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 AMERICA
Vol. 16, No.6 Nov.-Dec., 1982

INTRODUCTION 2

LEBANON AFTER THE ISRAELI INVASION 7

Fuad Faris

POEMS 23
Dick Lourie

FOUR DECADES OF CHANGE: BLACK W ORKERS 27

IN SOUTHERN TEXTILES, 1941-1981
Mary Fredrickson

POEMS 45
Bronwen Wallace, Robin Becker

MOTHERING, THE UNCONSCIOUS, AND FEMINISM 47

Judy Housman

SEXUALITY AND MALE V IOLENCE 63

Peter Bradbury

POEM 72
•
John Demeter

GOOD READING 73

LETTERS 78
INTRODUCTION

Since last summer's invasion of Lebanon, we, perhaps like many of our readers, have
been examining our past assumptions and actions regarding the Middle East. As an editorial
collective we have been talking, reading, and thinking together about how to engage in
a serious review of Israeli and US policy and of the complex social, economic, and political
questions involved in the simple phrases "Arab-Israeli conflict" or "Palestinian question. "
One result of our review is that we have been somewhat astounded by our own previous
ignorance. We have not arrived at a unified position, nor have we really strived for one,
but collectively we have come to a new awareness of the importance of directly addressing
issues in the Mideast - no matter how "uncomfortable" they may make us - in order
to develop a serious critique of US policy at least, and of international political forces and
(.)
trends at best.
In future issues we hope to engage in such questions more directly. Here we are pleased
to present Fuad Faris's article "Lebanon After the Israeli Invasion" as a start in our effort
to conquer our ignorance and to better understand the complex dynamics of Middle Eastern
political struggle. The article allows us to see the Lebanon situation in a fuller historical con­
text and to get away from the easy, but misleading, categorization of Christians, Jews,

2
 and Arabs which we have been given to explain Please bear with us as we explore such ques­
Middle Eastern politics. Faris helps us to see the tions in future issues. For now we are happy to
roots of the Phalangists and the current divisions begin the discussion with a piece which sets a

.) in regard to internal Lebanese politics and to serious, nonpolemical tone while still raising the
Lebanon's complex relations with other Arab critical political questions which we have
states, Israel, and the US. He begins one impor­ avoided for too long.
tant part of our political education by suggesting * * *
that there are important differences among
Christian and Arab groups in the area and that Motherhood continues to be, as it has always
an informed analysis must take such differences been, a politically charged issue. However,
into account. these debates are taking place in a political con­
Of course, one short article leaves us with text quite different from that in which the
many questions which must also be answered if women's movement first raised the issue.
we are to develop a more useful analysis. Faris Where the women's movement once examined
mentions the positive, progressive hope of the motherhood as a social institution in order to
National Front in Lebanon, but we need to challenge its role in defining and restricting
know more about such groups just as we need to women's lives, motherlIood is now raised, by
know more about leftist forces within the PLO the New Right and some left groups as well as
and within Israel. What are the positions of such some women's groups, as the basis for women's
groups? How do they connect to different inter­ participation in social movements. (See RA,
national left alignments? What are their bases Vol. 16 No. 1-2, and the letters column in this
within their communities. ? Any hope for a clear issue.) Where the terms and experience of
left socialist position on the Middle East is mothering were once examined to reveal its
dependent on our knowing more about indige­ complex relation to the deeply rooted norms of
nous left formations there. heterosexuality, mothering is now seen by some
Similarly we need to know ,more about the as the essence of femininity. And where the
reality and the illusion of religious issues in women's movement once viewed motherhood
defining politics in the region. Faris explains as one of many institutions and relations
how French confessional politics was used to reproducing male dominance, and saw mother­
divide people and to create a sense of false hood itself as a complex group of activities
religious, rather than class unity. But surely (including housework as well as childrearing),
Moslem fundamentalism is a force in the area, motherhood is now defined more narrowly
as is Jewish traditionalism. What hope is there in terms of childrearing. Correspondingly,
for overcoming religious definitions of prob- changes in childrearing are seen as the primary,
e) lems and achieving a fuller socialist approach? if not exclusive, way to change gender roles.
As with so many leftists we have often sought It is within this changing political and ideo­
to avoid the irrational religious disputes of the logical context that Judy Housman reexamines
world, or to redefine them as class or national Nancy Chodorow's The Reproduction of
problems. Can we really do this in the Middle Mothering, a book produced within (and made
East, or is the effort too easy for us, a way of possible by) the "second wave" of feminism,
laying our categories on the questions? but one which can take on very different mean-

3
ing in the current period of antifeminist back­ which explores some of the same questions. It
lash. Housman's article is less a specific critique represents at attempt by one heterosexual man to
of Chodorow's work (although she raises impor­ explore, in a very personal way, the roots of his
tant questions about the assumptions behind and �
m sculinity. !�
that sense it embodies a con- .
: (
areas of focus in that work) than a reraising of sClousness-ralsmg exploratlOn of self, much like
issues which once surrounded the work and are the activity through which women first raised
now in danger of being forgotten. She urges us the cluster of issues which gave rise to Chodo­
to reconsider our assumptions about gender and row's work. Bradbury raises important ques­
sexuality, and what challenges to male power tions about the ways boys are raised in a male­
might mean for the future of differences be­ dominated culture, their relation to women and
tween men and women. And she warns us domesticity, their construction of sexuality, and
against pessimism in the face of these deep­ their habit of using physical violence in intimate
seated ways of relating; she emphaasizes the relationships. We urge that both articles be read
impact which changes in other social institutions as much for the questions they pose about each
can have on the nonns of motherhood itself. other as for the insights which each provides.
We are also reprinting in this issue Peter Brad­
bury's analysis of sexuality and male violence,
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·LEBANON AFTER THE
ISRAELI INVASION

Fuad Faris

December 1982
In Section I, I relate events that occurred after the Israeli invasion started in June . In
Section II, I try to place these events in their historical context to better understand them .
Finally, in Section III, I try to assess how the situation may develop in the next few
months.

I. THE INYASION AND THE FEW MONTHS AFTER

Shortly after the Israeli army withdrew from Beirut in late September, the (newly
reorganized) Lebanese army started a campaign of roundups in the city. These roundups,
• which lasted for the best part of October, were primarily conducted in the shantytowns
and poorer sections of West Beirut , not in the residential areas. It was the first large-scale
operation by the Lebanese army since the 1975-76 civil war.
I would like to say a few words about these roundups and the way they were carried
out, because they illustrate rather well the antisocial character of the present government.
Although they were conducted by the army, the roundups should be viewed as the con­
tinuation of past actions by the Phalangist militias and their allies , but now under the cover

