Pathfinders: Human factories (2026)

The Pathfinders Column from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

With cinema takings falling in recent years due to online streaming, Hollywood has resorted to transparent attempts to lure in the lucrative female demographic through ‘girl-boss’ films, which show women in history dramas wielding huge swords and beating up men twice their size, outshining, outsmarting and indeed humiliating them at every turn. This has been widely derided as ‘wokism’, but women are unlikely to be fooled by such patronising efforts to ’empower’ them for the sake of box-office revenue. Unlike media executives spinning fantasies, they know what reality looks like in capitalism, where the pay gap is as wide as ever and domestic violence against women is at epidemic levels.

Late last year a Cornell University study looked at why so few women were found in senior job roles, and suggested that women had two strategies or ‘pathways’, one that gave them status, and the other that gave them power. The study concluded that women achieved status but not power through ‘gender-congruent’ behaviour (ie, being ‘ladylike’ and nice to men), whereas ‘gender-incongruent’ behaviour (ie, being assertive like men, aka ‘pushy’), might achieve power but was less likely to succeed.

Small wonder, perhaps, that writers from Charlotte Perkins Gilman onward have speculated about past or future feminist utopias. Back in October science writer Laura Spinney authored a somewhat tongue-in-cheek Guardian piece entitled ‘Was prehistory a feminist paradise?‘ Predictable answer: no. She discusses the ‘Marxist idea’ that the roots of patriarchy lay in the agricultural revolution, without once mentioning the word ‘property’, and with a hand-wavy vagueness that suggests she’s never read Engels on The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, or possibly even heard of it. That might be why the book does not appear in her ‘Further reading’ section.

One book that does appear, however, is The Patriarchs, by Angela Saini (2023) reviewed last January. This author clearly has read Engels, though initially she seems oddly dismissive. Some property-based communities in India and China, she points out, are known up to comparatively modern times to have been matrilineal (inheritance via the female line) and matrilocal (brides staying at home, husbands relocating). In these communities, women knew each other whereas the men didn’t, giving women the greater collective influence, and girls tended to be taller than in patrilocal groups, suggesting they were better fed. Given these examples, Saini proposes that Engels overstated the crucial importance of the property mechanism in bringing about the ‘world historic defeat of the female sex’. Essentially, she says, it was never that fast or that simple.

It becomes clear, in the second half of the book, that far from dismissing Engels, she is seeking to further develop the implicit consequences of his argument. Property may have provided the mechanism for this historic defeat, she says, but it wasn’t initially decisive. What was decisive was the growth of the ‘state machine’. Power, she argues, relies on a big army, and this in turn depends on population size. To increase the one, you need to increase the other. How to achieve this? Ruthlessly enforce strict gender roles, as either soldier or mother. Use disposable males for farm labour and the military, and turn women into baby factories and stay-at-home textile workers. Ancient wars, Saini says, were as much about grabbing extra women as extra land. Women were the first known slaves in Mesopotamia, and obedience to men was baked into ancient cultures and religious texts, including the Bible and Koran.

There is a contemporary resonance. Population size today may not equate to military might as it once did, but it’s still important to capitalist states. More workers, potentially, equal more productivity and more profits, properly staffed infrastructures, healthy tax-funded governments, thriving towns and small businesses, high house prices and high demand for construction, transport systems, energy use, and so on.

Globally, the opposite is happening. Almost everywhere outside sub-Saharan Africa, birth rates are well below replacement levels and falling. While voters in many countries are hypnotised by the populist fever-dream of the ‘immigration problem’, the better-informed know the truth. Capitalism is facing a demographic crisis. When population falls below a certain critical mass, things start to fall apart. Profits shrink, offices are deserted, whole towns are abandoned. Pension and health costs rise inexorably with the median age, paid from a shrinking tax fund and understaffed via a shrinking workforce. The European Commission predicts that by 2070 there will be barely two working-age people for every one person over 65 (Economist). China is thought to be massaging its official figures to disguise a catastrophic population decline. The reasons for all this are well known, to do with better education and access to contraception, and the rising costs of living, housing and parenthood. And states have begun to fight back.

The USSR in 1920 was the first country in the world to legalise abortion, but Stalin reversed the ruling just sixteen years later, when birth rates started falling. Now pressure is being applied to women in many countries to have more children. The right wing is morphing in sinister and cult-like pro-natalist and Christian trad-wife directions. In 2022 the US Supreme Court reversed the Roe vs Wade ruling, effectively banning abortion in many states. In 2024, US republicans voted against contraception as a federal right. China’s president Xi Jinping ‘told a meeting of the All-China Women’s Federation in 2023 that women should “actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and child-bearing”’.

If Saini’s historical analysis is right, the global outlook for women is not encouraging. Capitalist states need more babies, and never mind what women want. And never mind what men want either. The market system makes everyone suffer. For socialists, there’s really only one way to permanently destroy the forces that make us all into human factories, of one kind or another, for the benefit of the rich. And that’s by joining forces to bring down, not just glass ceilings, but ruling class power.

Paddy Shannon

Blogger's Note:

Laura Spinney replied to this article on the SPGB website.

I’m a nurse . . . (2006)

From Issue 20 of the World Socialist Review

. . . and one of the things I do for a living is facilitate groups for mothers of babies from two to twelve weeks old. The goal is to empower the mothers to trust their own judgment, as well as to teach them about infant development and the needs of new babies.

When I’m working with this group, I wear a somewhat different hat than the one I wear doing my socialist work.

The other day, one of the new moms wondered if it was safe to put baby sunblock on her two-month- old, because the tube was marked “Warning: not for infants under six months.” Another mom responded that her pediatrician had told her it was OK, as long as you didn’t put any on the face or hands. Someone else said her doctor insisted it was absolutely contraindicated to put sunblock on a baby under six months of age.

It became clear that there was no consensus among the different providers these women were using, although all the tubes and jars of sunblock stated clearly not to use them on very young babies. One of the mothers (who is a doctor herself, though not a pediatrician) offered that when there is so much difference of opinion among health professionals, it generally means there isn’t enough science to make a definite judgment.

I listened to all of this, and then I said, “Two generations ago, children played at the beach all day and no one worried much if they got sunburn. One generation ago, parents were urged to put sunblock on children, but not on young babies. Now in this present generation, we see the beginning of a tendency for even parents of very young babies to be advised to apply sunblock.

“Two things are happening here: they’re trying to make sunblock less toxic, and exposure to UY rays is getting riskier because our current system of society has been making holes in the ozone layer. In other words, the risk of exposure to our own sun is becoming (or maybe has already become) greater than the

risk of exposure to the chemicals in sunblock.

“The reality is that the UY rays are more dangerous now than they were 50 years ago, because of lack of concern about protecting our environment.”

Later, I was chastised by my boss for “not maintaining an upbeat atmosphere.” Some of the mothers had been disturbed by what I said. But I couldn’t help it — my RN hat hat had fallen off and been replaced by my Socialist hat!

I wish it was possible to connect the desire of mothers to protect their babies to the desire to protect humanity itself. What good does it do to maintain an upbeat attitude, feeling good as we apply the toxic sunblock, ignoring the relationship between skin cancer risk and capitalist disregard for the environment? I wish I could help these new moms recognize that the best way to protect their babies is by working for socialism.

— RN

Baby Week. (1917)

From the August 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

The re-shaping of old morals to suit new circumstances. 

The city of London has been en fete for a whole week. Members of the idle master class gathered in large numbers at classic Westminster in order to do honour to the resurrection era of King Baby. Never since the days following the Great Plague has “Mother’s boy” been so sincerely greeted, and fondled, and feted, as during this right royal national reception. Ladies of the highest title and social standing took upon themselves the honourable task of tickling the tootsiess of mere working-class kiddies what time they showered congratulations upon their beaming mothers.

