Socialist Feminism: The Legacy of the "Second Wave"

Author(s): Linda Gordon

Source: New Labor Forum , Fall 2013, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Fall 2013), pp. 20-28
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.

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 New Labor Forum
22(3) 20-28
Socialist
Socialist Feminism:
Feminism:
The Legacy
The Legacy Copyright © 2013, The Murphy Institute,
City University of New York
of the "Second Wave" Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1095796013499736

nlf.sagepub.com

Linda
Linda Gordon1
Gordon

Keywords
politics, Marxism, gender discrimination, working class, women workers

The Occupy movement thrilled many who long media sexism and particularly well positioned
for stronger progressive movements, and then to challenge it.
its wane reminded us of the lack of continuity The unremembered socialist feminist
in the American Left. That discontinuity pro stream, like the rest of the Left in the United
duces a damaging social amnesia about what States, has been strong in its episodic power
can be learned from past movements, and none and weak in continuity. It has flowed and ebbed
of that memory loss is greater than that sur within larger socialist and feminist movements:
rounding the socialist feminism that formed a from the earliest communitarian socialism
particularly transformative part of the New through nineteenth-century women's rights
Left. What follows is a brief attempt to rectify through the early-twentieth-century Socialist
that amnesia. Party feminists through Communist Party theo
"Second wave" feminism was the largest rists such as Mary Inman. When it reemerged in
social movement in U.S. history—at its peak, the late 1960s, its early members had little
polls reported that a majority of U.S. women knowledge of their ideological ancestors; this
identified with it.' From the mid-1960s through history was never taught to us, its writings bur
its decline in momentum in the 1980s, it was ied in a few archives. Instead, the 1960s social
also unusually long as far as social movements ist feminists began from their experience in the
go. A movement of that size naturally encom civil rights movement, the mother of the whole
passed diverse strands, so unsurprisingly, many American New Left.
scholars and journalists saw only parts of it, In this reinvention, American socialist femi
like the blind men feeling the elephant. nism was distinct from Marxist feminism, and
What's more surprising is that Leftists, involved no loyalty to any of the regimes that
mainstream scholars and journalists, and even called themselves socialist. Marxist feminism
right-wing adversaries have shared similar mis in the United States was the ideology of several
conceptions. They all miss the strong socialist sectarian Marxist-Leninist groups (such as the
feminist stream within women's liberation. International Socialists and the Socialist
Workers Party) that saw the women's move
This mistake is symbolized by the anointing of
the protest at the Miss America beauty contest
ment as fertile ground for recruitment into their
parties.2 These groups tended to retain the
in 1969 as the founding moment of the move
ment. The canonization of that event derives
orthodox faith that Marxism contained a theory
adequate to understand male dominance (and
from taking two particular parts of the elephant
as the whole: feminism's struggle against theall forms of domination), and they focused
sexual objectification of women in mass cul
nearly exclusively on anticapitalist strategies.
Socialist feminists, by contrast, had concluded
ture, and the particular forms of New York City
feminism. The two are related, because New
'New York University, USA
York City's feminist leadership was long domi
nated by journalists and others in the mediaCorresponding Author:
business, so they were especially irritated byLinda Gordon, Ig48@nyu.edu

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22 New Labor Forum 22(3)