From a contemporary exhibit of Iraqi paintings, 1979, sponsored by the Association of Arab-American University 7
Graduates and the Iraqi Special Interests Section. Special thanks to the Association of Arab-American University
Graduates (Belmont, Mass.) for supplying us with all the graphics for this article.
of legality. In this there is no surprise. The Leb­
anese army, as presently constituted, is dominated
by elements sympathetic to the Phalangists. The
relationship between the two is in fact deeper than
this simple connection, and goes back to the his­
torical role played by the Phalangists vis-a-vis the
Lebanese state over the last forty years. I will come
back to this history later, but for now I want to
make a few points explicit about these roundups:
FIRST, it is true that they first rounded up
Palestinians, but later they went after Egyptians,
Sudanese, Syrians, and other non-Lebanese Arabs,
who were charged with not being legal residents of
Lebanon. As you might expect, these were all poor
people, like the poor Mexicans who cross the US
border without legal papers and who end up doing
the most menial work. Rich and well-to-do Egypt­
ians, Syrians, and even Palestinians invariably have
all necessary legal papers. Therefore they have not
been bothered, and will not be bothered, by the
Lebanese government.
SECOND, once they finished with people with­
out proper identification, they went after people
who had built their houses on private or govern­
ment land without permit. During the first three
George Nehmeh. Refugee women at food distribution point
weeks of October, the Lebanese army demolished in Sidon
whole sections of squatter homes occupied by
poor Lebanese from the South or the Beka valley. was that it was conducting routine roundups, dis­
When the army brought bulldozers to destroy arming all armed elements in the capital, and that
what it said were illegally built houses in Ouzai it intended to exercise its authority in both East
(a neighborhood near the airport), there was a and West Beirut. Up to this moment, however, the
bloody confrontation with the residents (all Leb­ army has not disarmed any armed element in East
anese) which ended up in the death of several Beirut, which effectively remains under Phalangist
people. control.
THIRD, the roundups in West Beirut provoked This last point raises a crucial question about
a public outcry, not only among progressive circles where the center (or centers) of authority lie in (.
in Lebanon but also in Europe. So much so that the present government. For one thing, the govern­
both the French and Italian governments, whose ment's defensive and apologetic attitude concern-
troops are part of the multinational peacekeeping ing actions by its military indicates that some of
force in Beirut, found it necessary to warn the these actions went beyond what was officially
Lebanese government against taking further repres­ sanctioned by the government. Furthermore, part
sive measures. The Lebanese government's answer of the reality is that the Lebanese army cannot -

-------------- ------
 and will not - displace the Phalangist militias from and who had been the favorite up until 1 97 5 to
of legality. In this there is no surprise. The Leb­
East Beirut and other parts of the country which assume the party leadership, eventually faded out
anese army, as presently constituted, is dominated
they control. Not only is the Lebanese army no in Bashir's favor.
by elements sympathetic to the Phalangists. The
relationship between the two is in fact deeper than match for the Phalangist militias but, more im- There was therefore no surprise this past July
this simple connection, and goes back to the his­ • portant, its officer corps includes people with when, at the height of the Israeli onslaught on
torical role played by the Phalangists vis-a-vis the opposing loyalties, with many who are outright Beirut, Bashir Gemayel announced that he was a
Lebanese state over the last forty years. I will come sympathizers with the Phalangist militias. candidate for the presidency. Within the Phalangist
back to this history later, but for now I want to Perhaps the most important center of power in party he was the architect of its alliance with
make a few points explicit about these roundups: Beirut now lies with the Phalangist militias (or Israel. He was the most staunchly anti-Palestinian,
FIRST, it is true that they first rounded up more precisely, with the so-called Lebanese Forces and the Phalangist whom Israel favored most. On
Palestinians, but later they went after Egyptians, of which the Phalangist militias form the core). August 23, Bashir Gemayel was elected president
Sudanese, Syrians, and other non-Lebanese Arabs, And because these militias do not owe allegiance by a moribund parliament that was revived for the
who were charged with not being legal residents of to the government, they are a threat to its author­ occasion by the presence of Israeli guns.
Lebanon. As you might expect, these were all poor ity. The challenge represented by the Phalangist But, after the PLO withdrawal from Beirut,
people, like the poor Mexicans who cross the US militias is indeed quite serious because, with Israeli Bashir as president faced a new situation. The Pal­
border without legal papers and who end up doing backing, they are considerably more powerful than estinian "threat" was removed from Beirut and the
the most menial work. Rich and well-to-do Egypt­ the Lebanese army. This may appear paradoxical, Lebanese National Movement was forced under­
ians, Syrians, and even Palestinians invariably have since the Lebanese president (Amin Gemayel) is ground. No longer just the commander of the Pha-
all necessary legal papers. Therefore they have not himself a Phalangist. Is there indeed a conflict be­
been bothered, and will not be bothered, by the tween Amin Gemayel and other members of the *Are these just personal differences? Of course not. The

Lebanese government. Phalangist Party, on the one hand, and the Pha­ American press has repeatedly contrasted the "mild­
langist militias allied with Israel, on the other? mannered" Amin Gemayel with his "ruthless" brother
SECOND, once they finished with people with­ Bashir. If events in Lebanon are to be explained on
out proper identification, they went after people grounds other than some fraudulent psychology, then
who had built their houses on private or govern­ these personal differences must be seen less as the cause
The Lebanese Forces Against
ment land without permit. During the first three than as the effect of the two opposite (but complemen­
George Nehmeh. Refugee women at food distribution point The Phalangist Party? tary) functions played by the Phalangists in the service of
weeks of October, the Lebanese army demolished in Sidon
the Lebanese state over the last four decades. Whether
whole sections of squatter homes occupied by the Phalangist Party played up its liberal image or showed
was that it was conducting routine roundups, dis­ Divergences within the Phalangist Party have
poor Lebanese from the South or the Beka valley. its repressive antidemocratic character, it was always in
arming all armed elements in the capital, and that existed for a long time, and are in fact part of its
When the army brought bulldozers to destroy defense of the existing order. At times when the service­
it intended to exercise its authority in both East history over the last four decades. There were al­ based Lebanese economy prospered, the first role took
what it said were illegally built houses in Ouzai
and West Beirut. Up to this moment, however, the ways elements in the party that promoted its precedence over the second; at other times when the
(a neighborhood near the airport), there was a
army has not disarmed any armed element in East paramilitary function, while others among its Lebanese state was under attack, the second role took
bloody confrontation with the residents (all Leb­ precedence over the first. In this way the Phalangist party
Beirut, which effectively remains under Phalangist leaders were more concerned about fending off
anese) which ended up in the death of several faithfully reflected what in Section II is identified as the
control. its reputation as an authoritarian and paramilitary
people. "main contradiction" that governed Lebanese life since
This last point raises a crucial question about party.* the late 1940s.
THIRD, the roundups in West Beirut provoked
where the center (or centers) of authority lie in (. •) During the 1 975-76 civil war and the troubled However, the two wings of the Phalangist Party repre­
a public outcry, not only among progressive circles
the present government. For one thing, the govern­ years following it, the Phalangist militias gradually senting these two opposite roles are now vying for control
in Lebanon but also in Europe. So much so that of the party. What used to be a complementary relation­
ment's defensive and apologetic attitude concern- took charge of setting party policies. In the pro­
both the French and Italian governments, whose ship between the two is now turning into an antagonistic
ing actions by its military indicates that some of cess, Bashir Gemayel, as commander of the Pha­
troops are part of the multinational peacekeeping one. Why? The difference today is Israel's presence in
these actions went beyond what was officially langist militias since 1 976, became increasingly Lebanon, which has only use for the Phalangists as a re­
force in Beirut, found it necessary to warn the
sanctioned by the government. Furthermore, part influential in party affairs. His older brother Amin, pressive social force but not as a beneficiary of a restored
Lebanese government against taking further repres­
of the reality is that the Lebanese army cannot - who represented the "civilian" wing of the party service-based economy.
sive measures. The Lebanese government's answer

