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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971

1970-08-21 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 9

Draft Constitution of the RED WOMEN'S DETACHMENT

1. The Red Women's Detachment is the mass organization of proletarian women under the leadership of the MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY guided by Mao Tse Tung Thought. 

2. Its ranks are open to all working class women who accept its politics and organizational principles. Revolutionary women of petty-bourgeois class origin will be admitted provided they break their class ties and do not exploit the labor of others. 

3. The Red Women's Detachment practices democratic-centralism and combines political struggle with armed struggle, with politics in command. 

The highest body of the Red Women's Detachment is the general membership, which, when not assembled (in Congress), is led by the Central Committee elected by it. 

     The Central Committee directs the Women's Armed Defense Groups 

     The Central Committee established the Central Organ. 

     The Central Committee of the Red Women's Detachment is directly responsible to the Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Party. 

4. There are basically three levels of organizations: 
     (1) MAO TSE TUNG THOUGHT STUDY GROUPS (legal) 
     (2) MARTIAL ARTS (Self-Defense) COLLECTIVES (legal-semi-legal) 
     (3) WOMEN'S ARMED DEFENSE GROUPS (clandestine) 

The MAO TSE. TUNG THOUGHT STUDY GROUPS are organs of struggle-criticism-transformation, an ideological, political school for the living application of Mao Tse Tung Thought. It is a testing-ground for prospective cadre. 

The MARTIAL ARTS COLLECTIVES train in unarmed self-defense and study Marxism-Leninism applied to military science to prepare for the more advanced leVel of armed struggle. 

WOMEN'S ARMED DEFENSE GROUPS comprise the "advanced proletarian military cadre of the Red Women's Detachment. These are securely and clandestinely organized. They are directly responsible to the Marxist-Leninist Party. 

The Red Women's Detachment wholely supports and participates in the formation of People's Armed Defense Groups and Workers Armed Defense Groups. Women's Armed Defense Groups lay the basis for equal military participation of women in the revolutionary RED WORKERS ARMY. 

5. The Central Organ (editorial staff) issues RED STAR as the collective organi-zer of the Red Women's Detachment. 

The Central Organ is directly responsible to the Central Committee of the Red Women's Detachment. Its functions are to ensure the political clarity of its contents, stabilize publication, and develop the widest possible circulation. Systematic distribution of RED STAR and other mass agitational-propaganda materials is conducted through the various organizations. 
[ATTACHED TO THE LEFT] 

Received from the Southern Female Rights Union along with papers excerpted from the Red Women's Detachment: 

     The staff of the former Southern Female Rights Union and other women in New Orleans, through study and practice, have arrived at a different political direction 
than we have held in the past. SFRU has dissolved, discarding the name, and the women from that organization 
are working towards building a New Orleans Femals Workers Union. Some of us who have not been working are 
getting jobs in industrial, lower clerical and service work to join with working class cadre to build a working class base for the women's movement in this area. 
We believe that this is the direction the women's movement in general must take to truly serve the liberation of women and all oppressed people. 
  
     As women committed to international proletarian revolution, we have been studying and groping for an expression of our developing theory, and we are haltingly beginning to practice following proletarian leadership among the female cadres here. We know women in many places, involved in women's liberation, are in a similar situation as ourselves...
 
    Though we have developed somewhat different concepts than the Red Women's Detachment, we are in basic agreement with the principles expressed in these papers, particularly the recognition and material support of the Black, Chicano, Native American and Puerto Rican national struggles within the North American continent and the struggles of women under the leadership of proletarian women.
 
   For material from the Red Women's Detachment send postage costs to 602 E. 11th St., Apt. 12, New York City, 10009. (Excerpts from RED STAR, organ of the Red Women's Detachment can be obtained from SFRU, Box 30087, Lafayette Square Station, New 
Orleans, Louisiana, 70130.) 

LINE BREAK FOLLOWED BY CONTINUATION OF ARTICLE ON END OF PREVIOUS PAGE

rendered by the oppressed to the oppressor." The Red Women's Detachment concludes that since all these relationships are homosexual (social relations between males) in that they are dominant/submissive and since they are all based on one partner doing unpaid labor for the other, these homosexual relationships are based on the class contradictions in society and that homosexuality serves either one class or another. 

     Now, before we even begin to look at the logic of their argument, I want to know why they have inserted into a series of relations that are homosexual in the social sense, a relation that is homosexual in the sexual sense (auntie/younger men)? If the Red Women's Detachment has decided that word "homosexual" stands for a certain social relationship, then why are sexual innuendos and tirades sprinkled throughout the paper. For example, the following sentence which looks like it was taken from a Victorian textbook of sex education: "All of the lamented 'loneliness' and 'sadness' connected with the present day homosexual, including the deliberately ironic and sarcastic use of the term 'gay' is merely the exression of the basic frustration and physical tension associated with this kind of relationship, which at the most erotic level can only be a mutual masturbation, and which almost inevitably degenerates into fetishism, sadism, torture, and cannibalism." Either their logic can't cover up their horrendous homosexism or the two different definitions of homosexuality need to be mixed in with each other so that it seems that there is only one meaning to the word. 

