The Feminist Movement and Working-Class Women

by Dina Wills

The modern Women's Movement first started in America in 1964 has changed the thinking of women and the attitudes of men towards women. But even today there still exists a conflict of values between the feminists and the working-class women. The following passage discusses the issue.

"I'm not a women's libber, but..." is the opening line of many conversations in which women talk about not getting fair pay, an equal chance for a job, decent working conditions, or the respect given to male workers in the same job. Even in 1989, 25 years after Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique signaled the start of the modern Women's Movement, many still believe these are their own personal problems, not the result of our economic and social systems. They don't want to be called "feminists" or "women's libbers." Yet, their anger at not being treated fairly means that they do expect to be given opportunities and responsibilities equal to those men get.

All women who called themselves feminists could agree on some points. "The personal is political" meant that women's inequality compared to men was not just an individual problem, but happened because the U.S. social, political and economic systems were stacked against them. Legal restrictions, such as laws forbidding women from lifting more than 30 pounds, kept them out of lucrative jobs considered "men's work." Women found it hard to get credit in their own names or to obtain loans to start a business or buy a home. In community property starts, a husband could manage the family finances alone, while his wife could not. Women often were not admitted to law and medical schools; if they did get in, they faced stinging discrimination from teachers and fellow students. The cultural norm insisting that a woman should take a man's name when she married often was enforced as though it were a law; few considered the tremendous psychological shift that occurs when a name is changed.

Many women began to recognize that their struggles in relationships and jobs were not just their own personal failures, but were related to a cultural system designed to keep them in their place. Their reaction was anger at the patriarchal system. "The click" was a feminist term for that moment of sudden insight when a woman realized that she was, indeed, oppressed. For one woman, it happened when she was told by a solicitous male supervisor that in order to succeed in her job she would have to be "at least twice as good as any of the men." Click!

With the fervor of the newly converted, feminists in the early 1970's believed that, if the feminist message of liberation from patriarchal oppression were heard, it would be accepted by any woman. However, exposure to the ideas of the Women's Movement wasn't enough to make every woman a feminist. Some working-class American women were antagonized by the attitudes feminists expressed towards the family, traditional feminine styles of dress and speech, women's paid work, and sexual freedom in relationships and childbearing.

Part of this problem was a matter of class. In those early years, the Women's Movement was a middle-class movement, as it often was accused of being. It was begun by women with education who understood how the system worked and could take the time to try to change it. The values expressed were middle-class and often clashed with the realities of working-class women's lives.

Besides misunderstanding the importance of truly equal job opportunities, some working-class women had good reason to be cynical about the cries of "liberation" and "equality" they heard from the Women's Movement.

The issue of paid work for women versus volunteer work and unpaid work in the home was a highly divisive one in the early days of the movement. The vocal feminists quoted in the mass media sounded as though they believed that a woman who didn't work for pay wasn't realizing her full potential. Many of them also argued that some way should be found to pay women for housework, but that idea wasn't given wide coverage in the media. The concept of women having a choice about whether to work for pay or not was a middle-class idea; working-class women usually worked, from necessity. To them, not having to work sounded more like liberation.

The tone feminists used in delivering the message that women should work for pay bothered some people. In 1973, Social Research, Inc., of Chicago surveyed 410 women in eight cities; one of the areas they probed was the women's response to the Women's Movement. (They referred to it as "Women's Lib," a term usually used by opponents of the movement, showing either their ignorance or bias.) SRI found the working-class women in their sample (two-thirds of the total) had a stronger sense of being oppressed and victimized than the middle-class women, but didn't believe the Women's Movement offered them any help. They saw it as a contributor to the problem by putting pressure on them to have a job, when they had very little choice in that matter anyway. They did have jobs, which they would have given up gladly if they could have afforded to stay home without making money. The working-class women in this study resented what they considered to be the authoritarian attitude of leaders of the Women's Movement, "an attempt by Lib leaders to tell other women what they ought to do, feel, be proud of, or ashamed of." Similar attitudes were found by the writers who interviewed individual women.