9
8

�--------- ------
langist militias, he now wanted to govern the military officers, who preferred to keep their
country. For this he had to find new internal alli­ militias outside the authority of a government
ances that would not only legitimize his presiden­ that might not give top priority to the war against
cy, but would also save him from becoming a the Palestinians.
Lebanese proconsul for Israel. In this effort, Bashir
could count on the support of traditional politi­ Who Killed Bashir Gemayel?
cians as well as the support of the "civilian" wing
of his own party; they all had an interest in restor­ Not much has been said in the American media
ing the sOcial-economic-political order which exist­ about the assassination of Bashir Gemayel. By
ed in Lebanon before the civil war, and which contrast, considerable coverage has been given to
made Lebanon more dependent on the Arab world the Sabra and Shatila massacres.
than on Israel. Both events are, however, intimately related -
The contradiction between Phalangist rule and not in the sense that the assassination led to the
Israeli domination in Lebanon came to a head just Israeli occupation of Beirut, which in turn allowed
a few days after Bashir's election. In a now well­ for the massacres to take place. In fact, from the
documented encounter between Menachem Begin various depositions in front of the Israeli panel of
and Bashir Gemayel in Nahariyah, Begin accused inquiry, it has become clear that (1) Bashir's assas­
Gemayel of being ungrateful for all that Israel had sination was only an excuse for the Israeli army's
done for the Phalangists. Gemayel on the other entry into Beirut, which had been carefully
hand declared that Begin was making impossible planned by the Israeli general staff, and (2) the
demands on him and Lebanon. ! joint Israeli-Phalangist operation into the Sabra
This conflict in fact reflected a similar conflict and Shatila camps was also part of the attack plan,
within the ranks of the Phalangist Party, with the even though the killing inside the camps may have
militias taking an overt pro-Israeli position, and gone beyond what Israeli generals had explicitly
with the "civilian" wing of the party trying to allowed.
keep a distance from Israel. Thus, whereas the The real intimate link between the two events
militias have refused to make concessions, however (Bashir's assassination and the massacres) is that
minimal, for the sake of "national reconciliation," they were conducted by the same forces, pursuing
the "civilian" wing wants to govern Lebanon by the same political objective. The objective is to
finding ways to accommodate some of the tradi­ create a Palestinian-free Lebanon under a govern­
tional opposition groups as well as the Arab states. ment that is subservient to, and wholly dependent
The intra-Phalangist conflict also reached the on, Israel. As it is turning out, the pursuit of this
crisis point as a result of the Israeli invasion. In objective is fraught with problems and may still
the few days before his assassination, Bashir backfire.
Gemayel, in his quest to become the uncontested Perhaps the large-scale killing in the camps was
leader of his party and the country, met several never explicitly ordered by Israeli officers. And \1>
times with the commanding officers of the Pha­ perhaps the liquidation of Bashir Gemayel was
langist militias. He wanted to discuss ways of never explicitly ordered by Israeli intelligence
integrating the militias into a Lebanese army that either. But the fact is that in both events, the
would be solely responsible to the government. instrument that carried out the action (namely
But just as in his meeting with Begin, Bashir re­ special units from the Phalangist militias together
portedly found himself at loggerheads with his with some units from Saad Haddad's force) was

10
 George Nehmeh. Ein el-Hilweh camp. Sidon.

an instrument created by Israel and wielded by sions in Lebanon. Without Israeli assistance, the
people with a vested interest in the continuation Phalangist militias are considerably weaker and
of Israeli domination of Lebanon. may lose the edge to control the situation.
One result of the assassination and the massa­ The events surrounding the assassination and
cres is that the Israeli government, under harsh the massacres have also embarrassed the new gov­
internal and external criticism, has been trying to ernment of Amin Gemayel. Amin Gemayel and
deflect the blame to the Phalangist militias. If the others in the Phalangist party have taken great
.) public outcry continues, the Israeli government pains in exonerating themselves from any respon­
will have to find scapegoats for its action. Sharon sibility. But herein lies the danger. If the govern­
and some of the other Israeli generals may have to ment can now keep its distance from the Pha­
be dismissed. But in addition, if public pressure langist militias, without fear of immediate retalia­
continues, Israel may have to distance itself from tion from them, it is in part because Israel is busy
the Phalangist militias. If this turn of events does repolishing its public image after the invasion and
take place, it will have important internal repercus- the massacres, and probably prefers that the mili-

11
 .

Don McCullin, Falange gunmen crawling through the lobby of the Holiday Inn Hotel, Beirut, 1976

tias do not try for the moment to confront the multinational peacekeeping force. Put simply, the
government. On the other hand, nobody in Leb­ Lebanese government views its own authority as
anon is now powerful enough to disarm the being eventually erected on a large influx of for­
militias - not even the Lebanese army (which in eign troops (and foreign money). The irony in all
fact is neither powerful nor trustworthy). The of this is that we have a government which claims
Phalangist militias are therefore biding their time a mandate to rid the country of all foreign troops
now, hoping that circumstances will soon enough (notably, Israeli and Syrian), but which is also
change in their favor. most eager to introduce other foreign troops
On October 24 the Phalangist militias organized (American, French, Italian).*
a mass rally in East Beirut. It was a show of force *The Lebanese government is not talking about a few
hundred or even a few thousand American, French, and
- and a warning that they do not intend to disarm
Italian soldiers. From the numbers mentioned, what is •
until all "terrorists and foreigners" (which are envisioned is a full-fledged foreign army that will fully
code words for Palestinians and Syrians) have been assume the role of a national army. When Amin Gemayel
forced out of Lebanon. In the meantime, Amin carne to the UN, and then visited Washington, Paris, and
Gemayel and the government are trying to build Rome, he repeatedly said that his government wanted a
multinational force that would include no fewer than
up their strength - unfortunately not by reorga­
30,000 soldiers, as well as an expansion of the present
nizing the army and securing its allegiance against 7 ,000-strong UN peacekeeping force in southern Leb·
the Phalangist militias, but by expanding the anon (New York Times, Oct. 21, 1982).