Let it be most distinctly understood that the object of all this chivalrous attention was to do honour to WORKING-CLASS babies. Should you be so indiscreet as to inquire why the “sunbeams” of our particular class should be singled out for this shower of sentiment I should merely suggest that it arises from the fact of these ladies of title having no children of their own, comparatively speaking.

Why have they no children of their own, you ask. Well, sir, my lady has her form to consider, as well as her position in society, in addition to which, childbirth is a rather painful and disagreeable process.

And how comes, you again ask, that, during the progress of the world’s greatest war so many ladies—and gentlemen—are able to find so much time to spare when so many humbler folk are in the trenches or the munition works ? Ah ! to be coloured like a canary or disfigured in an explosion is not fashionable in high society, nor, come to that, is—WORK !

But what is the reason for this celebration of “Baby Week” ? It appears to our masters that the male population of the British Isles is falling to alarmingly proportions, and that the death rate among children of working-class parentage has increased to dangerous limits. The reasons advanced for the high mortality are many and varied. One newspaper ascribes it to “Slums, dirt, disease, drink, ignorance, and virmin.”

The inclusion of drink as a contributary cause is only to be expected, for the bosses’ agents always declare that “drink is the basic cause of poverty.” It is, of course, a deliberate lie. The working man is poverty-stricken before ever he starts to purchase drink. Apart from this, the price of drink has placed it almost beyond the reach of poor people at the very time that infant mortality is reaching its highest point.

In the present period it matters not so much whether your child is born in the legitimate manner or not, so strangely has capitalist society transformed its moral code in order to fall in with supply and demand. This come-down in social morality is all the more notable because it strikes such a staggering blow at the foundation of the Christian Church. A slight idea of what is taking place may be gathered from a perusal of the following extract:

“The time has gone when people turned up their noses at illegitimate children, and now these, as well as legitimate children, are welcome, so long as they are healthy,” said Coroner Graham at an inquest held at Gateshead.”-“News of the World,” 8.7.1917.

This spectacle of the unfortunate girl who dared to give birth to a child out of wedlock now being fawned upon as a desirable member of society by those who never hesitated to ‘down” her would afford an interesting study for a cynical philosopher. Still, in these days when those who should have been the fathers of the future are dying like flies, the upkeep of the children of whatever parentage is of vital consequence to the British capitalists.

At London celebrations of “Baby Week” numerous speakers referred to the imperative duty of every working-class wife bearing children for the benefit of the State. No serious proposal, however, was made as to the State aiding her in feeding the children she bore.

The patrons of “Baby Week” would admit, doubtless, that they regard it as a matter for general regret that Mr. McNiell’s “war baby” prophecy was not more true than it proved to be. Had it been the necessity for a “Baby week” might never have arisen.

Just at the time when people are wailing about the paucity of good, healthy children it behoves us to look back in order to see how carefully babies were looked after in pre-war days. Referring to our London milk supply Lionel W. Lyde, M.A., F.R.G.S., Professor of Economic Geography in University College, London, wrote some few years back the following significant statement :

“For our huge city population the milk supply is miserably deficient. Holland, which is only about about one-tenth the size of the United Kingdom, has about 4,000,000 more cows ; more than a quarter of our milk supply is used for making butter and cheese ; hundreds of gallons go bad every day, because the poor cannot afford the price demanded for it ; and a large proportion of the milk which is sold in poor districts is watered, especially in London and on Sundays.”

When we recall that countless children of working-class parentage have died because pure milk has been beyond their mother’s slender purses, the damnable character of the practice of destroying foodstuffs in order to keep up prices becomes increasingly apparent.

As a concluding comment. I would commend to the reader the appended statement made by A. A. Phillips, M.B.C.M., late Medical Officer of Public Health, Northern Divisions of Scotland, in his book, “What a Young Husband Should Know” :

“The change in social conditions, the modern struggle for life, has brought women everywhere into competition with men. Look at as we may, like it or dislike it as it pleases us, it becomes daily more clear that women are being FORCED into sexlessness by causes which are beyond our or their control.”

When you are tired, therefore, of listening to the usual humbug of the master-class agents regarding the size of your family as distinct from their own, you might reasonably examine the Socialist case. Wake up now, for the age of enlightenment is upon you. Think out your position and study the only means whereby you may free yourself from the tyranny and oppression of capitalism. Only when you have done this can you satisfactorily solve the question of the number of children who should be brought into the world. Arm yourself against the menace of modern society, and march in the already singing army whose voice rings out the glad words : “The International unites the human.”

B. B. B.

Here and There: Brailsford on the Russian Executions (1937)

The Here and There column from the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Brailsford on the Russian Executions

Mr. H. N. Brailsford, writing on the execution of Marshal Tukhachevsky and the seven Russian army leaders, says: —

No human society can for long live in health under a dictatorship that makes no provision for loyal opposition.

One thing or the other we must believe. Either these men turned traitors because they could not conduct an open and loyal opposition; or else Stalin destroyed them in their innocence because he feared their independence.

The truth it may be, we shall never know, because in Russia there is neither honest justice nor free discussion.—(Reynold's, June 20th, 1937.)

In his early days Brailsford was a Liberal journalist of the Manchester Guardian school. Since then he has been prominent in the Labour Party and I.L.P. in this country. From the time of the overthrow of Czarism he has been sympathetic to the Russian Government. He still regards it as “the greatest thing in history in Russia.” His critical attitude towards the Russian trials is typical of the attitude of many responsible journalists and prominent people in the Labour movement. The points made by Brailsford on Russia merit serious examination. To label him “traitor” or “Trotskyist" is abuse and not ananswer to his case.

* * *

Homes for Workers

An exhibition of model rooms with furniture designed for working-class homes was opened by Sir Kingsley Wood at the Building Centre, New Bond Street. The exhibition was an attempt to provide for small families with incomes between £3 and £5 per week. It aimed at artistry and “gaiety" in the design of furniture for a family consisting of father, mother and two children, with an outlay of £50. The News Chronicle (June 3rd, 1937) approved of the idea and pointed out that “three-quarters of the families in this country do not earn more than £5 a week.” That statement obscures more than it reveals. The News Chronicle could have mentioned that only a minority of the workers receive between three and five pounds a week. Or, better still, they could have pointed out that many thousands of workers in the Post Office receive less than fifty shillings a week, and that Sir Kingsley Wood (who opened the exhibition) took great pains when he was Postmaster-General to convince postal workers that the Government

could really afford no more.

* * *

The Labour Party and MacDonaldism

Labour Party leaders and propagandists would have workers believe that the ignominious failure of. two Labour Governments was due to the treacherous betrayal of Labour Party principles by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and that “MacDonaldism” left the Labour Party along with MacDonald; Mr. Hamilton Fyfe, ex-editor of the Daily Herald, does not think so. He says: —

Unfortunately “MacDonaldism ” is a disease by no means extirpated. Among its symptoms are—greater respect for the good opinion of opponents than for that of supporters, fear of doing anything to suggest that Socialism means more than slight, harmless changes, desire to take over industry and show capitalists how to run it—on capitalist lines ! —(Reynold's, June 6th, 1937.)

Mr. Fyfe is confused. The disease symptoms he refers to are not the result of “MacDonaldism." They have been the essence of Labour Party policy for thirty years. Mr. Fyfe informed Reynold's readers: “I believed in him [MacDonald] intensely, felt a personal devotion to him, would have done anything for him. I was quickly disillusioned." It is gratifying to know that Mr. Fyfe is disillusioned. He could now usefully spend some effort in disabusing the minds of hundreds of thousands of workers who have as pathetic a faith in the present leaders of the Labour Party. 

* * *

Germany and Colonies

Sir Arnold Wilson, M.P., writing in the Evening Standard (March 15th, 1937) an article called “German Colonies—the Case for Return," makes some telling points.

