By Abigail Pollock
Ten days after the general election an exhausted group of women gathered for a festive meal in Stratford, East London. Although the Socialist Sisters Christmas Curry was a convivial affair, for many it had the ring of the Last Supper. In the dying days of the 10ies, it was clear to all assembled, that we are leaving austerity-lite and entering austerity-deep, but is it now time for socialists-feminists to focus on themselves.
Newham is a London borough where each Constituency Labour Party, West Ham and East Ham, packs a 2,000-member punch, a heavyweight within the Red Citadel of London. However, the replacement of arch-Blairite Robin Wales by left-leaning mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz, has done little to impact on the male-dominated structures of the branches and constituencies. Socialist Sisters was formed during the Spring 2018 local elections to counter this culture and build female activism.
To the Sisters, the snap election was a veritable gift; a final chance to put the right-wingers and the naysayers to bed, to show that Corbyn’s manifesto was the best since 1945, to capitalise on the buffoonery of BoJo and build a new socialist England. Core-members immediately set up a Facebook page Socialist Sisters Go Canvassing and within days,80 women had signed up.
The internet positively buzzed
Every single day of the 6-week campaign at least two groups, of at least four women, did a morning, afternoon and often twilight canvas in key-marginals. The internet positively buzzed with heart-warming pictures of black/white, older/younger, transgender/cis women glad-handing the good British public into socialism. Yet by Sunday 1st December and a group trip to Southend, in support of LGBT stalwart Ashley Dalton, Elinor, a 30 year-old trade union administrator found herself moved to tears. “What is it they’re just not getting? How can I canvas when, the papers tell such lies?” The exhaustion had set in and in the last week the cracks in our sisters began to show. On the train home, a deflated rump of four sisters gently murmured “we’re not going to win this thing are we”?
On the 22nd, the last Sunday before Christmas, 17 of the 70 canvassers gathered for a post-election talk: self-care for feminist socialists, plussome restorative curry and wine. Jane Darouger, a psychotherapist with a specialism in PTSD, facilitated with humour and compassion. For public sector professionals such as Darouger, the evidential link between prolonged stress and burnout has four stages: exhaustion, shame, cynicism and detachment and lastly, despair. She applied her knowledge of occupational psychiatric injuries to the damage that this election has done to socialists’ mental health. Expressing concern for one’s own individual welfare is not something collectivists do well, but bit- by-bit the females unfurled.
Unable to read more than two pages of a book
A prospective parliamentary candidate confessed that during her campaign she had been unable to read more than two pages of a book. A mental health campaigner disclosed that she is unable to talk to strangers anymore for fear they voted Conservative. Two war-scarred councillors and an MP found themselves in tears. Lyn Brown, the Member for West Ham put down her Cobra and said “I was talking to John McDonnell the other day and he said normally when a country goes through a fascist coup, socialists are taken to a football stadium and shot”, the point when a newbie quipped “West Ham are away today” it was entirely sisterly.
After checking our levels of “energy, involvement and efficacy” and being implored by Darouger to start a 10-day digital and political detox, the 2020 Socialist Sisters Xmas dinner drew to a close, with comrades promising not to contact each other to January, “for the sake of our mental health”. And yet two days after Boxing Day, the WhatsApp group was buzzing with a new debate – should elected politicians pose for photos with the homeless and what on earth is “progressive patriotism”? Which all goes to prove you can’t keep a good socialist-feminist down for long, self-care or no self-care.
Socialist Sisters is a grassroots group for all left-leaning women across the East of London, find us on Facebook or email socialistsisters@btinternet.com January 1, 20202