12
 II. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: comprised Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq, while
THE PHALANGIST PARTY France carved up two new states, Lebanon and
AND THE LEBANESE STATE Syria, out of the remaining area.
.)
In 1 926, the French Mandate authorities
Let me mention a few dates in the history of equipped Lebanon with its first and only constitu­
the Phalangists. The founder of the party, Pierre tion. This constitution maintained and extended
Gemayel, first thought of creating a nationalist the so-called "confessional" system of government
youth movement when he was attending the 1 936 in Lebanon. The cornerstone in this form of gov­
Olympic games in Berlin. Many years later, Ge­ ernment is the distribution of all government posts
mayel explained that "There [in Germany] I was and public offices on a religious or confessional
struck with admiration. We orientals are, by na­ basis. While confessionalism suited rather well
ture, an unruly and individualistic people. In French colonial policy of divide-and-rule, it was
Germany I witnessed the perfect conduct of a to contribute greatly to the strife and unrest in
whole, unified nation." He went on to explain Lebanese political life many decades later.
that he was particularly impressed with Germany's In 1 943 , the so-called National Pact was adopt­
sense of discipline, order, purpose, and nationalist ed by the then dominant political forces which
zeal that were manifestly absent in his native had just chosen complete independence from a
Lebanon. 2 declining France. The National Pact extended the
The Phalangist party was formally created on 1 926 Constitution and reaffirmed its confessional­
November 2 1 , 1 936, by five French-educated mid­ ist form .
dle-class profeSSionals, all Christian. They included Still in effect today, the National Pact stipu­
a pharmacist (Gemayel himself), a lawyer, two lates that the president of the republic be Maro­
journalists, and an engineer. Gemayel was deSig­ nite, the prime minister Sunni, the speaker of the
nated the "superior leader" (in French, Ie chef parliament Shiite, the deputy speaker of the par­
superieur), which is still the way they refer to him liament Greek Orthodox, the chief of the army
today. The party's motto, which in a way sums up Maronite , and so on. Seats in the parliament are
what it is all about , is God, Fatherland, Family. distributed according to a 6-to-5 Christian-to­
From the late 1 93 0s until the outbreak of the Moslem ratio, and appointments in the civil service
civil war in 1 97 5 , the Phalangists were always the according to a 1 -to- 1 Christian-to-Moslem ratio.
party defending the state. So much so that politi­ What I have just described is the general make­
cal commentators in Lebanon called it "the party up of the Lebanese state. However, this distribu­
of the state ." Whenever the state was in crisis, and tion of power on a confessional basis, far from
the army (always weak and with conflicting alle­ being what its apologists have presented as a "fair
giances) was hesitant in coming to its defense, the representation of the country's communal bal­
Phalangists would invariably play the role of the ance ," in fact served only to preserve a semifeudal
.)
"shock troops" in defense of the state. system of government over the uneven capitalist
Now what was this Lebanese state that the development of a service-based economy. In the
Phalangists were most eager to defend? 1 950s and 1 960s, the Lebanese economy flour­
The modern state of Lebanon was created in ished as a result of a vigorous growth in its com­
the 1 920s. After the First World War, England and mercial and banking sectors, as well as in tourism.
France divided up the Ottoman booty. England But the other side of the coin was a gradual depop­
took control of that part of the Levant which ulation of the countryside , a deterioration of

13
agriculture , and the expansion of Beirut as a typ­ Palestinian activities nor repel Israeli punitive raids
ical Third World metropolis (a glittering center against Palestinian centers in Lebanon. In alliance
surrounded by miserable shantytowns). with Lebanese opposition groups (left parties,
trade unions, and student organizatior.s), the Pal- .,
The Main Contradiction estinian movement in Lebanon incurred the wrath
of the parties defending the status quo. First
Contrary to general impression , the commercial among these was the Phalangist Party .
and financial class in Beirut (headed by a small
plutocracy that has had a virtual monopoly on The 1975-76 Civil War
government positions) has maintained a contradic­
tory attitude vis-a-vis the state of Israel over the This was the immediate background of the
last thirty years. Lebanese civil war. Having reaped the benefits of
Indeed the boom of the service-based Lebanese being the West's exclusive broker in the Middle
economy in the 1 950s and 1 960s was the direct East, largely because of the Arab economic block­
result of the emergence of the state of Israel and ade against Israel, the commercial-financial class in
of the Arab economic blockade against it : (1) start­ Beirut found itself in the early 1 970s caught up in
ing in 1 948, the port of Beirut carried all the tran­ all the consequences of the unresolved Arab-Israeli
sit that used to be carried by the port of Haifa; conflict. Its well-being was threatened by the
(2) the oil pipelines from the Arab hinterland emergence of an organized Palestinian resistance,
passed through Lebanon and Syria instead of Hai­ which not only led to stepped-up Israeli attacks on
fa ; (3) were it not for the blockade, the surplus Lebanese territory, but which was also the natural
capital that transited to Europe and the Americas ally of revolutionary forces within Lebanese
through Lebanese brokers would have been han­ society .
dled in Israel ; and (4) because Israeli aircraft were In its struggle against the Palestinian movement,
not allowed flight over any Arab country, Beirut the Lebanese state called on the army first. In the
managed to become the Middle East's center of early 1 970s, as the Lebanese army repeatedly
world air transport . Thus it was to the benefit of proved itself unable to control the situation, the
Lebanon's commercial-financial class to keep the Phalangist militias and other right-wing paramili­
Israeli economy sealed off from the Arab world as tary groups intervened. Mass demonstrations and
much as possible - and therefore not to reach a general strikes invariably ended up in bloody con­
settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Such a frontations. The spring of 1 97 5 marked the begin­
settlement would have brought strong competition ning of the civil war, when the Phalangist militias
from Israeli commercial and financial power. and their allies launched a campaign of harassment
On the other hand, the presence of a large num­ and armed provocation against Palestinian and
ber of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon , itself the Lebanese opposition groups.
result of the non-resolution of the Arab-Israeli However, by attributing the internal tensions t)
conflict, was a destabilizing factor. As a refugee and the rise of a militant Left exclusively to the
problem in the 1 950s and early 1 960s, the Pales­ Palestinian presence, the right-wing militias miscal­
tinian presence was (at worst) an irritant to the culated their ability to pursue successfully their
Lebanese socio-economic order. As an organized offensive against the Palestinian resistance move­
movement, the Palestinian presence later became a ment . This opened the door for the intervention
serious threat to a state that could neither contain of various outside forces in the civil war - pri-

14
 III. WHERE THE SITUATION
MAY GO FROM HERE

Of all the parties involved in the Lebanese con­

flict, the US and Israel are for the time being the
most powerful . The two have strong interests in
Lebanon , sometimes converging and sometimes
diverging, and both will seek to control the situa­
tion to their advantage .*
What is at stake is the nature of the present
Lebanese government and, in particular, its inter­
nal and external alliances. Let me therefore start
by summarizing what would be, from the Leba­
nese government's point of view, the most oppor­
tune development in the next few years.
Ideally , the people in power in Lebanon would
like to recover their role of middleman between
the West and the Arab hinterland . This means the
renewal and expansion of their economic relations
with the Arab states, especially the oil-producing
among them . If they want to meet the same degree
of success as in the 1 950s and 1 960s, the banks,
import-export companies, and other commercial
and financial concerns in Beirut will have to be far
removed from Israeli competition. This in turn
means that they have no special interest in resolv­
Don McCullin, 1979, Young Palestinian with portrait ing the Arab-Israeli conflict or in normalizing
of Arafat
economic relations with Israel.
marily Syria and Israel, both of which feared the But, at one and the same time, they also want
consequences of a victorious Lebanese National to reduce the Palestinian presence in Lebanon and
Movement in alliance with the PLO. eliminate any semblance of organized opposition
The civil war and its aftermath are now history. that may disrupt the working order of the service­
Throughout the last eight years, the forces of based economy. This , of course , would put Leba-
change in Lebanon remained alive against all odds.
. These forces also kept alive the promise of a re­
*1 shOUld be careful in what I will say. I do not mean that
) Israel is the equal of the US in the Lebanese, and more
newed struggle for a democratic Lebanon and for generally, Middle-Eastern situation. It is true that Israel
Palestinian self-determination. could not continue its aggressive policy were it not for
Contrary to what it tried to achieve , the Israeli American military and economic aid. But Israel is not a
puppet state of the United States, and therefore does not
invasion in the summer of 1 982 did not put an end
always act in a way which is in the best interest of its
to the Palestinian quest for national self-determi­ American patron. There has never been a master plan,
nation, nor did it eliminate progressive forces in according to which all reactionary forces determine their
Lebanese society. policies and actions.

