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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971

1970-09-11 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 8

Liberating Men & Women From Old Notions

To the collective:
Congratulations to the women with enough initiative to publish a paper. All of us concerned with the role of women thank you. I gained from the first issue of Ain't I A Woman insights, deserved verbal ear-boxing, and considerable consternation. Implicit in several articles were arguments about the nature and plight of women which I think deserve explicit attention. Contributors to the first issue are far from clear and even further from agreement on fundamentals. For the sake of debate I shall point out some of the confusions which plague the movement for the liberation of women.
Much of the confusion emerges from an indecision about whether men are to blame for the subordination of women, or whether they are with women victims of the predominant culture. Let me illustrate. One of the attributes of women reported from the symposium on "loving women" is that women are physically more attractive than men. Either women are objectively more attractive than men, in which case men are not to be blamed for thinking so; or women are only subjectively more attractive, in which case anyone (male or female) who finds women more attractive simply is expressing cultural norms.
The illustration suggests an even deeper confusion. Is there something about being a woman which is worth preserving? Women were described in the symposium as "gentle," "sympathetic." What is the basis for these particularly womanly virtues? Is it biological? Surely it is partly social? If there are virtues worth preserving then there must be parts of the sexual role differentiation worth preserving. It is not clear from most of the statements by WLF members whether women are seeking equality in the sense of identity (an elimination of all role differences) or in some sense of "separate but equal" (an elimination of role differences deemed unfair, erroneous, improper). Short hair and karate lessons seem to imply the former; loving women qua women seems to imply the latter.
Many of the articles in the first issue of Ain't I A Woman refer to the necessity for separation from men as if it were an established precept. I should appreciate the article defending separatism explicitly. I dislike sounding like a reactionary. But is seems to me that the basic problem is not liberating women from men. Rather the problem is liberating men and women from old notions of what it is to be a woman. I resent passionately being considered a piece of fluff with a vacuum cleaner. I throw things when everyone who telephones my office assumes I am the secretary. Will these attitudes really be overcome by shutting out men and women who do not consider them injustice? Most women are boring; they have been taught to be boring; they have been taught they ought to want to be boring. (Most men at least are boring on a greater variety of subjects.) It seems to me at least as reasonable to encourage more women to be interesting and competent, as to demand that men first realize that women potentially are not boring.
What I am trying to argue, among other things, is that a serious movement for the liberation of women cannot afford to be revolutionary. If real gains are to be made women cannot afford to be ideological purists: many women are unjustly exploited who enjoy marriage, support the system, are offended by obscene language. Are they to be chalked off as not worth saving? It is political suicide to insist upon espousal of too large a system of values.
Certainly, the exploitation of women shares characteristics with other forms of exploitation. For at least two reasons, however, it is unwise to overemphasize the similarities. In the first place, exploitation is not necessarily cumulative; nor is the blame cumulative. To emphasize the similarity frequently is to obscure the fact that those whose values need to be changed differ. At least half the racists I know are women. Black men exploit women no less than white men. Eliminate all white Anglo-Saxon men and the same forms of exploitation will still exist. This leads to the second reason for not insisting upon revolutionary purism. The number of people who do not approve of and do not practice any form of exploitation is very small. The number of people who disapprove of and actively oppose some form of exploitation is much larger. It is only politically sensible to recruit all people who oppose discrimination against women. The object of political action, revolutionary or not, is to change values and not to eliminate people.
If the revolution comes tomorrow the cessation of discrimination against women is likely to be eleventh on a list of eleven grievances. It is more likely to get lost in the shuffle. In the meantime I shall continue to demand equal treatment in the job market, the right not to bear children, and the right not to want to be boring. These are demands with political solutions short of revolution. Some of us are not willing to wait.

Redefining What Is Political
I hope you will understand that I am not saying your problems are insignificant but I am attempting to share with you an entirely different perspective on what we can do to eliminate the causes. Our perspectives are so different because we do not agree on such basic things as what are real gains, what is political, or what is racism.

People who come to understand their oppression, come to understand the need for revolution. That's what women's liberation is all about. We need liberation, not relief, because we are oppressed as women. You cannot decide what to call the condition of women--you refer to discrimination, subordination, inequality, unjust exploitation (is there a just exploitation?), but never to oppression.

No, the basic problem is not "liberating men and women from old notions of what it is to be a woman" any more than the problem of racism is liberating whites and blacks from old notions of what it is to be a black. That view assumes that the oppressed have themselves to blame for their condition, a strange position for someone to take who points to other women as racists. Racists are made by the conditions of a racist society--none of us have escaped it. It is not just a reflection of the cultural norms but the fact that there have been material rewards for being a white racist--rewards for the people who have benefitted from the labor power of blacks. We have to struggle to change the conditions and institutions which perpetuate racism, but not by changing the attitudes and values of our oppressors. One lesson from the civil rights movement is that you don't change people's values and expect behavior to change but vice versa--change behavior and attitudes will follow. It is not that exceptional blacks have talked their way to freedom, or "saved" their brothers and sisters, but that the threat of a strong black community has been great.

