The 7 demands of the UK Women's Liberation Movement

[turgiday]

The 7 demnads of the Women's Liberation Movement still look as radical today as when they were first drafted. When women ask what feminism is, I think these 7 demands are a good place to start.

1 – Equal pay now

2 – Equal education and job opportunities

3 – Free contraception and abortion on demand

4 – Free 24hr nurseries
(National Women’s Liberation Conference, 1975)

5 – Financial and legal independence

6 – An end to all discrimination against lesbians and a woman’s right to define her own sexuality

(the last -so far- …National Women’s Liberation Conference, 1978)

7 – Freedom from intimidation by threat or use of violence or sexual coercion, regardless of marital status and an end to all laws, assumptions and institutions which perpetuate male dominance and men’s aggression towards women

finnmackay.wordpress.com/articles-i-like/the-7-demands-of-the-uk-womens-liberation-movement/

I like that she describes it as the second wave from 1971 to now. I like that the second wave is seen as an ongoing thing not a thing that happened and is over.

But I would have though that one of the most important feminist demands was adequate maternity care, so that globally, a woman didn't as a direct consequence of childbirth or pregnancy every minute. And extending from that, adequate healthcare for women in general.

I have some harsh and disdainful words for this...

Aside from 3 and 4, those demands are more than a little vague.

Not to mention, who are these demands directed toward? Legislators? All men? All men plus their female collaborators?

Aside from 3 and 4, these are not objectives that can be attained by much further legislation or structural change. Instead, what must change are cultural values, and these can not (yet) be changed by fiat, as they are represented in the individual beliefs, outlooks, and mindsets of both men and women.

This group has proffered as relevant and meaningful a political agenda as the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is to say none at all. What we have here is a wish-list, and to call it a list of demands reduces the habilitation of a sex to a farce.

'We are the 50%!'

Ah, so this isn't a new document.

Still, the diction leaves much to be desired.

The diction? Do you mean the phrasing?

What do you find vague about "equal pay"?

"Equal pay now"

The only way I can conceive for this to be a soluble "demand":

All above-board wages/salaries/compensation packages are to be assessed, normed against male equivalents, and re-evaluated on that basis, against some nebulous web of duties and standards, presumably by the state. Immediately. And continuously so, to maintain the gains for future employed women while keeping up with rebasing within the wider economy.

Meanwhile, nothing is said about the cultural factors encouraging employers not just to pay women "less for equal work", but to assign women fewer duties or responsibilities, or to keep them out of senior positions. Nothing even about how women are encouraged to aspire to specific sorts of low-paying occupations in the first place.

How could the lamb become economically-equal to the wolf if the shepherd must always be at hand, keeping the wolf at bay? That is not equality at all. Equality must come from the inside-out above all. Both the sheep and the wolf must transform to become - humans.

I'd assume, like most manifesto pledges, there was a strapline and then some detail in another document.

But I expect you know that.

These are the 7 demands. Just as a trade union demand might be a 35 hour working week. How you get it, is the work underneath the demand.

But many many feminists contributed to drawing up and agreeing these demands.

Yes I agree Buffy. It does make you realise how much we still have to fight for.

I think that a lot of those were very specific and not at all woolly at the time they were drafted. Jobs were advertised with different pay scales for men and women (although this was just about to be illegal). Refusing to hire women at all was entirely legal. Contraception was not available on the NHS (and the Pill was much more difficult to get hold of than the legend of the Swinging Sixties suggests). Banks would not give mortgages or any form of loan to women without a male guarantor. Discrimination against lesbians was of course completely open and acceptable. Rape within marriage was not legally possible.

Discrimination against lesbians was legal until very recently.

I feel a lot like Buffy when I read those. I think I find the childcare one the most depressing - because childcare (the expense and difficulty of negotiating thereof) just is such a big thing in my life and the life of my friends.

I have many, many thoughts about this but I don't think I'm ever going to get a chance to really think them through/share them - partly because childcare + job really has limited my life. Mumsnet is my only access to a "voice" in a "discussion".

I think that that list of demands is really thought-provoking.

Free 24 hour nurseries? Staffed by who? I think you'll find very few staff willing to work nights even for double the pay. Making it viable in the lower populated areas would be pretty difficult. You might end up paying 2 staff triple regular wages to look after one sleeping child.

People work nights all the time and no-one bats an eyelid.

It's only when their night work might directly benefit women, that it's suddenly considered outrageous to expect people to work shifts.

Plenty of low paid people, mainly women, work night shifts in care homes.

Under our present patriarchal and capitalist system, yes.

Second wave feminists wanted to do away with that as well.

People used to say the same about care of the elderly and sick. We move on, as a society, and we discover that we can actually afford these things. And then we look at the past and we're shocked we thought the previous situation was ok.

I like most of those demands, but I don't think the nursery one is quite right, although I get where it comes from. I think the modern equivalent should be more about ending the assumption that women will automatically care for babies, and the demand that family care (including all of the 'wife' work) should be considered a parental and not an exclusively maternal job. Then making sure that families are supported ceases to be a feminist issue because it's not just a 'women's issue'.

Actually 24 hour nurseries could be a godsend for parents that just need a good nights sleep.

I dunno, something like this sounds better to me (with a separate document or clause containing specific and implementable legislative "demands"):

THE GOAL OF GENDER PARITY

Social and political institutions should acknowledge that there is a latent cultural difference in masculine and feminine expectations that ultimately unduly underprivileges women. The explicit and implicit goal of this movement is the steady erosion of most or all of aforesaid gendered expectations through education, policy, and the raising of awareness amongst the populace.

The point about the 7 demands is that they are concrete. I could imagine masses of people signing up to that statement because it is so general, that it is non threatening.

We should start a petition of support for the 7 demands.

A lot more legislative change could impact all of these.

Eg discrimination in employment could be criminalised.