15
non back to where it was ten to fifteen years ago of the US on behalf of the Lebanese government,
- and up against the same contradictions: How to Israel would have demanded (and obtained) land­
profit from the Arab world economically without, ing rights for El AI airlines at Beirut airport as well
simultaneously, having to face internal problems as branches for Israeli banks in East Beirut.
of an unbridled service economy? And how to As for the Israeli plan to control areas inhabited •
profit from the Arab world economically without, by a hostile Lebanese popUlation, it is not always
simultaneously, having to face the Palestinian by reliance on local surrogates (such as Saad Had­
problem and the non-resolution of the Arab­ dad's militias). A more effective means of control,
Israeli conflict? which also justifies the Israeli army's continued
presence, is the old principle of divide-and-rule .
Israel and the United States This was well illustrated by the measures taken by
the Israeli military authorities in the Shouf area,
As for Israel's interest in Lebanon , it is not only where rival (Druze and Maronite) clans were all
to eliminate any form of organized Palestinian given arms by the Israeli army. Factional battles
resistance (in order to pursue the annexation of in the Shouf are now weekly occurrences, and
the West Bank and Gaza Strip unhindered), but Israeli army units are routinely brought in to
also to bring Lebanon into its sphere of influence stop the fighting.
(economically and politically). Ideally , Lebanon The Shouf district is the northernmost area
would be turned into a "North Bank," which occupied by Israel. It borders the strategic Beirut­
would in many ways reproduce Israel's domination Damascus highway . Israel has so far resisted Amer­
of the West Bank. But such a development would ican pressure to withdraw from the Shouf. A
require the demise of the commercial-financial token pullout from the Shouf would strengthen
class in Beirut. And it would also require the polit­ Amin Gemayel's new government, as well as (tem­
ical fragmentation of Lebanon (for example, turn­ porarily) placate those who are despairing of an
ing the country into a federation of smaller and Israeli withdrawal with American assistance.
weaker cantons), since the unity of the country The American government's view is different
would be an obstacle to Israeli penetration. still. Policymakers in Washington talk about "seiz-
This is not just speculation. There is already ing an opportunity." This is the opportunity of
considerable evidence supporting this analysis of strengthening the US position in the Middle East,
Israeli policy in Lebanon. Israeli entrepreneurs, and maintaining what they call the West's "vital
armed with various plans for the Lebanese market, interests" in the region. In the words of a White
followed closely in Israeli soldiers ' footsteps. No House official, "We are in a much better strategic
sooner was the Israeli army in control of major position than we've been for 35 years. The Rus­
towns in southern Lebanon than Israeli commer­ sians are less of a worry , and there is plenty of oil
cial and financial concerns were opening branches around so that we don't have to worry as much
about Arab oil power. 4 So the view from Wash- $)
in them . During July , the second month of the ,,
invasion, the (one-way) trade earned Israel 4 mil­ ington is how to best use the Israeli card so as to
lion dollars; during August, the flow increased to strengthen and maintain the West's economic and
nearly 8 million dollars; and during the first three political domination of the Middle East. To put
months of the invasion, Israeli export to Lebanon things bluntly, the US will threaten the Lebanese
exceeded the total value of Israeli export to Egypt and other Arab governments with a prolongation
for all of 1 98 1 . 3 Were it not for the intervention of Israeli occupation (of Lebanese and other Arab

16
 territories) whenever these governments seem in­ role that exceeds the role it has historically played
clined to follow independent policies.* (namely that of a watchdog for Western interests
But there is also a limit to this kind of political in the Middle East). Therefore there is no need to
blackmail. If Israel is given a free hand in its policy allow Israel to now impose its own view of what
.) vis-a-vis the Arab world, and in particular concern­
Western policy in the region ought to be. It is
ing its occupation of Lebanon, it may provoke the better to have Israel as a malleable ally than as an
opposite: recurrent upheavals will sweep away arrogant partner.
conservative Arab governments and endanger the The differences between the US and Israel out­
West's economic interests in the region. The prob­ lined above are differences within the imperialist
lem, of course, is that Israeli policymakers cannot camp . These differences do not touch the West's
be turned on and off at Washington's will. long-term economic interests in the region, and
This is in fact a major source of tension be­ will remain differences on the degree of independ­
tween the US and Israel. There is no need, from ence Israeli policy will be allowed from American
the US point of view, to allow Israel to assume a policy.** The US neither has a particular interest
*There are of course variations on this general goal of "moderation. "
how to best preserve the West's' interests in the region. This policy of permanent military readiness, and
One extreme view is to completely identify these inter­ decisive superiority over Arab armies, has had other
ests with Israeli interests. Such a view is often expressed effects. For example, it is now an open secret that Israel
by people connected with the American military estab­ has developed a nuclear military capability and is intent
lishment, for example E. R. Zumwalt, who was a member on not letting surrounding Arab states use nuclear energy,
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970 to 1974 (New even for nonmilitary purposes (witness, for example, the
York Times, Nov. 19, 1982). At the other end of the bombardment of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in June 1981).
spectrum is the view that Israel's unchecked warmonger­ More far-reaching is the effect of this policy on the
ing is doing the West considerable damage. This view is Israeli economy. With a view to cover what it can of its
usually expressed by members and ex-members of the arms needs, Israel has become a major arms-producing
State Department, for example George W. Ball, former country. Before 1973, Israeli arms exports did not exceed
undersecretary of state (New York Times, July 28, 1982). $10 million a year; by 1976, they reached $300 million
See also the various articles by ex-members of the Ameri­ (in current US dollars); by 1979, they had doubled to
can diplomatic corps in American-Arab Affairs, Fall 1982. $600 million; and in 1980, they doubled again to $1.2
**Despite its heavy reliance on American foreign aid, billion. More significant still are Israel's military expendi­
Israel has in fact now a considerable margin for independ­ tures, which, throughout the 1970s, consistently came to
ent action, to the great frustration of American policy­ more than 20 percent of its gross national product. This
makers. The turning point occurred in the early 1970s, is particularly striking when compared with Brazil, which
and especially after the October 1973 war, when Israeli is the leading arms merchant of the Third World (just
military independence became a basic goal of every Israeli ahead of Israel): Brazil's military expenditures never
government. In that war the Israeli army was caught off reached more than 1.5 percent of its GNP. (Information
guard by the Egyptian and Syrian armies, and were it not on the Israeli arms industry is from The Nation, Dec. 4,
for the massive American airlift, the war would have end- 1982.)
• ed in a stalemate or even an Israeli retreat from the Sinai This Israeli military independence is only relative, to
and the Golan Heights. In the course of the ensuing nego­ be sure, and does not contradict the fact that the Israeli
tiations, in 1974 and 1975, the Israeli government agreed economy is sustained only because of an ever-increasing
to a disengagement of forces on the Egyptian and Syrian amount of American subsidies. In recent years, Israel has
fronts on the condition that the US supply the Israeli been receiving m(He than one-quarter of total American
army with enough hardware to sustain a six-month war foreign aid. For fiscal year 1983, the Reagan administra­
effort against Arab armies. Now, with a constantly re­ tion is proposing $2.5 billion in grants and loans for
newed reserve of a six-month stockpile, Israeli policy­ Israel, which represent 28 percent of the total foreign
makers do not need to heed as much American advice for assistance budget (New York Times, Dec. 7, 1982).