that capitalism was by no means the root of Socialist feminists were as anticapitalist as any
male dominance and that a new theory was other socialists in the New Left, but never con
needed to understand its structures and contin ceived capitalism as the sole or always the pri
ued reproduction. Socialist feminists rejected mary adversary. They offered no design for a
Leninism and Maoism and, like the rest of thesocialist economy and thought it unnecessary and
New Left, understood the allegedly socialistun-usefiil to do that; generally favorable toward
regimes as corrupt, brutal, and undemocratic. public ownership, and especially cooperatives,
they believed that a just economy—one that guar
Socialist feminists rejected Leninismanteed equality and well-being to all—would
and Maoism and, like the rest of thehave to emerge from a democratic process.
The socialism imagined by the socialist femi
New Left, understood the allegedly
nists returned them in some ways to what Engels
socialist regimes as corrupt, brutal,had called "utopian" to distinguish it from "sci
and undemocratic.
entific" socialism. Suspicious of vanguardism,
socialist feminism rested on a commitment to
The distinctive mark of socialist feminism was
democracy and an opposition to Leninism. Its
its view that autonomous structures of gender,
activists emphasized direct democracy and often
race, and class all participated in constructing
rejected hierarchical leadership ladders. Socialist
inequality and exploitation. Socialist feminists
feminists equally rejected American-style
expanded the Marxist notion of exploitation to
democracy, with its passive and substantively
include other relations in which some benefited
disfranchised electorate. The socialist feminist
from the labor of others, as, for example,vision
in called for participatory democracy, a sys
household and child-raising labor. They argued
tem that required its citizens' active participation
that militarism and conquest, as well as environ
in discourse and policy formation. That goal is
mental destruction, were propelled by masculinist
closely connected to the principle of prefigura
drives as well as by the search for profit. From
tive politics—the notion that a democratic end
conceiving the structures of male domination as be achieved through undemocratic
cannot
somewhat autonomous, it followed that, in means,
any because the end would be corrupted by
given situation, no one of them was alwaysundemocratic
the means. Economic democracy and
key factor, which in turn meant that gender issues
working-class power—socialism's previously
would not always be foremost, nor should they
dominant ideas—could only be achieved
always be a priority. As the Chicago Women's
through political democracy and active partici
Liberation Union (CWLU) wrote, pation of the citizenry.

there is a fundamental interconnection

between women's struggle and what is
traditionally conceived as class struggle.
Not all women's struggles have an
inherently anti-capitalist direction ... but
all those which build collectivity and
collective confidence among women are
vitally important to the building of class
consciousness. Conversely, not all class
struggles have an inherently anti-sexist
thrust (especially not those that cling to
pre-industrial patriarchal values) but all
those which seek to build the social and
cultural autonomy of the working class
are necessarily linked to the struggle for
women's liberation. '
The socialist feminist vision called
for a system that required its
citizens' active participation in
discourse and policy formation.
This political culture extended beyond those
who explicitly called themselves socialist femi
nists. Many avoided the term because they
abhorred the regimes labeled socialist, others
because of the continuing impact of red-baiting. By
the early 1970s, many activists and several signifi
cant organizations did claim that label, but did not
always foreground it in their organizing, because
their strategies involved building broad, participa
tory progressive action around women's needs.

