the grand domestic revolution
Part 2
Introduction idle women addresses the urgent need for women’s space – for a radical redress of power, acknowledgment and voice. the grand domestic revolution is the second part of the idle women journey. “One reason why I am a convinced suffragist is that the mothers (even as wage earners) take the greater share of the responsibility in the upbringing of their children; therefore, they ought to have the greater means, not the less, to enable them to do justice to the rising generation.” Selina Cooper, August 1913 “When society is rightly organized, the wife and mother will have time, wish and will to grow intellectually and will know the limits of her sphere, the extent of her duties, are prescribed only by the measure of her ability.” Susan B. Anthony, 1899 The Grand Domestic Revolution by Delores Hayden depicts the unsung first feminists of the US, the ‘material feminists’. They demanded economic remuneration for unpaid household labour. They proposed a complete transformation of the spacial design and material culture of homes, neighbourhoods and cities. Following the launch of Selina Cooper (the tailor made narrowboat arts centre) idle women hosted its first live-aboard residency with Artist Martina Mullaney and her 7 year old daughter. This residency in solidarity with Martina’s practice ‘Enemies of Good Art’ aimed to name the mother at the heart of idle women activities, highlighting the absence of mothers from arts and feminist discourse and to acknowledge that a high number of women engaging in the idle women programme are mothers. This pamphlet celebrates new relationships, forging alternatives, space and time for ourselves. Rahila Gupta’s text articulates a place in time today where women are at the heart of a feminist revolution. This discovery is incredible and gives us hope on a cellular level. We look backwards to the material feminists, to the working class women who organized in the mills and we look beyond our sightline to women over seas creating hope amongst the desperation of men’s wars. Candice Purwin’s extract documents the start of a revolution. Yara El-Sherbini and Davina Drummond’s quiz on motherhood in the arts articulates the urgency of revolution. This is for our mothers, the willing, the choice-less, the hopeful and the unseen. idle women is a place for all women and girls to belong, a growing network of connections, friendships and co-creation. May it continue. Cis O’Boyle and Rachel Anderson idle women caretakers 2016
Rojava: A Feminist Utopia? by Rahila Gupta
Rojava: A Feminist Utopia? Rahila Gupta, 2016
In March 2016, I was invited to go to Northern Syria to attend International Women’s Day by a Kurdish solidarity group, Peace for Kurdistan, based in London. I had made contact with this group to find out how I could visit a strip of land, known as Rojava, on the Syrian/ Turkey border where an amazing experiment in gender, race and class equality is taking place in a country that is in the middle of a war with itself and with a brand of Islamic fundamentalists, ISIS, whose values could not be more different. When I first heard about Rojava at a conference on Reimagining Democracy, I could not believe my ears. Here was a society that sounded more progressive and more democratic than anything we see in the West – not that I believe that only Western countries can be beacons of democracy but it is a mantle which the West has aggressively claimed as its own and used as an excuse to invade countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. It was an invitation I could not resist especially as the whole reason for going there was to research my forthcoming book, Why Doesn’t Patriarchy Die? which I am co-writing with Beatrix Campbell. Against a backdrop of anxious family and friends, mostly anxious about bombs and shrapnel, while some were concerned that I hadn’t informed the British foreign office and may be arrested as a potential terrorist, I made preparations to cross the border from Iraqi Kurdistan. I had done my research and was assured that it was quite safe even though the frontline was only a couple of hours away from Qamişlo, the capital city. An 84 year old woman who had visited Rojava before me assured me that she felt safer there than she felt in Oxford Street. As for the terrorism charge, I was relying on my press card and history of journalism in the UK for my ‘get out of jail’ card. At the border crossing itself, where a motorboat takes you across the River Tigris from Iraq to Syria, I experienced my first heady rush. The ex-guerrilla fighter wounded in battle and now head of border control, the young man who speaks English and clears my entry papers and the 16 year old boy who serves us tea are all on the same wage. Over the next few days, I discover that every institution, be it schools, co-ops, police, army or hospitals, is run on the co-presidentship principle – a man and a woman share the job. They have set up a radical form of
A member of a women’s sewing collective shows off one of their products: the YPJ flag of the women’s fighting force which has successfully fought against ISIS.
direct grassroots democracy facilitated by Tev-Dem, the Movement for a Democratic Society, which includes all ethnicities and religions. At the neighbourhood level, they have set up communes ranging in size from 7 to 300 families depending on whether they are based in villages or cities. All the members elect a man and a woman under the copresidentship rule to manage the work and to represent their interests at the next level, the House of the People (Mala Gel), a kind of regional council. The commune also elects members of specialist committees like health, education, services or conflict resolution which will be led by co-presidents. The same structure is reflected in the next level up in city assemblies.
