Dear Sisters
Dear Eric,
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StumbleUponI think every movement that gets anywhere has both pragmatists and radicals in it. The Abolitionists and the Women's Suffrage movement, which now seem so staid, were full of firebrands and were regularly excoriated as mad revolutionaries out to destroy civilization. Usually, the pragmatists and radicals hate each other--as the leftist feminists represented in Dear Sisters hated Betty Friedan and the National Organization for Women, whom they regarded as liberal sell-outs interested only in changing a few discriminatory laws. (There was some truth to that--NOW originally refused to make reproductive rights one of its issues; Betty Friedan wanted lesbians banned from NOW because they would give credence to the canard that all feminists were gay.) But when we look back historically, it often seems as if they are working different sides of the same street.
Would we be where we are now had the women's movement lacked its firebrands? I don't think so. One of the things radicals do is shift the paradigm. In the case of women, you could say that the old paradigm was this: Women are, and should be, subordinate to men; the "liberal" change proposed was "women are men's equals in the workplace but are still uniquely responsible for the home"; and the "radical" idea, which we've still only half-absorbed, is that women are equal, period--the heroines of their own lives, not the support staff for the male half of humanity or the drudges and cheap labor that keeps the economy going. That's a huge conceptual shift, a dramatic break with old established ways of seeing. Take reproductive rights. The modest "abortion reform" movement that preceded the women's movement--it advocated for permitting abortion under very narrow circumstances, like rape, insanity, and fetal deformity--had some success chipping away at state bans on abortion, but it took women's liberationists to pull the rug out from the whole idea that the state had the right to compel women to bear children against their will. And that idea--as we can see from the headlines any day--is still controversial.
And were those old firebrands so man-hating as all that? A lot of them lived with men, loved men, had children with men, were married to men. Some of those women are still with those same men today! Others, though, suffered a lot when they found that their lovers and husbands were not interested in having a more equal relationship. I agree with you completely that feminism is good for men and children, too--but lots of men were and are tremendously threatened by it all the same. What I hear throughout Dear Sisters is frustration that just and reasonable claims--that men should be involved with their kids, take responsibility for home life, respect women as their equals, be sexually faithful (an omnipresent theme in these pages!)--should meet with such resistance.
We both agree that feminism has been a big success. As the book jacket says, it was "the 20th century's most influential movement." The paradigm shift took place, and although reality doesn't yet correspond--what does it mean to have general support for the idea of equal pay if women don't in fact get that equal pay?--a great deal has changed, especially for the college-educated, professional, Slate-reading class. My editors, at The Nation and on my books, too, have all been women--(but as one of those editors explained to me, one reason for that is that the men who used to go into editorial jobs now go to Wall Street or dot.coms or other more lucrative fields). And of course, the struggle continues. Feminism is far from finished--in either sense of the word.
As for the women represented in Dear Sisters, some of them became academics like Gordon and Baxandall themselves; writers (Ellen Willis, Marge Piercy, Laura Shapiro, Susan Brownmiller, Alice Kates Shulman); quite a few are still politically active, in women's health advocacy, for example. Others, though, having spent 10 or 12 years as political organizers outside the mainstream of society, found themselves burned-out and marginalized. They'd missed the moment to make a career, they'd counted too much for emotional support on activist-friendship networks that dispersed as the movement faded; they couldn't find their place in the go-go '80s. (Readers who are curious about how some radical feminists went on with their lives and how they look back on the movement now might take a look at The Feminist Memoir Project, a fascinating collection of essays edited by Ann Snitow and Rachel Blau DuPlessis.
Will we ever see that kind of radical activism again? If Bush becomes president and tries to roll back reproductive rights, anti-discrimination laws, and so on, we may soon find out!
Hold on to your hat.
Cheers,
Katha
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Reader Comments from The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: Try here for an interesting discussion of the format of the book, and here for "women get power through sex" (and follow the thread: "perhaps if men put less emphasis on sex...")]
If this feminist anthology is anything remotely like Tarloff says it is, it will conform completely to my impression of the most ardent feminists I have known since I was in high school a quarter-century ago--grim, dim, thoroughly intolerant, utterly predictable and generally unpleasant people with whom only the weather is a safe topic of conversation. Only with great difficulty can I remember more than one or two committed feminists whom I would not number among the dullest people I've ever met.
--Joseph Britt
(To reply, click here.)
To Joseph Britt:
Not surprised here either. I haven't known very many in-the-trenches civil rights activists, or revolutionary Catholic priests or lobbyists for ending the cycle of welfare-and-foster-care who were blessed with a sense of humor, a gift for joy and an easygoing attitude towards the ups-and-downs of social change. I will say that the ones who do have these qualities can melt hearts and change minds far more effectively than anyone else, but they are rare characters.
Why should these feminists be any different?
--Amy Bloom
(To reply, click here.)
[Note: Amy Bloom, a Slate contributor, is the author, most recently, of A Blind Man Can Tell How Much I Love You.]
One of the most frequent complaints about feminists is that we "don't have a sense of humor." I suppose that's in the eye of the beholder--but really, feminism and women's struggle not only for equal rights but for equal respect isn't really a light-hearted topic, is it? Why would you expect a description of our fight to be couched in terms of bonhomie and coquetry? When was the last time you read an article on slavery or civil rights that made you laugh aloud and slap your knee? Color me naive, but I don't hear anyone taking digs at Tolstoy because his writings were like reading a constant dirge. Some people call it art.
--Madelaine
(To reply, click here.)
Tarloff is right that words & ideas are linked--which is why the fact that no one comments on women's presence in the workplace is not a victory for feminism. Almost immediately (in the grand scheme of things) after women started making up half the workforce, it stopped being acceptable to discuss that fact. So what happened to all the opinions about sex roles that were previously expressed? They've become more tacit than ever. On the one hand, women get paid less than men--systemic, covert discrimination. On the other hand, many men resent and fear women for intruding on their perceived territory. By discouraging open discussion of their issues (distasteful as they are) we're reinforcing an environment of hidden hostility and ego trips. It's words and actions that need to be linked. Only when we've gotten to the point where no action needs to be taken to remedy our gender issues, will it be legitimate to say nothing about them.
--Toth
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This book is yet another tedious example of White American social dialogue. Self-absorbed, moralizing, ignorant and oblivious to other cultures except in a missionary, disapproving kind of way. It is utterly useless to the large mass of humanity for whom women's issues are immediate practical and need to be solved within the framework of extremely slender economic resources, while preserving delicately wrought social structures and modes of dialogue built up carefully over centuries.
What a bunch of reckless, idiotic, self-centered, harm causing people these American feminists have been. American White Women have been liberated: sure--from being rich housewives. Now they are richer and lonelier worker drones-as are their white brothers. And who speaks to the rights of the children thus affected?
--A.S.Germain
(To reply, click here.)
The opposition to the idea of wages for housework has to have more intellectual content than that such wages would attract women to an ultimately unfulfilling career--as opposed to what, working as a salesman at Sears? Working as an entrepreneurial housecleaner for somebody else? I hope y'all address the class issue and its evanescence in "third wave" feminism, which seems, in dropping issues like housework pay, universal child care, and all references to medical issues outside of abortion, to have oriented itself entirely to those issues which resonate with its upper class members.
--Roger
(To reply, click here.)