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Gordon 23

The stream called socialist feminism arose, against police brutality, university complicity in
like the rest of the New Left, from the civil the war machine, and corporate mistreatment of
rights and student movements of the 1955-1965 workers—the list could be much longer.
period. Less well known were the socialist or Socialist feminists organized the 1971 meeting
social-democratic perspectives of some of the of a thousand North American women with
female labor leaders who worked for labor orga women leaders from Vietnam's National
nizing and welfare provision from the 1930s on, Liberation Front in Vancouver, Canada.
and later helped create the National Organization
for Women (NOW). The Leftist women of the The Women's Liberation
New Deal, such as Mary Dublin Keyserling of Movement
the Department of Labor Women's Bureau;
labor feminists such as Addie Wyatt of the To understand socialist feminism, we need to
UPWA, and Caroline Davis and Dorothy Haener consider what it shared with the whole women's
of the UAW; and former Communists such as liberation movement. The younger stream of
Myra Wolfgang, Betty Friedan, and Gerda socialist feminism developed independently of
Lerner were as important in establishing NOW the NOW women, and that failure of historical
as were liberal women. Moreover, NOW contin continuity produced both losses and gains. The
ued the labor and social-democratic feminists' younger feminists had the freedom to invent new
focus on workplace organizing of working-classways of organizing and to explore modes of dom
women, pushing unions to the left, constructing ination previously regarded as "natural" or even
support for women's unpaid labor, and—partic "trivial," but they lost the opportunity to learn
ularly among CP members—fighting racism.4 from their elders about how to operate in the
Closely related to the historical blotting out ofAmerican political structure. The New Left femi
socialist feminism is the common myth that the nists differed from labor and social-democratic
women's liberation movement "broke off' from feminists both theoretically and strategically.
the New Left. This myth developed, I suspect,They understood sexism much as the civil rights
out of the reaction against feminism, expressing movement had taught them to understand racism:
an inability to conceive of women's demands as not as epiphenomena of capitalism but as autono
part of a basic social justice movement. Along mous economic and cultural structures. These
with historian Van Gosse, I have argued that westructures—or cultures—pervaded every aspect
need to conceive of a "long New Left" that began of life, and thus had to be confronted in eveiy
with civil rights and proceeded through the stuaspect of life. While centuries of racism had
dent movement, the anti-Vietnam war move invaded the consciousness of many black people,
ment, and the women's and gay liberation.5 None centuries of a male-dominant gender system had
of these were simply "identity politics," althoughbeen more internalized, imbedding in many
all—including even students—were fighting forwomen (and men) the assumption that women's
rights and recognition that had been deniedsubordination was natural. Rejecting that assump
them. All were connecting their own experiencetion, through the concept of gender, was the most
with global injustices. Feminists were examin important theoretical contribution of the wom
ing the gendered roots of violence, poverty, anden's liberation movement; this insight into the
inequality, from Mississippi to China. All socialsocial, historical construction of gender denied
ist feminists, and a large proportion of all the naturalness of male dominance, just as antira
"women's libbers," continued active in the anti cist activists denied biological racism. This theo
war movement, in support of civil rights, wel retical move then required a strategic move, also
fare rights, civil liberties, the Black Panthers, derived from—and expanded beyond—civil
the Young Lords, the Brown Berets, the Unitedrights: that the primary task was to unlearn gen
Farm Workers and the grape boycott, the min der. This was accomplished through a new
ers' strike, Dodge Revolutionary Unionmethod of organizing that came to be called
Movement and Eldon Avenue Revolutionaryconsciousness-raising.
Union Movement (Detroit auto workers' radical Some have conceived of consciousness-raising
groups), and community control of schools; andas a means of preparing people for activism,

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24 New Labor Forum 22(3)

but that is a misunderstanding. Consciousness empirical learning that led to generalization and
raising was activism. Feminist organizing had theory.
to differ from that of the civil rights and labor The women's liberation movement was initi
movements, whose members usually knew that ated mainly by young, white, middle-class,
they were disadvantaged. The predominantly college-educated women. This class and racial
white, predominantly middle-class women who basis replicated that of the student New Left, and
began women's liberation had typically been there were reasons for it. Working-class and non
unconscious of their own oppression and lim white women faced class and race discrimination
ited opportunities because they had accepted the daily, and feared the break with men in their
gender system as a "natural" and inevitable out communities that might have resulted from a
growth of their sex. They had to unlearn what public embrace of feminism; many women of
Marxists would call a false consciousness. color faced antifeminist pressure from men that
By changing women, consciousness-raising was worse than that experienced by white
changed all sorts of relations, often without conwomen. But separate streams of black, Latina,
scious plan. Women's changed consciousnessAsian, and American Indian feminisms arose and
changed relations with fathers, mothers, siblings,almost always shared the base socialist feminist
boyfriends, husbands, children, bosses, superviperspectives. The most influential was African
sors, teachers, auto mechanics, shop clerks, and soAmerican feminism, which appeared in 1968 in
on. Of course these changes were neither completethe Third World Women's Alliance (TWWA),
nor easy, and backsliding has proven far too easy.started by Fran Beal.7 The TWWA's core analy
My point is, however, that the women's liberationsis—that women of color had to struggle against
movement grasped and exposed the ubiquitous race, class, and gender domination at the same
ness of the relationships, formal and informal, that time—was common among all feminists of color.
structure domination and inequality. But there was no more homogeneity among them
Exploring the hidden injuries of gender was than among white women. In 1975, Boston's
commonly accomplished in small and womenCombahee River Collective produced the most
only groups. The groups provided permission toinfluential statement of black socialist feminism,
complain and vent anger without fear of conse expressing its core premise thus:
quences, and freedom to explore the intimate.
They also provided comparisons that gave rise We believe that sexual politics under
to analyses. Women were learning by interro patriarchy is as pervasive in Black
gating the conventions of gender and male dom women's lives as are the politics of class
inance. It was as if they became anthropologists, and race. We also often find it difficult to
studying themselves and their communities, separate race from class from sex
unearthing the processes of gender and male oppression because in our lives they are
dominance.6 Their meetings were not therapy, most often experienced simultaneously.8
although they were supportive; they were not
bitch sessions, although plenty of anger and painCombahee was responding, like many feminists
was let loose. Paradoxically, consciousness of color, to forms of nationalism that defined
raising attracted women because they wereand promoted women's second-place, support
socialized toward intimate talk with other
ing-the-men position as part of their racial/eth
women, but now that intimate talk was under
nic identity and charged that feminism was a
mining their socialization. When conscious white ideology. Many white feminists also bent
ness-raising worked well, it gave rise to under
the these pressures—for example, most
socialist
slogan "the personal is political," because it cre feminists supported uncritically the
ated the discovery that sexism—another word
Black Panthers' armed posturing.
created by the movement and now universally
Many feminists of color also accused white
feminists of racism. There can be no doubt that
understood—operated in every sphere, includ
ing the kitchen and bedroom. The process many
was, middle-class white feminists were oblivi
ideally, one of group discovery, of shared
ous to the depth and strength of racism in the daily