Parallel to this is an autonomous, women-only structure set up by the umbrella women’s organisation, Kongra Star, with its own committees, which feeds in equally, along with Tev-Dem, to law and policy making and has brought all kinds of women into the public sphere. Women who could not read or write before the revolution have gone to the academies that have been set up and become educated and empowered. They have joined the various committees set up at the commune level; their very presence in the public sphere has transformed how women are seen and a new respect for women’s abilities has permeated every level of society. Not only must Tev-Dem be led equally by men and women, this separate structure implies that women’s liberation is not to be achieved by equal numbers but by tilting the scales in favour of women in order to achieve a level playing field. In the Legislative Assembly, their equivalent of Parliament, they have reserved quotas of 10 per cent for Kurds, Arabs and Christians respectively, regardless of the actual size of the communities in a region where the Kurds are in a majority and whose Kurdish culture and identity has been systematically erased by the Turkish and Syrian regimes. This is a really enlightened approach to racial inclusivity. It was precisely this inclusivity that attracted the Arab shopkeeper who I met in the souk in Qamişlo. He had fled from Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS, partly because he was disgusted by their persecution of all other religious and ethnic minorities.
International Women’s Day, March 2016, at the Turkish/Syrian border, where Syrian Kurdish women gather to show solidarity with their sisters in Turkey.
How did this come about? When the ‘Arab Spring’ spread to Syria in 2011, Bashar Al Assad withdrew most of his forces from the predominantly Kurdish areas of Northern Syria to concentrate his firepower on the rebel forces in the South. The Kurds took advantage of Assad’s distractedness; under the direction of PYD (Democratic Union Party) which was influenced by the ideology of ‘democratic confederalism’ propounded by Abdullah Öcalan, jailed leader of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) across the border in Turkey, the Syrian Kurds set up a secular and ethnically inclusive, genuinely bottom-up democratic system. It is valiantly defended by men and women soldiers (YPG/YPJ) against ISIS which is unsuccessfully attempting to erode its Southern border. In his pamphlet on women’s revolution, Liberating Life, Öcalan argues that feminism can never be totally successful in a capitalist system, that class and race equality in a secular democratic system is part of the struggle for women’s liberation. It is partly because of the lack of race and class equality that the feminist movement in our society is so divided and faces animosity from black and working class feminists who believe that feminism has been the preserve of white, middle-class women. Öcalan, along with women colleagues, has developed the concept of Jineolojî, the sociology of women, an academic discipline unique to the Kurdish struggle, in which women are considered to be the main actors in the economic system as opposed to capitalism where men play a leading role. I met the head of the Women’s Economic Committee, Delal Afrin, who outlined their substantial achievements in a very short period of time. As their primary focus had been on self-defence and the war against ISIS, they came late to the economy. It was only in August 2015 that the Committee came into being. They have set up 19 co-operatives, including six agricultural co-ops, many of which have been in existence for only a couple of months. When I asked why they thought it was important to set up women only co-operatives, when gender equality was encouraged across society, Delal Afrin said, ‘the historic imbalance of power cannot simply be corrected by introducing quotas for women or the principle of co-presidentship shared by one man and one woman. The confidence that men and women bring to the job will be different unless the confidence of women is built up through the selfreliance, knowledge building and training they acquire in the setting up of co-operatives. A society that is able to organise an economy where women are given productive roles is the sign of a mature and reflective society. When the economy is not in the control of men, women will be able to express themselves freely.’