Answering the hypocritical arguments put forward by Mr. Churchill, that Germany would not benefit from colonies and that colonies could not be handed over to Germany without consulting the natives, he says: —

We did not ask leave of the Somalis of Jubaland when we handed them to Italy in 1925, or the people of Togoland when we transferred them to France, or of Ruanda and Urundi when they were taken over by Belgium.

Further, he adds:—

I would not ask the youth of this country to fight to exclude Germany from her former colonies, and in this, I believe, I speak for a great body of opinion in this country which is scarcely represented in Parliament or heard in the Press. If we are told that we must be ready to fight Germany in order to keep South Africa within the Empire. I would reply that I would not ask men to offer their lives for an ideal so shadowy and so unreal.

Time will see whether Sir Arnold changes his mind.

* * *

Hoodwinking the Workers

Speaking at a Co-operative Party Conference on a proposal to establish a flat-rate pension of £l a week to all persons at the age of 60, Mr. W. H. Green, Labour M.P. for Deptford, said: — 

The cost would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of £250,000,000.

“ One of our failures as a Labour movement,” he said, “is that we are far too ready to promise all sorts of things which, when we get near to power, we find we cannot carry out.

“We ought not to hoodwink the electorate by promising things we cannot carry out.”—(News Chronicle,  March 30th, 1937.)

Nevertheless, the next General Election will see the Labour Party making promises as specious as ever. In order to get votes the “hoodwinking” business will become a riot. Promises that are not fulfilled will bring their own reward to those that perpetrate the fraud. The influence of the Labour Party on the workers will wane, if it is not already doing so. Workers who are without understanding of what is happening can only judge by immediate results. The failures of Labour Governments in other countries are pregnant with lessons for members of the British Labour Party who are intelligent enough to see them. A few of them do, and occasionally show by their writings and speeches that they are uneasy. Many look upon the Labour vote as their right, and upon the loyalty of the voter as something unchangeable. We foresee rocks ahead. Unescapable crises will bring down any government which claims to administer capitalism in such a way as to be able to solve working-class problems. The failure of Labour Governments is inevitable and it unfortunately casts discredit on the working-class movement as a whole. The task of the Socialist is made more difficult in consequence. 

* * *

Russian Statistics

In Russia To-day (June, 1937) Mrs. Margaret Cole reviews a book compiled by the State Planning Commission of the U.S.S.R. called “The Second Five-Year Plan. 1933-37."

She refers to the fact that statistics on English conditions “mean figures of fact and achievement, figures of things which have actually happened, and which can be checked from records in actual existence," but, she says,

Soviet statistics, on the other hand, are a mixture of fact, hope, and exhortation. The statistics in this book are of true Soviet type.

The majority of the tables, whether of wages, production, education, or whatever you choose, end with figures for 1937, which can only be a matter for conjecture, and compare them with figures for capitalist countries based upon the peak year of 1929—which is to compare one conjecture with another.

The foreword, by V. I. Mezhlauk, for example, says (p. xlvi) that the number of children in pre-school institutions in 1935 was approximately 6 millions.

The official table on page 652 gives 7½ millions for 1934 and 9 millions for 1935. The official figures make it seem credible that by the end of 1937 there will be 16 million children in kindergartens. But which of them is right ?

Briefly, Russian statistics have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

* * *

Land of Hope and Glory

From a speech in the House of Commons by Mr. J. Griffiths, Labour M.P. for Llanelly (Times report, June 20th, 1937):—

The report on maternal mortality in Wales showed that of 665 women about to become mothers who were sent to 17 infant welfare centres in South Wales, 30 per cent. were anaemic, emaciated, and were running very grave risks. This problem must be tackled and solved, but the local authorities in South Wales were too impoverished to do so.

As a commentary on capitalist values that report coincided with another announcing the gift of £250,000 to Earl Baldwin from an anonymous donor to be spent on any project fostering the Empire spirit.

* * *

Confessions of a Captain of Industry

Speaking at a tea and entertainment provided for retired works employees of the London Transport Board, Lord Ashfield said:—

He would always recall with pleasure and satisfaction the opportunities he had to walk through the Chiswick works, marvelling at the interesting and intricate work they were doing, appearing at the time to be very wise, but at the same time not understanding it.—(Brentford & Chiswick Times, May 28th, 1937.)

The statement was greeted with laughter.

It would now be interesting to hear an apologist’s explanation for Lord Ashfield’s £15,000 a year salary for doing a job perhaps little or no more “interesting and intricate” than the works engineers and mechanics and draughtsmen who receive only £3 to £4 a week.

Perhaps the father of the London Passenger Transport Board, Mr. Herbert Morrison, would oblige?

Harry Waite

What should Women do to be Free? (1944)

From the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Looking through an old copy of the Socialist Standard, the writer came across a series of articles based on lectures on that seemingly eternal subject, “The Women’s Question.” Like unemployment, it is always with us, and will remain so until the inception of Socialism.

Woman cannot expect emancipation, any more than can her fellow-worker, man, under the existing system, capitalism. The amount enjoyed now by the male is merely a question of degree, conditioned mainly by his class position ; if of the working class, he is at liberty to sell his labour power or to starve.

Morgan, in his great work “Ancient Society,” shows clearly that the subjugation of woman did not come about to any great extent until the importance of private property was realised. Woman then became part of it; she was as important as flocks and herds, because she was reproductive, and she had no more freedom. Companionship and affection between the male and female had not yet been realised, and could not enter into the contract. The husband punished infidelity with severity, whilst reserving for himself the right of promiscuity. A section of women became courtesans, thus filling the needs of man for enjoyment outside his own home. These were found in the early civilisations of Rome and Greece, where the married women had no rights or freedom. Man then became the head of the family, over which he exercised power of life or death; property descended through the male line instead of the female, as heretofore, and the female lost all right of expressing herself and putting her point of view as she had been accustomed to so doing in the savage tribes. Her place became the home, whilst the man developed for himself a life outside it and generally had some voice in public affairs. Thus began the possibility of the charge so often still levelled against woman, that her mind can only appreciate trivialities. Small wonder, she was for so long debarred from all else, and the education available for her brothers was denied her.

Time, coupled with the progress of capitalism, has modified her position somewhat. To the capitalist she has appeared in the guise of a worker who will accept less wages than the male. Her centuries of subjugation were exploited to their fullest extent during the Industrial Revolution. Marx, in “Capital” (Vol. I.), gives a telling quotation from Lord Ashley’s speech on the 10-hours Bill. “Mr. E., a manufacturer, informed me that he employed females exclusively at his power looms . . . gives a decided preference to married females, especially those who have families at home dependent on them for support; they are attentive, docile, more so than unmarried females, and are compelled to use their utmost exertions to procure the necessaries of life. Thus are the virtues, the peculiar virtues of the female character, to be perverted to her injury; thus all that is most dutiful and tender in her nature is made a means of her bondage and suffering.” (Page 100, Glaisher edition.)

During the present war the calling up of men for the armed forces, and the subsequent conscription of women for industry, has once again given the capitalist a golden opportunity for getting more surplus value from his workers. Army pay has been so low, has borne so little relation to the needs of life, that women with small children have been compelled to go into the factory. That it has been the design of the representatives of the capitalist class, the Government, is evident by their provision of war-time nurseries. They are learning how better to enslave their workers from their co-belligerent Russia, who provides factory creches for war workers’ babies, so getting their cheap labour without damaging the next generation of wage slaves. Britain has hitherto been too crude in her methods to make such provision. Mothers have gone out to work and left their children under little or no supervision, which has been one of the causes of infant mortality and disease.

Woman has awakened sufficiently at this time to strive for “equal pay for equal work,” but not enough to demand the abolition of the wages system. She, like her male fellow worker, does not realise the theft that is being perpetrated upon her when she becomes employed. Such slogans tend to increase any antagonism that may exist between the sexes, instead of uniting them against the common enemy, the master class. The possibility of further antagonism may be manifested after this war, when men return from the Army to find, as after the last world war, that the women ensconced in their seats are unwilling to get down, and it will doubtless be exploited by Governments when unemployment once again becomes rife—as indeed it must, despite all “reconstruction schemes.”

