Male and female workers can be convinced that it is in their class interest to fight for such demands. Secondly, the fight for affirmative action makes both men and women more conscious of all the ways in which discrimination against women is built into this society. Oppression is not an idea or a state of mind, it is a social relation. It has material consequences in unequal conditions of life and labor, and deliberate measures are needed in all areas to overcome the results of centuries of oppression of women. That has a powerful impact on the attitudes and conduct of millions of men and women in their personal lives.
Men do start sharing the housework.
It is by charting this kind of political course of mass struggle for affirmative action and other demands that we seek to break through the false consciousness that's engendered by the ruling class. It is along this path that we help the working class to think socially and act politically, and thereby become more class conscious. Mass independent women's organizations have a vital role to play in helping to advance in this direction.