Charlotte Bunch: Feminism's Future

By Loretta Feller

Will feminists emerge as the new leaders of the human rights movement in the 80's and 90's? Charlotte Bunch, a founder of Quest: A Feminist Quarterly and a long-time feminist activist believes so. She spoke before the well-attended, well-planned March 1981 Columbus, Ohio conference, "Advancing Feminism: Strategies for the 80's", organized by the Women's Action Collective.

Bunch asserted that the women's movement is the strongest grassroots movement in terms of numbers and consciousness, but that we lack an organized, political outlet. Although she acknowledged the current context of a worldwide right-wing movement which has culminated in the election of Ronald Reagan, she stated that there is still good news. That news, which is not covered by the mainstream press, is a global resurgence of feminism as seen, for example, in the anti-rape movement in India, in the first continent-wide women's conference in Bogota, Colombia, and in the reintroduction of civil disobedience as a tactic by the Women's Pentagon Action and by the Mormons for the ERA in this country. Women, she said, have maintained a continuous presence in Washington, D.C. since the election. Now, we need to mobilize this public presence to grow and to show the Right that we won't go away. Although we recognize that the "Moral Majority” does not really represent the views of a majority of people, Bunch believes that the women's movement has three basic lessons to learn from that group's suc-

cesses.

First, we need to establish unity. We must not allow our internal differences to divide us.

Organizing is the second lesson. We must start with what each person cares about and build on it. To organize well, we will need to learn more about sophisticated technology such as that used in computerized mailing lists and in the media. Further, we need to mobilize women who want to volunteer. We must be able to act in order to take control of and give meaning to our lives. We can feel good about what we give without feeling guilty that we can't do

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the outcome of the National City Bank case, Labor Department Administrative Judge Rhea Burrow ruled that Harris Trust, Chicago's third largest bank," discriminated against women and minority group employees over a four-year period. Past and present employees discriminated against in salaries and promotions could receive individual settlements of $10,000 totalling $12.2 million. This decision, in a suit filed by Women Employed in Chicago, must be approved by Secretary of Labor Ray Donovan to become effective.

However, the efficacy of using the EEOC and OFCC as strategies for working women and minorities is questionable in light of the guidelines proposed by Reagan's transition team advisors: Carol Kurtz, Executive Director of CWW, expressed concern over the proposed limitations of agencies designed to rectify inequities in employment. Terming the proposals dangerous, Kurtz said the gains in women's rights, civil rights, and enforcement of antidiscrimination regulations have been fought for and won at the expense of people's lives, over a long period of time. The danger is not so much in the actual budget cuts as in the shift in policy they represent.

Kurtz said that in response, working women's organizations will have to shift their strategies. They will have to direct their attention to the employers themselves. Buoyed by the legitimacy of equal

more, and we should avoid pressuring other people to do more than is comfortable for them.

The third lesson we can learn from the "new Right" is to seize the ideological offensive. Through their rhetoric, they have often managed to sell themselves as the "pros" (e.g., pro-life), which makes any stand opposing them appear to take on a negative connotation.

Bunch urged us to take a larger perspective and to make long-range plans for building a movement. Although it is true that we have ignored the right wing for too long, addressing this faction should not be our only concern. Now more than ever we need a vision of change that involves more than our immediate situation. She stressed the need for the women's movement to develop and embody a new vision of feminism as transformational politics (a critique of economic, social, and political forces) and as a new view of international life, if we are to survive as a movement into the 21st century. Progressive groups will need to form new coalitions and establish new values and norms; Bunch believes that leader-

employment laws and regulations on the books, Kurtz suggested other ways of winning rights for working women. One of them, proven successful elsewhere, is direct demand to employers in concert with campaigns that focus the public's attention on industries that violate equal employment standards. Another is shareholders' actions, although the overwhelming majority of stock is company or crony controlled (e.g., some of National City Bank's largest stockholders are First National Bank, Boston (293,500 shares), AmeriTrust, Cleveland (176,504), and First National Bank, St. Paul (101,212)).

The latter is another strategy currently in use in CWW's National City Bank campaign. The United Church Board of World Ministries, which holds 6,846 shares of National City Bank Corp., has requested that a resolution calling for disclosure ofemployment records, including specific salary breakdowns, hiring, job evaluation, training and promotion procedures, as well as a summary of the bank's affirmative action plan and the schedule for remedying current irregularities, be presented to the stockholders. In a supporting statement, the UC Board wrote:

Most women work today to support households and to realize professional goals. It is both morally right and politically necessary that employers effectively guarantee them, and all ethnic minorities, non-discriminatory opportunities for employment and advancement.

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ship in our own movement can also take a large part of the leadership in the human rights agenda in general.

Through her work as a consultant for the United Nations Decade for Women, Bunch has occasion to see the way women in the U.S. are viewed by women in other parts of the world. Usually, as a result of media stereotypes, we are seen either as women whose only goal is to head General Motors or else as fanatic "bra-burners". International conferences, she feels, allow women to adjust this distortion by meeting grassroots feminists from the U.S. Unfortunately, we have often failed to portray feminism as a dynamic, political perspective.

What, then, is feminism? It is not, she asserted, merely a laundry list of women's issues. Feminism addresses nearly every issue in the world from the international money market to governmental policies, since feminism presents a political perspective on all these issues. Using the laundry list method of defining feminism (abortion, rape, wife beating, etc.) only serves to "re-ghettoize" women. It was precisely because Bella Abzug criticized President Carter's budget and its effect on women that she was fired-at that point she became a threat. Feminism is not "add women and stir," Bunch stated. We have feminism when we "add a woman with feminist politics and stir things up."

Feminist transformational politics is not just a constituency of women. We will find that an increasing number of women will be organized against feminism; therefore, we cannot get into an argument about who truly represents women. Rather, we need to get across feminism as a perspective. For example, Bunch cited the tendency of leftist males to attack Margaret Thatcher in a sexist manner instead of focusing on her politics. As feminists, we must insist that women such as Thatcher have a right to run for office, and that they be criticized for their perspective, but in a non-sexist way.

Building a broader feminist vision with clear goals and values represents the strength for the future of the women's movement. We do not need to elicit a "purer" feminism, but rather to provide more impetus and feminist direction for existing action groups. Instead of putting each other down, we need to focus our vision on women as a force for change. In questioning the inevitability of domination, feminism becomes a tool for connecting various issues. A woman's right to control her body, for example, is fundamental. Once we recognize this fundamental right, our next step is to take this same principle and apply it to other issues, such as job safety or the destruction of life through poverty and starvation. Control of the body, Bunch asserted, is the universal principle of human dignity, whether we are talking of nuclear energy, of rape, or of dumping drugs banned in this country in the Third World. The global dimensions are inescapable. As feminists, we need to understand this principle and apply it universally.

The organizational task of the women's movement is to build a broad base, to form coalitions that are diverse but unified. Once we see connections between the various groups, we can build the power to respond quickly and effectively, in a number of different areas. This means we must become more visible. Promoting women's culture is one way of becoming more visible, but it should not be used as an end in itself. We canot afford to become mired in the futility of isolation.

In closing, Bunch urged her audience not to become discouraged, since women have confronted :> and have grown from even more difficult challenges than we face today. As Mother Jones said, "Don't wid mourn, organize!'!

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April, 1981/What She Wants/Page 72:5