An organisation called “Women for Westminster” has recently been born. It has a self-explanatory name and object. What a waste of time and energy such an organisation causes, and what future disillusionment must there be among its adherents ! Supposing they were to have a measure of success according to their aims, and get a predominance of women in the House of Commons. They would find that women, merely as women, can run capitalism no better than can the Labour or Tory Parties.

The Suffragettes have been appalled by the lack of enthusiasm for the vote, following their desperate efforts to gain it. Their lack of knowledge of the make-up of society is the reason for their indignation. Despite the constant propaganda of the press, screen and radio, woman as well as man is sceptical, often unconsciously so, regarding electioneering programmes, which cater for all tastes. Speaking generally, members of the working class are apathetic and not politically conscious. Many, unfortunately, are led away by reform parties, by idolaters of Russia, or by mushroom growths such as Commonwealth.

Many of the reforms regarding women have been implemented since Mary Woolstonecraft wrote her book “The Rights of Women.” These may, in the main, be attributed to the rise of capitalism, which has made it necessary for woman to take her place as part of the industrial army. In countries such as Turkey, for example, where after years of seclusion woman has removed her veil and gone out to work in the factory, it does not merely indicate that opinion there is becoming more liberal, but that the forces of industrial capital are at work looking out for cheap labour. The benefits woman has received in the field of education have been essential for her to take her place in the professional groups, and whilst giving her some individual freedom, have exchanged her quiet home life for that of a competitive existence.

Many women intent on emancipation have sublimated their natural instincts. This is undoubtedly possible for the possessor of an interesting and absorbing job, but as most work has been reduced to routine by the division of labour, characteristic of capitalist organisations, little permanent satisfaction is obtained thereby. With the present knowledge of birth control, the modern working woman denies herself the pleasure of children rather than bring them into a world, for them, of abject poverty. Frustration is thus found on all sides; denied an interesting and creative job, denied the rightful expression of her normal instincts, woman becomes, like the male worker, another machine for productivity and exploitation by the capitalist.

Whilst capitalism lasts, women will remain, like men, in a subject position, no matter how far progress is made towards equality with men. The interests of women are therefore identical with men in struggling for the overthrow of the present system, as it is only under Socialism that both will find real emancipation.

W. P.

Review: The Problem of Race Culture. (1908)

Book Review from the April 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

[“The Bar of Isis : the Law of the Mother.” By Frances Swiney. The Open Road Publishing Co. 6d. Nett.]

The subject discussed in this well-printed brochure of 50 pages is one that is beginning to have more attention paid to it than formerly, although not more perhaps than it deserves. Isis, the wife and the sister of Osiris, the God of the Egyptians, became later the patron Goddess of women, and the Bar of Isis represents the sanctity of the prospective mother from all approaches of the male. The argument of the book is that the husband must learn to be sexually abstemious, for on his continence depends, to a very large extent, the health and constitutional vigour of the offspring. Many of the ailments of children are alleged to be attributable to the incontinence of the father during the period of gestation. Medical evidence is quoted in favour of this position, yet Dr. Allinson lays down a different position, and he is probably one of the best known writers on this subject. Apart from certain personal factors, he says nothing in favour of complete abstinence on the part of the husband and no injury to the offspring is suggested as the result of indulgence during the prohibited period.

But all that apart. We are not particularly concerned with questions of that nature. The important part of the book to us, is where it is argued that race deterioration and degeneracy are attributable to the violation of the Bar of Isis ; for whether such violation does or does not adversely affect the child, it seems abundantly clear that such pre-natal factors are as dust in the balance against material factors of a post-natal character, such as food, clothing and shelter. As with our author, so with the Eugenist. Indeed, their objects seem to be the same, viz., a short cut to the solution of the social problem; the one through heredity, the other through an improvement in pre-natal environment. Both positions fail by ignoring the material conditions with which the Socialist primarily deals. The offspring of genius, developed under ideal conditions of pre-natal development, would still need to be fed, clothed, housed, educated, etc. The words of Max Nordau in this connexion carry considerable weight owing to their obvious truth :

“Marry Hercules with Juno, and Apollo with Venus, and put them in slums—their children will be stunted in growth, rickety and consumptive. On the other hand, take the miserable slum-dwellers out of their noxious surroundings, house, feed, clothe them well, give them plenty of light, air, and leisure, and their grand-children, perhaps already their children, will reproduce the type of the fine, tall Saxons and Danes of whom they are the offspring.”

There is no way of taking the slum-dweller out of his noxious surroundings except by abolishing the poverty that sent and keeps him there. As William Morris said, while you have poor people you will have people poorly housed; and the same thing applies to feeding, clothing, etc. Socialism alone can abolish poverty by abolishing private ownership of the means of living which allows the workers to be expropriated of the wealth they produce, yielding them only as wages the cost of their subsistence.

Were it not for the overshadowing fear of the Editor’s blue pencil, I could show, from the pronouncements of the Eugenists themselves, that the improvement of the environment is essential to the improvement of the race. Eugenics is, for the present, mainly negative. It consists, in the words of Dr. C. W. Saleeby, in the denial of the supreme privilege of parentage to those suffering from congenital defects of mind or body. On the other hand it seeks to encourage the fecundity of superior types. This then is the Eugenic aim, the discouragement of the unfit and the encouragement of the fit to perpetuate the species. There is a difficulty in the fact that the lower type is naturally the more fertile. Dr. J. L. Tayler, in a long paper on Individuology, in discussing this subject, differentiates the prevailing types as mainly paleogenie and neogenic, which we, being under no obligation to use unnecessarily long words, may call the low type and the high type. He shows that the low type persists owing to the existence of the material environment adapted to it; and it would seem, therefore, that the more effective method of discouraging the continuance of the low type lies, not in artificial and oppressive sterilisation, but simply in improving the environment, thus automatically discouraging the low type by forcing it upward in an endeavour to adapt itself to a higher environment. The potentially high types who acquire the characteristics of the lower through “noxious surroundings” would be enabled to develop ; the low types would cease to flourish in an environment unsuited to them; while each individual of whatever type could adequately develop the best that it had the fortune to inherit.

This cannot be done under the conditions of modern society. The thirteen millions of people in this country “on the verge of hunger ;” the 30 percent, of the people of London who live on or below the poverty line ; the million or more of the inhabitants of London who live under “overcrowded” conditions, are all hopelessly handicapped in their development, and it is to these conditions we must turn our hand before we can even be sure of the other facts in the question. Socialism will apply the solution to all these problems, in the first and most important place, by removing the economic hindrance to a full and adequate satisfaction of the material requirements. In the second place by removing the property restrictions which hinder the operation of what in biology is known as sexual selection, and allowing freedom of choice between the individuals, irrespective of the all-pervading influence of economic considerations. And in the third place by removing that economic necessity of obedience to the breadwinner which will probably explain to the author of the book we set out to notice the main causes of the violation of the Bar of Isis.

Dick Kent

Aspects of the "Woman Question." (Part 6) (1930)

From the January 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 5. 

(Based on Notes of a series of Lectures on “The Sexes in Evolution.”)

Nearly all the accepted mental differences between men and women are the result of upbringing. It is woman’s environment, particularly in childhood, that is the cause of the feeling of inferiority where it exists. From their earliest years they are acquainted with the fact that women occupy an inferior position, and take it for granted that this is proper. Even before they can possibly understand the meaning of sex they are required to believe that little girls are not so clever or original as little boys, and cannot by any means emulate them. And this brings us to the so-called sex inequality.

