A GENERATION ago, Angela Davis writing on women, race and class woke many to what is now described as intersectional oppression. 

Without losing sight of class politics, Davis exposed how capitalism, patriarchy and racial inequality historically develop together. 

Gendered economic inequality and oppression of women at work remain the dominant structural barriers to working-class advance the world over. 

Women, as the majority of the organised working class, represent both a strategic and tactical force for the development of working-class organisation. 

Yet women are concentrated in the lowest-paid, most precarious work in the capitalist economy. 

In recent years, women’s industrial militancy in majority female sectors have led mass strikes and resulted in successes. 

The Glasgow women’s equal pay campaign and the Scottish teaching union dispute last year both demonstrate the strength of women workers when they rise.

Within the working class, women face intersectional oppression because of their race, their sexual orientation or identity, their disabilities or their age. 

For our trade union movement to really represent the working class it therefore needs more women from all backgrounds to participate and to lead. 

Women are not only the majority of the workforce, they are the majority of trade union members. 

Yet, even in unions like PCS where 60 per cent of members are women, they make up only 45 per cent of reps, 34 per cent of conference delegates and occupy a minority of national executive seats.

Advocating positive action to increase women’s participation should present no threat to trade union men.  

Yet often those already holding power argue against quotas and positive action, even on the left. 

Belief in “the best person for the job” meritocracy in a patriarchal capitalist society often means settling for the best man for the job.

I created Step Aside Brother as a campaign concept back in 2017, simply because I became sick and tired of watching men glaze over when we talk about creating space for women. 

Or worse, nod vigorously and not see that it might mean they have to do anything differently. 

Now pockets of women all over our movement are beginning to use this to explore new possibilities of workplace union organising, alongside men.

Step Aside Brother asks male trade unionists at every level to help create some space for women. 

Often misheard, or misrepresented as a call to all men to step down, Step Aside Brother actually asks men to only consider relinquishing just a little power, perhaps one role they may delegate to mentor and allow a woman to work alongside them. Then women, of all backgrounds, might get a chance to experience this power too. 

Of course, lots of men already step aside consciously or unconsciously. Those that do mostly understand the arguments and support Step Aside Brother.  

Others feel challenged, threatened or unrecognised. So I always make sure that I highlight pre-existing examples of brothers who step aside.

The first act that caught my attention was a male union vice-president choosing to return to the ranks in order to mentor a female colleague into the role. 

I work with a longstanding Scottish rep who gave up his place at a meeting with the First Minister to allow his female deputy the experience of meeting Nicola Sturgeon in his place. 

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka’s early years as a parent were spent working part time, while his partner earned more and took on more time consuming union roles. 

There are countless similar stories. I would produce a wall of fame if I didn’t think it would appear patronising. But those who step aside are still the exception rather than the rule.

I will be first to acknowledge the real limitations of the praxis of Step Aside Brother. 

Its focus is clearly on appealing to men to use their agency through small individual acts to help facilitate women’s empowerment. Male chivalrous acts of stepping aside do not build women’s power. 

In the trade union movement our driving priority is to build workplace and industrial power. Within a majority women workforce, that requires constructing at its foundation women’s power and leadership.  

Women and men cannot fight side by side as equals if women do not have equal power or agency.   

From Step Aside Brother seeking to create space in our structures, I am now working on a new initiative for women. 

Step Forward Sister is in its infancy, but I am discussing with other trade union women how we accelerate the opportunities to tool women up to take their place in the resistance.  

Through self-organisation women learn from other women, identify for themselves the barriers to their full participation in our movement and can plan how to remove those. Space for self-organisation of women is essential to encouraging women to step forward. 

Step Forward Sister aims to complement Step Aside Brother. Not because women know better than men how to organise. 

But because the working class is made up of women in the lowest-paid jobs, in the most precarious work, often suffering the double squeeze of caring for both children and elderly parents. 

They themselves must therefore lead on presenting what we must do to break down the barriers that to date we have failed to tackle in earnest.

Through self-organisation comes self-realisation that women can speak for themselves and take up roles as reps and leaders. Not just because older straight white men, even progressive left ones, say they can.

Women trade unionists must have the opportunity to experience for themselves strategic decision making, political debate, campaign planning and the tools of representing members at all levels. 

And women themselves are the best placed to decide the right way forward for women resisting exploitation of women workers and how to work alongside men to rebuild the trade union movement for all of us.

So this is not a call on men to step down, nor is it a feminist separatist declaration of the female state of independence.  

There will always be roles for men in helping advance women and indeed the rest of the working class.  

Step Aside Brother is the opposite of excluding men. It guides brothers to consciously help empower women. But through initiatives like Step Forward Sister, we may also work to build more confident women to step forward as equals. A win-win for all workers and for our class.