#6: a worker, not a girlboss

I can't have it all until everyone does.

Ahoy folks! I am trying to push myself to write more as it’s officially “work that pays immediately is drying up” season for me. I am telling myself not to panic and learn from last year = my first (extremely rocky) year as a freelancer, that is. As usual, I am trying to make the most of this time: by putting pen to paper more regularly. Truth be told, I have done little to zero writing this year, so I am hoping the coming months fare differently.   

My fraught relationship with money and work has naturally translated into my politics, as my mind is moving more and more towards thinking about workers and the workplace. Now that I am a gig worker – not a great one, mind you, because I take up 10 things at a time and am only able to finish 7 of them – the question of what our relationship, as women, with organised labour ought to be is a political commitment I can’t shake off. As an upper middle class woman who is (individually) financially precarious and grew up financially poor for a good part of her life, I know that I am not uniquely placed. Many women in my midst are dealing with the same, and sometimes a much worse, ordeal. 

If you speak to Lady Health Workers, they will tell you that their salary has been the same for decades, without benefits or even protective equipment. Domestic and home-based workers will tell you a completely different story about workplace exploitation. Even a ‘bougie’ person from my class position will not paint a rosy picture of life in a Pakistani office, however fancy or well-reputed. We have all been there, faced that kind of exploitation – and yet we are so glued to our capitalist struggles out of majboori that it is practically impossible to stick our heads out of the water. And then there are khwaja siras whose labour we do not even recognise, simply because it doesn’t fit our ‘respectable’ mould of ‘work.’

As women/an oppressed group, we can’t not talk about work in this economy. Which brings me to the subject of May Day in Pakistan. Some boring details: WDF, the socialist feminist formation I am a part of, organised a mehnat kash jalsa with AWP and PrSF in Islamabad this year. There were, of course, other demonstrations that took place not only in Islamabad and Rawalpindi but across Pakistan. Aurat March Karachi organised Mazdoor March on April 30th. There was a rally organised by comrades of AWP and PrSF in Karachi on May Day. Mazdoor Kissan Party also held rallies in Hashtnagar, Lahore and Karachi. The Home Based Women Workers Federation (with the involvement of the Home Based Glass Bangle Workers Union in some areas) and National Trade Union Federation Pakistan (NTUF) held rallies/seminars in different parts of Pakistan, including Karachi, Tando Mohammad Khan, Khairpur Nathan Shah, Umerkot, Nawab Shah, Hyderabad, Faisalabad, Quetta and Gadani. AWP Sindh marched in 14 places across Sindh, including Hyderabad, Karachi, Sangmeel, Daulatpur, Sukkur, Moro, Ghotki, Dadu, Nasirabad and Sanghar. 

Lots of abbreviations and a lot of details shared above about rallies that not many people reading this post attended, particularly women. And I think that is a problem.

The fault lies both ways. The left is undoubtedly rife with problems, one being the lack of women in its spaces. I attended a political event organised by the All Pakistan Workers Federation in Rawalpindi, and found myself to be one of two (later three, including another comrade) women in a sea of men. Even the children there = boys! Where were the wives, daughters and sisters of these men? These are questions that a lot of my comrades are more well-equipped to answer than I am, but I will say that the left cannot be strong without the presence and strength of women. I understand that many women are afraid to enter predominantly masculinist spaces, but spaces do not automatically become feminist. In any political space, and with any kind of oppression, the struggle will only become stronger if people from oppressed groups are actually a part of it. 

I will also say that bourgeoisie women do not align themselves with class struggles. We are too deeply invested in our own future aspirations – we don’t have large stakes in any revolutionary struggle. But a big part of this problem is girlboss mentality: say all the right things, do what’s best for you, dismantle the power men have long wielded for sure – only to become career women who can simply take the same power for themselves at their (not so radical) office.

And yet our labour is what the world survives on, be it paid or unpaid. Capitalism hinges on the gendered division of labour. The burden of running homes, of privatised reproductive work (such as cooking, cleaning, childcare, carework) is put squarely on the shoulders of women. Meanwhile, imperialism, multinational capital and non-governmental organisations have used feminism, or at least the slogan of it, to pave the way for their neoliberal imperialist agendas. And I see this play out online as well. 

You will see many women talking about their careers and personal wins on March 8th (you’ve all seen the glut of LinkedIn posts, no?), but not one of these women will talk about her rights and struggles as a wage labourer on Labour Day. 

The last thing I want to see is more pinkwashed career queens. I personally don’t care about the accomplishments of individual women, as *individually* happy as I am for them. I can’t be arsed about the choices and performances that promise only a few women the reward of fleeting happiness. This includes my own. I care about professional visibility to the extent that it pays my bills. Other than that, I’d want nothing more than decent working hours – especially as a freelancer, because I work ALL THE TIME just to make ends meet and still struggle with (fail at meeting) deadlines. I want a life in which thoughts about being broke don’t render me sleepless at night. I want to rid myself of the dread that makes me feel like a constant failure because the pressure of being productive all the freaking time is just too much. I know it will kill me someday. No amount of girlbossery can save me from the mental breakdowns I have had because of unrelenting project deadlines. 

I want to rest with the comforts of financial stability. I want parity with my partner. I want a manageable workload. I am not interested in being a power-suited working woman. I am not interested in meeting traditional metrics of success, or in being a careerist. 

I am not even halfway close to having it all: I know I will never get there. Instead, my harshly critical inner voice (fashioned from lessons I have learnt from wherever I have worked) will repeatedly tell me that my own lack of discipline as a worker is the reason for my failure, rather than overwork and burnout.

Do I want financial stability? Of course. How else does one materially survive this world? Most of us don’t have a choice but to earn a wage under capitalism. I wish we were all given what we need to survive. We build community, lean on each other, to build the world we want to see, without the resources we need, but this work takes time – and I don’t know if time is still on our side.

Labour struggles and strikes are the reason why any of us have the most important wins in relation to our employment. The 8-hour workday. A WEEKEND. Pension. Parental leaves. Paid vacations. Co-ops. Unions. Harassment policies and grievance procedures. Unemployment benefits in some countries. Rights for farmers and peasants in others. Equal pay for equal work. The dream (for now, if not of a revolution) of a living wage. The list is endless; it will keep growing. 

Lots of comrades lament that there was a time (Ayub’s time, when left uprisings in Pakistan were at their peak) when you would only see nothing but waves of red mark Pakistan’s cities. Needless to say that since then, the state has turned the left into a joke. And this is where I would turn to some of Muzammil Shah’s erroneous critique of the left. Besides giving an extremely surface level take on the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case (speak to an actual leftist and they will tell you), he accuses the left of living in a utopia. All I have to say is that if living in a utopia gets me any of the gains above, which could not be perceived by capitalists, then a utopia I shall continue to live in. 

As a working woman dependent on her wage, I see myself as a part of the working class – or at least stand in solidarity with it. We need more people, especially women, to join us in this struggle. 

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