There has been an extensive legislative assault on patriarchal practices: Child marriage, forced marriage, dowry, FGM and polygamy have been banned; any attempt to stop a woman marrying of her own free will, will be prevented; honour killings, violence and discrimination against women have been criminalised; women, regardless of their marital status, have been given the right to custody of their children until the age of 15; a woman’s testimony is equal to a man’s; a woman has a right to equal inheritance; marriage contracts will be issued in civil courts. Impressive work when you consider that the women’s ministry was set up only in January 2014. Sharia courts, in which women always get a raw deal, have been disbanded. In Rojava, there is a clear understanding of the need to keep religion out of the public sphere in a way that is far more advanced than even the UK. We have Muslim Arbitration Tribunals, sharia councils and Beth Dins (Jewish religious courts) in this country. Rojava’s commitment to secularism owes much to Abdullah Öcalan’s ideas. He is very clear about the role of religion in the oppression of women as demonstrated in his three sexual ruptures theory of women’s enslavement and eventual liberation. The first rupture, or turning point, was the rise of patriarchy when Neolithic times ended and ‘statist civilisation’ arose; the second sexual rupture was the intensification of patriarchy through religious ideology. As Öcalan says, ‘Treating women as inferior now became the sacred command of god’; and the third rupture is yet to come, the end of patriarchy or as Öcalan puts it, ’killing the dominant male’ which is about reshaping masculinity so that it no longer defines itself in relation to its power over women. Although the geographical distance between Qamişlo, Rojava and Raqqa is less than 300km, the ideological distance puts them in separate galaxies. It also challenges the popular Western narrative of the clash of civilisations proposed by Samuel Huntington. In 1992, he argued that the age of ideology had ended and the future would be characterised by cultural and religious conflicts. Central to this line of thinking was a clash of cultures between the morally superior West in terms of its support for human rights, equality, democracy, liberalism and the medieval attitudes of an Islamic ‘culture’ constructed as monolithic and universally opposed to these values. What I saw in Rojava is an attempt to build a radical democracy with women in the driving seat, the like of which does not exist in the West. When I try and think about what we can learn and what elements of this revolution we can adopt, I realise that nothing can be imported piecemeal without a complete overhaul of our system. Even the co-Presidentship rule would be impossible to implement because our society puts profit before people.
Halima, who was illiterate before the revolution, now proudly reads the captions on the telly.
Rojava hopes to extend its self-governing model to the whole of Syria, an ambitious goal, which would certainly bring the civil war to an end, if successful. It is a fragile experiment with enemies on all sides. It has the potential to inspire all of us who are looking for alternatives to the neoliberal mess that we find ourselves in. But first we have to counter the media silence that prevents us from knowing about its existence. I have written a series of six articles for openDemocracy and articles on the CNN website and New Internationalist to raise awareness of Rojava. For idle women, I will be writing the Rubaiyat of Rojava for publication and performance, diving into a new genre, using poetry hopefully to excavate insights that my journalistic pieces have not managed to reach. Rahila Gupta 2016
All photographs Š Rahila Gupta
somewhere on the water... Illustrations by Candice Purwin
We are delighted to share this extract from the first part of somewhere on the water a graphic novel that documents idle women and the two year journey. Initially we wanted to document the project via film. We realized that by taking away the lens and embedding a brilliant empathetic illustrator we could share our journey more intimately‌ more humanely. Candice Purwin is an illustrator and comic book writer based in Edinburgh. Her graphic novel work has most notably been shortlisted for the Jonathan Cape/Observer/Comica short story prize (2015) and exhibited in Southern Alberta Art Gallery, while her fine art illustration work has been featured in exhibitions in Berlin, Edinburgh and Toronto. Her style and themes are darkly comic and often explore female roles and relationships within their environments. In particular how these interactions and physical spaces are used to construct personal myths and stories made of memory and place through which we attempt to form an identity.
Quiz: Which Vacuum Cleaner suits your personality type? by Yara El-Sherbini & Davina Drummond Yara El-Sherbini & Davina Drummond’s practises’ question the role and function of art, through making accessible and meaningful encounters. Davina and Yara have been collaborating on projects over the past five years, while also maintaining independent practices and have completed projects together for the Hayward Gallery, London, South London Gallery and are currently working with Arts Admin together on a new project. They began collaborating when they both became mothers as a means to explore the impact of motherhood on their art practices. They are current British Council Artist Fellows, and have just undertaken a fellowship as Portland State University on the Social Practice MFA on the subject of ‘Motherhood: A Social Practice’. This personality quiz is a response to Women’s magazine personality quizzes of the likes “What Does Your Favorite Britney Spears Album Say About You?” and takes on the subject of motherhood and career in a playful and subversive manner.
