Spokesman for oppression From the dole queue to the altar

Scan page 6

Gerry Byrne examines the latest statistics on Training for motherhood and housewifery?

Fightback HELP U special on TO Class Fighter, paper of the National Lert wing roun movement of the LPYS. NEW ISSUE OUT NOW! 10p plus postage from BM Box 5277, London WCIN 3XX.

in

PERIODICALLY, the guardians of public morality and social hygiene raise an outcry to the effect that marriage and the family are being destroyed, civilisation undermined • etc. On the other side, socialists and feminists wistfully scan the same horizon for evidence IF you thought there was no depths to which the Sun couldn't sink, no subject, however intimate, that could not be pawed over by the prying mitts of its fearless exposure merchants, you'd be wrong. There is still one area which for the Sun is "unmentionable": sanitary towels.

Sanitary towels are rated as luxuries for the purposes of VAT. A campaign calling for the removal of VAT on sanitary towels, has already collected 31,000 signatures for its petition.

Yet when it approached national newspapers for write-ups, pointing out that it is a subject which immediately interests at least half their readers, the response sias chilly.

The Sun: "Sorry the subject is quite unmentionable" . Times editor Charles Douglas Home decreeed 'No items about sanitary towels in the paper" . Even Guardian Women, which receives frequent complaints that it is overly gynaecological, refused space.

The only mention the campaign got was in the Guardian Diary which reporied an hilarious reply to the campaign from Islington's Social Democrat MP, Michael O'Halloran.

He pointed out that women did have a choice not to use sanitary towels: in the good old days women used Washable nappies" as he so Women's NHS pay lap for postage from H'omen's FULL Fightback, 41 Ellington St, London N7 that the institution (as in penal institution) of marriage is disappearing.

So the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys' Population Trends gives an opportunity to assess how far our hopes/fears are realised.

Is marriage disappearing? In the '50s and 60s the quaintly put it.

So women who chose to avail themselves of modern sanitary protection should pay VAl at the luxury rate, just as men who chose to shave with razors should.

This little gem aside, the national press has shown itself startlingly reluctant to admit the existence of a regular androcess that's a tedious reality for a large chunk of the population. Just as once upon a time, nice girls didn't have sex, and virgin birth, apparently, was the order of the day, now it seems nice people don't menstruate.

It may seem ironic that the sun which achieved its present circulation on the strength of an • obsessive focus on selected, and previously taboo, portions of temale anatomy, should baulk at it. But when you think about it, the two go together.

The Page 3 or 5 or 9, depending on how things are going in the South Atlantic) Girls are not real and are not meant to be. They are not subject to physical functions any more than they are supposed to possess a mental life of their own.

They shall not bleed, neither shall they have pubic hair. They are distilled essence of sex object and anything that suggests prosaic humanity is ruthlessly excised. "John Paul I1 - on sale here" blaze the posters in newsagents' windows. This Pope certainly knows how to sell himself. And it's not just on the tacky level of the multi-million pound papal souvenir industry. marriage rate generally increased and people married younger. But now there is a steady downward trend in the marriage rate, particularly for the under 25s.

In 1966 the marriage rate for unmarried men between 16 and 19 was 22 per thousand. By 1980 it had dropped to 13.5 per thousand. For women in the same age group the fall was even more dramatic from 83:1,000 to 43:1,000 - ie. barely half the rate of 15 years previous.

However, this seems to be due more to later marriage than to its disappearance. It is still true that over 90% of people born in any given year will marry eventually.

The reasons for later marriage are interesting. One US survey found that fewer women tended to marry in areas where the job opportunities. for women were better. In other words, marrjage, despite all the razzamatazz of romance and true love, is still fundamentally an economic arrangement.

Divorce

What feminists have argued for years, that women are pushed into marriage because of the lack of job opportunities and the near impossibility of surviving on "women's wages" , is now being borne out by the statistics.

Divorce statistics reinforce this. Divorce is on the increase all over the West. In France and this country it has doubled over the last 10 years, and it's still rising. In 1980 there was an increase May 23 30 9 16 31 17 24 0 25 19 26 5 2 27 13 20 28 6 14 21 15 22 29 Paid ads 5p per word, £4 per column inch. Send to Social. ist Organiser (What's On), 28 Middle Lane, London N8. SOCIALIST ORGANISER MEETINGS & FORUMS SHEFFIELD. Every other Wednesday, at the Brown Cow, The Wicker. Business 7.30, discussion 8.30. Next meeting June 9: 'Women' right to choose' LEICESTER. Sundays 7.30 at the Socialist Centre, High St.

John Paul Il has set out, and to a large extent succeeded in re-establishing the papacy as a real power in the world. The flashy world tours and international political interventions mark a radical break with the de of 7% in decrees absolute here over 1979, and a 5% increase in new petitions filed.

US research again indicates a link between the rise in divorce rate and in women's jobs. One' study which looked at families in 1968 and then again in 1972, found that the higher the woman's income when first interviewed the more likely that the couple would have separated by the second study.

This might be seen as ammunition for the reacISLINGTON. "Islington Council - under rank and file control?' Introduced by Cllr Pat Longman, member of the Council's Policy Committee. Sunday May 30; 3pm, at Thornhill Neighbourhood Project, Orkney House, Caledonian Rd. Coffee, tea, and sandwiches provided. For babysitting ring 607 5268.