  People obtain power and worth in a society according to their relationship to the means of production. The husband/wife relationship can be easily analyzed from this perspective. The husband possesses a relation to the means of production (on whatever level) but the wife has none--her labor is considered non-production by society and she is not paid for it. Therefore, there is material basis for saying that the husband wields power over the wife, is master to her as she is slave to him, and thus they consequently have a class relationship --he being in a class over her. The relations of the other couples in the series to the means of production are not the same as the husband/wife because unlike the wife all the others (with the temporary exception of the student) possess a relation to the means of production. Any domination by one member of the couple over the other as in the army officer/orderly for example, is not based simply on class. Or to put it another way, the dominant/submissive roles they play aren't based on their relation to the means of production. The dynamics of all those relationships come from a number of different sources in the structure of society. These should be explored--not just painted black and white and dis-missed as class. Unpaid labor is not rendered by one partner to the dominant one in each of the cases. Thus it can't be said that those homosexual relations or presently Gay Liberation Front are based on the class contradictions in society and serve one class or another. 

     It is true as the Red Women's Detachment points out that the bourgeois media views gay liberation and women's liberation as part of the sexual revolution and thereby uses them to exploit women into thinking that in order to be free they must put out. But just because the media uses gay liberation and women's liberation in a counter-revolutionary way doesn't mean that they are in fact counter-revolutionary. 

     One last point that the Red Wo-men's Detachment makes about Gay Liberation Front is that it is "based on the reactionary line that passivity, submission and masochistic slave-like love is the correct attitude toward the bourgeoisie". The idea that they seem to be trying to get at is an old one. It was recently expressed by Huey Newton in a recent interview in The Villiage Voice (July 16, 1970). He said that 80% of the men in prison are homosexual, they become passive because of it and that ho-mosexuality is used against them by the prison officials to keep them docile. But is it homosexuality that makes people docile and passive or is it the torture and pun-ishment they get in prison? 

     If we in women's liberation are working for a better society for all people, then we must begin now by treating each other with revolutionary love and by giving helpful and constructive criticism when necessary. We must also be careful that our analyses are correct and constantly check them. In this paper the Red Women's Detachment has attempted to explain away a phenomenon that doesn't fit into their political analysis. The Red Women's Detachment and the New Orleans Female Workers Union need to do some self-criticism on these points. 

A WOMAN?      AUGUST 21, 1970      9

Saving...

