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

1970-11-20 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 10

where are we going?
The Following article is excerpted from Marlene Dixon's WHERE ARE WE GOING? appearing in the February, 1970 special issue on women of RADICAL AMERICA. (see page     for information on ordering the magazine.)

. . . The strength of the women's movement is rooted in the real oppression of women, while its future potentiality as a mass movement clearly depends upon the quality of the consciousness raising groups (in early meetings) were in this sense correct. Ultimately, the strength of the movement will rest upon the depth of women's understanding of the nature and origins of their oppression and upon the honesty with which they are able to face the psychological terrors of open rebellion. It is a fearful thing for woman to be a rebel, as much for the Movement "wife" as for the average housewife.
     Indeed, such of what passed for "ideological struggle" at the (Chicago, 1968) women's conference was in fact a disguised struggle between totally rebellious "independent women's caucuses. The tension that surrounded the unspoken fears of women concerning the consequences of open rebellion often took the form that women, and other oppressed groups, are most familiar with: turning upon each other. Much of the pathology of conference, particularly in terms of personal animosity and suspicion, could be directly traced to the degree to which each woman was still dependent upon men for her evaluation of herself. The boldest and most fearless women were clearly those who had bolted from, or never belonged to, established leftist organizations; they were followed by those women still in such organizations, but active in women's auxiliaries. The unattached and curious women, newcomers to the movement, were the most timid and confused.
     The defensiveness that characterized the workshops and plenary sessions was the expression of an overriding anxiety about being able to justify the existence of a women's movement. In Invisible Audience present at the Chicago conference were the very "male heavies" who had done so much to bring about the existence of a racial women's female liberation movement. The radical women had a prior history engraved upon their foreheads: Ruby Doris Smith Robinson presenting The Position of Women in SNCC (1964) provoking Stokely Carmichael's famous reply: "The only position for women in SNCC is prone"; Casey Hayden and Mary King rousing a storm of controversy for their articles in Studies on the Left and Liberation; and the December, 1964, SDS conference greeting a discussion and floor demonstration on the issue of women with catcalls, storms of ridicule and verbal abuse. "She just needs a good screw", or (the all-time favorite) "She's a castrating female".