Quiz
s t i u S r e n a e l C Which Vacuum ? e p y T y t i l a n o s r Your Pe Circle the answers and see if you’re more, A, B or C, to find out which Vacuum Cleaner suits your personality type. 1. You think, the kitchen is: a) To cook dinner for the family b) To make an artwork in c) To argue in. 2. You think, in 2000, the Guggenheim New York, had not one single solo show by a woman, because: a) Like Evening Standard art critic Brian Sewell said, “Only men are capable of aesthetic greatness.” b) Women are less aggressive about promoting themselves. c) As much as the Guerrilla Girls highlight festering bias in the art system, and women continue to count as a feminist strategy, there continues to be dismal progress towards gender parity within the purportedly liberal realm of the art world. 3. You think, when you are invited to a Private View: a) How best you can network. b) What time you’ll get home to bed. c) How much it will cost in childcare. 4. You think that if you were to design a house, the kitchen would be: a) The centre of the home. b) Small and discreet. c) Absent – there are community kitchens.
5. You think The Grand Domestic Revolution means a) Men share the house work. b) A robot vacuum cleaner. c) Re-designing the domestic sphere, in which communal living becomes a central theme, and challenges the idea of the woman being unpaid domestic labourers. 6. You think, after a long day at paid work, as a mother: a) You will come home to dinner on the table and the kids ready for bed. b) You will have to pick the kids up from after school care, cook dinner, clean up, get them ready for bed, while your partner reads them a bedtime story. c) You will feel exhausted. 7. You think many men view women’s issues as what? a) Complicated. b) Irrelevant. c) A pink ghetto. 8. You think, the wealthiest 43% of people in the US are women, and that they are most likely to deliberately and systematically aid: a) The arts. b) Women in need. c) Cat rescue centres. 9. You think Art: a) Provides a gender neutral platform for presenting ideas. b) Can change the world. c) Is a waste of public resources. 10. You think that based on you earning of £200 a day for your freelance art practice and childcare a) Costs of £100 and travel of £10, £8 on food and tax of £40 its: It is worth still working as you love your practice so much b) How can I ever buy a house? c) Not financially viable, so you drop out of the art world, and be a stay at home mum.
11. You think, that when your mother in law comes over for dinner, just after you have given birth she will: a) Support and empower you, offering help with childcare so you can sustain your career. b) Tell you and your partner, you need to choose ONE career between the two of you now you are parents and looks at you when she says it in a suggestive way. c) Epitomise the reason why Brian Sewell, the Evening Standard art critic said women “...fade away in their late 20s or 30s. Maybe it’s something to do with bearing children.” 12. You think, that when you go on a British Council fellowship to Portland with your collaborator and 4 collective kids, that on average you will: a) Get an hour a day of work done, when your kids play at a park. b) Get no work done, as one kid gets a bug and vomits and has diarrhoea. c) Get frustrated that male artists go on fellowships and leave their kids at home with their mums. 13. When Tracey Emin said “There are good artists that have children, they are called men”, you feel: a) Shocked and disappointed. b) Happy that someone finally said what you were thinking. c) Smug, that you have defied Emin’s thinking, and are a good artist and mother. 14. You think, that when people say to you “How do you do it, balance being a mum and have a career?” a) I don’t know how I do it, but I do it because I can’t imagine life without either. b) How come no-one ever says to my male partner “how do you do it, balance fatherhood with your career?” c) Patronised. 15. You think, its the 2016 Rio Olympics and the newspaper article titled “Michael Phelps shares historic night with African-American” a) Is bloody disgusting. Simone Manuel’s historic win deserves to be celebrated with her name rightly stated. b) Exemplifies how American society is still incredibly racist and anti-women in certain ways. c) That the American press shines as an example of how to treat women of colour with respect, dignity and kindness
Your score: A: If you answered mostly A’s either a modern cordless bagless vacuum cleaner or a robot vacu-um cleaner, operated via your iPhone app, will offer you the freedom to roam. B: If you answered mostly B’s a traditional corded upright vacuum cleaner will allow you to feel grounded as you will be securely tethered to the wall. C: If you answered mostly C’s a broom is a cheap, cheerful and environmentally friendly alternative to vacuum cleaners.
Footnotes: 7. According to Mark Landler, the diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, many men view woman’s issues as C) complicated. 8. B) According to The New York Times women are more like to help women in need.
Design Laura Salisbury laurasalisburygraphicdesign.com
www.idlewomen.org