After the election: where to now?

While there is no question that the election of Barack Obama is a good thing for women--reversing the heinous Global Gag Rule will save the lives of thousands of women, to give just one example--there is danger here too. When Bill Clinton was first elected, he too rescinded the Global Gag Rule and his reputation as a friend of women's reproductive rights led to the collapse of much of the movement for abortion rights. This left poor women still unable to access abortion, it left the Hyde Amendment denying federal funding for abortion intact--it is still intact--it left federal and state courts riddled with right-wing judges, and it left a fanatical right wing determined to stop women's access and right to abortion at any cost (see Abortion rights battles continue).

The disarming of the women's movement also left the door open for Clinton to savage welfare, thereby destroying a safety net for women--mostly single mothers--that had existed for decades and is now, in capitalism's deteriorating economy, sorely needed. While two years ago 15 million women in the U.S. lived in poverty and one in five older women were poor as were one in three single moms, now things are so much worse. Yet rather than growing, welfare rolls mostly remain flat and the number of those receiving assistance is at a four-year low.

ALL EGGS IN OBAMA BASKET

Obama has been ominously quiet on this subject at precisely the time he needs to commit to bringing women out of poverty. In fact the official White House website, expectmore.gov, tells us "the following actions" they are taking to "improve the performance of the [welfare] program": "Reassessing the program's performance measures and related targets," and "Implementing the plan to determine the rate and amount of cash assistance payments that are paid improperly and developing a plan for reducing improper payments." How is this pathetic response, or rather non-response, to women's poverty any different than what a Republican would do? Not only that, be it welfare, food stamps, or the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act, one of the biggest crimes is that so many of those eligible for such programs don't know of them and suffer needlessly.

Given the history the women's movement had with Bill Clinton and that Obama has already proven himself wanting on such vitally important questions as healthcare where those advocating single payer healthcare are banned from the discussion; given the anti-freedom Proposition 8 banning gay marriage in California which Obama has refused to repudiate; and given the newly emerging need for welfare--what is disturbing is how many women and women's groups are depending on him to solve our problems for us. From the National Organization for Women to the Feminist Majority, and from NARAL Pro-Choice America to Planned Parenthood, all have great expectations for Obama, and many have their guard down.

NEED FOR TOTAL CHANGE

While the election of Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress was a victory, it was not the deep, lasting, and total change needed for us to be free. It was that desire for a total change that made the election victory possible in the first place. The real question the election poses, then, is not our expectations of Obama, but rather, where do we--that is the women's movement for freedom--go from here?

What the election did give us was a breathing space as we move away from the stench that was Bush and his administration, and work out how to put forward what is actually necessary to transform our capitalist, racist, sexist, homophobic society into a truly new human one. Obama's admitted philosophy is pragmatism, he's going to do "what works." But the philosophy of pragmatism cannot be the movement's ground because pragmatism does not lead to the new, but to only surviving or minimally improving what is. In our age of total crisis, that is not enough. The times call for a total change. For that we need to be grounded in a philosophy of liberation.

One way to begin that work is to return to Marx. While the women's movement has, rightly, been suspicious of a post-Marx Marxism that told us our freedom always has to wait, our Draft for Perspectives poses the question, how to return to Marx's Marxism, rather than post-Marx Marxism that has betrayed women at every revolutionary turn. The women's movement has, rightly, already rejected those so-called Marxists that thunder "Social Revolution comes first." But with capitalism failing in a spectacular and horribly destructive manner, with those wanting a new world and believing that one is possible taking a second look at Marx, the women's movement can't afford to be left behind. Our pages are open for your discussion.

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