May 12, 2007
What Do Women Want? Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 02:35 PM EST John Steele Gordon’s last post was clever, but I’m not sure he answered two of my basic questions: (1) On what evidentiary basis does he accuse feminist leaders of hypocrisy in their reaction to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal? And (2) on what evidentiary basis does he believe that the National Organization for Women—and, presumably, other feminist organizations—are class-biased? On the question of alleged feminist hypocrisy, Mr. Gordon proposes a “thought experiment”: Substitute a moderate Republican for Bill Clinton in 1998, and ask whether there is “a person on the planet not in custodial care for chronic political hallucination who thinks that Gloria Steinem and Co. would not have been howling for him to be hanged from a lamppost in Lafayette Square.” That’s not really an argument; it’s an ad hominem attack on Gloria Steinem et al. Mr. Gordon does not address the fundamental difference between what Bob Packwood did and what Bill Clinton did. Neither does he provide any past evidence that would suggest that Gloria Steinem or other prominent feminists have applied a double standard in their public reaction to sexual harassment cases. It’s possible that such hypocrisy exists, but until Mr. Gordon provides some example to this effect, his argument leans on either a vague hunch or personal ideological bias rather than the historical record. It’s worth remembering that many younger second-wave feminists of the 1970s came to politics through the civil rights and antiwar movements and proved outspoken critics of the misogyny that pervaded these liberal and New Left coalitions. Veterans of lunch-counter sit-ins, voter registration drives and campus shutdowns, these women came to feminism out of disillusionment with the left, not the right. When Stokely Carmichael, the chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, quipped that “the only position for women in SNCC is prone,” he unwittingly spurred an exodus of many prominent women activists from the movement; they openly denounced their former colleagues on the left and turned their attention to women’s liberation. When a prominent activist attempted to voice the concerns of women at an antiwar demonstration in January 1969, left-wing male protesters taunted her with cries of “Take her off the stage! Rape her in a back alley! Take it off!” In the aftermath of this episode, the activist Ellen Willis decided that a “genuine alliance with male radicals will not be possible until sexism sickens them as much as racism. This will not be accomplished through persuasion, conciliation, or love, but through independence and solidarity.” In other words, second-wave feminists have—historically, at least—turned their fire on the left as often and as assiduously as they’ve turned it on the right. On the question of NOW’s (and feminism’s) alleged class bias, Mr. Gordon “stand[s] by [his] statement that the modern feminist movement is mostly concerned with liberal politics and has a narrow, class-based conception of the proper place of women in American society. Be a high-power lawyer whose kids are raised by nannies from the age of three days? Good. Be a full-time housewife or pursue a career that allows one to raise one’s own kids? Bad. Not liberated. Real women don’t do housework; cleaning ladies do housework.” Historically, this argument is dead wrong. Ms. magazine, the flagship feminist publication of the 1970s, has a long history dating to its birth some 35 years ago of asserting the rights and dignity of women who choose to be stay-at-home wives and mothers. When asked what “the Movement [has] to say to those women who insist—as so many do—that they like being wives and mothers and are perfectly happy in these roles,” Gloria Steinem responded that the “Movement says the point is choice. If women really like these positions, then that’s fine. But women also should be able to be engineers and jockeys and truck drivers and nuclear physicists. The whole point of the Movement is individual choice—for both men and women. The point is to become individuals.” To that effect, her magazine ran profiles of, and articles by, stay-at-home mothers and housewives and explored issues like credit and banking equality, marriage equality, education, daycare, and women’s health, all of which concerned such women. Feminists writing in the pages of Ms. also forwarded the controversial argument that stay-at-home mothers and housewives were entitled to a portion of their husbands’ salaries and to a 40-hour work week, as they were no less integral to the working of the industrial economy than were their wage-earning husbands. This argument signaled respect, not disdain, for the work that stay-at-home mothers undertook. As for Steinem, she suggested that policymakers look to Sweden, where “men and women . . . work shorter hours, then have time together at home to run the household and rear children. Children need both mother and father. The trouble now is that they often have too much mother and not enough father.” My point is this: Second-wave feminism is much more complex and nuanced than the caricature that Mr. Gordon has offered, and historically feminists have pitched a big tent that included women who chose to work outside of the home, and women who chose to work exclusively within the home. As for his quip about Leonard Woodcock, the former leader of the United Auto Workers, again, Mr. Gordon has offered up some clever and biting prose, but this is no substitute for evidence. From the 1960s through the 1980s, organizations like NOW and publications like Ms. placed bread-and-butter issues affecting working women at the center of their agenda. Credit and banking equity, wage equity, restrictions against sexual harassment in the workplace—all are vital to the interests of working-class women. So, too, are questions like welfare reform, another key concern of second-wave feminism, given the increasing numbers of single mothers in America. So what of “NOW now,” as Mr. Gordon put it? A brief glance at the organization’s website shows that some of the issues it identifies as central to its mission are: reproductive rights; violence against women; constitutional equality; lesbian rights; disability rights; family; health; immigration; marriage equality; Social Security; Title IX/education; welfare; women-friendly workplace; women in the military; and “fighting the right,” a catch-all category that appears to be focused on responding to the claims of anti-feminists. There’s no denying that NOW’s agenda places it firmly in the liberal camp. The issue Mr. Gordon raised is whether NOW is overly concerned with issues effecting upper-middle-class women. All of the issues listed above have clear applicability to working-class women, and the ones I’ve italicized arguably apply more to working women than to wealthy women. On balance, the evidence does not sustain Mr. Gordon’s argument.
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