Fight to rebuild a political, campaigning NUS Women’s Campaign: vote Jennie Killip for National Women’s Officer

Posted on February 13, 2009
Filed Under ENS Women

A statement by Gemma Short, Sofie Buckland, Laura Schwartz and Evangeline Holland-Ramsay - ENS Women supporters on NUS Women’s Committee

On the most basic level, the choice in this year’s NUS Women’s Officer election is clear cut: there is candidate of the right, Olivia Bailey of Labour Students, and a candidate of the left, Manchester University women’s officer Jennie Killip. ENS Women stood a candidate for NUS Women’s Officer in 2006, 2007 and 2008, coming within four votes of winning last time. This year we are supporting Jennie Killip.

At a time when the revival of feminist activism among students and young women continues to burgeon, the NUS Women’s Campaign cannot afford another year of inactivity and subservience to the NUS leadership under Labour Students. This is true despite Olivia Bailey’s attempts to portray herself as a left-winger.

However, we must also, in a spirit of honesty, make certain criticisms of Jennie’s politics and campaign.

Jennie is standing against a relatively unknown Labour Student, who is swimming against the legacy of almost total inactivity left by the last three Labour Student Women’s Officers, and the current one in particular. Against Labour Students’ obviously empty promises of a more active campaign, it’s easy for oppositional candidates to appear left simply by exposing this as empty rhetoric and making commitments to greater and more genuine levels of “activism”. Real politics must not be dropped, however, and our criticisms of how the NUS Women’s Campaign has been run under Labour Students must extend beyond their failure to organise any real activity. Unfortunately, Jennie’s manifesto leaves out many key issues.

Most noticeable of these omissions is the failure to mention the Governance Review and the new, anti-democratic NUS constitution. The political spirit of the Governance Review reflects many of the problems with the way the Women’s Campaign has been run; a bankrupt conception of student activism, undemocratic structures and a lack of accountability. Whoever is elected this year will, unfortunately, be working within a post-Governance Review NUS, and Jennie should stand clearly opposed to these changes and commit herself to fighting for their reversal and, beyond this, a fight to transform our student movement into the democratic, campaigning force it needs to be.

Similarly, despite a brief mention of free education, there is no discussion of the actual, quite significant, campaign to challenge NUS’s refusal to fight on this issue that is currently underway, for instance in terms of the 25 February national demonstration in whose planning Jennie has been actively involved. Despite reference to class struggle, there is no discussion of the economic crisis or working with labour movement organisations on the many issues the crisis has raised for students as well as workers.

Jennie describes herself as a socialist feminist, and has recently been involved in Feminist Fightback, taking part in impressive actions such as protests to extend the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland, supporting tube cleaners on strike and supporting sex workers’ rights on Reclaim The Night marches. These actions raised slogans around free childcare, opposition to the privatisation of healthcare, opposition to borders and the defence and extension of women workers’ rights. The politics of the actions Jennie has been involved in should be reflected in her manifesto; unfortunately, no such demands are raised, nor are these campaigns mentioned.

We must also differ from Jennie in her apparent conviction that organising a “Wear the Hijab for a Day” campaign is a positive contribution to feminism or anti-racism. Defending Muslim students against racism is vital, as is support for the right of all women to wear whatever they choose. Moreover, in an environment of anti-Muslim racism, the hijab is in many ways a complex issue. But at the same time, soft-peddling or abandoning the absolutely valid feminist critique of the hijab as a tool of control over women’s bodies (as now seems to be fashionable in the student movement) is a major mistake.

Lastly, we must register our concern about the fact that Jennie is running as an “independent” candidate for Women’s Officer. In our view, there is no such thing as an independent; and left candidates should run as part of a broader, organised network to whom they can be accountable. Far too often in the past, we have seen left-wing independents elected to NUS positions and then abandon their politics under the pressure of the national union’s bureaucracy. We are not suggesting that this will necessarily happen with Jennie, but it is a risk for any left candidate. Only collective, political organisation can provide a counterweight.

We are supporting Jennie for National Women’s Officer both because we do not want the student feminist movement to suffer another year under Labour Students, and because we think she will bring positive changes to the Women’s Campaign. We will not hide our (comradely) criticism, however. We call on Jennie to promote herself not only as the candidate who will build an active campaign, but to politicise the election and turn it into a contest between pro-Labour, respectable, bureaucratic feminism on one hand and radical, class-oriented socialist feminism on the other.

Email: gemstone_88@fastmail.fm