How well we can see from the black movement in Amerika that the "bootstrap" theory of improving oneself doesn't work--not for a group so necessary for the cheap labor of a capitalist society. There is strength only in unity--we can drop our forms of "strategic behavior" (not threatening our masters by seeming too bright, too aggressive, too uppity, etc.) when we are strong enough to survive without them.

If we consider it unwise to "overemphasize the similarities" between the oppression of women and blacks we risk misunderstanding both, and we risk being played off against our black sisters and brothers again (as happened to the women's movement in the 19th century) by a white male power structure which uses the labor of blacks, browns and women in this country as a source of cheap labor power to run a capitalist society. We run the risk of thinking that black men have had the power to oppress us (Yes black men do oppress women less than white men) if we are white and middle class.

What can it matter to the woman forced to do the menial tasks for little pay (be she white or black) that you don't like being mistake for a secretary? The real question is why do you resent it? How can you talk in one breath of uniting all people who oppose exploitation and in the other of resenting to be mistaken for a secretary? By the very definition of your problem you have already stopped identifying with most women.

Women's liberation as a movement is in the process of redefining what is political--only then can we say what makes political sense. Surely there are virtues that oppressed people have which are worth preserving, but it is as strange to consider these part of a sexual role differentation worth preserving as it would be to consider preserving "racial role differentation." It is this very notion of preserving differences that is at the basis of a separtist movement, something women's liberation as a movement is not. We ask nothing of men (especially not that they recognize us as potentially not boring) because we see that the boys will just have to get themselves together or be left behind. Personal sympathy and personal help from individual men is nice but you don't build a movement on it. We know that from the dynamic of the black movement and we understand the basis on which revolutionary black organizations like the Black Party make coalitions with white organizations--not mergers, but coalitions.

I think we can afford to ask for everything and to see the process of revolution as Rosa Luxemburg did: "the true dialectic of revolutions (is) not through a majority to revolutionary tactics, but through revolutionary tactics to a majority--that is the way the road runs."

The question is not what would happen if the revolution comes tomorrow--the question is what we are doing to unite women for a revolutionary struggle. Ultimately, nothing else matters--not your job or mine, your debating points or mine, your boredom or my anger. But I think you will just have to wait because there are no individualist solutions to oppression, it is material conditions and not values which must be changed, and you have no strength so long as you prefer to run hand in hand with your oppressor.

8   Vol. 1. No. 5   Ain't I

Saving...