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Gordon 25

lives of working-class and poor women. The very gave birth to Women Employed, a group that
energy of self-discovery only fed this oblivion. lobbied for decent wages and working condi
The accusation that white feminists excluded tions. Another group, DARE (Direct Action for
women of color was, however, an exaggeration,
Rights in Employment), conducted a campaign
given that women's liberationists were eager to
for women janitors that forced the Chicago City
reach women of color and developed many projCouncil to hold hearings at which these workers
ects focused on antiracism and the needs of work testified about unfair labor practices and unequal

ing-class women. (In fact, middle-class white pay. Boston's Bread and Roses started organiz
feminists, feeling guilty about their privileges,ing waitresses and clerical workers and ulti
made many of these accusations.) But the experi
mately gave birth to the organization, then union,
9 to 5. When an antiwar moratorium on univer
ences and priorities of middle-class whites were,
sity activities was being planned for October
at times, so privileged, and their conversations so
insular, that their groups felt exclusionary to1970 (the "Moratorium"), one Bread and Roses
many women of color. consciousness-raising group realized that the
male organizers had, unsurprisingly, reached out

The presence of racially separate to students and faculty but not clerical workers,
feminist groups strengthened the so the group quickly produced a leaflet inviting
office staff at universities to come to a lunchtime
impact of the women's movement.
discussion about the action." Agitating for
affordable child care was a priority of many
Organizationally, socialist feminism was
never able to create cross-class and interracial
women's liberation groups. One study showed
that women's movements have had a greater
organizations. But that should not be our only
progressive impact on pro-labor policy at the
criterion for evaluating its successes and fail state level than did labor unions.12
ures. Far from weakening the overall women's
movement, the presence of racially separate
feminist groups strengthened the impact of the
The CWLU gave birth to Women
women's movement.9 EmployedI, a group that lobbied
for decent wages and working
conditions.
Socialist Feminism in Action

One reason for the eclipse that has obscured

Equally important, the reproductive rights
socialist feminism is that this sector of the
and antiviolence work of these groups was of
fundamental importance to poor women and
movement produced less writing than others.
women of color. Among the CWLU's projects
New York City's "radical feminists" were often
was the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse.
writers by vocation, and they turned out numer
ous manifestos. University-based feminist For decades, poor women, and particularly peo
groups often started small underground news ple of color, had been sometimes subjected to
involuntary sterilization. State authorities some
papers. The socialist feminist groups tended to
times threatened to cut women off welfare if
focus on activism at the expense of theorizing.
As the CWLU wrote, they did not agree to be sterilized, or persuaded
them to sign consent forms at moments of pain
We do not find helpful the constant cry ful labor and delivery.13 Chicago activists joined
that before we organize, we need to socialist feminists across the country in cam
develop a complete theory of the nature paigns based on the principle that reproductive
of our oppression or find the prime "choice" required the right to bear children as
contradiction of our oppression (as if well as not to, and economic and social as well
there is just one). Some analyses, in fact, as legal rights—including economic help for
have led us only to further inaction.10 raising children when necessary and for access
ing contraception and abortion. This campaign
The socialist feminist organizations often
was able to get the federal government to issue
spawned workplace organizing. The CWLU stringent regulations designed to prevent

