Re: [PEN-L] Socialism and Women's Leadership and black women

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I remain a partisan of socialism, but there is one thing that makes me doubt the excellence of socialism: virtual absence of women leaders in hitherto existing socialist states and movements.  Rich social democratic states (Finland, Germany, Norway) have had female heads of state, rich liberal states (UK, New Zealand) have had female heads of states, post-socialist Eastern European states have had a female head of state (Ukraine), Israel has had a female head of state, Asian (India, the Philippines) and Muslim (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan) states have had female heads of state, African (Liberia, Mozambique), Caribbean (Jamaica), and Latin American (Argentina, Chile) states have had female heads of state.  I'm not saying anything about these women's politics -- I'm just pointing out that there have been quite a few by now in capitalists states at all levels of economic development, with all kinds of political orientations, and under all sorts of cultural conditions. The only female head of state in the hitherto existing history of socialism is Milka Planinc (Federal Prime Minister of Yugoslavia from 1982 to 1986), plus Ana Pauker of Romania, the most powerful leader of the Romanian Communist Party after WW2 till 1952, when she got purged.     Comment   Your question as I understand it is valid. In the case of the former Soviet Union, most certainly under Stalin, only Stalin was the paramount leader. If Stalin had for instance lost the inner party struggle with Trotsky then Trotsky would have been the paramount leader and there would have in all probability, still existed, not just the absence of a women, but anyone else as paramount leader. After Stalin's death the inner party struggle for leadership evolved on the basis of the folks already within the highest reaches of the party system.   I do not believe this makes socialism bad, but rather a real system of very human interactions. Reading Trotsky, Lenin or anyone else on the issue of the Women Factor in today's world can only give one a historical overview because the Women Factor is not an ideological question to be decided by men today. In yesteryear this issue was debated and decided by men on the basis of ideology.   Today in America the proletariat is female.  Being told to read a book about some man's opinion about women is revealing in itself.   Why has not a women rose to paramount leader in the CPC - China? I believe it is because of the historic social position of women in Chinese society and the specifics of the formation of the CPC as an army and then an insurrectionary force and then its evolution into a ruling party and what ever barriers women face in party advancement.     As the modern world proletariat becomes female the Women Question is no longer a question but a factor - the Women's Factor, resolved on the basis of women themselves and not the ideological inclination of men.   Think about it . . . just posing the status of the majority of humanity as a "Question" - the Women Question, is revealing in itself.   Why has not a women rose to paramount leader - President, in the United States of America? I believe it is because of the historic social position of women in American society and the mechanics of the formation of the Democratic Party as the party of slavery - and all this implies towards general ooutlook concerning human beings, and then the Republican Party and the political curve of advancement of women in our society. In a few words it has been in the economic interest and sectarian political interest of our society and its party's to limit the influence and impact of women as women in anything having to do with power, wealth and privilege in our society.   Then of course a huge section of women were ousted from production in America after the Second Imperial World War, and the Women's movement would only later pick up more steam on the basic of the struggle of the African American people for fair play, justice and taking a noose from around a brother's neck. Sorry . . . women were lynched and murdered also including bombing little girls.   This does not answer your question but points in the direction of an answer. One thing I have learned very well over the years is that in America, no sector of the population, including the majority sector, women, are going to ever attain justice and equality on the basis of the good will of another sector of society. Especially if it is the sector that has historically held you down and in a status of second class citizenship.  It is not going to happen.   I guess that is why the Women's factor is called the revolution within the revolution that decided the outcome of this phase of the revolution.   It seems to me that presupposing some mysterious quality of righteousness and ones concept of "fair play" to a society because it calls itself socialist and in the case of the Soviet Union, Cuba, Korea, China and the former Peoples Democracies, were and remain actually socialist, is a bit naive.   I was a member of the Communist Labor Party during the "New Communist Movement" period and we never had a women as General Secretary. Nelson Peery was continuously voted General Secretary always with overwhelming consigns, votes and support by everyone.   Still there was no women General Secretary, although there were always a majority women in every leadership body throughout the organization. An absolute and resounding majority women. In Detroit and Michigan in particular women and black women at that dominated absolutely every organizational body . . . period.   Women seems to strive different from men are not as combative and eager to prove something to the world. I cannot quite put my finger exactly on it, but I am told women have a different feel and sense of collectivity. One thing is fairly obvious to men today: It is no longer possible in our society to lead a mass of people with men in control of leadership. Here is an important difference between the women's movement expressing dynamics changes in the role of women in modern production in America, versus the women as state leader in less individual developed societies.   In America we go nowhere and the advance of the revolutionary movement is impossible within women occupying the leadership of everything: from the local block club to every power center in state and government and all political parties. This is not the case with say China or India, although these societies are advancing to that point.     The point is that in yesteryear, the issue of women in leadership was an ideological and ethical question, shaped by the righteousness felt by men. Today in America the Women Factor is not posed as an ideological question governed by the personal politics of male individuals. In Detroit and Michigan our old party experience reached the new level in the mid and latter 1970s. The absolute majority of all leaders in everything were women, with an unbelievablly large amount of black women.   Melvin P.