Louise Kapp Howe interviewed several beauticians for Pink Collar Workers. One became very upset when Howe asked if her husband ever helped around the house. "No, and I wouldn't want him to. I'd rather do my own cooking and my own housekeeping. I don't believe in women's lib.And I don't believe in all that crap－making a husband do half the work." She was typical of other interviewees who believed that a woman's role was to stay at home, if possible, and take care of the children, though the overwhelming odds were that most of these women worked outside their homes at repetitious, boring, and sometimes dangerous jobs. They usually regarded their husbands' jobs as the primary ones and their own as secondary to their vocation of homemaking, no matter how important their income was to their family's economic well-being.

"Oppression" didn't mean the same to these working-class women as it did to an academic Marxist feminist or a member of NOW. To working-class women, oppression was what the system did to both women and men, not just something men in a patriarchal, capitalist system did to to women. They saw the men's role as harder than theirs, even when they worked outside the home, too. Therefore, they found it hard to join the Women's Movement in anger directed at men in general.

    Feminist values and working-class women

It was in this area of family, relationships with men, and childbearing that the strongest discrepancies were found between feminist values and those expressed by the working-class women who were interviewed by the writers. The working-class woman gave her family much higher priority than her job ─ it was her major source of self-esteem. Many early feminists considered the family a trap that kept women in bondage. Some, such as Shulamith Firestone in The Dialectic of Sex, suggested alternative ways of rearing children collectively. These feminists did not seem to value children, and the working-class women resented it.

The feminist preoccupation with not being seen as a sex object was another point that led to misunderstanding. A feminist in the early 1970's might refuse to wear skirts or other traditionally feminine clothing, wear a hair style she could care for herself, and never wear make-up. Working-class women lived in a culture where such unorthodox dress could send an unpleasant message. As one woman put it, "A ‘liberated' working-class woman may be considered a slut."

Beauticians interviewed by several writers pointed out that they had one of the best jobs for a working-class woman. One said, "You don't understand how many of us go into beauty work because we want to be independent. We can have a shop at home ─ be our own boss, be there when the kids come home from school, and keep ourselves together if the old man cuts out." Another told Howe, "You can't tell me it's bad for a woman to care about her appearance. I do, and I think I'm as liberated as anybody."

For these women who rarely had a choice about whether or not to work for pay, "equal pay for equal work" could have been an idea they shared with feminists. Why didn't they join with the Women's Movement to demand employment equality with men? Two reasons emerge from the interviews.

Equal employment opportunity first was mentioned at a union rally in 1887; the idea has been part of working women's lives for more than 100 years. Low-income women have gone on strike and asked for better wages and working conditions for many years. They didn't see this as an issue the Women's Movement could claim as its own, but as a separate one with a long history of rebuffs and setbacks.

Second, while they could agree with "equal pay for equal work" in the abstract, there was a strong feeling expressed that, given any problem with the number of jobs available, a man always should be given a job so that he could support his family. They recognized the hardship this worked on a single woman, but, with their emphasis on family relationships, they believed the policy of giving men preference for jobs and better pay was the best course for society as a whole. They saw little chance the system would change so that women could get and keep jobs paying enough for a family to live on; they had been fighting that system for a long time.

Nancy Seifer interviewed several women who had personal contact with feminists who were union organizers and political workers. These feminists overcame the barriers of misunderstanding, and the women they came in contact with had favorable opinions of the Women's Movement. However, the women who got all their information about the Women's Movement from the mass media failed to see what it had to offer them.

Now that the movement has produced major changes in opportunities for women, why do so many women, of all classes, colors, and incomes, repeat, "I'm not a feminist, but..." as they talk about changes that still need to be made? Perhaps one answer lies in the impact made by the fierce rhetoric of the early Women's Movement, especially its radical wing. Many people still associate the word "feminist" with man-hating, lesbianism, contempt for motherhood, and a demand that everyone work for pay.

A stronger reason may lie in the value differences discussed by these working class women who were interviewed 15 to 20 years ago. "What do women want?" has no one answer, because women have diverse needs and values. The Women's Movement believed all women were sisters, with fundamental rights and ideas on which every one of them could agree. The problem was that this led to a high intolerance for diversity of opinion in the early Women's Movement. Feminists have become more tolerant, but too many women still may think they're being told "what they ought to do, feel, be proud of, ashamed of."

Though divided by race, class, culture, and many beliefs, women need to keep trying to understand each other. A fragmented sisterhood never will make as many changes as one that is a strong mosaic of women who respect each other's differences, but can work together toward common goals.

(1 912 words)

( From USA Today, January 1990 )