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26 New Labor Forum 22(3)

involuntary sterilization in 1978 (but not to tactical experimentation. Even in large citywide
repeal the federal ban on Medicaid funding for socialist feminist organizations such as those in
abortion). Activists frequently tried to establish Chicago and Boston, small project groups could
free or low-cost health clinics for women— produce quick actions without having to wait for
something Black Panther women also worked approval from central leaders, and could explore
new ventures. They taught courses ranging from
for—though they usually foundered for lack of
auto mechanics to Marxist economics, set up
funding. The most lasting and influential health
project was the book Our Bodies, Ourselves.consciousness-raising groups with working-class
Originally a 190-page stapled booklet, printed teenagers, produced silk-screen posters, created
women's liberation rock bands, and—in the clos
on cheap, newsprint paper, sold for seventy-five
cents, and distributed by a New Left underest the movement came to "violence"—planted
ground press—banned by schools and public stink bombs at Dow Chemical headquarters.
libraries and denounced as "obscene trash" by
conservatives'4—it became a commercial-press Women's liberation groups rejected
bestseller ten years later, with all profits going
into the women's health movement. It offered
both bigness and centralization, and
information on alcohol and other drugs, occupa
their decentralized organizational
tional health and safety, birth control, violence, structures made possible creative
childbirth and parenting, and critiques of corpo tactical experimentation.
rate medical insurance and big pharmaceuticals.
Tens of millions of women of all social classes The whole New Left exaggerated its partici
first got honest information and radical analysespatory-democratic principle, but no group did
of power structures from these books. so as intensely as the young feminists. Women
In organizational matters, the younger femi had had extensive experience with being disre
nists differed sharply from the older NOW femi garded, disrespected, and shunted into clerical
nists. Like much of the New Left, socialistand janitorial work in male-dominated environ
feminists were committed to participatoryments. Precisely because of their socialist poli
democracy, a demanding and somewhat Utopiantics, they did not assume that women were
organizing approach. (It corresponds to whatnecessarily free of egotism or power hunger. So
Occupy came to call horizontalism, while NOWthey sometimes brought into their feminist
was vertical.) As modeled primarily by SNCC, itorganizing an excessive suspicion of strong
meant active participation of all participants inleaders and an insistence on radically demo
developing strategy and goals. No one should becratic practices. In Bread and Roses, some of
a silent member merely casting a vote. From this those who displayed the greatest capacity for
followed a notion of leadership quite differentleadership were maligned and undercut in an
intemperate demand for formal egalitarianism,
from that of, say, Lenin or Alinsky: the duty of
leadership, as promulgated by civil rights intel a kind of leveling that failed to recognize the
lectual Ella Baker, was to create new leaders, toneed for order, efficiency, and continuity. But
erase as much as possible the distinction betweenthis also resulted from an organizational insis
leaders and followers. Organizations shouldtence on direct instead of representative democ
exemplify in their daily practice the egalitarianracy, and a failure to institute formal programs
democratic society they wanted for the future.for training leadership and holding it account
Although this ideal may be practicable only inable. The results at times brought organizational
small organizations, it is valuable as a goal even disorder—meetings lasted too long, discussions
in large ones, because it insists on listening andwandered, chairs were unpracticed—and these
accountability to nonleaders, that is, with followproblems led smaller project groups to greater
ers. In the interest of participatory democracy,autonomy from their parent organization. By
women's liberation groups rejected both bignesscontrast, the CWLU handled well the inevitable
and centralization, and their decentralized orga tensions between effectiveness and democracy,
nizational structures made possible creativeand it lasted for eight years—a remarkably long

