42 SOCIAL SCIENTIST external "women's liberation" themes has been the cause. IWY has resulted in many middle and upper-class-based meetings and programmes. Its existence has been useful for mass organizing—it lends legitimacy to be able to say that women all over the world are rising up, that the leaders of every country have recognized the special oppression of women and their rights to equality. But IWY by itself has done nothing and its detente-ish slogan of "equality, development and peace'^ tends to run counter to the growing tendency of women all over the world to fight for their rights. IWY was proclaimed as a response to the rising women's movements in the west and to their growing trend to a socialist ideology; as a response to the militant participation by south-east Asian and African' women in armed liberation struggles and their linking of national liberation with women's liberation. It is a reflection of the militancy at the base and, in part, an effort to co-opt it. Similarly, the growth of women's organizations in India—even among the middle classes—reflects a massive stirring at the very basis of society, a rising tempo of women's militancy and participation in mass struggles and, in the course of this participation, their rising consciousness of their own particular oppression and desire to fight it. But the exact class structure, the shifting relations of production behind this must be analyzed carefully. Here the situation is different in India from the western countries, China in the 1920s and 1930s, and many Third World countries^ today.8 Participation in,Social Production The key factor is women's role in the work force. The woman who is only a housewife may be specially oppressed as a woman and deprived of her full human potential. She may share the class situation and oppression. other husband, but she does not generate a woman's movement. It is the women who participate in social production and experience not only a double oppression but also double work, who become the force behind general movements and women's movements. In India there is a significant variation in women's participation in the work force. There is regional-national variation: the participation is much higher in the south and west (and Maharashtra and Andhra have the highest rates of the non-hill states) and almost nil in the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. There is also a historical variation: women's participation has been declining over time as a result of the continuing neocolonial dependence and resulting economic stagnation and inability to use available labour power. Still, the basic pattern of this participation remains and can be described^ fairly simply: women are a significant factor as productive workers among the rural poor, but they are hardly to be found in the cities. They are not especially significant as yet among most sections of middle-class employees, and they are almost non-existent among the organized industrial working class.