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Towards A Radical Movement
by Heather Booth, Evie Goldfield, Sue Munaker(April-1968)
(Editors Note: This essay was written by three people who were among
the pioneers of the women's liberation movement.)
Ours is
an age of promise. Technology and abundance have made it clear-that
a decent life might at last be easily within -the reach of all. Self-determination,
freedom seem like real possibilities. More than this, though, it is
an age of promise denied. Under the banner of freedom, atrocities are
committed. With all the rhetoric of economic development, the majority
of the earth's people are hungry exploited, powerless
Not only
the impoverished , but many others are learning that no one is really
free in our society; that while some group are much more oppressed
than others ordinary individuals have little ability to live the life
or bring about the changes as they desire. Among these others are groups
of women, angered at the society that relegates them to a secondary
and servile position.
The movement
for social change taught women activists about their own oppression.
Politically-, women were excluded from decision-making'. They typed,
made leaflets, did the shit-work. The few women who attained leadership
positions had to struggle against strong convention.
So, women
in the movement were in a unique situation. As some married, they
found that there were no models for a marriage in which both man
and woman were politically active. Was the once active woman now
to assume a supportive role,,. to stay home with the kids or get
an unwanted job to support her activist husband? Were both partners
interests to have equal weight in determining what kind of work
they would do, where they would live?
In December,
1965 at a national conference of the Students for a Democratic Society
the-subject of women's role in society and in the movement was openly
discussed. The discontent of the women activists was brought to
the surface, therein initiating a radical women's movement.
The problems
discussed were not-just those of political activists, but of all
-contemporary women. Women had integrated into the labor force during
the war doing what they thought was useful purposeful work. When
the men came home though,women were: either pushed into the lower
sectors of the labor force or, moved back into the home. Women's
image began, to change in the popular magazines; domesticity was
glorified frills were again in vogue, drudgery was glamorous.
Women who
returned to the domestic setting found that things not quite the
same as before. New labor-saving devices gave them more free time.'
This freedom made a vacuum in their lives; they had nothing meaningful
to fill it with. The housewife role, offered up as the most fulfilling
-for-women, was expanded, elaborated,filled up with trivia so that
each labor-saving device could be compensated for by a new task.
Women joined clubs and charity organizations in vast numbers, They
took enrichment courses and dabbled in the arts. Shopping became
a major occupation; an incredible amount of energy was expended
on finding those items which would adorn the house and the women,
expressing her identity.
Yet, none
of this really satisfied. It was not serious, not involving; it merely
whittled away the long, endless hours.
Many women
remained in the labor force, although often displaced
laced from the jobs they held during the war. More women than in preceding
generation's began to work outside the home, but not on
an equal basis with men. With their taste of economic independence came
the taste of exploitation both as women and as workers,. As
workers they learned that rights can be won through collective union
action, as women the lesson was not learned so quickly.
A new generation
of women sense the boredom and bitterness of their mothers They
do not want to be confined to the same roles. They are trying to
understand why it is that women are still expected to* play subordinate
roles.
MYTHS
There
have always been myths which defined as the essence of the "true
woman her natural* passivity and maternal instincts. While today's elaboration
of them may be more subtle, they are still unfounded haunting women
as they are invoked to justify today's norms.
Woman's
nature is usually explained in terms of her biology. She is passive
in her sexual role; she receives the penis. Therefore, she desires
to encircle and enclose rather than to extend to and to strive. Man's
sex, on the other hand, is activity itself, the symbol of strength,
potency and dominance. Too often this metaphoric passivity is taken
as literal truth. Freudian psychology and its popularly understood
implications assume that what was thought, though not proven, true
for Victorian German upper-middle class women is held to be universally-
true. Freud's concept of penis envy tells us that women are motivated
primarily by the fact that they are not men. Erik Erikson, a favorite
of social psychologist describes,"...'the basic modes of feminine inception and maternal
inclusion" preparing women for the perceptive and acceptant traits
of future motherhood .(Childhood and Society, pp.88-90). Only as people
began to suspect-that the "truths" were unsubstantiated did
they begin to find that in fact women are sexually as non-passive as
men (see the Masters-Johnson study, The Human Sexual Response).
And then,
why should-function follow form? Even if women were by nature sexually
passive, it hardly follows that they should be passive in other realms.
But social institutions, historically created by men, have perpetuated
the functional myths to justify their own position.
The Judaic-Christian
Church teaches that to the extent that women are sexual creatures they
are unclean, foul, "the doorway to the devil." Yet, by regarding
sex only as a duty, the pure chaste woman can attain a holiness' denied
to man. Embodying these myths are the harlot, the Virgin, (the latter
to become a respectable woman). Both of them are socially useful, each
subordinate to men, serving their needs.