     Women had learned from 1964 to 1968 that to fight for or even to sympathize with women's liberation was to pay or terrible price: what little credit a women might have earned in one of the Left organizations was wiped out in a storm of contempt and personal abuse.
     The strategy that the leftist women had adopted for the Chicago conference was to develop a "politics" with sufficient analytical merit to force the mens to recognize the legitimacy of women's movement, a tactic which has paid off in the Movement by 1969. Socialism, Revolution, Capitalism were thick in discussion. WITCH, Consciousness Raising and Radicals met head-on in debate, smid many hard feelings. The trouble was that none of these analyses, and this unfortunately especially applied to radical women, seriously linked theory and practice in such a way as a lead to strategies for action. For instance, the radical women had not yet begun to push for day care centers in working class organizing, although when they at last found an action, they were to become as fanatical and sectarian in rejecting all those whose winds remained unblasted by Truth as the non-Movement women.
     The "ideology" of the radical women was, by and large, an academic exercise in the art of the "intellectual male heavy" in the Movement. The radical women were decimated by the invisible male audience. Thus, the real spilt among the women hinged upon the significant audience that women addressed: other women, or Moment men. The audience determined not only ideology, but the role women took in workshops and debate. Also, most crucially, the choice of audience determined the ability of one women to understand another. Yet, irrespective of the origin of stressing political analysis above all other elements of the women's movement, or even the rather vulgar Marxist-Lenisist character of early attempts, the long range effect has had tremendous importance to furthering the intellectual maturity of the women's movement. 
     At the conference, and in later controversies, the basic division between women is usually referred to as "consciousness-raising" vs. "radical" or "bourgeois" vs. "revolutionary." Thr names are very misleading for understanding the division, but highly indicative of the nature of the misunderstanding between women.
     Women are trained to nuances, to listening for the subtle cues which carry the message hidden under the words. It is part of that special skill called "intuition" or "empathy" which all female children must learn if they are to be successful in manipulating others to get what they want and to be successful in providing "sympathy an understanding" to their husbands and lovers. The skill is so central to communication between women and all others-women to women, women to men, women to children- that it is not suprising to note that intuition is also central to political communication among women. There are no words for communication which occurs on many complex levels, so that it is quite possible to have teo complete communication processes going on at once- the articulated and the implicit levels. At the women's conference the overt process was all in a man's vocabulary of political rhetoric and analysis, while the covert level was altogether different...
. . . the battle was waged in a political vocabulary, but the issues had really to do with basic orientations toward women. The wildcat groups took woman ( as mystical, rebellious, expressive and mysterious, or as enraged) as their ideal, while the leftist women were using leader-intellectual ( the role from which all rewards flow in the Movement) as theirs. The tragedy of this misunderstanding was that political polarization - needless polarization - was the result. The wildcat women, many of whom hate the movement bitterly because of the chauvinism they experienced in it, dismissed the leftists as unliberated spokeswomen for the submersion of the women;s struggle in the "revolutionary" struggle; while the leftist women dismissed the wildcats as hopelessly a-political and counter-revolutionary. That each might have learned from the other, that all shared real conditions of oppression, was obscured.
     Another battle was waged on the level of sentiments, in the suspicion of leaders. The resentment against women who seemed in charge (such as experienced by Marilyn Webb and others who had woked hard, and thanklessly, to bring the conference about) was real, a product of all of the participants' experience with established organizations. Women had suffered so much from the oppression of 'male heavies', whether from a boss on the jon or a boss in the movement or the boss at home, suffered from being ed generally with contempt for their intellectual and moral qualities. Their resentment, therefore, of any woman who even appeared to be playing a typical male leadership role, whether true or not, bordered on the pathological. 
     The women's movement, like the black movemnt before it (and most rebellious movements in their early stages of development), is torn by suspicion and rivalry: everyone wants to be a leader, or to be in a position to achieve recognition for which they are starved. But no one wants to admit it. Years of second class citizenship breeds in people an enormous hunger to be recognized. If one's hunger is to be once again frustrated, then, damn it!, no one else is going to enjoy the pleasures of recognition either. The result was that 'leaders' 'led' my virtue of doing had, ugly work and then bent over backwards trying to appear to be 'non-leaders'. This, of course, fooled no one. The long nurtured secret hunger for recognition has been hidden for so long it had taken on a magical, fearful meaning-- no one could talk about it. It remained, at the conference, unexpressed and sour, a slow acid eating at the women's movement, guaranteeing that it will remain segmentalized, split into tiny groups in every major city and region, unaware of its potential size and power. Thus the issue of leadership, of democratizing the structure of the movement, of fighting against the manifold corruptions of it is the practical problem which in political theory for women, it is the practical problem which must be solved before the movement can reach its maturity. The alternative is death through factionalism and disintegration. . . 
. . . radical women, even in the face of a large, well-funded liberal or left-liberal organization such as the National Organization of Women, remain tied to a male audience, defining themselves in terms of men's organizations exclusively and continuing to regard women opportunistically, as another group to further the struggle. So long as women remain tied to the men's 'line', and blind to their own exploitation by white middle class male radicals, it will not be radical women who do the organizing. The organizing will be done by politically unsophisticated, profoundly liberal women who address women's oppression directly. Unless the radical women get themselves together, in the interests of their own oppression and the oppression of all their sisters, a mass movement dominated by an ideology of 'let us in' (and not 'set us free') will develop in the next few years. 
     Women must face facts. Men will never, until forced by circumstances, place first, or even urgent, priority upon a struggle against the oppression of women. . .
Men must carry the burden of 'white middle class guilt'; they cannot live with the growing recognition that in their daily lives they exploit and oppress; and so, they struggle against women and against the almost intolerable process of self-recognition women are now demanding they undergo.
     For example, it is not an accident that radical women have not been organizing. The energies of radical women have too long been deflected into arguing-pleading-justifying their cause, i.e. to fighting male chauvinism, male supremacy, in the movement. Theirs has been a profoundly a-political, personalized struggle, one devoted to personal liberation. It is ironic that radical women so wrapped up in their sex lives and Movement careers,
continued on next page

