October14: Continuing the Fight for Rights and
Reassertions of Authority
Read for October 14:
·
Seventies: 159-189
· What It Would be
Like if Women Won by Gloria Steinem What
do you think of Steinem’s views? What is her argument? Do you find them
objectionable and radical and offensive as many conservatives at the time did?
· The Positive Woman
by Phyllis Schlafly
· Compare
Schlafly’s position with Steinem’s. Be prepared to show how and why the issue
of women’s rights became a polarized issue using these 2 documents. Be sure you
can define polarized politics within the context of these documents
one other
selection from the recommended list below.
·
“Fundamentalist Sex” – what is
her argument?
· Explanation for why the pay gap
existed in 1970, what is the explanation? Compare various groups of women
· Gender
Pay Gap by Occupation -search this page and be prepared to tell me
what the pay gap is for the occupation for which you are preparing, or for the
occupation of a family member.
Recommended:
· Myth of the Vaginal
Orgasm (one of the more famous documents of the Women’s movement)
· Documents from the Women’s
Liberation Movement
· Feminist Chronicles (Year by Year 1953-1993 listing of events important to women’s history, women’s movement, organized according by categories, including opposition to feminism).
· “Fundamentalist Sex” – Barbara Ehrenreich’s look at how the women’s movement and new views of sexuality transformed even those who opposed the movement, like fundamentalists
· National
Organization for Women http://www.now.org/
Women
in the Workplace and as activists:
·
Explanation for why the
pay gap existed in 1970, ==very good on the pay gap and limited job
opportunities for women, including African American Women
·
“The Bottom of the
Economic Totem Pole”: African-American Women in the Workplace 1970
Congressional Testimony
·
Women on
Welfare -- 'Having babies for profit is a lie that only men could make
up." Johnnie Tillmon testimony, 1971.
· Remembering Karen Silkwood
woman who took on Kerr-McGee and paid with her life
·
Backlash
Against Feminism –the backlash started almost as soon as the movement
began. Read this to clear up misconceptions about what feminism is, and how the
backlash has dominated the agenda
· Joey’s problem --
o Sociologist Arlie Hochschild examined the way that
problems that seem personal in nature often are derived from general political
and social inequities that remain unexamined. In her book, the Second Shift,
(1993) she interviewed a number of people, including the couple in this
excerpt, whose lives illustrate this point. For women, the work world is
structured in a way that women and family remain in a modern day battleground,
or where women resolve to work within the norms that society establishes for
them. The “modern” family of two or more wage earners has become standard
requirement for family survival. What personal consequences does this have?
Are there only personal solutions, or should the political and economic system
shift to make room for more innovative possibilities, to create a meaningful
life for women, men and children? What do you think of the Holt’s solution to
their problem?
·
Gender
Gap of Earnings http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/Stats_incpov.html Navigate to about midway through the
webpage, go to Race and Sex, then see paragraph and charts beginning with “News
on the Gender Gap” and through to the
end of that section on women. The source of the information is at the bottom of
the page
·
What
the pay gap costs families: http://www.aflcio.org/women/equalpay.htm == Equal pay has been the law since 1963,
but the reality has not caught up with the law
·
“The Bottom of the Economic Totem
Pole”: African-American Women in the Workplace 1970 Congressional Testimony
·
Lillian Roberts
Describes Organizing Hospital Workers in New York City, 1960s-70s
·
Debating the Equal Pay Act of 1963
Two Labor Union Officials Voice Opposition to
the ERA, 1970
Shelley Ettinger Recalls Working
for the Ann Arbor Bus Company -- culture of tolerance for gays in selected
workplaces
·
Snappy
Answers to Stupid Questions – advice for women steelworkers entering plants
in the 1970s
Housewives and More:
·
The Politics of
Housework classic document from the women’s movement of the 1970s, raises
critical issues about the nature of work
·
Lois Gibbs She became an environmental activist when
she found her children were damaged neurologically from Love Canal corporate
chemical poisoning; very moving account
Voices from the Gaps, Women Writers of Color http://voices.cla.umn.edu/ethnicity.html
Including Winona LaDuke,
AIM activist http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/WinonaLaduke.html
·
Women on Welfare
-- 'Having babies for profit is a lie that only men could make up."
Johnnie Tillmon testimony, 1971.
·
Backlash
Against Feminism –the backlash started almost as soon as the movement
began. Read this to clear up misconceptions about what feminism is, and how the
backlash has dominated the agenda
· Joey’s problem -- Sociologist
Arlie Hochschild examined the way that problems that seem personal in nature often
are derived from general political and social inequities that remain
unexamined. In her book, the Second Shift, (1993) she interviewed a
number of people, including the couple in this excerpt, whose lives illustrate
this point. For women, the work world is structured in a way that women and
family remain in a modern day battleground, or where women resolve to work
within the norms that society establishes for them. The “modern” family of two
or more wage earners has become standard requirement for family survival.
What personal consequences does this have? Are there only personal solutions,
or should the political and economic system shift to make room for more
innovative possibilities, to create a meaningful life for women, men and
children? What do you think of the Holt’s solution to their problem?
·
Feminism,
New Ecology -- Excerpt from Edmund Morgan, The Sixties; this is a
reading from another course, it is terrific analysis of how feminism, ecology
grew out of 1960s movements and the idea of the limits to capitalist growth.
Very provocative reading