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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971
1971-01-29 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 7
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our Theory and our Practice icized for their life style, thinking we are combating elitism, while they cannot question or critize women attached to men without being accused of trying to exclude the majority of American women. Ultra democracy draws no boundaries. No matter how many women meet together their decisions are seen as elitist because there are so many women they haven't reached or so many women not present who do not agree. Ultra democracy gives no one any power over their own lives but gives everyone power over everyone elses. For single women to be able to survive with the social attitudes and the material conditions they must live with, they must be supported. In Iowa City a group of women formed a living collective. For some of the women involved, this living situation was imperative for their financial and psychological survival if they were to remain single and politically active. The collective instead of being supported as an attempt to set an example of women committed to living together, was attacked as elitist. The pressure from women outside the living collective made those of us involved consumed with guilt over attempting to change our lives, and caused us to spend all kinds of energy trying to make other women feel welcome at all times. (Something few married women have to do -- be pleasant and sisterly at all hours of the day or night to any woman dropping in or hanging around). To try to assure other women that we did choose this way to live -- that we do think it is a better way than being married or living alone. While bending over backwards to not interfere or put down women who lived with men or women who weren't politically active we accepted their assertions that our collective was affecting their lives, affecting the women's liberation organization, or intimidating newly involved women; therefore, that they could have some say in how we lived and how our life style fit into the whole organization. Our energies were consumed with justifying our existence rather than with working out the problems we had internally or with influencing other women to do the same. Ultra democracy is valued only for the numbers who agree on a decision, not for the content of the decisions made. Majority rule has always hurt minorities. Independent women are a minority and will always be held down in this way unless we base our actions on sound political theory not just about how most women feel -- most women are not yet ready to break the ties. The concept of ultra democracy has also limited large groups to practice that could be agreed on by the majority which always turns out to be practice on liberal issues. Radical women are put in the position of gaining support for only liberal actions and are isolated and unsupported on any action that threatens the system. Building a mass movement on a sound political anaylsis is quite different from building a mass movement simply for the sake of a mass movement. Masses of people can be united around anything from waging a socialist revolution to waging genocide on Black Americans. Organizing masses of women around one single issue they can agree on "no matter what views people may have on other topics" offers nothing more than the hope of winning a single issue. It offers no hope of support for either issues along basic political lines. It does offer the possibility of an organized mass with amazing facist and racist potential. This is my fear of what women's liberation could become were it to continue to recruit on nothing other than sex lines. I keep remembering the following which came out of a movement that developed this way: "Consider what it (the electorate) has received during the past thirty-five years from the majority of negroes, Indians and immigrants who have been enfranchised during that time, and then judge whether women as a body, could not bring something to offset these last acquisitions. Those who fear the foreign vote and the colored vote should remember that there are more native-born women in the United States than foreign-born men and women; more white women than colored men and women." Ida Husted Harper, "Would Woman Suffrage Benefit the State, & Woman Herself?" North American Review 1904. Our practice has been to work in small groups where we have been able to achieve some amount of collectivity in work and decision making and have come closer to a situation where all the members of a group have power in that group. We felt the need to work this way partly so we could work with other women with similar politics, not having to compromise our beliefs or water down our anaylsis to meet the approval of some mass organization. It is in the isolation of the small group that we have been able to begin an analysis -- to examine our ideas and practice without the fear of alienating potential new members. The politics we have developed in our small groups have not however been carried over to our organizing practices. We have developed the beginning of radical theory in our small groups but we tend to feel isolated and alone in our beliefs, only finding support and agreement within our own group. Thus the small group which we maintain for support has caused us to feel isolation and a lack of support from women outside of our particular collectives. But when we try to organize other women we don't organize them along our political beliefs or to support us. We appeal to them as women with any range of politics. We organize around lines that don't offer the possibility of support. We feel the reasons we formed small groups were and are still valid. To go back to a mass organization would cancel all that we have gained. When Ruthann Miller talks of the destruction of the movement she refers to a mass movement based on single issues with no basic political theory. Since we cannot see this kind of movement in any radical perspective, why should