17
in, nor will it demand, a complete Israeli pullout the main support they will receive will be less
from Lebanon. from the US than from the conservative Arab
However, while these differences cannot be the governments, which all share the same conspira­
cause (at least directly) of a showdown between torial view of a powerful Israeli lobby holding
the US and Israel, the same is not true of their captive an otherwise benign American policy in •
respective friends in Lebanon. the region. Given the importance of the oil­
producing states for the West , these Arab govern­
Pro-Israeli Lebanese versus ments will certainly be more effective advocates
Pro-American Lebanese of an "American solution" in Lebanon than the
Lebanese government itself.
The Lebanese proponents of an "American The pro-American camp in Lebanon is now
solution," or what they imagine an "American most fearful of Israel and the proponents of an
solution" ought to be, include Amin Gemayel's "Israeli solution." The latter include the Lebanese
new government as well as the commercial-finan­ Forces (the coalition grouping the Phalangist mi­
cial establishment in Beirut. Somewhat ironically, litias and other proto-fascist groups) as well as

Don McCullin , Palestinians Surrendering to Xtian gunmen, 1976

18
 Major Saad Haddad's mercenary force in southern economy , strengthening its army , imposing its
Lebanon. With the PLO out of Beirut and the im­ authority on the right-wing militias, and securing
minent danger of a "leftist-Moslem" takeover a complete Israeli withdrawal.
removed, these various groups no longer have a If there are factors really working against Israeli
.•! function to perform in the view of many of their occupation of Lebanon, then these must be of a
former supporters. Most significantly, they do not different kind.
have the support of the commercial-financial es­
tablishment, which is now fully part of the pro­ Lebanese Resistance Against
American camp. Although the stronger militarily, Israeli Occupation
the Lebanese proponents of an "Israeli solution"
are the more isolated pUblicly . With Israel restrict­ True, Israel's invasion of Lebanon was a setback
ed by its own internal opposition and busy repol­ for the Lebanese National Movement (the loose
ishing its tarnished image, the pro-Israeli camp in coalition of opposition parties, groups, and asso­
Lebanon is now only maneuvering for better tac­ ciations) . But it did not remove the reasons for its
tical positions (sometimes without Israeli con­ existence . On the contrary , if anything, the in­
sent*), and is not in a position to directly chal­ vasion has put into sharper focus what separates
lenge the pro-American camp . The main danger the Lebanese National Movement from its oppo­
represented by these right-wing militias is that nents - the (pro-Israeli) right-wing militias as well
their several thousand members may prefer to as the (pro-American) Gemayel government .
precipitate a crisis rather than see their cause Openly linking their fate to Israel's presence in
abandoned in a diplomatic chess move. Lebanon, the right-wing militias appear for what
By way of recapitulating the preceding argu­ they are: an instrument of Israeli domination. As
ment, Lebanon's present government is not only for the new Gemayel government, a public dis­
deluding itself on the nature of the main contra­ illusionment is setting in , barely three months
diction that governed Lebanese life over the last after the beginning of its term. After the initial
three decades, namely the contradiction of being euphoria generated by American statements of
for the Arab world economically but against it support, Lebanese government officials are grow­
politically (or being for Israel's economic isolation ing desperate in their quest for a quick American­
from the Arab world but against assuming the sponsored Israeli withdrawal. * *
political consequences of the unresolved Arab­ The Lebanese National Movement is calling for
Israeli conflict). The Lebanese government is also a united Lebanese stand in the face of Israeli occu­
deluding itself and its public on the extent of pation , not counting on American good will to
American support it can get for rebuilding its force an Israeli pUllout. Of course , Lebanese so-
*This is, for example, what is now happening in many * * Their despair is such that they now seem willing to
consider options that were totally out of consideration in
II
of the villages and smaller towns in southern Lebanon,
where control has been delegated to right-wing militias, September. On November 29, Amin Gemayel called on
leaving the Israeli army in charge of the larger towns and the Soviet Union to play a role in Lebanon, adding that
major communication lines. In these rural areas, the right­ "US participation in helping Lebanon restore its sover­
wing militias have been far more ruthless in their treat­ eignty does not rule out relations with other countries."
ment of the popUlation than in the large towns, where on This was the first public sign of the Lebanese govern­
more than one occasion Israeli troops prevented them ment's frustration with the lack of progress made by the
from commandeering refugees' belongings or from mur­ US to rid Lebanon of Israeli troops (The Boston Globe,
dering them. Nov. 30, 1 982).

19
 George Nehmeh. Palestinian looks at ruins of his house at Burg el Shamali camp. lYre

ciety is not yet free of all the internal differences attacks against Israeli soldiers from the assassina­
that led to the civil war. A united stand against tion of Bashir Gemayel on September 14 through
Israeli occupation will therefore not be on the November 30_5 This does not include the explo­
basis of an equal participation from all sectors of sion in the Israeli military headquarters in Tyre on
the Lebanese population. But , for now, Lebanon November 1 1 , in which ninety people were killed.
is facing an overriding threat: the threat of losing What we are therefore witnessing is continual at­
its very identity as a united country with a reason­ tacks on Israeli troops, on the average of more
ably cohesive and independent society (with all its than one a day. Of course this kind of guerrilla _)
peculiar internal problems still to be resolved). In action will not by itself force an Israeli with­
this sense , Lebanon today is threatened with the drawal. In fact, as guerrilla attacks are stepped up,
same fate that befell Palestine in the 1 940s. we can expect Israeli retaliation (in the form of
How well is the Lebanese National Movement more roundups, punitive measures, harassment,
facing this threat? According to Israeli official and so forth), but also depending on the extent
sources, there have been eighty-three "terrorist" to which the Israeli government can sustain fur-

20
 ther loss in public support (both at home and The very high cost of the war in Lebanon is
abroad) . now compounding the problems of an Israeli
The potential for resistance is not only in guer­ economy with a galloping inflation (well in excess
rilla action, however. Various other acts of resist­ of 1 00 percent in recent years) , and with a very
.) ance are occurring daily (and increasingly reported high increase in the cost of living (almost 1 00
in the Beirut press). There has been passive non­ percent in 1 98 1 ) .
cooperation with public orders, boycott of Israeli This difficult economic situation has led to in­
goods, and refusal to deal with Israeli military ternal dissension in Israel and, not least of all , a
authorities. fairly widespread opposition to the government
As the Gemayel government proves unable to policy in Lebanon. Without overestimating the
achieve the stated goal of total evacuation of strength of this opposition now, it may well turn
foreign troops, the Lebanese National Movement out to be that extra obstacle necessary to stop a
will draw more public support, and will become further Israeli war adventure . It also underlines
the rallying point of the opposition to Israeli the importance of withholding American aid to
occupation. Israel, which is now essentially sent to cover the
war cost much more than to alleviate the endemic
The Price For Israel's War Policy problems of the Israeli economy.