Liberating Men & Women From Old Notions To the collective: Congratulations to the women with enough initiative to publish a paper. All of us concerned with the role of women thank you. I gained from the first issue of Ain't I A Woman insights, deserved verbal ear-boxing, and considerable consternation. Implicit in several articles were arguments about the nature and plight of women which I think deserve explicit attention. Contributors to the first issue are far from clear and even further from agreement on fundamentals. For the sake of debate I shall point out some of the confusions which plague the movement for the liberation of women. Much of the confusion emerges from an indecision about whether men are to blame for the subordination of women, or whether they are with women victims of the predominant culture. Let me illustrate. One of the attributes of women reported from the symposium on "loving women" is that women are physically more attractive than men. Either women are objectively more attractive than men, in which case men are not to be blamed for thinking so; or women are only subjectively more attractive, in which case anyone (male or female) who finds women more attractive simply is expressing cultural norms. The illustration suggests an even deeper confusion. Is there something about being a woman which is worth preserving? Women were described in the symposium as "gentle," "sympathetic." What is the basis for these particularly womanly virtues? Is it biological? Surely it is partly social? If there are virtues worth preserving then there must be parts of the sexual role differentiation worth preserving. It is not clear from most of the statements by WLF members whether women are seeking equality in the sense of identity (an elimination of all role differences) or in some sense of "separate but equal" (an elimination of role differences deemed unfair, erroneous, improper). Short hair and karate lessons seem to imply the former; loving women qua women seems to imply the latter. Many of the articles in the first issue of Ain't I A Woman refer to the necessity for separation from men as if it were an established precept. I should appreciate the article defending separatism explicitly. I dislike sounding like a reactionary. But is seems to me that the basic problem is not liberating women from men. Rather the problem is liberating men and women from old notions of what it is to be a woman. I resent passionately being considered a piece of fluff with a vacuum cleaner. I throw things when everyone who telephones my office assumes I am the secretary. Will these attitudes really be overcome by shutting out men and women who do not consider them injustice? Most women are boring; they have been taught to be boring; they have been taught they ought to want to be boring. (Most men at least are boring on a greater variety of subjects.) It seems to me at least as reasonable to encourage more women to be interesting and competent, as to demand that men first realize that women potentially are not boring. What I am trying to argue, among other things, is that a serious movement for the liberation of women cannot afford to be revolutionary. If real gains are to be made women cannot afford to be ideological purists: many women are unjustly exploited who enjoy marriage, support the system, are offended by obscene language. Are they to be chalked off as not worth saving? It is political suicide to insist upon espousal of too large a system of values. Certainly, the exploitation of women shares characteristics with other forms of exploitation. For at least two reasons, however, it is unwise to overemphasize the similarities. In the first place, exploitation is not necessarily cumulative; nor is the blame cumulative. To emphasize the similarity frequently is to obscure the fact that those whose values need to be changed differ. At least half the racists I know are women. Black men exploit women no less than white men. Eliminate all white Anglo-Saxon men and the same forms of exploitation will still exist. This leads to the second reason for not insisting upon revolutionary purism. The number of people who do not approve of and do not practice any form of exploitation is very small. The number of people who disapprove of and actively oppose some form of exploitation is much larger. It is only politically sensible to recruit all people who oppose discrimination against women. The object of political action, revolutionary or not, is to change values and not to eliminate people. If the revolution comes tomorrow the cessation of discrimination against women is likely to be eleventh on a list of eleven grievances. It is more likely to get lost in the shuffle. In the meantime I shall continue to demand equal treatment in the job market, the right not to bear children, and the right not to want to be boring. These are demands with political solutions short of revolution. Some of us are not willing to wait. Redefining What Is Political I hope you will understand that I am not saying your problems are insignificant but I am attempting to share with you an entirely different perspective on what we can do to eliminate the causes. Our perspectives are so different because we do not agree on such basic things as what are real gains, what is political, or what is racism. People who come to understand their oppression, come to understand the need for revolution. That's what women's liberation is all about. We need liberation, not relief, because we are oppressed as women. You cannot decide what to call the condition of women--you refer to discrimination, subordination, inequality, unjust exploitation (is there a just exploitation?), but never to oppression. No, the basic problem is not "liberating men and women from old notions of what it is to be a woman" any more than the problem of racism is liberating whites and blacks from old notions of what it is to be a black. That view assumes that the oppressed have themselves to blame for their condition, a strange position for someone to take who points to other women as racists. Racists are made by the conditions of a racist society--none of us have escaped it. It is not just a reflection of the cultural norms but the fact that there have been material rewards for being a white racist--rewards for the people who have benefitted from the labor power of blacks. We have to struggle to change the conditions and institutions which perpetuate racism, but not by changing the attitudes and values of our oppressors. One lesson from the civil rights movement is that you don't change people's values and expect behavior to change but vice versa--change behavior and attitudes will follow. It is not that exceptional blacks have talked their way to freedom, or "saved" their brothers and sisters, but that the threat of a strong black community has been great. How well we can see from the black movement in Amerika that the "bootstrap" theory of improving oneself doesn't work--not for a group so necessary for the cheap labor of a capitalist society. There is strength only in unity--we can drop our forms of "strategic behavior" (not threatening our masters by seeming too bright, too aggressive, too uppity, etc.) when we are strong enough to survive without them. If we consider it unwise to "overemphasize the similarities" between the oppression of women and blacks we risk misunderstanding both, and we risk being played off against our black sisters and brothers again (as happened to the women's movement in the 19th century) by a white male power structure which uses the labor of blacks, browns and women in this country as a source of cheap labor power to run a capitalist society. We run the risk of thinking that black men have had the power to oppress us (Yes black men do oppress women less than white men) if we are white and middle class. What can it matter to the woman forced to do the menial tasks for little pay (be she white or black) that you don't like being mistake for a secretary? The real question is why do you resent it? How can you talk in one breath of uniting all people who oppose exploitation and in the other of resenting to be mistaken for a secretary? By the very definition of your problem you have already stopped identifying with most women. Women's liberation as a movement is in the process of redefining what is political--only then can we say what makes political sense. Surely there are virtues that oppressed people have which are worth preserving, but it is as strange to consider these part of a sexual role differentation worth preserving as it would be to consider preserving "racial role differentation." It is this very notion of preserving differences that is at the basis of a separtist movement, something women's liberation as a movement is not. We ask nothing of men (especially not that they recognize us as potentially not boring) because we see that the boys will just have to get themselves together or be left behind. Personal sympathy and personal help from individual men is nice but you don't build a movement on it. We know that from the dynamic of the black movement and we understand the basis on which revolutionary black organizations like the Black Party make coalitions with white organizations--not mergers, but coalitions. I think we can afford to ask for everything and to see the process of revolution as Rosa Luxemburg did: "the true dialectic of revolutions (is) not through a majority to revolutionary tactics, but through revolutionary tactics to a majority--that is the way the road runs." The question is not what would happen if the revolution comes tomorrow--the question is what we are doing to unite women for a revolutionary struggle. Ultimately, nothing else matters--not your job or mine, your debating points or mine, your boredom or my anger. But I think you will just have to wait because there are no individualist solutions to oppression, it is material conditions and not values which must be changed, and you have no strength so long as you prefer to run hand in hand with your oppressor. 8 Vol. 1. No. 5 Ain't I