Today's
family has institutionalized the myth with a new slant. The ideal woman
is 'wife, mother,mistress, the playboy's dream. She is to comfort and
serve him under the guise of "modern free woman" that releases
the man from guilt. She is still his woman, weak, gentle, submissive,
emotional, sensitive, intuitive, unable to cope -with the ''world. without
a man". She attains her identity through her husband and later
through her children, whom she treats like private property; she's hurt
when they leave home because they are denying her of her identity.
Historically,
there may have been an excuse for this role as part of a division
of labor. Continuous pregnancies kept women physically weak and less
mobile than men. Now that the pill enables people to control the timing
and number of children they will have, the incessant childbearing role
is a lame excuse for confining women to domestic chores. Educational
institutions further perpetuate the myths. The liberal arts education:
legitimates for men their right to control and manage the society.
For women it is a waiting period in which they can find a husband
and make themselves educated companions or introspective victims. Women
are irrelevant to the decisions made in society, so this education
they receive is irrelevant for preparing them to make such decisions.
The situation is perpetuated because women are either excluded from
academic consideration or else presented in shallow characterizations.
Evolving
from the sexual myths and reinforcing them are the limiting and steveotyped
of masculine feminine. A woman who does not conform to the notions
of feminine as serving and supportive is deviant: masculine-castrating,
shrewish, sluttish, frustrated or frigid. Thus, nonconformist women
are labeled and put in their place. As long as artificially constructed,
mythically based images of masculine and feminine are the only alternative,
both men and women are going to find conflict between their imposed
sexual identity and their goals as human beings.
New myths
are being created. They pay that women are 'better off than they
have ever been...that a New Woman is emerging. She is middle class
and liberated. She is able to have a family; yet, because of labor
saving devices, she has much leisure time to devote to meaningful
activity. A wide variety of consumer goods enable her to enjoy life
on a scale never enjoyed before. These are the myths; what is the
reality?
REALITIES
Although
a large number of women do-work, it is usually. in service occupation.
And, even if women considered their jobs worthwhile, the jobs pay less
than men's and are low in status. According to statistics gathered by
the Department: of Labor in 1964, women are paid $5-10 less per week
at the same jobs as men. The median annual income for white working
men is $6497, for white women- $3859, for nonwhite men-$4285, women-
$2674, Only 1% of these women make more than $10 000 per year and 1/4
those women own estates. While a radical movement does not aim to integrate
women into the male job structure, even less to encourage women to become
business executives, weapons experts or advertising writers, it it important
to note where discrimination exists. With the exception of those few
who "make it in a man's world" women are systematically excluded
from science, business, and medicine law and academia. Most working
women are low paid waitresses, secretaries, elementary school teachers,
social workers, or nurses.. Some are in high paying occupations which
exploit their femininity such as models, playboy bunnies, or exotic
dancers.
The career
woman image does not apply to the bulk of women workers who are stuck
in low paying, tedious, dead-end positions. Neither does it apply to
middle class white collar women- workers who are idealized by the media.
We are supposed to believe that a career is glamorous because a woman
dresses stylishly and serves men in such jobs as airline stewardess
or New York secretary. The justification for channeling women into
service occupations is that women are better servants. The excuse for
keeping them put of high status occupations is that women are bad risks;
they will marry and have kids. These are self-fulfilling prophesies.
Women are raised to believe. that they should serve and that they-
can I t have both a career and a family.-- Then, ;the smart thing to
do is to. find a man to support them.Society reinforces conditions.
by not providing enough child care centers, public all day nurseries;
paid pregnancy leaves, shorter work days etc. Why is there a new myth?
The mystique
of the idealized New Woman has been generated in order to sell a lot
of unnecessary products to a lot of bored, insecure, passive, frustrated
women. Clothing and make up are not just adornments, but become expressions
of one's very essence which is constantly being manipulated by the
mass media.
Miss Clairol
says: "Have you found the real you?" Some women never do.
In fact, many women never make the most exciting discovery of all: They
should have been born blonde. A host of other advertisers echo her statement.
Styles
change constantly;"new" products flood the market. Women must
be made to want--no, need more and more things. The New Freedom for
women is the freedom to buy and thereby support our market economy.
Leisure time is time for consuming. Irrationally changing clothing styles
would not be accepted in a society where priorities centered on human
needs rather than on profit-making. In the United States, priority is
put on automobiles and military equipment--goods which will produce
the most profits, rather than on something socially necessary from a
humane point of view, such as low cost decent housing for poor people.
