WOMEN , FEMINISM A N D SOCIAL JUSTICE: THE PRESENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS AN D THE ABSENCE OF A MOVEMENT crossed the barriers that traditionally hen we look at the sixties Women’s Movement from the prism o f the fifties, it appears to be immensely successful. Women now have abortion rights, whose importance cannot be overestimated in enabling women to take control o f their bodies and leave behind the dark age o f illegal abortions. It is true that under the Reagan administra- tion these rights are being threatened, federal funding for poor women cut, and state referendums used to cut state funding. Women, however, can still count on safe abortions. Women have also joined the work force in greater numbers; and many have excluded them from certain jobs and professions. There are more women doctors, lawyers, mail carriers and bus drivers than ever before. Women now constitute 46 percent of the work force. Affirmative Action legislation that secured these changes was the first fru it of the sixties Women’s and challenge the existing power dynamics between themselves and men, from the most intimate levels in sex and emotions to conventions such as male attendance to women in dating and romance that assumed female weakness and dependence. The nearly sacrosanct division of labor within the household began shifting. It became thinkable, even acceptable for fathers to mother, to take care of the house and children. Women also discovered each other and the slogan “ Sisterhood is Powerful” expressed both friendship and solidarity of Movement. It was also the Movement’s demands that provided the basis for agitation for equal pay for equal work, a living wage for women and finally, equal pay for comparable work. Successful litiga tion in the cases of female municipal workers against the city of San Jose (1981); International Union of Electrical Workers on behalf of some women workers against Westinghouse (1981); and the women employees against the State of Washington (1983) broke new g round towards wom en ’s wage equality. Yes, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was defeated; but some of the rights it proposed to guarantee were already in the books. The Equal Opportunity Act of 1972 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibit all sex discrimination in hiring, pay and promotion. Thus, during the recent Women’s Movement women gained legal equality in the marketplace. The sixties Women’s Movement also changed the landscape of consciousness. Before that time gender was not an issue, and the male domination of women was invisible and/or unquestioned. Subsequently, all aspects of life came under scrutiny. Women began to question women for women. These developments provided the impetus for discovering and recognizing women’s creative efforts and work. Long forgotten women authors such as Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Josephine Herbst were reprinted. A women’s renaissance began in literature, the arts, music, film, and the dance. Writers and artists such as Adrienne Rich, Marge Piercy, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Holly Near, Judy Chicago, and Lucy Lipard achieved national recognition. The sixties Women’s Movement also opened the way for feminist scholars who challenged the methods, standards and content of various disciplines—Gerda Lerner in History, the late Michele Risaldo in Anthropology, Nancy Chadarow in Psychoanalytic Theory, Evelyn Fox Keller in Natural Sciences, and Sandra Harding in Philosophy—among many others. Women’s perceptions, insights, experiences, feelings and thoughts are helping us envision a different future. Female consciousness, because of its proclivity for nurture, peace, feelings and relations, points us to a female future, if we are going to have a future at all. When we turn our gaze, however, and look at these developments from the prism of the mideighties, they appear to be less significant. As the focus of the Movement shifted from political and social struggles to the reformulation of consciousness and the celebration of female diversity, less and less women were drawn into Movement activity. It is revealing that in a 1984 New York Times poll, 65 percent of the women expressed the view that the Women’s Movement had not helped them, while only 26 percent claimed that it had. Though not all that reliable, such polls tell us that the majority of women do not identify with feminist aspirations and achievements. More serious criticism of the Women’s Movement, however, arises from the existing state of affairs. In the last decade, despite the impressive achievements of some women and even the general acceptance of some feminist terms, the actual and concrete conditions of women in both personal and social life have deteriorated. And the “ Movement” has remained more or less passive to this decline. No collective response has emerged against Reaganism, with its economic policies and ideological manipulations against the interests of the majority of women. Could the Women’s Movement at least partially be held responsible for this? Have our concerns in the Movement been wrongly defined and prioritized? Two books, Ruth Sidel’s Women and Children Last and Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s A Lesser Life, inform us about the worsening condition of women and help us to seek answers to these questions. Ruth Sidel points out that according to the Census Bureau, 1984,14.4 percent of all Americans—33.7 million people—live below the poverty line. The poverty rate for the female-headed households is 34.5 percent, a rate five times that of married couples. The statistics show that two out of three poor adults are women. Furthermore, the economic status of female-headed households continues to decline. These facts have given rise to the concept of the feminization of poverty, first coined by the sociologist Diana Pearce, Sidel tells us, and now widely used. In addition to the decline of the general economy and the discrimination of people according to class, race and age, there are specific causes that contribute to the impoverishment of women. These are: the weakening of the traditional family and the rapid growth in femaleheaded households; the “ dual-labor” market that discriminates against women; a welfare system that functions to keep the recipients below the poverty line; unpaid housework and childcare that competes with women’s earning potential; and the reduction and dismantling of programs that assist the poor. Women find themselves cast adrift and alone in a world that still regards them dependent upon and taken care of by men. Thus women’s economic and social conditions continue to deteriorate. Ruth Sidel wants new legislation that would alleviate the improverishment of women. She calls for a “ threepronged family policy” and proposes reforms in the areas of “work, universal family entitlements and the welfare system.” She prescribes that women make a living wage in jobs that traditionally belong to women; and every encouragement be given to women to enter traditionally male-dominated jobs. Only with genuine equality in the marketplace will women be able to free themselves from poverty and dependency. In the area of family life, she urges people to consider society’s responsibility to mothers and children. If Americans want to strengthen the family and ensure the well-being of mothers and children, they must be willing to federally mandate maternity and childcare policies and family By Sevin Hirschbein 10 Clinton St. Quarterly—Winter, 1987
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