MIM Notes 36                   March 3 1989

MIM Theory 15
Unofficial journal of MIM

Dear MIM:

Just thought I would add my view of the three items in the 
latest issue which are up for vote by members. I think that 
all three show a prodigious amount of work and are excellent. 
While I am no expert they sound very practical, sensible, 
useful, and -- Maoist!

There is one small point, however, that I would question: 
Column 4, point b of "Romance, Gender and the Party." This 
refers to the fact that sexual liasons are not equal, cannot 
be equal "in this context," etc.

This sounds like a copout to me. If party members can't 
practice equality in their sexual relations, "in the current 
context," when the hell are they going to begin? Or, why 
should anyone bother with anyone if it's going to be a 
slave/master relationship, and not equal? My first thought to 
such a relationship would be, F. U.! Perhaps I do not 
understand this correctly, but it certainly turns me off.

I can see why the Third World women proletariat are they key 
to the revolution in some ways. They are the most exploited. 
Must we count men out, are they not interested, or do they not 
have as much to be disenchanted with as women???? (Draft 
Constitution, column 4, #c)

In addition, I wonder if it would be a good idea to add 
something to the Draft Constitution on religion. They are 
infiltrating most socialist organizations now. I do not trust 
them.

Congratulations again on an excellent issue!

--Ally in the South

February, 1989

MC5:

Thank you for writing. Of course, as Maoists, we oppose 
expert-rule, so we hope that everyone who has something to say 
about MIM's work will write in as you have done so well.

On the issue of party romances, the fuck you option is very 
important. Those people who find their romantic relations 
intolerably unequal should say fuck you. In fact, the article 
explicitly says that people should keep in mind the benefits 
of asexuality at all times.  Is he fucked up? Then tell him 
fuck off. That is the best way to keep men inside or outside 
the party from engaging in practices of inequality. Is it a 
consuming project to be a part of romance? Then don't fuck!  
That is as far as the discussion of most of the problematic 
Amerikan individual romances should go. The problem is just 
not worth that much effort.

Unfortunately though, it is not possible to be consistent if 
one believes that there is structural inequality in Amerikan 
gender relations and one believes that communists may and 
should participate in romantic relations of equality. Either 
the structure of Amerikan gender relations is unequal or not. 
Individuals are either constrained by that structure or there 
is no point in talking about structural inequality. There is 
no point in overthrowing the patriarchy if one can merely 
reform it individually.

It is important to note that all sex in the United States 
occurs in a context of gender inequality as MacKinnon, Dworkin 
and others have pointed out. Even individual upper class women 
are not isolated from the impact of a sexist culture -- 
everything from music and dating practices to Amerikan notions 
of what is pleasurable in romance.

Of course, the experience of upper class women is not the same 
as that of lower class women. In fact, the party has also had 
discussions of educational, political and age inequalities in 
romance. One idea that came up was that communists should try 
to date people who are their equals in these categories in 
addition to class.

In the past few months, I have come to change my always 
ambiguous and probably overly complicated position on this 
question. (That's self-criticism for not working through this 
issue and attempting to exert political leadership in this 
area as communists should.) The problem with this line of 
"date-only-your equals" thinking is that it is fundamentally 
petty-bourgeois.

It fits in with the attitude of "making it on one's own" and 
"rugged individualism." Magically, somehow communists are able 
to rise above the entire structure of gender inequality 
according to this petty-bourgeois view. MacKinnon once 
remarked to the effect that if she had a dime for all the 
leftists who thought that their romances were correct, she 
would be a millionaire.

If a male chooses not to engage in romance with a female who 
has less education, political experience and/or income etc. 
that does not solve the problem of gender inequality as a 
whole.  Women as a whole are not accorded equality in this 
society.

The rejected female will then simply go out with someone else. 
On the whole, women will go out with men who are paid more, 
have more experience in politics etc.  Individuals who go out 
with their exact equals do so at the expense of others who 
will make up for that equality by having relations with above 
average inequality.

The exception to this inequality may be homosexuality. In 
particular, lesbianism as a part of the solution to patriarchy 
is worthy of its own separate discussion.

Indeed, there is something to be said for romance and marriage 
as an equalizer when it comes to mixing people of unequal 
classes, races, educations etc. During the Cultural Revolution 
(an entirely different context), the Maoists encouraged people 
to marry beneath their educational status.  College youth sent 
to the countryside were thought to be narrowing urban/rural 
and mental/manual inequalities by marrying peasants.

This is not an argument that every individual should engage in 
a romance with its share of inequality. It merely counters the 
idea that individuals can resolve a problem inherent to a 
system of group relations.

In other words, it does not matter if communists in the 
current context date people from their same class or radically 
different classes. Either way, gender relations are unequal. 
For a communist attempting to overthrow the patriarchy, to 
pretend otherwise is hypocrisy.

This is true even where communists and other individuals adopt 
an asexual orientation. Just as keeping one's money under the 
mattress does not destroy the banking system, so adopting an 
asexual orientation does not destroy the patriarchy.

The reason the party should ask people to keep in mind an 
asexual orientation is to compare it with a romantic 
orientation, not because it can overthrow the patriarchy. 
Those who say that romance is an important source of coercion 
and inequality in the United States should realize that 
asexuality is an option in the United States, which does not 
have dire consequences. The choice between asexuality and 
sexuality is like that between Democrats and Republicans right 
now. 

In some situations, asexuality will take a person's mind off 
romance for something more important. In other situations, 
romance itself will take a person's mind off the question.

Ultimately, the whole line of thinking that focusses on the 
individual in romance is reformist at best and more than 
likely a reflection of the decadence of Amerikan imperialism. 
It does not advance the struggle one iota.

As for the point on Third World women in the Draft 
Constitution, it states that the view that Third World women 
are the key is an acceptable point of view to hold within MIM. 
The point is that there are various ways of working on the 
same problem.

One might disagree with this formulation if one believed that 
one particular kind of oppression, say gender, was the bedrock 
of all other oppressions. Then one would want the Constitution 
to set the priorities straight.

This raises another question. While it is acceptable in my 
opinion to see Third World women as key or Third World peoples 
as key, some views do contradict internationalism and hence 
all strategies for social change. For example, one can not be 
a feminist and not oppose imperialism in my book. Why? First, 
the majority of women are oppressed by imperialism. Secondly, 
imperialism's symptom of militarism affects women on a scale 
exceeded perhaps only by draft-age men. The waste of resources 
by militarism brings women's disproportionate starvation and 
poverty, even in the imperialist countries themselves. 
Thirdly, without imperialism, many feudal regimes keeping 
peasants under landlord control would collapse for lack of 
military and economic aid. If capitalism is bad for women, 
feudalism is worse with its range of oppressions that include 
the buying and selling of women into marriage, foot-binding in 
some societies, the right of first night (first sex) reserved 
for landlords in other societies etc. Women are 
disproportionately disowned from the land in agrarian 
societies that make up the Third World. They starve 
disproportionately as a result. They also lose reproductive 
options as their children starve. Forced to continually bear 
children just so that some survive, Third World women do not 
gain control of their bodies without eradicating imperialism 
and the feudalist regimes backed by imperialism. For this 
reason, it is impossible to be a feminist without being 
internationalist and anti-imperialist.