Another important factor working against Footnotes

Israeli presence in Lebanon is the high price Israel
has paid to carry out the invasion - and will prob­ 1 . New York Times, Sept. 4 , 1 982.
2. Interview given to the weekly Beirut Magazine, Feb. 1 ,
ably continue to pay to maintain the occupation.
1 968. Again in November 1 98 1 , describing his visits in
Back in mid-July (the second month of the in­ 1 936 to Italy and Germany, Pierre Gemayel said that he
vasion) , Israeli government officials estimated that saw "wel1-organized, hard-working, disciplined- youth
direct and indirect costs for the war in Lebanon toiling to build a dynamic, well-ordered society. I wanted
had reached $3 billion.6 If we estimate that the to create an organization in Lebanon that could instill the
same kind of civic and moral courage I saw the Italians
war cost at least twice as much by the time the and Germans developing in their youngsters" (The Na­
PLO withdrew from Beirut at the end of August, tion, June 1 9, 1 982).
a conservative figure for the war cost is $6 billion. 3. Le Monde Diplomatique, November 1 982.
This does not include the costs of maintaining the 4. New York Times, Oct. 3 1 , 1 982.
5. W. E. Farrell in New York Times, Dec. 6, 1 982.
occupation since September, and various other
6. Le Monde Diplomatique, November 1 982.
costs resulting from it, such as the decrease in 7. Ibid.
tourism , estimated at $ 1 00 million, and the loss
of business with Egypt.7
True, the Israeli economy has made huge pro-
.) fits by penetrating the Lebanese market. But these
are relatively small, of the order of $ 1 0 million or FUAD FARIS is a Lebanese currently living in the
less per month, i.e., less than 1 percent of a con­ United States.
servative figure for the total war effort in Leba­
non. At the end, it is the American taxpayer who
is asked to foot the bill, or at least a considerable
part of it, for Israel's war policy.

21
 Critical Reading from SEP *
AMERICA'S IMPASSE
The Rise and Fall of the Politics of Growth
Alan Wolfe
. . . an orginal and important analysis ofthe paralysis ofAmerican politics. •
-Richard Barnett
. . . raises profound questions not merely about supply-side theology, but
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-Victor Navasky

*8 A devastating critique of traditional Democratic and Republican party

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o Reaganomics in its historical context. Wolfe's policy suggestions aim at

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N
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300 pp. $8.00 pbk.
E
T FRIENDL Y FASCISM
The New Face of Power in America W
H Bertram Gross
First rate. . . a fascinating provocative job. Bertram Gross has written an

R
important book, and it deserves the widest possible audience.
- M ichael Harrington

E At a time when theforces of totalitarianism threaten once more to crawl

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N better yet, a weapon-that can help to avert a distinctly unfriendlyfuture
-Alvin Tomer
L
D Examines how the chronic social and economic problems faced by the
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Big Government and Big Business to " manage" society in the interests of
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A
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of authoritarianism. An ex panded introduction measures the impact of
S
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350 pp. $8.00 pbk.
E
E THE LAST ENTREPRENEURS
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America's Regional Wars for Jobs and Dollars
Robert Goodman

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A snappy exercise in progressive economics. . . he's inviting comment,
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His report on the frantic bidding for private investment is eye-opening,
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This book ex plores regional decline and details how localities and states
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the question of the artist and politics remains for some a difficult one

for Victor Jara

this morning the two of them have gotten

into a discussion of whether the
artist really needs to get involved in politics

in fact they are both artists : one might be

a painter or a muslclan a writer
the other a dancer or a sculptor
maybe a potter someone in theater

anyway the question just seems to have

come up this particular morning over
a relaxed cup of coffee somewhere in
the United States where both of them live

they seem to agree that "in the Sixties"

as the phrase goes there were people dying
in the war so artists here felt the need
to respond react protest take part in
the peace movement but that now it seems

"nothing is really happening" as one of them

puts it "except the personal stuff
which is really important too and I feel
that the best way for me to contribute
is to do my own work now by myself"

but they don't want to be isolated

either - - - they are glad for each other and for
all the artists with whom they can share their
work ideas and pleasant companionship
like this morning's coffee and in their minds

or in their artistic vision so to speak

they see the world as a giant cafe
where seated at tables in Europe Africa
Asia Latin America other artists
are calling out to them "artists of
the United States! good morning have a nice day"
and waving their hands

23
- Dick Lourie
 •

E I G HT ANSW E RS CHOSEN AT RANDOM TO THE SAM E QU ESTION

why do you write so many political poems?

over the last twenty years my refrigerator
has kept getting filled up with eggs, milk, tomatoes,
beef, carrots, cheese, pie, coffee, celery,
lettuce, bacon, bread, cream, oranges, and
I! . now it won't hold anymore.

'I i
! I i,
why do you write so many political poems?

'I ! II Vietnam. Millions and millions of little bones.

!I I
why do you write so many political poems?
the following article appears in
every newspaper every day :
I,
,�i "last night a woman was raped here.
, I
1 authorities have speculated, however,
that she may have consented, or that by her
j:

I;1 'il
,I behavior or the way she was dressed
she may have in some way provoked
the alleged attack."
,
!I I why do you write so many political poems?

i'
Headline: " FAGS MURDERED".

why do you write so many political poems?

after Wounded Knee in 1876
!
,I I forgot, until Wounded Knee in
1973, and then I forgot
again - - - please excuse me.

I
!I I ! i
�, I
24
I i
. 11
why do you write so many political poems?
that night on the popular TV comedy
show the best joke was "Two Polacks" "Two Spics"
"Two Irish drunks" "Two little Japs":
the great American gift of laughter.

why do you write so many political poems?

an overwhelming majority of the
poets I spoke with told me that despite
their efforts they could not find anything
to rhyme with "Karen Silkwood", "Soweto ",
"Chile", "multi-national", "Puerto Rico", or "Love Canal".

why do you write so many political poems?

when I try to recall the phone numbers
of old friends, all I can find in my head
is a seemingly endless list - - - under
the heading BLACK PEOPLE WHO GOT KILLED YOUNG - - ­

of names I don't recognize, which repeat

over and over until they start to
become vaguely familiar: Addie Mae
Collins, Phillip Gibbs, James Earl Green, Denise
McNair, Carol Robertson, Cynthia
Wesley, and more ; they go on and on.