we care about its destruction? The mass organizing of women with grave differences in political theory will be the destruction of women's liberation because (1) women's liberation will have no political basis, and (2) we cannot develop any anaylsis when new or potentially new members are so powerful in determining the politics and actions. By constantly having to justify our ideas and practices, we always are looking backwards - never moving forward. But we must solve the problems of how we avoid isolation without compromising our political theory; how we can influence other women to be in small groups (if we think that is valid); how we can facilatate ideological struggle between small groups; how much of a mass organization do we need, and how can small groups relate to a central organization without diluting their theory and practice. ACTION STUDIES SPRING COURSES - 1971 Modern Science Relevance in Contemporary Education The Prairie Dog Project: A Free School Community Seminar in the Edgar Cayce Readings Food Organic Gardening Historical Background: Women's Liberation Women's Liberation: Medical Information 20th Century Women Writers: An Introduction Self-Defense for Women Poetry of Resistance Technology and Society Film and Social Change The New Music Black Action Theatre Writing on the Walls Men Against Sexism: Consciousness Raising for Men Imno Poetry The Cities: The Institute for Syntropic Studies Centering Buckminister Fuller Seminar Primal Poetry Meditation Workshop Greening of America Sewing: A Meditative Art Is a popular revolution possible in an advanced capitalist democracy? Is any particular sector of the proletariat the key to a revolutionary strategy? What is the relation between women's liberation and capitalism? Why have past Socialist and Communist movements always failed in the United States? socialist Revolution ...is attempting to deal with these and related questions. Among the articles we are publishing are James O'Connor on the Fiscal Crisis of the State, James Weinstein on the I.W.W., Serge Mallet on the Soviet Union, Ellen Willis on Consumerism and Women, Saul Landau on the Contemporary Film, and Robert Fitch and Mary Oppenheimer on Finance Capital. Subscribe. SPECIAL OFFER: For a New America: Essays in History and Politics from "Studies on the Left," 1959-1967. $1.50 with subscription. SOCIALIST REVOLUTION 1445 STOCKTON STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 9413 NAME ___ ADDRESS____ CITY___ STATE___ ZIP___ Single Issue @$1.50___ Foreign Subscription @$6.50___ Subscription (6 issues) @ $6.00__ SPECIAL OFFER @$7.50 Dayton, Ohio is getting together a Regional Women's Center. Its purpose is to provide better communication within the woman's movement in SW Ohio. The address for their newsletter is: Dayton Women's Liberation 1721 Burroughs Drive, Dayton, Ohio 45406 The new Gettin on Women Collective's newsletter announces a woman's house in East Lansing, Michigan - women are always welcome. The address of both the house and the newsletter is: Gettin on Women Collective 358 N. Harrison E. Lansing, Michigan 48823 A Woman? January 29, 1971 7
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our Theory and our Practice icized for their life style, thinking we are combating elitism, while they cannot question or critize women attached to men without being accused of trying to exclude the majority of American women. Ultra democracy draws no boundaries. No matter how many women meet together their decisions are seen as elitist because there are so many women they haven't reached or so many women not present who do not agree. Ultra democracy gives no one any power over their own lives but gives everyone power over everyone elses. For single women to be able to survive with the social attitudes and the material conditions they must live with, they must be supported. In Iowa City a group of women formed a living collective. For some of the women involved, this living situation was imperative for their financial and psychological survival if they were to remain single and politically active. The collective instead of being supported as an attempt to set an example of women committed to living together, was attacked as elitist. The pressure from women outside the living collective made those of us involved consumed with guilt over attempting to change our lives, and caused us to spend all kinds of energy trying to make other women feel welcome at all times. (Something few married women have to do -- be pleasant and sisterly at all hours of the day or night to any woman dropping in or hanging around). To try to assure other women that we did choose this way to live -- that we do think it is a better way than being married or living alone. While bending over backwards to not interfere or put down women who lived with men or women who weren't politically active we accepted their assertions that our collective was affecting their lives, affecting the women's liberation organization, or intimidating newly involved women; therefore, that they could have some say in how we lived and how our life style fit into the whole organization. Our energies were consumed with justifying our existence rather than with working out the problems we had internally or with influencing other women to do the same. Ultra democracy is valued only for the numbers who agree on a decision, not for the content of the decisions made. Majority rule has always hurt minorities. Independent women are a minority and will always be held down in this way unless we base our actions on sound political theory not just about how most women feel -- most women are not yet ready to break the ties. The concept of ultra democracy has also limited large groups to practice that could be agreed on by the majority which always turns out to be practice on liberal issues. Radical women are put in the position of gaining support for only liberal actions and are isolated and unsupported on any action that threatens the system. Building a mass movement on a sound political anaylsis is quite different from building a mass movement simply for the sake of a mass