In a biological sense men and women are equal, and one is the complement of the other. Is not every human being that is born, whether male or female, but the outcome of the union of a man and a woman? And if we know anything at all about heredity, does it not teach us that on the average a child will receive one-half of its total heritage from its parents? There is a difference between them, both physiological and psychological, brought about in a perfectly natural way by Nature’s imposition of the division of labour. But there is nothing mystical about these differences between the sexes. Each type is specialised for its own task—that of producing and caring for the two kinds of sexual cells. It is quite probable that the only real mental differences between men and women are the instincts directly concerned with sexual intercourse and the care of children. In the female mind there is as a rule a natural tinge of conservatism; she is more reserved, more emotional, and possesses more caution in the matter of taking risks. She has a quieter disposition and is less vigorous than the male, who, by contrast, is far more powerful, both in body physique and sex impulse. To the biologist there is, of course, no suggestion of inferiority or superiority in the use of these terms. They merely express the specialisation which accompanies sex in all types of animal. The possession of the uterus, and the carrying of the young for so long a period powerfully modifies the activities and habits of the female and is the biological foundation of a great deal of our human social custom and behaviour. Reproduction and sex lie at the very foundation of marriage, home, and the family, and it is inevitable that these aspects should profoundly colour the whole human society, both as to its ideals and its structure. Though it might be true to say that woman’s proper sphere is the home, we have seen that out of economic necessity woman has been driven out of the home into the workshop, with its consequent reaction on the wage status of man. When men and women recognise that their battle is one and the same we shall be much nearer to a realization of that co-operative commonwealth that all enlightened people are desirous of bringing into being.

Now, in conclusion, I have tried to show, in a somewhat rapid fashion, how the present position of woman has come about. This, as will have been apparent, cannot be understood without reference to the contemporary position of man. Under the existing system of society, women, like men, are considered to be legitimate objects of exploitation. They are employed only because they produce a profit for a less wage than a man, and because they are useful as an offset against the demands of men workers. This is not to raise an objection to the employment of women under any circumstances. Women—any more than men—ought not to be expected to lead a humdrum existence, in the home or anywhere else. There is plenty of scope for the useful employment of women—employment that could be made profitable to herself and of lasting value to the community. There are such avenues as the Arts, the Sciences, the Public Health Service, and, above all, in the field of Education, for, after all, who is better qualified to teach the young than the sex equipped for the function of motherhood ?

But this will not happen until men and women bind themselves in a world-wide brotherhood, conscious of their class interests, to the end that they shall conquer political power, abolish all class privilege, make exploitation but a memory, to finally usher in a system of society wherein men and women shall enjoy to the full the fruits of their labour and be assured of the reality of that which is now hardly more than a dream—a full, free, and joyous existence.

Tom Sala

(Concluded.)

By The Way: Medals for Russia’s Mothers. (1944)

The By The Way Column from the August 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Medals for Russia’s Mothers.

“A new institution is the ‘Medal for Motherhood’ 1st and 2nd degree, for women who have reached six and five children respectively.

“After that, the ambitious mother—if she manages to produce nine children—receives the ‘Order of Glorious Motherhood’ 1st degree.

“When the tenth child reaches the age of one year, she receives the ‘Hon. title of Mother Heroine’ and a letter from the Supreme Council.”—(Moscow correspondent of Daily Mirror, July 13, 1944.)

But What About the £5,000 a Year.

From a speech by Mr. Herbert Morrison in London on May 22, 1944 (Daily Telegraph, May 23) : —

“I well remember his (the Prime Minister’s) interview with me one Sunday morning at the Admiralty. He asked me to become Minister of Supply. He said : ‘I don’t offer you cheerfulness, I don’t offer you good fortune, I don’t offer you quick successes. I offer you nothing but tears and blood and sweat and toil.”

The Labour Party Summed Up.

From a criticism of the Labour Party’s Report on “Full Employment and Financial Policy” : —

“. . . the Party, as always, is obsessed by institutions and their powers, and ignores their policies. It affects to believe that changing the brass plate at the entrance will alter the way in which an institution acts. Thus, in the present report, there is a great deal about the exercise of control by the State over the Bank of England and the joint stock banks, but hardly a word about the different way in which they are expected to behave.” Economist, May 20, 1944.)

This is what we have been saying for forty years about the reformists, who believe that if you give a capitalist institution a different name and put it under State control, all will be well.

Free Travel—for The Workers.

On July 6th the London Daily Express carried the story of D. Henry Shepherd. “D. Henry Shepherd has a nerve, they cried; he travelled about on forged London Transport passes—and then wrote complaining bitterly about the service.”

This man Shepherd, Detective Alder said at the Old Bailey, had an obsession about railways. He thought they ought to be nationalised, so that people could travel to and from their work for nothing. Fares, he thought, were an imposition.

Being a talented commercial artist, Shepherd made his own passes and tickets. The Prison Doctor at Brixton confessed himself mystified, unable to account for Shepherd’s actions. Shepherd sounds very much to us like one of those numerous workers who have been tempted to move out of the slums of London to the suburbs, only to find fares an intolerable burden.

Poor Henry ! If only he had known one-hundredth part about the wages system as he did about poster design. Then he would have known that free passes on the railways, like other “free gifts” for the workers, do not solve their poverty problem.

As is quite well known, Henry Kaiser, the Pacific Coast shipbuilding contractor, has transported the entire New York elevated line across the Continent for use by all Kaiser employees FREE.

Mr. Kaiser’s workers do not feel themselves any less exploited. They merely get to work a little quicker. For that matter, men and women in the Services get all sorts of FREE issues, uniforms, cigarettes, passes, etc., but when claims were made for raising Service pay, the Government published a White Paper enumerating all the free services and issues and added them up to prove the Service personnel received more, on an average, than most workers. All these “free” gifts are merely deductions from wages.

Curiously enough, over fifty years ago Mr. H. M. Hyndman, founder of the Social Democratic Federation, delivered a series of lectures preparatory to founding the S.D.F., concluding with six “Immediate Demands,” one of which was “Free Travel for all Workers,” as a stepping-stone (!) to Socialism.

The Socialist Party could have saved Henry Shepherd his fifteen months in jail.

The Fine Work THEY Have Done !

Lord Royden, the chairman of the L.M.S. Railway, doesn’t need to forge tickets, of course. He has recently made a journey by special train to inspect the stations and staffs between Leeds and London.

Officials travelled with him.

Lord Royden said last night : “I made the tour to congratulate the people on the line on the fine work they have done in the past weeks.” (Daily Express, July 6, 1944.)

This is the first tour the Chairman of the L.M.S. Board has made since the war. The “fine work” has gone on for four years without his absence being noticed.

Like most directors, Lord Royden’s function consists in saying “Thank you very much” periodically.

” Export or Bust.”

“We must, in fact, export or burst,” said Mr. Clark Henderson, the Conservative member for Leeds N.E., in the House on July 14, 1944.

There’s not very much new in that. The Tory Reform Committee have placed it in the forefront of their proposals. The Government are mainly concerned with it in their paper on Employment after the War. And Adolph Hitler said it many years ago—”Germany must expand or explode.” American capitalists are saying it—and the Russians preparing to do it. The world market is shrinking relatively to the masses of goods being thrown on to it, and at the same time as the governments of the world seek still more exports. The only solution to this sort of situation is Socialism, which abolishes capitalism, trade and exports. There is one temporary expedient for dealing with it—a new war, which, like its predecessor, is almost bound lo develop into a world war.

The Girl Who Came Back !

Under this heading, a London evening paper (Evening Standard, July 11, 1944) reports the case of Paulette Geburre, a French girl who volunteered for work at Le Bon Sauveur Hospital in Caen during the fighting there.

“The casualties came in like a stream,” she said. “Most of them were Germans, although there were some British parachutists. We worked day and night, sometimes forty-eight hours at a time, with air raids and shelling in the middle of operations.” Such cases—and there are many—are full of deep significance. Why did Paulette volunteer to help the wounded ? Not for money! That was impossible in Caen. Not for nationalistic reasons. With other French medical personnel, in keeping with the traditions of the profession, she helped all, British and German alike.

