Power of Women journal

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Online archive of the journal of the London-based Power of Women collective. Published in the mid 1970s.

Submitted by Fozzie on May 31, 2024

At least five issues were published from 1974-1976.

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Steven.

6 months 1 week ago

Submitted by Steven. on May 31, 2024

Great stuff!

Power of Women #1 (1974)

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Debut issue of the journal of the Power of Women Collective, including articles on women in Northern Ireland, shoplifting, social security, sexual politics, etc.

Submitted by Fozzie on May 30, 2024

Contents

  • Editorial - The Power of Women Collective
  • Northern Ireland: A Woman's Place - Some women from The Power of Women Collective
  • Interview with a shoplifter
  • When money comes from the state and not the man (social security / wages for housework)
  • Collectively Speaking (recent discussions of the collective: prices, boycotts, price controls)
  • What is a Sex Object?
  • The Invisible Woman (autobiographical piece on growing up gay, feminism, work etc)- Evelyn Farrar
  • Letters
  • International Feminist Collective statement
  • Salt of the earth in Harlan County (Kentucky miners strike)

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Power of Women #2 (1974)

Power of Women 2 cover

Including: women in Northern Ireland, Family Allowance campaign, wages for housework, wages for school work, nursing, Imperial Typewriters dispute, etc.

Submitted by Fozzie on May 31, 2024

Contents

  • Editorial - Power of Women collective
  • Living through the crisis: women in Northern Ireland and Britain - Rose Craig
  • The end... Family Allowance - Priscilla Allen
  • The beginning... Wages for Housework
  • Wages for School Work - interview with two students from a school in South London
  • This is nursing - Lizzie Stuart
  • Background to nursing struggles - Priscilla Allen
  • Agency nurses
  • Nurses march in London and Bristol
  • Welcome to Britain (nurses training) - Bernadette
  • Imperial(ist) Typewriters strike - Mala Dhondy
  • Women against women: another form of racism - Beese

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Power of Women #3 (1975)

Power of Women 3 cover

Including - self-reduction of prices in Italy, Asian workers on strike, school pupils protest, nurseries, housework, waitressing, "Cowley wives" strike support, etc.

Submitted by Fozzie on June 1, 2024

Contents

  • Collective statement
  • Britain: sugar on the shelves
  • Italy: self-reduction of prices
  • Asian women on strike: who to unite with and when
  • They give you £10 when you leave prison... nothing from school
  • Nurseries: why are we forced to beg?

This is housework

  • A day's work
  • Wages for housework
  • Footsore spending (shopping as work)
  • On the job (sex as work)
  • A simple housewife

And:

  • Two poached salmon and a smile (waitressing)
  • Mums on their own
  • Mother-Led Union
  • The "Benefit" our wage?
  • I went to Brighton to stay with a friend
  • Lie back and take it
  • Housewives to British Leyland
  • Halsbury Report: crumbs for the "birds"
  • One paid day per month for housework

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Power of Women #4 (1975)

Photo of a banner saying "wages for housework" held by women at a demonstration

Including: abortion, short accounts of women's struggles around the world, wages for housework, etc.

Submitted by Fozzie on June 3, 2024

Contents

  • Editorial
  • The Mother-Led Union (USA)
  • Take our kids into care
  • If women were paid for all they do (Canada)
  • Forced sterilisation in New York and Los Angeles
  • Abortion in Italy
  • 'Back pay with interest' (Australia)
  • Cooking strike (Chile)
  • Women win creche
  • Postscript (Canada)
  • Spain: women's boycott
  • Working on a widow's pension
  • India: Anti Price Rise Front
  • Where is the money coming from? (USA)
  • National Women's Conference
  • Wages for Housework demonstration
  • Lesbianism and Wages for Housework
  • Maimonides: Against women's unpaid work (USA)
  • Sweden: Now we are 'equal'
  • Strike at the office
  • International Women's Day, New York
  • Letters from Portugal

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Power of Women #5 (1976)

Photo of womens' general strike in Iceland Oct 24 1975

Including: family allowance freeze in Canada, welfare campaigns in US, Black Women for wages for housework launched, women's general strike in Iceland, international Lesbian conference, women factory workers in Italy, sex work in France, etc.

Submitted by Fozzie on June 4, 2024

Contents

  • Editorial: Wages due
  • Family Allowance (Canada)
  • The US: organising for welfare
  • Birth announcement: Black Women for Wages for Housework formed
  • The right to have children
  • Italy: the right to abortion
  • The master's plan: survey of users of feminist women's health centre, Los Angeles
  • When women stop, everything stops: women's general strike in Iceland
  • International Lesbian Conference in Toronto
  • All our time is working time (women factory workers in Italy)
  • Baby's due (song)
  • 'The state is the biggest pimp' (sex workers strike in France)
  • 'All Work and No Pay' - viewers respond to wages for housework TV programme

Possibly the last issue of Power of Women. The masthead changed to "magazine of the international wages for housework campaign" for this issue.

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When Women Stop - Everything Stops

A huge crowd of women taking part in a general strike in Iceland

Report on the women's general strike on October 24th 1974 in Iceland.

