as if they could be read off from it, and not recognised as at least partly dependent on the tactics used.... The crucial question wasn't asked: What is the Charter, or what can it be, in relationship to the Trades Union on the one hand and the Women's Liberation Movement on the other?"

Even before the collapse of the London Conference of 1975 then, the tendency represented by the left group women became predominant through the adoption of the Working Women's Charter. The socialist current was organised in campaigns directed towards women at work in a way that precluded discussions about practice and the theory behind it.

At the 1976 Women's Liberation Conference in Nevjcastle, a workshop was convened by some sisters in Tyneside on 'The Socialist Current within the Women's Liberation Movement'. The workshop was packed out. The discussion centred around our experience as 'mindless militants' and the need for combining the development of theory with practice. Women active in NAC felt particularly the lack of overall theoretical perspective. Non-aligned sisters complained of their isolation within the Women's Liberation Movement. Sisters from left groups spoke of the need for support in their own struggles with their male comrades. Suggestions that a socialist-feminist conference should be organised were rejected - the memory of London 1975 was still too vivid. What was agreed was that a newsletter should be started with the aim of providing a communication network for socialist-feminists and discussing socialist feminist theory and practice. Since then the socialist-feminist current has been growing again - groups have started around the country, several regional conferences have been held, and a national conference is being planned for later on this year. There are still political differences between the non-aligned socialist-feminists and those involved in left groups - the disagreement between the British sisters involved in the planning for the Socialist-Feminist Conference and their subsequent split, some organising for the Paris conference, others for the Amsterdam Conference, is a reflection of these differences. The area of differences remain the same: the orientation - just women in the labour force, or women in the community as well - and the question of structure and organisation. However, the level on which discussions amongst socialist-feminists are taking place now has changed. The non-aligned sisters after several years in wilderness are coming together with a new strength and conviction that feminism is essential to the development and effectiveness of socialist theory and practice. We are confident that this time the socialist current in the Women's Liberation Movement, firmly rooted in both feminism and marxism, will be able to resolve its differences and make an important contribution to both the Women's Movement and the left in this country.

Scarlet Women Collective
May 1977