We have heard of cases of air raid wardens who vowed that “if only they could get their hands on a German airman” they would knock him for six. And yet, when a German plane has crashed in flames about them, they have got badly burned rescuing the screaming German.

That invading troops regularly give ill-spared rations to starving civilians and captured prisoners is well known. Socialists think that all these people are obeying one of the most fundamental human instincts. Man is a social animal, and the urge to protect and preserve the race operates in individuals after all the hate and atrocity propaganda has been poured out.

When it is also considered that most soldiers, airmen, wardens, etc., to-day are workers, we have still one further reason to explain why human solidarity frequently triumphs over political propaganda—even on the battlefield.

Horatio.

Proper Gander: ‘She’s Part Of Those Statistics Now’ (2021)

The Proper Gander TV column from the May 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘All the doctors came in. And I knew. … I felt her leave. And then they told us. What do you do?’, says Naomi Ventour, as she recalls the day her sister Natalie died shortly after giving birth to her second child. ‘She’s part of those statistics now’, Naomi adds, referring to how as a black woman, Natalie was at least four times more likely to die during or soon after pregnancy than a white woman. This disparity is examined by Channel 4’s recent documentary in the Dispatches strand, The Black Maternity Scandal. Presenter and mother-of-three Rochelle Humes is of dual heritage, and so is three times more likely to suffer a maternal death than a white woman. She speaks with women like Naomi who have been affected, and also with researchers and campaigners aiming to address the problem.

Of the 2.2 million women who gave birth in the UK between 2016 and 2018, 34 black women in every 100,000 died up to a year after, compared with 15 Asian women and eight white women (tinyurl.com/59akcr63, p.1). For every one who dies during pregnancy, a hundred more will suffer a life-threatening complication, and again this affects a disproportionate number of non-white women. One such additional risk is coronavirus: in the UK, ‘black pregnant women are eight times more likely to be admitted to hospital with Covid-19 [than white pregnant women], while Asian women are four times as likely’ (tinyurl.com/n4rba64n, p.17).

What causes these depressing disparities? A possibility not raised by the programme is whether they are due to genetic differences between groups of people which put some inherently at higher risk. The prevalence of a few health issues is related to genes found more commonly in particular ethnic groups, such as sickle cell disease. But maternal death isn’t a single condition, and therefore doesn’t have a single cause which can be reduced to a set of genes. Maternal deaths are often associated with conditions like heart disease, blood clots and mental health problems, all of which can have multiple causes, including social factors such as lifestyle and environment. So, if women in particular ethnic groups are more likely to have health conditions which contribute to maternal deaths, then this is because they are more likely to lead lives which exacerbate those conditions. Living in poverty comes with increased chances of having a poor diet, depression and inadequate housing, all of which would impact negatively on a pregnancy. Consequently, women in the most deprived areas of England are three times more at risk of suffering a maternal death than those in the most affluent areas (tinyurl.com/59akcr63, table 2.10). There are higher proportions of non-white people living in poorer areas, especially first and second-generation settlers who came into the country with little money and few opportunities.

But the disparity isn’t only accounted for by the additional health risks which come with poverty. Another factor is an inconsistency in how people of different ethnic groups are treated by the health service. One study from the USA highlighted a mistaken belief that black people can bear more pain than white people, which led to lower amounts of painkillers being prescribed (tinyurl.com/mjfmuawn). In the documentary, Humes talks with women who felt that medical staff didn’t take their concerns seriously enough because they aren’t white. When this isn’t down to ignorant individuals being racist, an explanation is given by Dr Christine Ekechi of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. She says that historically, the institutions of medical care were set up around the needs of white men who had most power in society, and particular needs of women and non-white people were added on, and still don’t always have equal recognition.

So, what is being done to address the issue? November 2020’s report by the government’s Joint Human Rights Committee – Black People, Racism and Human Rights – made the blunt admission that ‘the NHS acknowledge and regret this disparity but have no target to end it’ (tinyurl.com/n4rba64n, p.3). The widely criticised report by The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities which concluded that the system is no longer rigged against non-white people referred to the disparity, but was vague about any proposed solutions because first ‘the increased rates seen in ethnic minority groups need to be better understood and explained’ (tinyurl.com/t8rrrcy4, p.218).

Hopefully, further research will expand on the social and economic reasons behind the disparity and maternal deaths in general, but where will this lead? Nadine Dorries, Minister for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety has said that she is ‘absolutely committed to tackling disparities and making sure all women get the right support and best possible maternity care’. If this is more than just a soundbite, there may be reforms or changes to procedures which will help prevent some future tragedies. But whatever measures are put in place will depend on how much funding is politically and financially viable, and how much of a priority the issue has among society’s countless other problems. The deeper causes of the issue – poverty and division – can’t be legislated away because they’re built into how society is structured.

Mike Foster

Population growth: women choose (2020)

From the September 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

For centuries, women have been denied the opportunities for personal advancement in the name of religion and tradition. Religious and cultural institutions where patriarchal attitudes were legitimised have had a deep effect on the role and status of women. Yet it is now women who are the key drivers in defusing what was once popularly called the ‘population bomb’. Everything has changed so much that choosing to have no children, or just give birth to one child, is for women just as convenient as choosing to bear two or three.

Globally, the fertility rate – the average number of children a woman gives birth to — is falling below the replacement level and this means nearly every country could have shrinking populations by the end of the century, based on the expectation that women will have fewer children. This does not mean the number of people living in these countries is falling, at least not immediately, as the size of a population is a mix of the fertility rate, death rate and migration. It can be a generation before changes in fertility rate take hold. Although fertility rates continue to fall the world population will continue to rise because the fall in fertility rates takes a while to show up, a phenomenon known as population momentum.

Falling fertility rates go hand-in-hand with better education and more career openings for women and the access to contraception and abortion. When more infants survive, fertility goes down and population growth draws to an end.

The more secure and prosperous people become, the lower will be their family sizes.

According to Wolfgang Lutz, of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, one reason for the fertility decline is women’s education:

‘The brain is the most important reproductive organ,’ he explains. Once a woman receives enough information and autonomy to make an informed and self-directed choice about when to have children and how many to have, she immediately has fewer of them and has them later.

Paid to reproduce
Some countries are so concerned about their shrinking populations and fear of the alternative – a policy of immigration – has led nationalist and xenophobic leaders to introduce policies that could only be described as a return back to an earlier time when women were viewed as baby-producing machines. Across Europe, governments have introduced benefits aimed at stimulating population growth, implementing baby bonuses for each new child and promoting ‘traditional family values’.

Victor Orban of Hungary is heavily investing in such things as cash loans to young married couples. Each time a child is born, payments are deferred. If the couple have three children within the requisite time frame, the loan is completely written off, otherwise they have to pay it back. Government IVF clinics will offer free treatment for all women who want them (just as long as they are under 40 and not lesbians). In Poland, the ruling Law and Justice Party introduced the 500+ policy in 2016, under which mothers received 500 złoty (£99) per child per month from the second child onwards, later expanded to include all children. Russia launched a one-off payment of £5,800 to families with two or more children, with Putin explaining that ‘Russia’s fate and its historic prospects depend on how many of us there are, it depends on how many children are born in Russian families.’

Sweden is one country that used a package of policies including childcare, flexible working conditions and generous maternity and paternity leave packages to reverse its population decline. But the increase to the fertility rate was marginal – just 0.2 children per woman.

As Wolfgang Lutz points out, ‘Once a woman is socialised to have an education and a career, she is socialised to have a smaller family. There’s no going back.’

Fertility rates
Just as the Catholic Church’s anti-contraceptive dogma was blamed for rises in population only to be punctured by women defying their priests, the argument switched to the Muslims, with its emphasis on strict traditional hierarchal gender roles, and it would be they who would go against the trend of smaller families. But then fertility rates in majority-Muslim countries such as Iran, Bangladesh and Indonesia fell, as well.