10  VOL.1 NO.9   AIN'T I

Saving...

where are we going? The Following article is excerpted from Marlene Dixon's WHERE ARE WE GOING? appearing in the February, 1970 special issue on women of RADICAL AMERICA. (see page for information on ordering the magazine.) . . . The strength of the women's movement is rooted in the real oppression of women, while its future potentiality as a mass movement clearly depends upon the quality of the consciousness raising groups (in early meetings) were in this sense correct. Ultimately, the strength of the movement will rest upon the depth of women's understanding of the nature and origins of their oppression and upon the honesty with which they are able to face the psychological terrors of open rebellion. It is a fearful thing for woman to be a rebel, as much for the Movement "wife" as for the average housewife. Indeed, such of what passed for "ideological struggle" at the (Chicago, 1968) women's conference was in fact a disguised struggle between totally rebellious "independent women's caucuses. The tension that surrounded the unspoken fears of women concerning the consequences of open rebellion often took the form that women, and other oppressed groups, are most familiar with: turning upon each other. Much of the pathology of conference, particularly in terms of personal animosity and suspicion, could be directly traced to the degree to which each woman was still dependent upon men for her evaluation of herself. The boldest and most fearless women were clearly those who had bolted from, or never belonged to, established leftist organizations; they were followed by those women still in such organizations, but active in women's auxiliaries. The unattached and curious women, newcomers to the movement, were the most timid and confused. The defensiveness that characterized the workshops and plenary sessions was the expression of an overriding anxiety about being able to justify the existence of a women's movement. In Invisible Audience present at the Chicago conference were the very "male heavies" who had done so much to bring about the existence of a racial women's female liberation movement. The radical women had a prior history engraved upon their foreheads: Ruby Doris Smith Robinson presenting The Position of Women in SNCC (1964) provoking Stokely Carmichael's famous reply: "The only position for women in SNCC is prone"; Casey Hayden and Mary King rousing a storm of controversy for their articles in Studies on the Left and Liberation; and the December, 1964, SDS conference greeting a discussion and floor demonstration on the issue of women with catcalls, storms of ridicule and verbal abuse. "She just needs a good screw", or (the all-time favorite) "She's a castrating female". Women had learned from 1964 to 1968 that to fight for or even to sympathize with women's liberation was to pay or terrible price: what little credit a women might have earned in one of the Left organizations was wiped out in a storm of contempt and personal abuse. The strategy that the leftist women had adopted for the Chicago conference was to develop a "politics" with sufficient analytical merit to force the mens to recognize the legitimacy of women's movement, a tactic which has paid off in the Movement by 1969. Socialism, Revolution, Capitalism were thick in discussion. WITCH, Consciousness Raising and Radicals met head-on in debate, smid many hard feelings. The trouble was that none of these analyses, and this unfortunately especially applied to radical women, seriously linked theory and practice in such a way as a lead to strategies for action. For instance, the radical women had not yet begun to push for day care centers in working class organizing, although when they at last found an action, they were to become as fanatical and sectarian in rejecting all those whose winds remained unblasted by Truth as the non-Movement women. The "ideology" of the radical women was, by and large, an academic exercise in the art of the "intellectual male heavy" in the Movement. The radical women were decimated by the invisible male audience. Thus, the real spilt among the women hinged upon the significant audience that women addressed: other women, or Moment men. The audience determined not only ideology, but the role women took in workshops and debate. Also, most crucially, the choice of audience determined the ability of one women to understand another. Yet, irrespective of the origin of stressing political analysis above all other elements of the women's movement, or even the rather vulgar Marxist-Lenisist character of early attempts, the long range effect has had tremendous importance to furthering the intellectual maturity of the women's movement. At the conference, and in later controversies, the basic division between women is usually referred to as "consciousness-raising" vs. "radical" or "bourgeois" vs. "revolutionary." Thr names are very misleading for understanding the division, but highly indicative of the nature of the misunderstanding between women. Women are trained to nuances, to listening for the subtle cues which carry the message hidden under the words. It is part of that special skill called "intuition" or "empathy" which all female children must learn if they are to be successful in manipulating others to get what they want and to be successful in providing "sympathy an understanding" to their husbands and lovers. The skill is so central