REAGAN Reception Committee festival in Islington. Saturday May 29, from 1lam at North London Poly, Holloway Road. Including discussion on the Falklands war. Followed at 8pm by 'Rock Against Reagan' at the 'Pied Bull' ', The Angel.

HEALTH Stewards allLondon meeting. Wednesday June 2, 7pm, Prince Albert, Wharfdale Road, London N1.

WOMEN, Polities and Trade Unions: beyond June 5. Dayschool for women organised by Manchester Industrial branch of WEA. Saturday June 19, 9.30 to 4.30 at 84li Community Education Centre, Moss Side Precinct, Manchester 16. £1 |50p unwaged!. facto "live and let live" philosophy of his predecessors.

Within the Catholic Church, the line has come down firmly. "Ke ep out of (radical) politics. Stick to spiritual matters" while the marriage and divorce.

tionaries who believe women should not have jobs because it breaks up the family. More sensibly it underlines the view that financial independence is a prerequisite for women who want to escape intolerable marriages.

This has alarming implications for the present. With women losing their jobs at an appalling rate, the reality is that more and more women will be trapped with violent or unreasonable men.

If that sounds alarmist it's worth looking at the grounds on which divorces are granted. Three-quarters. WORKERS' March against Racism: FROM Brick Lane through Brixton to TUC conference in Brighton. September 4 to 8. Sponsors include: Jayaben Desai, Anwar Ditta, Nasira BegKnight, Ken Livingstone, Paul Boateng. Details 01-274 3951.

WORKERS' Socialist League London classes on basic Marxism. Next one: Stalinism and Bolshevism. Friday May 28, 7.30pm. For details of venue, write to PO Box 135, London N1.

Contact:

Solidarnose Trade Union Working Group, 64 Philbeach Gardens, London SW5. 01-373 3492.

Glasgow Polish Solidarity Campaign. Ian McCalman, 18 Mossgiel Rd, Glasgow G43. 041-632 1839.

Edinburgh PSC. C/o Edinburgh Trades Council, 12 Picardy Place.

Oxford Labour Committee on Poland, 468 Banbury Rd, Oxford. 0865 58238. man himself takes an increasingly active role in world politics - on behalf of the Right.

Last summer, the Jesuits were hauled strictly back into line by the imposition from the Vatican of a hardof divorces last year were granted to wives and of these, 39,000 (out of a total altogether of 148,000) were granted because of spouses' behaviour, as against 3,640 to husbands on those grounds.

In other words, it is predominantly women who now wish to end marriages and ten times as many women as men have cause to do so because of the intolerable behaviour of their spouses. So how many more would do so were it not for the fear of being unable to support themselves.

Coventry PSC. John Fisher, c/o ASTMS, 26 Queens Rd, Coventry.

Labour Poland Solidarity Fund, c/o Cooperative Bank, 110 Leman St, London El.

LUTTE OUVRIERE fete: international festival of revolutionary Socialism. Saturday to Monday, May 29 to 31, at Presles, Val d'Oise, France. A delegation of SO supporters will be going over to the fete: all comrades interested, please write to SO, 28 Middle Lane, London N8.

line successor to head of the order.

They were given to understand in no uncertain terms that identifying too closely with the Left in Latin America, where they predominate, was not acceptable.

Siding with the oppressed against their murderous governments was not part of their mission, they were told, even if the governmentbacked assassination squads had claimed the life of an Archbishop, Romero, in El Salvador.

Morality

It's not just that kind of liberation struggle that has been clamped down on. The tacit liberalisation that had been proceeding for more than a decade in the sphere sexual morality is stopped.

Abortion and contraception are not to be tolerated. There are to be no compromises with the forward march of women's liberation.

It's tempting to see the whole show surrounding the papal visit as at worst quaint, a nostalgic return to soothing mystical nonsense when times are hard. Especially When the most vocal opposition to the visit has come from unsavoury and irrational bigots, it would be easy to dismiss the whole caper as a harmless giggle.

That would be a mistake. Behind the sumptuous medieval trappings lies an equally medieval, but vicious ideology. Women will die hideously in backstreet abortions thanks to the Pope.

Mock

The bloodbath in Central America may well be prolonged by the Church throwing its weight against the revolutionaries.

This visit is part of a calculated attempt to reimpose irrational solutions on the real material crisis that is wracking the capitalist world. The Right is on the offensive, not just politically but ideologically.

It will be an index of how far the left has failed to get through, when millions turn out to hark to the mystical mumbo-jumbo solutions and dismiss the only rational answer as "extremist". • Don't mock, organise.

POLISH SOLIDARIT CAMPAIGN bulletin new issue out now. Individual copies, or sale-or-return bundle can be obtained from Marion Pitman, 29 Hampton Road, Twic enham, Middlesex (01-898 7165), at 30p copy.

Subscription [six issu £2.50.

Solidarnosc badges, posters, and T-shirts available FREE.

Side Tus HOUSE BOWWOWWC Vnth lin

Scan page 7

Socialist Organiser, Thursday 27 May, 1982 Page FIGHING ...

----- pull-quotes -----

WOMENS FIGHTBACK

fight. 10p ALL OUT HELP strikers] plus FOR THE

WHAT'S ON

NSIDE YOUR ** THE BRADFORD IZ

RIGHT SOUTH WORK