movement. Masses of people can be united around anything from waging a socialist revolution to waging genocide on Black Americans. Organizing masses of women around one single issue they can agree on "no matter what views people may have on other topics" offers nothing more than the hope of winning a single issue. It offers no hope of support for either issues along basic political lines. It does offer the possibility of an organized mass with amazing facist and racist potential. This is my fear of what women's liberation could become were it to continue to recruit on nothing other than sex lines. I keep remembering the following which came out of a movement that developed this way: "Consider what it (the electorate) has received during the past thirty-five years from the majority of negroes, Indians and immigrants who have been enfranchised during that time, and then judge whether women as a body, could not bring something to offset these last acquisitions. Those who fear the foreign vote and the colored vote should remember that there are more native-born women in the United States than foreign-born men and women; more white women than colored men and women." Ida Husted Harper, "Would Woman Suffrage Benefit the State, & Woman Herself?" North American Review 1904. Our practice has been to work in small groups where we have been able to achieve some amount of collectivity in work and decision making and have come closer to a situation where all the members of a group have power in that group. We felt the need to work this way partly so we could work with other women with similar politics, not having to compromise our beliefs or water down our anaylsis to meet the approval of some mass organization. It is in the isolation of the small group that we have been able to begin an analysis -- to examine our ideas and practice without the fear of alienating potential new members. The politics we have developed in our small groups have not however been carried over to our organizing practices. We have developed the beginning of radical theory in our small groups but we tend to feel isolated and alone in our beliefs, only finding support and agreement within our own group. Thus the small group which we maintain for support has caused us to feel isolation and a lack of support from women outside of our particular collectives. But when we try to organize other women we don't organize them along our political beliefs or to support us. We appeal to them as women with any range of politics. We organize around lines that don't offer the possibility of support. We feel the reasons we formed small groups were and are still valid. To go back to a mass organization would cancel all that we have gained. When Ruthann Miller talks of the destruction of the movement she refers to a mass movement based on single issues with no basic political theory. Since we cannot see this kind of movement in any radical perspective, why should we care about its destruction? The mass organizing of women with grave differences in political theory will be the destruction of women's liberation because (1) women's liberation will have no political basis, and (2) we cannot develop any anaylsis when new or potentially new members are so powerful in determining the politics and actions. By constantly having to justify our ideas and practices, we always are looking backwards - never moving forward. But we must solve the problems of how we avoid isolation without compromising our political theory; how we can influence other women to be in small groups (if we think that is valid); how we can facilatate ideological struggle between small groups; how much of a mass organization do we need, and how can small groups relate to a central organization without diluting their theory and practice. ACTION STUDIES SPRING COURSES - 1971 Modern Science Relevance in Contemporary Education The Prairie Dog Project: A Free School Community Seminar in the Edgar Cayce Readings Food Organic Gardening Historical Background: Women's Liberation Women's Liberation: Medical Information 20th Century Women Writers: An Introduction Self-Defense for Women Poetry of Resistance Technology and Society Film and Social Change The New Music Black Action Theatre Writing on the Walls Men Against Sexism: Consciousness Raising for Men Imno Poetry The Cities: The Institute for Syntropic Studies Centering Buckminister Fuller Seminar Primal Poetry Meditation Workshop Greening of America Sewing: A Meditative Art Is a popular revolution possible in an advanced capitalist democracy? Is any particular sector of the proletariat the key to a revolutionary strategy? What is the relation between women's liberation and capitalism? Why have past Socialist and Communist movements always failed in the United States? socialist Revolution ...is attempting to deal with these and related questions. Among the articles we are publishing are James O'Connor on the Fiscal Crisis of the State, James Weinstein on the I.W.W., Serge Mallet on the Soviet Union, Ellen Willis on Consumerism and Women, Saul Landau on the Contemporary Film, and Robert Fitch and Mary Oppenheimer on Finance Capital. Subscribe. SPECIAL OFFER: For a New America: Essays in History and Politics from "Studies on the Left," 1959-1967. $1.50 with subscription. SOCIALIST REVOLUTION 1445 STOCKTON STREET SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 9413 NAME ___ ADDRESS____ CITY___ STATE___ ZIP___ Single Issue @$1.50___ Foreign Subscription @$6.50___ Subscription (6 issues) @ $6.00__ SPECIAL OFFER @$7.50 Dayton, Ohio is getting together a Regional Women's Center. Its purpose is to provide better communication within the woman's movement in SW Ohio. The address for their newsletter is: Dayton Women's Liberation 1721 Burroughs Drive, Dayton, Ohio 45406 The new Gettin on Women Collective's newsletter announces a woman's house in East Lansing, Michigan - women are always welcome. The address of both the house and the newsletter is: Gettin on Women Collective 358 N. Harrison E. Lansing, Michigan 48823 A Woman? January 29, 1971 7
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