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Page 147What She Wants/March, 1979

Selling of the Women's Movement (continued from page 9) assertiveness and self-confidence-will succeed while others will not. The image of the "liberated" woman, then, will take the form of those few who are able to succeed, and she will stand as an example to other women who might be convinced that they can-and should-aspire to similar heights.

It makes little difference for the power of this image that most women are far from becoming executives, managers or professionals, just as it has made little difference that most men have never assumed such positions in all the years that their gender has enjoyed domination. (Only 14% of all jobs in our economy are considered to be managerial or professional; only about half a million people earn salaries of $25,000 and above.) What does matter is that there is a concrete image to strive for, so that dissatisfaction and resentment with traditional roles gives rise to attempts at self-advancement and increased social status in material terms. For those who are successful, there are the rewards of a life which offers autonomy, challenge and creativity in addition to financial stability and well-being. For those who are not, there are the penalties of alienating work, financial insecurity and diminished self-esteem. For winners and losers alike, the commercial culture is able to set the terms for how improved status is to be experienced and conveyed. Although the bank teller or office worker may not be given an opportunity to exercise creativity or capacity for leadership in her work, she can use her salary to buy the clothes and accessories which signal her emerging sense of selfworth. For if the social roles which would provide real meaning and self-actualization are not available for most women, the commodities which represent the "good life" in tangible form certainly are. I do not wish, however, to ignore the fact that for many women, even these commodities are out of reach.

The image of the "new woman" has its roots in the women's movement for reasons other than the fact that many feminists are themselves middle-class and not anti-capitalist. To a considerable degree, the assertive, independent, upwardly mobile career woman is a logical outcome of feminism as an ideology and social movement under capitalism. For patriarchy is in many ways an anachronism in capitalist society, a holdover from a previous era in which tradition, role inflexibility and social cohesiveness were an inherent part of the norms for human conduct. Although the women's movement has rightfully challenged this kind of socialization pattern as itself exploitative, since women were the only ones to be self-sacrificing and caring in an aggressive social order, it has not properly understood the extent to which the demand for female liberation would involve a negation of these traditional characteristics and a shift toward a more masculine and capitalistic-model. For egoistic individualism and atomistic social relationships are an inevitable outcome of the social patterns engendered by capitalism, which is, after all, a system based on motivation for personal gain and the dissolution of social bonds other than economic ones. The assertive woman, who seeks fulfillment in exercising her personal talents for her own interests, and who is freed from obligation and commitment toward others, is not a threatening image for American capitalism, even though it may be unsettling for many individuals in this society, even those in positions of authority and power.

The issue I am raising here is not a simple one. The encouragement of women to insist on the validity of their own needs is an important step in securing a more equitable distribution of personal power in our society. Women will not be freed from the domination of men until they acquire the assertiveness and confidence necessary to move apart from men or make serious demands on them. But it is difficult to do this without leading to an implicit (or at times explicit) belief that self-orienting behavior is an ap propriate foundation for a more just social order.. How then is the women's movement to respond to

the changing images of women in the popular culture? The older images of women were a source both of female oppression (to the extent that they convinced women and men that it was natural and correct for women to behave as the popularized images conveyed), and of feminist awakening. The insulting and degrading ways in which women have been portrayed served to arouse many women to a realization of their plight, and generated a considerable degree of anger and resentment toward the system which benefited from their humiliation. By providing an image which is more flattering and which implies that women are now free to maneuver successfully in present society, the commercial culture may be able to stifle some of the more intense kinds of reactions which have been important in generating a feminist movement. It is more difficult to locate the source of one's unhappiness if the nature of social relationships is so ably disguised.

At the same time, however, for those women who were not moved into feminism by insulting media images (which is, regrettably, most women), these traditional images took their toll in self-respect, lost opportunities and the perpetuation of the status quo.

Post

Amerikan/cpf

That is, many women accepted what they saw as good and true and inevitable, and to the extent that this effect is now diminished, the image of the "new woman" is a positive reform. In this sense, the opportunity for women to see themselves as similar to men in attitudes, lifestyles and ambitions may be a necessary step in the transformation of society, even though it is one fraught with dangers.

As much as possible, however, the women's movement needs to divorce itself from this image, and distinguish its own approaches toward liberation from those of the commercial culture. This means, 1 believe, that assertiveness training and therapeutic consciousness-raising should be left to those who, although perhaps imbued with feminist sympathies, are not part of the women's movement as a political entity: popular magazines, self-help books, professional therapists and counsellors. It is the movement's responsibility to go beyond encouraging women to alter their psychological states and selfimages even when these are clearly seen as necessary first steps. What is more important at this point in time-and more difficult is to develop an understanding of the social origins of unhealthy social relationships and inhuman social conditions, and to provide leadership in collective efforts to alter the institutions and arrangements which perpetuate such human misery. The position which many feminists take that it is most revolutionary to work on one's own oppression is an obstacle to these tasks, for it precludes the kind of moral commitment which is necessary for any meaningful social change.

-Beth Cagan