Now the blame for over-population has shifted to sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting that African high fertility rates with four or more births per woman will not buck the trend and cause over-population. But even here, there are signs of change in a growing number of countries.

Countries such as Nigeria which are struggling to make progress to provide education and employment opportunities and provide quality healthcare should be seen as the last hold-outs against the global triumph of small families.

International agencies found that over 20 percent of women in this region of Africa want to avoid a pregnancy but have their needs unmet by any family planning outreach. It results in almost 20 million — or 38 percent — of the region’s pregnancies each year being unintended. The World Health Organization estimates that globally 270 million women who want contraceptives have no access to them.

Practices such as early marriage, which is associated with an early start to child bearing, are common. In sub-Saharan Africa, approximately 38 percent of women are married by the age of 18. In Niger, three-quarters of girls marry by the age of 18. Child marriage denies girls an education which leads to a lack of ability to find work in later life and so handicaps girls’ decision-making power and their right to choose.

The gap between desired and actual family size suggests that women are not fully able to realise their reproductive rights. But choice can become a reality everywhere, including the African continent. In the past, women in Botswana would have seven children on average. Now they have fewer than three. It was accomplished by enabling women to control their fertility and reducing child mortality rates – moves that almost inevitably lead to them having fewer babies. When more girls attend school, a country’s adolescent fertility rates dip, more women wait until adulthood to have children and are armed with much more sophisticated knowledge-tools to make better decisions for their health and future offspring.

It took the UK 95 years to drop from a fertility rate of six children per woman to three, but it took Botswana only 24 years, Bangladesh 20 and Iran only ten years.

Overpopulationism
Blaming our environmental problems on population pressures is all too common among eco-activists and it has resulted in a sordid history of top-down population control programmes violating women’s reproductive rights with such measures as uninformed sterilisations. All women should have full access to contraception and safe abortion as part of overall health services. Family planning, however, is not the answer to our environmental problems. Babies and yet-to-be-born babies are not responsible for today’s environmental problems. Reducing population numbers will not stop climate change, nor rising sea-levels. Many environmentalists will cite the fallacious carrying capacity in their argument that we have too many people on the planet but the over-emphasis on individual consumption distracts from industrial and military consumption. Capitalism is the reason for ever-increasing resource depletion, CO2 emissions, waste and pollution. It should be held accountable, not the innocent victims of global warming.

More people bring more ingenuity, more talent and more innovation into the world. Every human born is not just an extra mouth to feed but also another pair of helping hands and an additional thoughtful brain. Yet we are being told by environmentalists that it means less for each of us. We get informed that we will need to radically reduce humanity’s carbon footprint on the environment by reducing our numbers, as well as changes to our lifestyles and that until the world’s population stops growing there will be an urgent need to squeeze people’s consumption.

Does pushing population growth down actually put the environment on a more sustainable path? And if so, what measures would the policy makers have to apply to actually bring about such a change?

The answer to environmentalists attracted to the over-populationist argument is that the birth-control campaigns are, in the end, just one more patriarchal attempt to control women’s reproduction, and that improving child survival rates, giving girls access to education, and empowering women to control their own reproduction (and that means allowing women themselves to make their decisions) are what will sustainably and non-coercively lower birth rates. Family planning and reducing family sizes, however, is not the answer to our environmental problems.

Environmentalist focus on population is mistaken and can lead to equally misguided action. Over-population is a thinly veiled misogynist racist myth that is accepted by both right-wingers and progressives alike. People who claim to be against genocide and eugenics push this myth with no sense of the irony. Those accepting the over-population argument obscure the more immediate causes of suffering under capitalism. Because of its short-termism, its unrelenting drive for profits, and international conflict, capitalism expresses a tendency toward planetary crisis, regardless of the total number of humans living on earth. The amount of waste and pollution under capitalism is enormous with its preponderance of the production and distribution of useless products, the wasted labour and the creation of mounting piles of garbage as a result of planned obsolescence and single-use products.

The concentration on so-called over-population confuses symptoms with causes, validating apologists for the system and perpetuating Malthusian anti-poor arguments. The central concept in the ideological armoury of capitalism is the idea that there isn’t enough to go around. Hence, we are confronted with the idea that there isn’t enough food, aren’t enough jobs, not enough housing, or we haven’t enough classrooms or hospital beds because there is a certain fixed amount of all these things. People who claim that population growth is the issue are shifting the blame from the rich to the poor.

Those who believe reducing the population to be an answer to global warming say very little about which policies would spare the planet many more billions of people, particularly when the existing trend is already towards smaller family sizes. We should forget all about prioritising population control and instead help each and every woman bear a child in good health whenever she chooses to have a baby. It might sound counter-intuitive for stabilising and lowering the population but giving women control over their lives and of their own bodies controls population growth. We need no more misanthropic pronouncements about too many people or that humanity has somehow exceeded the planet’s carrying capacity or that humanity is a parasitic species on the Planet Earth’s ecology.

Giving women control of both their lives and their bodies is what will control population growth. The best family planning and contraceptive is the empowerment of women.

ALJO

In the name of profit (1991)

From the July 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Over one million babies will die this year from diarrhoea because their mothers have been sold unnecessary bottle feeds".

There seems to be little, if any, dispute amongst nutritional experts that breast milk is best for babies, and for the poor it has the additional advantage of being free. In addition, a baby receives antibodies in the mother’s colostrum which gives some immunity from a number of infectious diseases.

There are a few mothers who are unable to breast feed and have to resort to artificial feeds as a subsititute, but the vast majority of mothers are able to feed their babies satisfactorily. But capitalism is not concerned with the best interests of developing babies—profits are the overriding priority and, therefore, business strategies have been devised to persuade mothers to use milk substitutes instead.

In the industrialised countries many mothers from working-class homes have to return to work within a few weeks of giving birth to earn wages to help support their families. This forces many of them to abandon breast feeding in favour of bottle feeds which can be given by other members of the family or child-minders.

Infants from poorer families have substantially higher mortality rates than the wealthy, in which artificial feeding, by depriving the babies from receiving some of their natural immunity, plays a part. There is also a risk of over-feeding and obesity if the feed is mixed too richly. Obese children tend to develop habits of over-eating and grow up into obese adults.

In underdeveloped countries artificial feeding can be a matter of life or death. Dr Peter Poore, chief medical officer for Save The Children states:

  For a sub-Saharan African baby the early termination of breast feeding can be tantamount to a death sentence. (Guardian, 8 March).

Food and drug firms in industrialised countries spend millions of pounds trying to persuade doctors, nurses and mothers in underdeveloped countries to abandon breast feeding and use artificial feeds. In 1981 the World Health Organisation and UNICEF’s code was adopted by most industrialised nations which prohibited advertising and stopped free artificial feeds being supplied to hospitals.

This has not prevented tinned milk from being donated to hospitals, allegedly for mothers unable to breast feed. But the supply of milk substitutes far outweighs the number of mothers who need it and is clearly intended to persuade other mothers to abandon breast feeding. Far from being charitable, hard-headed commercial considerations are behind the “donation” of milk substitutes.

In underdeveloped countries it is rare to find a mother who is unable to breast feed. The supply of free artificial feeds is designed to create a dependence on the product. Once the mother has stopped breast feeding for a while the milk supply dries up and the mother has no choice but to continue using bottle feeds.

The European Commission, after secret consultations with food and drugs manufacturers, has decided to remove most of the regulations governing the advertising and supply of milk substitutes. This directive will come into force in 1992 and, in the future, aggressive advertising will be used to promote artificial feeds to provide profits at the expense of babies’ lives.

Aggressive advertising

In urban Brazil, studies have shown that bottle-fed babies are 14 times more likely to die from diarrhoeal infections and three times more likely to die from respiratory infections. Many mothers in underdeveloped countries dilute artificial feeds too much because they are too poor to pay for sufficient tinned milk once they have become dependent on it. In some countries the water supply is contaminated or fuel to sterilise the bottles and teats is in short supply.

