Column: Woman As Reason

International Woman's Day: 'Hegelian dialectic is the story of my life'

by S. Hamer

International Women's Day was set aside in honor of the thousands of women who marched and rallied in the streets, who died to demand recognition and protested against the inhumane working conditions and unjust treatment of us as individuals and as working women. This day represents women struggling in solidarity to be recognized and treated like human beings, and to declare solidarity with all unorganized women workers.

My presentation tonight is about how working women like myself have struggled and fought to bring about a change in the mind, because without a change in the mind, you cannot make a change in the world.

In the South we as Black women struggle just to have a voice. Rosa Parks initiated the whole Black revolution in the South in 1955 by refusing to give her seat to a white man. Fannie Lou Hamer, who lost her job in 1962 when she tried to exercise her right to vote, became one of the Civil Rights Movement's most eloquent spokespeople as a founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. But still as women they were treated as the exception. Women in the Delta, especially Black women, have struggled to this day to be looked upon as women and treated with dignity and respect, and have demanded equal rights. This day we celebrate to send signals that our fight as women will continue until we uproot this exploitative, sexist, racist society.

Mississippi is one of the poorest states in America. Before Delta Pride Catfish, the only source of income was the little money you received from welfare or chopping cotton in the fields. I'm going to tell you a story of my journey. It's a struggle of the mind. I'm talking about my mind and many of the other women I work with.

In Marxism and Freedom, by Raya Dunayevskaya, I read that the Hegelian dialectic is the story of the mind's fight through many different stages, trying to reach to freedom. That is the story of my life, too.

WHEN WE WERE ON WELFARE, we were in a degrading situation, because they gave you barely enough to live on. They harassed you and checked your home and found out if a man lived with you, just to give you this little money to live on. When we heard about the jobs at Delta Pride, we had the illusion that when we got off welfare and went to the factory it would totally change our lives.

But when we went to the factory, they harassed us, worked us all day. We had carpal tunnel syndrome that crippled women in the plant. This was the life at Delta. So it wasn't a progress up scale. In a sense it was just as bad as welfare. Then we knew we had to say no to this degrading production system and the racism and sexism that came with it. So you see, we had to give up the illusion that becoming production workers would make us free. And then we had to start the fight all over again.

We organized Delta Pride so we could gain dignity and respect on that job, and have benefits to safely take care of our families. But then came the first contract negotiation, which didn't give us the justice we were seeking. It had too many gapholes which the company could use to their advantage. But the worst part was how the contract was negotiated: through upstairs, underhanded deals. We had a negotiating group. But they had the union officials and the company officials. They would put us downstairs in one room and they would stay upstairs in another room and negotiate what they wanted.

We had the illusion that if we got a union, it would totally change our lives. But we learned that unless the union is each and every member standing up and fighting together, it won't make us free. Just like becoming workers didn't make us free, becoming a union member with the thought of someone leading us to freedom didn't make us free either.

THEN CAME THE 1990 STRIKE. The women at Delta went out on strike not just because they wanted extra money or extra holidays, but just because they wanted to have rights to go to the bathroom, which were taken from us. In the first contract we negotiated those rights. In the second contract the company came back and said: 'For the last three years women have been abusing this bathroom right. They go when they want to go; they stay as long as they want to stay. We're going to start letting you women go at 12:00 during your lunch hour.' That's what sparked the 1990 strike.

Through that strike a source of solidarity was brought about, because women, men, and groups all over the world came together in solidarity to make a difference. Connecting to the day we are celebrating, that's what solidarity is all about: standing together to change whatever struggle and fighting for that. We learned through this victory that we could demand the dignity and respect we deserve as working women. But how do we teach the unorganized? Why didn't they learn from our struggle? I know it goes deeper.

Fear is still real for us in Mississippi. I've constantly talked about America's Catch and the struggles we've been going through there. They've had three elections that resulted in defeat. They are harassed, mistreated, fired; they are surrounded by unionized plants that have made a difference. But the fear is so deeply rooted. You don't even have to be a worker; you just have to be Black. Look what happened to the Jackson Advocate last month. This newspaper supported us when we were on strike and now their whole office was fire bombed.

We need to overcome both the illusion and the fear. The only way we can do this is through the struggle of the mind, developing the idea of freedom and organizing to make it a reality.

Editor's note: This talk was given on International Women's Day.


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