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Gordon 27

period for a
battles,
made in
heavy
sing
No social
civil m
lib
tion, health
they r
participants
stop-an
over lance
the an
long
the success
of corpo
their nists ca
persist
theendurin
Declara
ments—in c
tutions—and
The auth
backlash
est is o
with
Second-wave
publicati
medical res
tion,Funding family
culture,
The author(s) received no financial support for the
lite
social work,
research, authorship, and/or publication of this
ing, and
article. eve
gay liberatio
It is difficult
Notes
socialist fem
1. A 1986 Gallup poll found that 56 percent of
en's moveme
women, and two of every three "non-white"
in opinion
women identified as feminists. Reported in the po
are of March 31,1986course
issue of Newsweek magazine.
ple, women
2. For an example of the SWP's attempt to take
across the
over the Chicago Women's Liberation Union bo
ion on(CWLU), see Margaret
the Strobel, "Organizational Ir
Learning in the Chicago Women's Liberation
penalty, dro
ties, Union,"
welfarein Feminist Organizations: Harvest
tion,
of the New
policing
Women's Movement, ed. Myra
Marx Ferree and Patricia Yancey Martin
there is often
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995),
women and m
145-64.
Left on all
3. Barbara Ehrenreich, "What Is Socialist
i
en's issues."
Feminism?" available at www.uic.edu/orgs/
morecwluherstory/CWLUArchive/socialfem.html.
positiv
ative4. Landontoward
R. Y. Storrs, The Second Red Scare and
do not
the Unmaking ofoften
the New Deal Left (Princeton:
us even thin
Princeton University Press, 2012); Dorothy
but Sue
thereCobble, The Other Women 's Movement:are
ism Workplace Justice
in the and Social Rights in Modern di
America (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2003).
Women
5. Van Gosse, The Movements of the New Left, [
more pos
1950-1975: A Brief History with Documents
(New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005); Linda
and more
Gordon, "Participatory Democracy from SNCC
"capitalis
through Port Huron to the Women's Liberation to
Occupy: Strengths and Problems of Prefigurative
Meanwhile,
Politics," in Inspiring Participatory Democracy:
and political
Student Movements from Port Huron to Today,
So ed. Tom Hayden (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers,
today, wo
nist 2012), 103-26.
politics

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 28 New Labor Forum 22(3)

6. Some locate the origin

had African-Americans of
Minnie the
Lee and Mary term i
"speak bitterness"
Alice campaigns, ironically,
Reif, aged fourteen and twelve, sterilized
the women's without even
liberation their or their mother's knowl
movement version cou
have been more anti-Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. edge, let alone consent, on the grounds that
But the term had also been used in the "Old they were ''at risk" of early sexual activity; the
Left," in speaking of raising the consciousness of National Welfare Rights Organization protested
workers who did not know they were oppressed. loudly enough to get a federal investigation
7. The Third-Worldist analysis, which grew also into what were widely known as "Mississippi
from civil rights, considered people of color appendectomies."
in the United States as structurally part of14.
a See "Our Bodies Ourselves: 40 Years of

global Third World, the regions condemned by
poverty by the influence of U.S. and European
imperialism.
8. Available at http://circuitous.org/scraps/
15. The CWLU required its members to participate
combahee.html.
9. S. Laurel Weldon, When Protest Makes
Policy: How Socialist Movements Represent
Disadvantaged Groups (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 2011), 120-21.
10. Hyde Park Chapter, Chicago Women's Liberation
Union, "Socialist Feminism—A Strategy for the
Women's Liberation Movement," available at
Author
www.historyisaweapon.com/defconl/chisocfem.
html.
11. Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon, eds.,
Dear Sisters: Dispatches from the Women s
Liberation Movement (New York: Basic Books,
2000), 273.
12. Weldon, When Protest Makes Policy, 100.
13. One egregious case brought the widespread
practice into view in 1973: Alabama authorities
Women's Health Education and Advocacy,"
available at www.ourbodiesourselves.org/about/
timeline.asp.
both in a chapter and a work project.
16. Pew Research Center, "A Political Rhetoric
Test: 'Socialism' Not so Negative, 'Capitalism'
Not so Positive" (news release), May 4, 2010,
available at www.people-press.org/files/legacy
pdf7610.pdf.
Biography
Linda Gordon is university professor of humanities
and history at New York University. Her most recent
book is Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits
(Norton, 2009). She is coauthor of the forthcoming
Feminism Unfinished: The Short and Surprising
History of American Women's Movements, and is
working on a history of social movements in the
twentieth-century United States.

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