Submitted by Fozzie on June 4, 2024

On 24 October 1975 the women of Iceland stood together and proved a point to the whole world. For 24 hours they withdrew their labour, took a "day off"—to show everyone how important, how fundamental their work was in the home, on the farm, in factories and offices and schools. They showed how nothing could work unless they worked. They proved that when women stop, everything stops.

The choice of the date (UN Day of International Women's Year) was not so important as the fact that a date was chosen. Once it was set, the work of the strike committee, formed at the Women's Congress in June, was to make sure that every woman knew about the date. This they did through a circular letter entitled "Why a Day Off for Women?"—see opposite [below] (they sent out 47,000 copies to an adult female population of 60,000); through the sale of 25,000 stick-on labels and 5,000 posters; through announcements in news-papers, on the radio and on television.

Once the word was spread, the response of women was almost unanimous - 90% took the day off in Reykjavik, the capital, and 99% in towns and villages. Schools and shops were closed because the majority of workers in these places are women. Operator-assisted telephone calls were impossible. Airline schedules were disrupted. Newspapers were not printed because most typesetters are women. (One report says that some typesetters did work early in the morning to set the news of the strike — and then they left to join it.) Theatres closed—among others, actresses joined the strike. Banks and businesses were crippled because not only were the women absent, but men had to mind little children either at home or in the office. Most farm and factory work had to stop.

The women of Iceland disproved something that all the "experts" on labour struggles are fond of saying: that housewives cannot strike or that if they did they wouldn't hurt anyone but themselves and their "loved ones". For Iceland—and elsewhere—that notion was destroyed. Industry and business were hurt. Women and children were not, and men didn't suffer by not going to work!

October is a cold month in that northern country, but on the 24th 25,000 women gathered in a central square in Reykjavik. It was the biggest meeting Iceland had ever seen. In Akureyri, the largest town in the north, 1,000 women met in a hall for a day of songs, speeches, stories and talk. Other towns and villages had similar events.

In Reykjavik they marched into the square behind an all-women band playing an old suffragette song. Women who have been in smaller demonstrations can imagine how thrilling this one must have been. Not only was it large—it was unanimous. It was not a matter of some women demonstrating and others watching alongide men, but of nearly the whole female population on the move.

After the two-hour programme in the square, the women could not just go home. They stayed out, some with babies at breast and many with their elder daughters (what daughter could forgive her mother's leaving her out of such an experience?). They went to Open Houses and ate together, sang and talked for the rest of the day. Feminist materials from other countries were on display. A network of stewardesses and other female staff who work for Icelandic Airlines had brought them for the Day Off.

A general strike is the crest of a strike wave. This general strike didn't come from nowhere. The strike call was loud, but it was only taken up because it was heard by women who'd been fighting every day. Fighting for better pay and for nurseries, fighting to get men to help in the house, fighting for money, for more power over their lives.

Some of these struggles involved actions that are known publicly as strikes. Other struggles by individual women withdrawing their labour in individual homes are like local strikes, though they may not be "recognised" as such. These strikes, we all know, go on everywhere—in every country. It is precisely because of these constant struggles that a general strike is possible.

Iceland was the first time we know of when women refused all aspects of their job, childminding, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and the outside job, all at once. In other countries some women who heard about the strike said, "It couldn't happen here." But they were saying the same thing in Iceland before it did happen.

Never before had there been so general a general strike. It included the woman from the fish canneries and the full-time housewife whose husband was in business; the farmer's wife and the telephone operator. So-called general strikes of the past have ignored the woman who goes on working in the kitchen. Not only have they not seen her work, but the success of the strike has depended on her working even harder. But in Iceland women left their kitchens and this action showed what a general strike really is.

Only when women stop does everything stop.


WOMEN'S DAY OFF
OCTOBER 24th 1975

WHY A DAY OFF FOR WOMEN?

The Women's Congress, held in Reykjavik, June 20 and 21 1975, urges women to take a day off on October 24, the United Nations Day, in order to demonstrate the importance of their work.

Why was a motion like that put forward and carried at a congress where women of all ages and political parties were assembled?

The reasons are many and here are but a few:

  • Because when someone is needed for a badly paid low-status job the advertisement specifies a woman.
  • Because average wages of women in trade and commerce are only 75% of the average wages of men doing the same jobs.
  • Because the principal negotiating body of the Icelandic Trades Union Congress has no woman representative.
  • Because the difference between the average monthly earnings of women and men labourers is Iceland kr.30,000 (approx. £100 or $200).
  • Because farmers' wives are not accepted as full members of the Farmers Union.
  • Because it is commonly said about a house-wife "she isn't working—just keeping house".
  • Because there are men in authority unable or unwilling to understand that day nurseries are a necessary part of modern society.
  • Because the work contribution of farmers' wives on the farms is not valued at more than Iceland kr.175,000 (approx. £500 or $1,100) a year.
  • Because whether an applicant for a job is male or female is often considered more important than education and competence.
  • Because the work experience of a housewife is not considered of any value on the labour market.

The general conclusion is that women's contribution to the community is underestimated.

Let us demonstrate to ourselves and to others the importance of our role in society by stopping work on October 24th. Let us unite in making the day a memorable one under the theme of the International Women's Year:

EQUALITY—DEVELOPMENT—PEACE

Executive Committee for Women's Day Off.

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