UNFRIENDLY PERSUASION: Feminism Strikes Fear

If you think the women's' movement is not being taken seriously as a powerful political force, then obviously you're not keeping up with Persuasion At Work, a report published by the Rockford College Institute of Rockford, Illinois. Their first issue, dated March, 1978, was devoted entirely to an article by Christopher Manion on the feminist movement and its "full implications for the business community." It opens with an analysis of the Houston Convention and its stand on the ERA:

[The ERA] represents only a symbol, they say, of a guarantee that every person will be treated as an individual, not as a member of his or her sex. Despite those assertions, a troubling omen of what may lie ahead should this Amendment be enacted has disquieted residents of Ohio, where a statute authorizing separate girls' and boys' teams for contact sports was nullified by Federal District Judge Car! Rubin in Dayton, on the grounds that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited such "separate but equal" entities. So, while just how much change the ERA would impose on the way of doing things as prescribed by common sense is still anybody's guess, we can be certain that its adoption will open the floodgates of litigation.

Whereas the public discussion of ERA has centered on what it would or wouldn't do to the family, sports, washrooms, and other aspects of life familiar to most people, there were groups and individuals at the Houston conference whose expectations of ERA were not at all consistent with what is asserted by the "official" version and by such prominent groups as the League of Women Voters; rather, they were much more interested in the "full agenda of equality," a term which can be understood best by looking at those who advocate it.

The article goes on to describe the lesbian movement, the Socialist Workers Party and Youth Against War and Fascism as prominent special interest groups at the Convention and, therefore, worthy of closer scrutiny. This "scrutiny" is in the form of brief quotes from various radical literature, such as the following:

"Revolutionary lesbians see their struggle as a total one-as a struggle for a non-exploitative communist society....We know that the word 'freedom' is not a meaningful term in this society. We feel that none of us will be able to be free and human until all forms of oppression--all exploitative relationships (capitalism, imperialism, racism, sexism, youth oppression) are eliminated-and we commit. ourselves to that struggle for real liberation." (Ann Arbor Revolutionary Lesbians flyer)

Why this "radical aspect" of the Houston Convention did not receive coverage, the report goes on to explain, is answered by Jim Bishop, a syndicated columnist:

"It received a good press because many of the newspapers and wire services assigned over 900 females to cover it. This is akin to asking twelve physicians to act as a jury in a medical malpractice suit. The editorial cheers were resounding."

The report closes by exposing the term "full agenda of equality," so often echoed at the Houston Convention, for what it really is: a code word implying the demise of capitalism." The writer parallels the anti-corporate intent of such feminist writers as Kate Millet, Jo Freeman and Shirley MacLaine with the words of the "ultimate authorities", Lenin and Chairman Mao:

First, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin:

"Notwithstanding all the liberating laws that have been passed, woman continues to be a domestic slave, because petty housework crushes, strangles, stultifies, and degrades her, chains her to the kitchen and to the nursery, and wastes her labor on barbarously unproductive, petty, nerve-racking, stultifying and crushing drudgery. The real emancipation of womch, real communism, will begin only when a mass struggle (led by the proletariat which is in power) is started against this petty domestic economy, or rather when it is transformed on a

mass

scale into a large-scale socialist economy." (The Lenin Reader, Stefan Possony, editor; Chicago: Regnery & Co., 1966, p. 71.)

And finally, Chairman Mao:

"In order to build a great socialist society, it is of the utmost importance to arouse the broad masses of women to join in productive activity. Men and women must receive equal pay for equal work in production. Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole." (Quotations from Mao-tse Tung; New York: Bantam, p. 120.)

Particularly ironic is Manion's comment:

And how have women fared in Mao's and Lenin's socialist countries? With wages so low that husbands alone could not support a family, wives found themselves working in the most menial, low-paying jobs in the mines, the factories and the fields. But the traditional family-

related chores awaited them at home, compounded by the continual shortages and long lines familiar to any visitor to countries with "controlled" economies. Instead of relieving the woman's burden, "equality" has increased it to the breaking point. In the Workers' Paradise, you work.

We hear his hysteria mount as he challenges one of the more immediate "consequences” of feminism:

In 1976, 51 percent of the new babies in Washington, D.C. werc born 10 unwed

mothers. If we are plagued now by vandalism, arson, shoplifting, auto theft and other irresponsible behavior, what will be the level of such misconduct fifteen years from now, when we will have on the streets as teenagers these babies and their counterparts in other cities whose chances for emotional and social maturity will be jeopardized by the circumstances of their upbringing? To the extent that ERA and other feminist activities may advance the socalled sexual liberation of America, and thus further damage the family, every taxpayer and every citizen who is dismayed by crime and other anti-social conduct needs to be concerned.

While it is encouraging to know that feminism is striking terror into the hearts of its enemies, it is clear that those enemies are massing their power against feminist goals, and will use any means to defeat them. We in the feminist movement must continue to use all our resources in our struggle to achieve our personal and political aspirations.

JUSTICE FOR HOMEMAKERS

Thousands of letters and entries sent in to the recently completed competition for a Practical Program to Achieve Economic Justice for Homemakers will be presented for deposit in Radcliffe College's Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. President Matina Horner of Radcliffe College will preside at the presentation by President Ralph Sorenson of Babson College on Tuesday, November 13, at 2:00 p.m. in the Library's Whitman Room, located in the Radcliffe Yard. Babson College sponsored the nationwide competition which was under the supervision of Prof. Frank Genovese in 1978 for a $3,000 award given by the Edward L. Bernays Foundation. The winning entry was submitted by Dorothy Woodworth of Palo Alto, California.

The collection, which consists of entries to the

competition as well as thousands of letters, will make it possible for those who plan and implement public policy, as well as students, faculty, journalists, and other researchers, to have access to a cross section of views on the serious contemporary problem of economic injustice to homemakers.

The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger, Library on the History of Women in America was established in 1943. The Library, which is open to the public, has extensive holdings of manuscripts, books, serials, and other materials on the history of women in America from about 1800 to the present. The library's collections provide source material on such topics as women's rights and suffrage, social welfare and reform, pioneers in the professions, family history, women in politics, the labor movement and post-1920 feminism.

November, 1979/What She Wants/Page 9