to communication between women and all others-women to women, women to men, women to children- that it is not suprising to note that intuition is also central to political communication among women. There are no words for communication which occurs on many complex levels, so that it is quite possible to have teo complete communication processes going on at once- the articulated and the implicit levels. At the women's conference the overt process was all in a man's vocabulary of political rhetoric and analysis, while the covert level was altogether different... . . . the battle was waged in a political vocabulary, but the issues had really to do with basic orientations toward women. The wildcat groups took woman ( as mystical, rebellious, expressive and mysterious, or as enraged) as their ideal, while the leftist women were using leader-intellectual ( the role from which all rewards flow in the Movement) as theirs. The tragedy of this misunderstanding was that political polarization - needless polarization - was the result. The wildcat women, many of whom hate the movement bitterly because of the chauvinism they experienced in it, dismissed the leftists as unliberated spokeswomen for the submersion of the women;s struggle in the "revolutionary" struggle; while the leftist women dismissed the wildcats as hopelessly a-political and counter-revolutionary. That each might have learned from the other, that all shared real conditions of oppression, was obscured. Another battle was waged on the level of sentiments, in the suspicion of leaders. The resentment against women who seemed in charge (such as experienced by Marilyn Webb and others who had woked hard, and thanklessly, to bring the conference about) was real, a product of all of the participants' experience with established organizations. Women had suffered so much from the oppression of 'male heavies', whether from a boss on the jon or a boss in the movement or the boss at home, suffered from being ed generally with contempt for their intellectual and moral qualities. Their resentment, therefore, of any woman who even appeared to be playing a typical male leadership role, whether true or not, bordered on the pathological. The women's movement, like the black movemnt before it (and most rebellious movements in their early stages of development), is torn by suspicion and rivalry: everyone wants to be a leader, or to be in a position to achieve recognition for which they are starved. But no one wants to admit it. Years of second class citizenship breeds in people an enormous hunger to be recognized. If one's hunger is to be once again frustrated, then, damn it!, no one else is going to enjoy the pleasures of recognition either. The result was that 'leaders' 'led' my virtue of doing had, ugly work and then bent over backwards trying to appear to be 'non-leaders'. This, of course, fooled no one. The long nurtured secret hunger for recognition has been hidden for so long it had taken on a magical, fearful meaning-- no one could talk about it. It remained, at the conference, unexpressed and sour, a slow acid eating at the women's movement, guaranteeing that it will remain segmentalized, split into tiny groups in every major city and region, unaware of its potential size and power. Thus the issue of leadership, of democratizing the structure of the movement, of fighting against the manifold corruptions of it is the practical problem which in political theory for women, it is the practical problem which must be solved before the movement can reach its maturity. The alternative is death through factionalism and disintegration. . . . . . radical women, even in the face of a large, well-funded liberal or left-liberal organization such as the National Organization of Women, remain tied to a male audience, defining themselves in terms of men's organizations exclusively and continuing to regard women opportunistically, as another group to further the struggle. So long as women remain tied to the men's 'line', and blind to their own exploitation by white middle class male radicals, it will not be radical women who do the organizing. The organizing will be done by politically unsophisticated, profoundly liberal women who address women's oppression directly. Unless the radical women get themselves together, in the interests of their own oppression and the oppression of all their sisters, a mass movement dominated by an ideology of 'let us in' (and not 'set us free') will develop in the next few years. Women must face facts. Men will never, until forced by circumstances, place first, or even urgent, priority upon a struggle against the oppression of women. . . Men must carry the burden of 'white middle class guilt'; they cannot live with the growing recognition that in their daily lives they exploit and oppress; and so, they struggle against women and against the almost intolerable process of self-recognition women are now demanding they undergo. For example, it is not an accident that radical women have not been organizing. The energies of radical women have too long been deflected into arguing-pleading-justifying their cause, i.e. to fighting male chauvinism, male supremacy, in the movement. Theirs has been a profoundly a-political, personalized struggle, one devoted to personal liberation. It is ironic that radical women so wrapped up in their sex lives and Movement careers, continued on next page 10 VOL.1 NO.9 AIN'T I