Draft Constitution of the RED WOMEN'S DETACHMENT 1. The Red Women's Detachment is the mass organization of proletarian women under the leadership of the MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY guided by Mao Tse Tung Thought. 2. Its ranks are open to all working class women who accept its politics and organizational principles. Revolutionary women of petty-bourgeois class origin will be admitted provided they break their class ties and do not exploit the labor of others. 3. The Red Women's Detachment practices democratic-centralism and combines political struggle with armed struggle, with politics in command. The highest body of the Red Women's Detachment is the general membership, which, when not assembled (in Congress), is led by the Central Committee elected by it. The Central Committee directs the Women's Armed Defense Groups The Central Committee established the Central Organ. The Central Committee of the Red Women's Detachment is directly responsible to the Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Party. 4. There are basically three levels of organizations: (1) MAO TSE TUNG THOUGHT STUDY GROUPS (legal) (2) MARTIAL ARTS (Self-Defense) COLLECTIVES (legal-semi-legal) (3) WOMEN'S ARMED DEFENSE GROUPS (clandestine) The MAO TSE. TUNG THOUGHT STUDY GROUPS are organs of struggle-criticism-transformation, an ideological, political school for the living application of Mao Tse Tung Thought. It is a testing-ground for prospective cadre. The MARTIAL ARTS COLLECTIVES train in unarmed self-defense and study Marxism-Leninism applied to military science to prepare for the more advanced leVel of armed struggle. WOMEN'S ARMED DEFENSE GROUPS comprise the "advanced proletarian military cadre of the Red Women's Detachment. These are securely and clandestinely organized. They are directly responsible to the Marxist-Leninist Party. The Red Women's Detachment wholely supports and participates in the formation of People's Armed Defense Groups and Workers Armed Defense Groups. Women's Armed Defense Groups lay the basis for equal military participation of women in the revolutionary RED WORKERS ARMY. 5. The Central Organ (editorial staff) issues RED STAR as the collective organi-zer of the Red Women's Detachment. The Central Organ is directly responsible to the Central Committee of the Red Women's Detachment. Its functions are to ensure the political clarity of its contents, stabilize publication, and develop the widest possible circulation. Systematic distribution of RED STAR and other mass agitational-propaganda materials is conducted through the various organizations. [ATTACHED TO THE LEFT] Received from the Southern Female Rights Union along with papers excerpted from the Red Women's Detachment: The staff of the former Southern Female Rights Union and other women in New Orleans, through study and practice, have arrived at a different political direction than we have held in the past. SFRU has dissolved, discarding the name, and the women from that organization are working towards building a New Orleans Femals Workers Union. Some of us who have not been working are getting jobs in industrial, lower clerical and service work to join with working class cadre to build a working class base for the women's movement in this area. We believe that this is the direction the women's movement in general must take to truly serve the liberation of women and all oppressed people. As women committed to international proletarian revolution, we have been studying and groping for an expression of our developing theory, and we are haltingly beginning to practice following proletarian leadership among the female cadres here. We know women in many places, involved in women's liberation, are in a similar situation as ourselves... Though we have developed somewhat different concepts than the Red Women's Detachment, we are in basic agreement with the principles expressed in these papers, particularly the recognition and material support of the Black, Chicano, Native American and Puerto Rican national struggles within the North American continent and the struggles of women under the leadership of proletarian women. For material from the Red Women's Detachment send postage costs to 602 E. 11th St., Apt. 12, New York City, 10009. (Excerpts from RED STAR, organ of the Red Women's Detachment can be obtained from SFRU, Box 30087, Lafayette Square Station, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70130.) LINE BREAK FOLLOWED BY CONTINUATION OF ARTICLE ON END OF PREVIOUS PAGE rendered by the oppressed to the oppressor." The Red Women's Detachment concludes that since all these relationships are homosexual (social relations between males) in that they are dominant/submissive and since they are all based on one partner doing unpaid labor for the other, these homosexual relationships are based on the class contradictions in society and that homosexuality serves either one class or another. Now, before we even begin to look at the logic of their argument, I want to know why they have inserted into a series of relations that are homosexual in the social sense, a relation that is homosexual in the sexual sense (auntie/younger men)? If the Red Women's Detachment has decided that word "homosexual" stands for a certain social relationship, then why are sexual innuendos and tirades sprinkled throughout the paper. For example, the following sentence which looks like it was taken from a Victorian textbook of sex education: "All of the lamented 'loneliness' and 'sadness' connected with the present day homosexual, including the deliberately ironic and sarcastic use of the term 'gay' is merely the exression of the basic frustration and physical tension associated with this kind of relationship, which at the most erotic level can only be a mutual masturbation, and which almost inevitably degenerates into fetishism, sadism, torture, and cannibalism." Either their logic can't cover up their horrendous homosexism or the two different definitions of homosexuality need to be mixed in with each other so that it seems that there is only one meaning to the word. People obtain power and worth in a society according to their relationship to the means of production. The husband/wife relationship can be easily analyzed from this perspective. The husband possesses a relation to the means of production (on whatever level) but the wife has none--her labor is considered non-production by society and she is not paid for it. Therefore, there is material basis for saying that the husband wields power over the wife, is master to her as she is slave to him, and thus they consequently have a class relationship --he being in a class over her. The relations of the other couples in the series to the means of production are not the same as the husband/wife because unlike the wife all the others (with the temporary exception of the student) possess a relation to the means of production. Any domination by one member of the couple over the other as in the army officer/orderly for example, is not based simply on class. Or to put it another way, the dominant/submissive roles they play aren't based on their relation to the means of production. The dynamics of all those relationships come from a number of different sources in the structure of society. These should be explored--not just painted black and white and dis-missed as class. Unpaid labor is not rendered by one partner to the dominant one in each of the cases. Thus it can't be said that those homosexual relations or presently Gay Liberation Front are based on the class contradictions in society and serve one class or another. It is true as the Red Women's Detachment points out that the bourgeois media views gay liberation and women's liberation as part of the sexual revolution and thereby uses them to exploit women into thinking that in order to be free they must put out. But just because the media uses gay liberation and women's liberation in a counter-revolutionary way doesn't mean that they are in fact counter-revolutionary. One last point that the Red Wo-men's Detachment makes about Gay Liberation Front is that it is "based on the reactionary line that passivity, submission and masochistic slave-like love is the correct attitude toward the bourgeoisie". The idea that they seem to be trying to get at is an old one. It was recently expressed by Huey Newton in a recent interview in The Villiage Voice (July 16, 1970). He said that 80% of the men in prison are homosexual, they become passive because of it and that ho-mosexuality is used against them by the prison officials to keep them docile. But is it homosexuality that makes people docile and passive or is it the torture and pun-ishment they get in prison? If we in women's liberation are working for a better society for all people, then we must begin now by treating each other with revolutionary love and by giving helpful and constructive criticism when necessary. We must also be careful that our analyses are correct and constantly check them. In this paper the Red Women's Detachment has attempted to explain away a phenomenon that doesn't fit into their political analysis. The Red Women's Detachment and the New Orleans Female Workers Union need to do some self-criticism on these points. A WOMAN? AUGUST 21, 1970 9