Passive, docile, accepting women are therefore, important to this system
since their' tasks as consumers can be manipulated. As long as work
for most people, is meaningless and unfulfilling and women are not expected
to DO anything, women will have to gain identity, from what they buy,
what they own and how they look.
What about
sexual liberation It would be nice if the mini-skirted girl in gay
colors and way-out make up really were a symbol for a new sexually
liberated woman. Since women have been thought of primarily as sexual
beings, it would be expected that their liberation would come through
sex but those who have been "sexually liberated" have often merely
adapted men's attitudes towards sex. Women are still seen and see themselves
as sexual objects and treat men in kind, taking pride in the number
of conquests they make. This attitude is at best one of revenge for
women's own sexual exploitation. Women cannot liberate themselves through
sex while in other important respects their social role remains unchanged.
PROGRAM
The initial
work of any new radical women's group is to understand the realities
and myths which relegate women to a subordinate role. Women come into
the movement with two perspectives: either with a -primary concern for
women's issues- as abortion, child day- care centers, or the desire
to research, and discuss--in greater depth women's position in society,
or with a more general concern about political issues such as racism
and the war. There is no contradiction between women's issues and political
issues for the movement for women's liberation is a step toward changing
the entire society. Women are not seeking equality in an unjust society,
rather from an understanding of the basis of their own oppression they
are developing programs for overall social change.
The common
understanding, whichever the perspective, is that part of the way that
women are oppressed is that they see their problems as personal ones
and thus blame themselves. The first step in building a movement is
to see that the problems are that men as individuals are not "the
enemy"; rather "the enemy" is those social institutions
and expectations perpetuated by and constraining members of both sexes.
Radical women are not forming groups for the purpose of segregating
them selves from men, but in order to focus on the means by which women
can come to terms with those institutions.
There are
now about 35 small radical women's groups concentrated in a few cities.
The programs develop according to the interests of the members. In
groups where most of the women are in the radical movement, the first
discussions often center on their role in the movement. From these
talks comes the realization that as women they have been non radical,
playing passive political roles as secretaries or administrative
help rather than as strategic planners.
Though
the original groups were just of young radical New Left women there
are now groups of once non-political housewives, women now married
to movement men who previously had no political of their own, college
students, high school students. They want to share their understanding
of their problems as women with other women. As they see the nature
of other types of oppression-of the poor, of black people, and other
movements of liberation --- NLF, Black Power, etc.
Groups
are undertaking action projects such as leafletting women factory
workers about the war, high prices, and women's wages. Some are fighting
to change abortion laws and practices, setting up communal child
care centers, forming drug and consumer co-ops. One university group
is planning a student run course on women, for women. Others are
setting up seminars on imperialism and other political issues. By
discussing these serious political and intellectual questions in
small groups with other women, inhibitions about females using their
minds rationally can be overcome. Several groups are talking about
running guerilla theater in stores and shopping centers to dramatize
the war, high prices, and women's role as consumer and servant.
Some are
looking for ways to relate to the anti-war movement that will not
be auxiliary. Women may set up and run coffee shops near army bases
to talk with the GI's, to see how they feel about the war, and to
pose alternatives for them. Women may also try to organize wives
of servicemen and women in the service or other women in the towns
where bases are located. Some women are going door-to-door to talk
with wives of working class men about the war, racism, and the presidential
election. Many are planning for some activity around the Democratic
Convention.
Talking
about common problems in the context of the need for social change
is in itself liberating. Creating programs such as these allows for
the development of self-confidence, leadership and an analysis which
widens the possible alternatives seen for women. Working on such
issues, one develops a vision of and a movement for a society in
which all people can define themselves without the awkward imposition
of social roles.
CONCLUSION
The roots
of the movement for women's liberation were in the contradictions between
the promise held out and the existence lived. The promise was for freedom
and justice now. Instead there was oppression and injustice for all
but a few. Once it seemed as though reforms such as civil rights bills,
anti-draft legislation, the end of the war in Vietnam, would in themselves
bring justice . But unlike the feminists of the 1800's, women now realize
that America's problems must be attacked at their root. For justice
to come to black people there must be black economic and political self-determination.
For an end to militarism there must be an end to control of society
by business which profits only with the suppression of national wars
of independence. For the true freedom of all women, there must be a
restructuring of the institutions which perpetuate the myths and the
subservience of their social situation.
It is the explicit consciousness of these hopes and analysis which
lead us to fight for women's liberation and the liberation of all people.
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