File spoon-archives/marxism-feminism.archive/marxism-feminism_1997/marxism-feminism.9707, message 86


Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:54:37 +0200 (SAT)
From: Peter van Heusden <pvh-AT-leftside.wcape.school.za>
Subject: Re: M-FEM: To Lisa V. and Hugh R.


On Wed, 16 Jul 1997, Tamara A. Turner wrote:

> 
> Dear Lisa:
> 
> 	Thanks for your response to my earlier post. A few comments on
> your post:
> 
> 	The increased "opportunities" for women should be looked at in the
> context of reform vs. revolution. For example, the system deigns to allow
> female teachers to marry--after decades of demanding that female teachers
> had to be not just unmarried but CELIBATE. The system is pushed to make
> this wonderous gesture because of pressure from the suffragist movement.
> Then two things happen: salaries for female teachers are downgraded ("male
> teachers have families to support") and a holy war is carried out AGAINST
> unmarried female teachers. The rightwing of the suffragist movement picks
> up the prattle of the new "sexologists" and joins the system in saying
> that unless a woman has a man, she is brittle, dry, unfulfilled, and
> probably even a deviant. So, instead of EXPANDING opportunities for women,
> the little "reform" of allowing married females to teach comes at the
> expense of salary AND at the expense of sexual freedom. Less money and 
> support for the system against unmarried women and, of course, against 
> lesbians--those women who are independent of men economically and
> emotionally. Such a deal!

In line with the interest I expressed earlier about a) understanding
gendered history from a Marxist perspective and b) understanding how
the struggle for the liberation of women becomes the struggle for
socialism, I would be interested in a fuller discussion of this particular
phenomenon (I went back into my archives of the list to read up on the
discussion of Marxism and sexuality, but didn't find much to guide me).

I don't think its simply an issue of dwelling on the 'damn crumbs' - I
think if I could understand the struggle around "women's liberation"
in the US from (at least) the 1940s to the 1990s I would hopefully have a
better answer to the questions I raised above - and thus hopefully a
better way forward.

Questions I would raise to start with would be what was the nature of the
'suffragist' movement? What other movements existed? How did the dynamics
of these movements tie in with other struggles happening around them? What
changes in the democraphics of marriage, pregnancy, etc where there in
this period?

In short - what happened, and why? The mainstream account of what happened
in the 60s appears to be that due to the mobilisation of the civil rights
and anti-war movements, a generation of young women got involved in
political activism and reject the deal that society was trying to give
them. This struggle built the 'second wave' women's movement, which
lasted into the 1970s, at which stage a gathering wave of backlash, led by
male holders of priveledge, started turning the tide - stopping the gains
of the "women's movement" and even reversing some. (Maybe I've missed
bits, but this is basically what I've picked up as the general vibe around
what happened)

I find this 'mainstream' account highly problematic - it doesn't, to me at
least, explain what really happened and why.

Anyway, that's my $ 0.02 on the subject. :)

Peter

[rest snipped due to time limits]
--
Peter van Heusden |    Computers Networks Reds Greens Justice Peace Beer Africa
pvh-AT-leftside.wcape.school.za | Support the SAMWU 50 litres campaign!



   

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