African women, a part of the Africa liberation movement, play a major historic role in the struggle for national liberation and unification, human rights, women’s emancipation, democracy, and socialism. They are the most exploited and oppressed sector of African society. They are highly responsive to the African revolution and constitute a great force for the people during periods of heightened revolutionary struggle. To understand their true potential, we must understand the origins and basis of women’s oppression, their role in African and other societies as well as their relationship to the struggle of the masses of African people.
Understanding the Fundamental Basis of Women’s Oppression
An understanding of the fundamental basis of women’s oppression, as is the case with all oppressed sectors of society, can be found by properly analyzing their relationship to the means of production as well as their relationship to the process of producing and reproducing human life. Our emphasis, is placed upon the unbreakable historic connection between woman’s oppressed social position and the emergence of private ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange from that which was formerly owned in common. The position of women relative to men deteriorated with the emergence of private property, the transformation of the communal extended family into the individual nuclear family as the basic economic unit of production and the emergence of class divisions within society.
Under communalism, there was no exploitation of one over another, therefore the division of labor between the sexes was reciprocal and the economy did not involve the dependence of the wife and children on the husband. The children in a real sense belonged to the group as a whole. Women did not have to put up with personal injuries from men in outbursts of violent anger for fear of economic deprivation for themselves or their children. By comparison with class divided societies where wife-beating became accepted, even to the point of death. In a communal society a mistreated wife could call on her relatives for redress or leave if it was not forthcoming. Furthermore, “household management” could not be construed as it would be today. Today, whether a “public” industry or not, managing the household as the task entrusted to the women would be viewed as hardly very satisfactory. In communal society, the distinction did not exist between a public world of men’s work and a private world of women’s household service. The large collective household was the community, and within it both women and men worked to produce the goods necessary for livelihood. Production was based upon use and not profit. Production beyond levels required for immediate use had not been achieved. Goods were directly produced and consumed as they had not yet become transformed into “commodities” for exchange, the transformation upon which the exploitation of one person over another and the social oppression of women was built. And, since in communal society decisions were made by those who would be carrying them out, the participation of women in a major share of socially necessary labor did not reduce them to virtual slavery (as is the case in class society), but accorded them decision-making powers commensurate with their contribution.
Matriarchy (the system of rule by women, based on descent and inheritance determined through the female line) declined with the development of exploitative class relations giving way to the emergence of patriarchy (the system of rule by men). This transformation was based upon the acquisition of private property and power in the hands of the male members of society. Under patriarchy, the wife and children are legally dependent on the husband and descent and inheritance is determined by one’s relationship to the father. During this period, monogamy arises from a transitional stage of polygyny, when men have female slaves at their command; coupled with male supremacy. It is supplemented by adultery and prostitution, and is from the beginning, monogamy for the woman only, and was required of the female members of society to assure the legitimate heirs of male property their rights of inheritance.
The significant characteristic of monogamous marriage was its transformation of the nuclear family into the basic economic unit of society, within which a woman and her children became dependent upon an individual man. The subjugation of the female was based on the transformation of their socially necessary labor into a private service through the separation of the family from the clan. It was in this context that women’s domestic and other work came to be performed under conditions of virtual slavery. Arising in conjunction with exploitative class relations, this transformation resulted in the oppression of women that has persisted to the present day.
Emancipating African Women: A Goal of Pan-Africanism
Fundamentally, the struggle to emancipate African women is a component part of the struggle for Pan-Africanism, correctly defined as the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism. The struggle for Pan-Africanism itself is primarily characterized by the struggle for national liberation, African unity, socialism and women’s emancipation. It is a revolutionary struggle against capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, zionism, and gender oppression. The emancipation of African women must therefore be associated with the liberation of the African nation and the African working mass because if the nation and class are not liberated, then the women will not be liberated. Likewise, if the women are not emancipated and do not share the role of masters of the country, the nation as well as the African masses, are not truly liberated. The principal content of the struggle for the emancipation of African women is mainly against national oppression, class exploitation and against the oppressive roles and functions of women under slave and feudal societies. It is mainly a struggle to achieve an ever-wider participation of women in the management of society and production in line with their capabilities. It is a struggle to reduce the burden of housework by means of rational reorganization of society and its impact on the nuclear family, and it is a struggle to work actively to advance women’s political, educational, scientific, and technical standards. It is, in essence, a struggle to ensure the fullest participation of women as collective masters of society and themselves. If the African women’s movement is to make a major contribution to the revolutionary movement of the People as a whole, it is essential that our sisters understand the nation/class origins of women’s oppression and be deeply roused to class and national consciousness and nation/class struggle.