The continuation of breast feeding also reduces the chance of becoming pregnant. And while it is only partly effective it does help women in poorer countries to space their children in the absence of more effective contraceptive methods. The encouragement of mothers to abandon breast feeding removes this natural contraceptive effect and leads to unwanted pregnancies.

In addition to the supply of milk substitutes for small babies there has been the development of “follow-up” milks designed for babies over six months of age. These are blatantly advertised in underdeveloped countries and are starting to increase the mortality rates of slightly older babies. And the European Commission's deregulation of milk marketing practices next year could soon lead to these milk substitutes being advertised in Britain.

Each year underdeveloped countries spend $1.5 billion on milk substitutes which are, for the most part, unnecessary. But capitalism is not concerned with what is necessary or desirable for health. Any product, no matter how dangerous, will be produced if there is a market for it. And the same capitalist logic will prevent much needed food being produced if people are unable to pay. The death toll these result in will continue as long as this vicious system lasts.

Carl Pinel

Hi-tech births (1986)

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The profession of obstetrics has received a great deal of public attention as a result of an inquiry which began in February into the professional competence of Wendy Savage, a consultant obstetrician at the London Hospital. Savage was suspended in April of 1985 by her employers, the Tower Hamlets Health Authority, after complaints surrounding her handling of five pregnancies. Following her suspension a campaign was mounted for her reinstatement by local midwives, mothers and GPs.

During the inquiry a number of criticisms were made of the type of approach to childbirth and pregnancy that has come to dominate maternity care in recent years. According to Savage and her supporters the excessive use of high-technology in modern obstetrics has deprived women of the freedom to choose where and how to have their babies. The process of giving birth has become dehumanised because current obstetric practices have succeeded in shifting the focus of interest from the mother to the machine. Women, argue critics, are regarded as mere objects on a conveyor belt. Wendy Savage and her supporters would like to see this depersonalised system of obstetric care replaced by an approach which emphasises both the naturalness of every birth and the individual medical needs of the women concerned.

While socialists sympathise with these objectives we also point out the limitations which present-day society places on their achievement.

First of all, isn't it surprising that the controversy arose within an NHS hospital providing health care to a particularly deprived working-class area in the east end of London? Not at all. Under capitalism there are two quite distinct standards of health care. For the rich — the capitalist class — there are the Harley Street Clinics and the private hospitals which provide the best maternity treatment money can buy. Consequently they suffer none of the degradations associated with current obstetric practices.

For the poor, on the other hand — the working class — there is the NHS.

Contrary to what politicians tell us the NHS is not in the business of providing an all-embracing caring service, free at the point of delivery and run in the interests of everyone. Its real intention is to serve the economic interests of the capitalist class by placing at their disposal a steady supply of fit and healthy wage slaves. In meeting this requirement of the exploiting class, the NHS contributes enormously to the overall profitability of British capitalism. However, it also represents expenditure and as such the provision of its services must be cost-effective to ensure that the capitalist class get value for their money. In economists' jargon this means that resources must be used effectively. services must be rationalised, financial targets must be met, and wages must be minimised — the NHS is big business and it must be run accordingly. Under capitalism even the most basic of our health needs play second fiddle to the managerial and accounting practices associated with production for profit.

So how do these practices relate to the provision of maternity care? The maternity services operate within a context of scarce resources, shortages of expert consultants and midwives and expenditure cuts. Everything possible is done to cheapen the cost of childbirth and this economic fact determines the quality of care and the practices adopted by obstetricians.

In the early years of the twentieth century maternity care was exclusively handled by untrained mid wives, known as "handywomen". Apart from a few difficult cases, which were handled by doctors or GPs. more babies were delivered at home. Today, however, these functions are controlled by professional obstetricians working from maternity units in large district hospitals. Community midwives have been gradually reduced and as a result the number of hospital deliveries has risen from 15 per cent in 1927 to 97 per cent in 1976, with the intention that home delivery be phased out further (Short Report on Perinatal and Neonatal Mortality, 1980).

With the professionalisation and hospitalisation of maternity care there has been an increased reliance on high-tech medicine. One practice which has increased tremendously in recent times is that of inducing labour artificially by using modern technology. Some obstetricians have argued that inductions are carried out only when the life of the baby or mother is threatened but some experts have pointed out that inductions are not always carried out for medical reasons:

Technology is now being used in some hospitals to induce labour routinely, not primarily for the baby's safety or the safety of the mother, but in order to create a production line system where women have their babies by clockwork during daylight hours. (O. Gillie & L. Gillie, Sunday Times. 1974.)

Given the priorities of the NHS it is easy to see why the rate of inductions increased (from 13.7 per cent in 1963 to 38.9 per cent in 1974). Inductions help to speed up the process of childbirth, ensure that hospital beds are used more intensively and shorten the length of time women stay in hospital. Often inductions are laid down as hospital policy — as was the case in the hospital where Wendy Savage worked — in order to meet a planned throughput of births, perhaps 1.000 babies delivered each year. In a study of inductions, A. Cartwright (The Dignity of Labour) reports that more than half the obstetricians questioned said they would recommend inductions where there were staff shortages or a restricted access to anaesthetics. After giving birth by this method, which often has negative psychological and emotional repercussions, women are ushered out of care to be looked after by a much depleted and hard-pressed community midwife service.

Economic considerations can also be observed behind the startling increase in caesarian sections. The use of this method of delivery was central to the case against Wendy Savage. Tower Hamlets Health Authority claimed that she had performed a caesarian "too late", resulting in the death of a baby eight days after delivery by an emergency caesarian. Although the merits of this particular case are unclear, recent figures released by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys suggest non-medical reasons for this type of operation. The figures show that much depends on how busy the ward is on a particular day. On Fridays, the busiest day for deliveries, there was a 43 per cent increase in the number of elective caesarians (those not performed in an emergency) but on Sundays, the quietest day, elective caesarians were 62 per cent below average. An interesting figure is that the caesarian rate for private hospitals (19.6 per cent) was twice that for NHS hospitals. The explanation here is that most insurance policies cover caesarians, while patients have to pay cash for spontaneous births. Given the choice it is hardly surprising that working class mothers choose the former, less expensive method of payment.

As with all services provided by the NHS for members of the working class, maternity care offers women little choice over the kind of treatment they would prefer. In a study of NHS hospitals in York and London (H. Graham & A. Oakley: Medical & Maternal Perspectives on Pregnancy in Women) most women complained that there were very few areas in which they were allowed any say in their maternity care. They had practically no explanation from the doctors about what was being done to them; they saw too many doctors to receive any kind of personal attention and the whole experience left them feeling like battery hens.

This kind of treatment cannot be blamed entirely on the attitudes of consultants, who are as much victims of the situation as are the pregnant women. Over-worked consultants have little time to discuss alternative options of delivery and for the sake of convenience are likely to make decisions for those in their care. They require a passive rather than a questioning attitude from their patients and this is fostered by the sense of vulnerability and helplessness felt by pregnant women — especially when they are delivered into the hands of experts who, they believe, ought to know best and surrounded by a bewildering array of sophisticated equipment.

So what's the solution? Both the best and the worst aspects of the use of technology are represented in modern obstetrics. On the one hand the risks to mother and child associated with child-birth and pregnancy have fallen dramatically, as evident in the reduction in the perinatal mortality rate (still births and deaths during the first week of birth) from 38.5 per cent in 1948 to 17 per cent in 1977. But on the other hand modern obstetric methods have left women feeling degraded and brutalised. Under capitalism this situation will never be resolved; technological advances can only be used for the enrichment of the tiny few and the consequent enslavement of the vast majority. A truly civilised standard of medical care can flourish only in a truly human society and judging by current obstetric practices, it is perfectly obvious that we clearly do not live in one.

G. Davidson