Socialist Open Forum
Sex, Sexism and the System: Women's Liberation in the 21st Century

Over a hundred years ago, writer Rebecca West wrote: "I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."

Today four decades after women’s liberation became an essential part of radical politics women who want to differentiate themselves from doormats face many of the same difficulties and there continues to be much confusion and division about what feminism is or how we achieve women’s liberation.

On the one hand women’s lives have been dramatically transformed. Women hold positions equal to men in almost every area of public life and there are now more women in third level education than at any point in human history. Thirty years ago marriage was regarded as the only path to respectability, whereas today women have multiple sexual partners, choose not to marry and have children as single parents. Sex is something that is openly discussed, which in a country like Ireland represents a major step forward.

Nevertheless, despite all of these real and significant achievements women have yet to achieve real equality in society. Sometimes it feels as if nothing has really changed. Access to free, safe and legal abortion continues to be denied to Irish women as the recent horrific Youth Defence poster campaign illustrates. Women continue to earn less than men in the workplace. The commodifcation of women’s bodies has been taken to new heights as our public spaces and popular cultures are saturated with sexist and pornofied images of women’s bodies.

At the same time we told that we live in a post-feminist society where women’s oppression doesn’t exist or is our own fault. We are told that oppression is all in our heads and that all we need to do is “liberate ourselves” or “take responsibility for own actions”.

The Socialist Workers Party will host an afternoon forum on women’s oppression in the twenty-first century. The forum will explore the rise of raunch culture, sex and sexuality under capitalism and consider at how class mediates oppression. We will conclude by looking at the best strategies to fight women’s oppression today.

SESSION ONE – 3PM
Sex, Sexism and the System – Introduced by Sinéad Kennedy

SESSION TWO – 5PM
How do we achieve Women’s Liberation today? – Introduced by Marnie Holborow

For more information & suggested reading see ww.swp.ie