The Necessity for African Women’s Organizations
While it is true that the emancipation of African women is not possible without the liberation of the masses of African people in society, it is not enough that women should merely take part in the general revolutionary movement of the people. They must also build up revolutionary movements and organizations of their own. The masses of oppressed and exploited African women will not be roused to revolutionary activity if in our endeavor to promote the common goal of the People, we neglect to pay attention to the specific problems and interests of African women. Emphasis must be placed upon the unbreakable connection between the social position of African women, the private ownership of the means of production and the subsequent rise of indigenous slavery, feudalism, capitalism, racism, as well as colonialism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism. This will draw a strong, ineradicable line of opposition from African women to the bourgeois feminist women’s movement, while ensuring the revolutionary character of the movement of African women who are oppressed and exploited because of their national, class, as well as their gender realities.
As African people suffering from the conditions of class, national and gender oppression, we want no organization which separates African women from African men. Our struggle is not a matter of man against woman or woman against man. It is a universal struggle to end the oppression and exploitation of any human being by another. The revolutionary African woman understands that her primary enemy is capitalism, colonialism, racism, zionism and imperialism. She understands that the oppressive character of African men, is a product of the oppressive society which produces him. She understands the African women’s movement to be an inseparable force within the African people’s struggle.
African women, to the extent that they are revolutionary must understand that it is impossible to become emancipated as women as long as the People’s class and nation to which they belong, remain oppressed. The revolutionary sectors of the African women’s movement who suffer class and national oppression must continue to expose the limitations of the bourgeois women’s movement with increasing clarity. Already they have succeeded in revealing the goals of the bourgeois women’s movement as merely an effort to achieve the equality of bourgeois women with men of their own class and nationality, within the framework of racist, class society. They have shown that bourgeois feminism, the ideology of the European bourgeois women’s movement offers no viable solution to end the nation-class oppression which is the condition of most African working women throughout the world. The revolutionary African woman has shown her understanding of the need for permanent, revolutionary, Pan-African organization for the masses of African people by joining African revolutionary organizations and political parties all over the world. Revolutionary African women understand that such organizations must include, as part of their internal structures, organizations for the masses of African women. They are building the women’s wings of the Communist Party of Cuba, South-West African People’s Organization (SWAPO), Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG), Azanian People’s Organization (AZAPO), Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF, All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) (A-APRP(GC)) and countless other organizations throughout the world.
The All-African Women’s Revolutionary Union (GC) Calls African Women to join the A-APRP (GC)
Recognizing the need to establish permanent, revolutionary, Pan-African organization among the masses of African people with the capacity to address the needs, desires and aspirations of African women, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC)(A-APRP(GC)) founded the All-African Women’s Revolutionary Union (GC) (A-AWRU (GC)) as the internal women’s wing of the party. The A-AWRU (GC) was founded to enhance the political education and organization of the Party membership and the masses of African people in general, and members of the A-AWRU (GC) and the masses of African women. Its objective, ideology, program, strategy, and tactics emanate from the revolutionary, mass, Pan-African organization which produced it. It is a product of the uncompromising realization that revolutionary African women’s organization cannot develop independently from the revolutionary, mass organization of the people. All women members of the A-APRP (GC) are members of the A-AWRU (GC). The A-AWRU (GC) is calling on all African women to join the A-APRP (GC). We believe that this is the best way African women can contribute to the ongoing struggle to liberate the African nation, African people most importantly, African woman. In the A-AWRU (GC), as well as the A-APRP (GC), we know the proud, uncompromising struggles, service, and sacrifices of African women to the African liberation struggle, and we need the experience, dynamism, and enthusiasm that African women will bring to our Party and the A-AWRU (GC).
The A-APRP (GC) Organizing for Revolution
The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) (A-APRP (GC))is a permanent, independent, all African, mass, revolutionary, socialist, political party based in Africa, the just homeland of African people all over the world. The A-APRP (GC) understands that “all people of African descent, whether they live in North or South America, the Caribbean or in any other part of the world are African and belong to the African Nation,” (Kwame Nkrumah, Class Struggle in Africa, pg. 87). The A-APRP (GC)is an integral part of the Pan-African and world socialist Revolutions. It is a product of the relentless struggle within the Pan-African movement for ideological clarity, a scientific and precise objective; and revolutionary, mass Pan-African political organization. It represents a quantitative and qualitative development in our long history of struggle against class exploitation and national and gender oppression and all of their various manifestations, including centuries of enslavement, dispersion, balkanization, depersonalization and domination of African people and Africa. Guided by its ideology, NKRUMAHISM-TOUREISM, it is struggling to become a mass party capable of politically educating and organizing the masses of oppressed Africans living, suffering, and struggling in over 113 countries in the world in order to release and channel their revolutionary mass energy and potential towards the attainment of PAN-AFRICANISM — One Unified Socialist Africa, which is a historically determined necessity.