Young Women and the Struggle for Equality

Speech given at the Women's Equality Conference

I hope my remarks will kick off a discussion that is needed in the YCL and Party about the issue of the struggle for equality and democracy of young women. The framework for this discussion is hard to outline in ten minutes and deserves more in depth research and discussion.

Young women have been victimized on a number of fronts. With the new Bush administration and the right wing controlling a majority of seats in Washington and the economic crisis plowing full steam ahead the attacks on equal pay for equal work, reproductive rights, violence against women, welfare reinstatement, access to public education, and criminalization are among the other issues we're going to have to address.

Linda Tarr Wheelan of the Center for Policy Alternatives said that Bush's trillion-dollar tax plan is supposed to help working families. However, merely paying women (and people of color) an equal wage for equal work would put an average $4000 back into family coffers.

Young women are super exploited by the capitalists and the economic, political and social structures they control. Young women have both age and gender working against them. If you're a young woman of color you can expect the racist and sexist edge to be even sharper. Imagine (better yet don't imagine but look at the reality) You go to work and make only 72 cents while your working brother makes $1 for the same labor. Most young women work in retail/sales industry jobs with no job security, with restrictions on hours and are denied the right to organize.

Young immigrant women have the worst working conditions yet.

The stated goal of so-called "welfare reform" was to end single motherhood and enforce the nuclear family. According to the 2000 census there are over 12 million families where a woman is the single head of household. Thirty percent of those families live below the poverty level. Welfare reform is on the top of the list to target women of color.

Welfare as it stands is biased against young women of color - with workfare, time limits, denial of education credits, low wage service jobs, and no health insurance. The right wing will dismantle the existing safety net for young mothers. We must demand reinstatement of entitlement status for social welfare programs and remove timelines and sanctions. At the same time, the right wing is dismantling what is left of the existing safety net for young mothers. The welfare rights movement, which has a substantial number of young mothers, is hitting the streets fighting for their lives and demanding reinstatement of entitlement status for social welfare programs and the removal of timelines and sanctions.

The criminalization of young women of color is on the rise. Racial profiling not only affects young men but also young women. Young black women are singled out by police and searched and accused of drug trafficking. The forces protesting the prison industrial complex need to take up this aspect.

Today the majority of students in college are women. The issue of reproductive rights is a hot topic on campus and in the upcoming period we should expect an upsurge in the women's movement on campuses. In fact, the vast majority of all women (and Americans) support reproductive rights.

Why do most young women relate to this issue so closely? Over half of the women who have abortions are under 25. In his first working day in office, Bush cut funds to international family planning programs. Bush and the religious right mandate to all three branches of government is to: restrict access to abortion and birth control, pass anti abortion rights bills (it is no secret that Congress wants to), implement an abortion procedures ban, limit who can prescribe RU-486, and impose criminal sanctions on anyone who helps a young woman cross state lines to avoid her home state's limits of abortion.

Majority Leader Dick Armey said that he doubted that this Congress could overturn Roe v. Wade. Instead we all know that Congress will whittle away and restrict access to abortion rights.

The prospect of the future of young women's lives being determined by rich, white men in Washington who will never confront this danger of illegal abortion themselves is angering, and young women want to fight.

Neither the working class nor any women, men or youth can advance until the right of women's self determination is fully won. This is a fundamental fight in the struggle for women's equality.

Young women all over the country are fighting against this just as women did a generation before us. Women have always played an essential role in the progressive and labor movement as a whole. The current upsurge in activism by young women on the left is astounding.

Look at the young women who are in leadership in the United States Students Association, The Black Radical Congress Youth, United Students Against Sweatshops, Union Summer and many more. From my own experience attending various events with young workers and students, more young women are fighting in the struggles more so than young men are. But this has not yet been reflected enough in the leadership of some of our own organizations.

What are we fighting for? What do we see at stake?
-Access to higher education. Earlier I mentioned that the majority of students on campuses are women. However there are many hurdles. Some being affordable childcare at two- and four- year colleges and mothers not being looked at as students.
-Curriculum, not only on the college level but K-12, is geared towards male learners.
-Standardized tests like the SAT, where young men generally score higher than young women do.
-Sex education and information about contraceptives is currently blocked from being taught in schools.
-Equal access to sports resources.

I could go on and on.

Young women are not only fighting economic and material struggles but also ideological struggles. The fight against misogyny and male supremacy is intertwined in all of these struggles.

A prime example is domestic abuse and rape. Young women are verbally, physically and sexually abused on an hourly basis. In the past, laws have not had our backs covered, but many pioneers have struggled and continue to struggle for rights for victims. The root of such violence is both economic and ideological.

We must ask ourselves what issues and common experiences shape the minds of young women and men?

Some examples:
The idea that the struggle for women's equality ended when we gained suffrage is still taught in schools.
The notions still exist that feminism is a dirty word and the struggle for women's liberation is anti-male.
Cultural influences distort young women's self worth and esteem. Body image: young women are just sex objects or baby producers.
The rap scene and rock music culture is very exploitative and misogynistic.
The question stands on how we can uproot these influences. And how can we develop a new generation of anti-sexist men?
Just as we strive to bring class consciousness, we must develop a comprehensive program that brings consciousness to young women and men on the economic roots of sexism and how women are discriminated against politically, economically and socially.

We must openly discuss the need to be consistent and unbending on our position against male supremacy within the ranks of both the Young Communist League and the Communist Party. Young women must be consciously brought up as leaders, and the language and men and women alike must confront patterns of sexism.

Special attention must be paid to young women of color, because of the seriousness of attacks that we face on all fronts.

Special attention must also be paid to lesbian, bisexual and transgender women who are some of the most fervent activists in the struggle for women's equality on campuses and high schools and in the workplace.

We must struggle to build working class unity among young women and men because our interests must be aligned in order to progress as an effective force in the fight for immediate demands and for Socialism, USA.