- Dick Lourie

25
'.
. FOUR DECADES
OF CHANGE:
Black Wo rkers i n Southern Texti les,
1 94 1 - 1 981

Mary Frederickson

Black workers in the southern textile industry have experienced rapidly changing
patterns of employment during the last forty years. Before 1 940 fewer than one southern
textile worker in ten was black and 80 percent of black workers toiled as "mill laborers"
in nonproduction jobs. By 1 978 one of every five workers was black, and black workers
held one-fourth of all operative positions. At present , black workers represent the largest
group of recently recruited workers within the industry ; in many southern mills they are
a majority of the workforce. The political importance of black workers' entry into and
mobility within the textile industry can be measured in terms of their role in ongoing
organizing efforts within the textile industry. The solidarity of black textile workers in
local southern communities and their role in grass-roots organizing for social , political ,
It) and economic freedom in the decades after World War II laid the groundwork for the
crucial role played by southern black workers today. 1
The employment shift which has occurred in the southern textile industry in the last
four decades followed a period of sixty years in which black workers in the South faced
restricted opportunities in a regional manufacturing system which rigidly segregated work­
ers on the basis of race and sex. The argument will be made here that despite the overt
exclusion of black workers from textile manufacturing between 1 880 and 1 965 , black

LaGrange, Georgia, feeding cotton 27

men and women have always played a critical role who were either owned by industrial entrepre­
in the growth and development of the industry in neurs or hired out by their owners to work in the
the South. small antebellum mills which dotted the streams
First , behind the statistics which indicate and rivers of the Piedmont. Prior to 1 860, no one
small percentages of black employees in the questioned the ability of black workers in handling ( t
South's most important industry , were thousands industrial work. To the contrary, indllstrialists
of workers for whom the title "mill laborer" praised the virtues of black labor over white , and
masked work which ranged from the least skilled slave labor over free. 2
to the most skilled of any performed in the mills. Emancipation brought a new occupational
Second, black workers comprised a reserve labor structure and a redefined status for the black
pool which management could and did tap when­ worker. In plantation areas the transition from
ever necessary. Although black workers were only slavery to share-tenancy resulted in black workers
occasionally used as strikebreakers, their mere attaining virtually the same economic rank as non­
presence in proximity to southern mill communi­ landowning whites. In cities and small industrial
ties functioned as a potential threat to white job towns, however, skilled and semi-skilled positions
security and served to keep the demands of white that had been filled by black slaves were newly
operatives to a minimum. Mill owners continually defined as "white ." The change was most notice­
considered hiring greater numbers of black work­ able in textiles. As the number of mills in the
ers and did so whenever a shortage of white labor South more than doubled between 1 880 and
appeared imminent. For example, during both 1 900, the spinning and weaving jobs went to white
World War I and World War II the percentage of workers, predominantly women and children who
black workers in the mills increased slightly . But left small farms to work in textiles. Most opera­
not until the 1 960s did the long-awaited severe tives had been black before the Civil War, but by
shortage of white employees finally transpire and 1 900 blacks made up less than 2 percent of the
result in the hiring of black workers in significant labor force in textiles. 3
numbers. After 1 965, black men and women were Industrialists had bargained with white south­
actively recruited for production jobs for the first erners and granted them limited amnesty from
time . direct competition with black workers for posi­
tions as operatives. Moreover, racial lines were
THE HISTORY OF BLACK drawn within the mills which reflected new
PARTICIPATION IN twentieth-century patterns of racial segregation
SOUTHERN TEXTILES throughout the South. As part of the extreme
racism of these years, an ideology developed that
The long history of black participation in the simultaneously mirrored and reinforced the occu­
southern textile industry began before the Civil pational segregation of black workers in textiles.
War when slave labor was responsible for spinning As Herbert Lahne wrote in 1 944, "There appeared <.
and weaving in the home production of cloth. to be no limit to the supposed justifications of
Slave women on southern plantations often re­ the exclusion of the Negro from the work of oper­
turned from a day of hard field work to "spin, atives - Negroes were said to be temperamentally,
weave, and sew well into the night." In the South­ morally, physically , etc., etc., unfit to be anything
east the transition from home to factory produc­ but laborers. All these reasons were, of course ,
,
tion was made by bondswomen and bondsmen beside the point. , 4

28

" ---- "---" --------

 The reorganized labor system in southern in­ MILL LABORERS AND
dustry was intact by 1 9 1 5 ; in textiles, the region's INDUSTRIAL OBSERVERS
most rapidly expanding industry, the new occupa­ It was as "mill laborers" that black workers in
) tional codes which virtually excluded black work­ southern textiles performed tasks which ranged
ers from operative positions were usually informal, from cleaning floors to installing electrical wiring
but a 1 9 1 5 South Carolina law gave succinct ex­ to repairing looms to constructing mill buildings
pression to them . The law (not rescinded until and mill housing. In the years after black workers
1 960) necessitated separate weaving and spinning were segregated out of operative positions, thou­
rooms for black and white employees. In this way sands of black employees continued to perform
black workers were banned from the primary work essential functions within southern mills. The
areas of the mills. The ruling read in part: work of black men and women included the most
arduous tasks of lifting and loading bales of raw
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of cotton and rolls of finished goods, as well as as­
the State of South Carolina, That it shall be signments in the opening and carding rooms, the
unlawful for any person, firm or corporation sections of the mill with the highest concentra­
engaged in the business of cotton textile
tions of cotton dust. In addition to doing the most
manufacturing in this State to allow or per­
mit operatives, help and labor of different disagreeable jobs, black workers made the lowest
races to labor and work together within the wages paid in the textile industry , a result both of
same room.S their confinement to certain jobs and of outright
wage discrimination on the basis of race . Sex pro­
The act had a second clause , however, which vided a third diSCriminatory factor, for white men
excluded made more than white women and black men
earned more than black women. Race was the
firemen as subordinates in boiler rooms, predominant wage determinant, however. For
truckmen , or . . . floor scrubbers and those example, in Georgia, in 1 938, black men made
persons employed in keeping in proper con­ 65 percent of the wages paid to white men; black
dition lavatories and toilets, and carpenters, women earned only 56 percent of the wages paid
mechanics and others engaged in the repair to white women; and black men were paid 78 per­
or erection of buildings cent of the wages paid to white women.6
Clearly black workers received lower wages
from its application. There is evidence that mill than their white counterparts, even within identi­
owners violated this statute whenever convenient cal job classifications, but it is of greater long­
or necessary, although the second clause of the range significance that the 80 percent of black
ruling left considerable leeway for hiring black workers categorized as "mill laborers" actually
• employees in a variety of positions. Textile entre­ held a wide range of jobs within the mills . As
preneurs across the South clearly wanted the early as 1 900 an Atlanta cotton manufacturer tes­
flexibility to hire whomever they pleased, but as tified before the United States Industrial Commis­
concessions to white southerners they gave white sion that he never attempted to work black and
employees priority, hired black workers as needed, white labor together - "except when the white
segregated the workforces within the mill, and help goes out to get a can of snuff the colored
liberally interpreted the title "mill laborer." sweepers run the loom." A 1 922 study of 2,750

29

.-
women in ten textile firms (840 of the women "industrial observers," knowledgeable about the
were black) reported that black women were organization of the industry and the hierarchy of
found in all of the twelve occupations in which the workforce, and accustomed to the pace and
white women were employed , although the black environmental conditions of industrial work. Hired
women also worked at cleaning and feeding, two in significant numbers in many mills, these work­
jobs not performed by the white women. A sample ers formed a substantial cohort of minority textile
of 1 1 5 black employees who worked in textiles in employees, forerunners of the thousands of black
LaGrange , Georgia for twenty-five consecutive workers who moved into operative positions after
years (between 1 925 and 1 969) listed thirty-eight 1 965 .
job classifications; among these workers were The work histories of two Georgia textile work­
master plumbers, skilled carpenters, card strippers, ers illustrate the role of the "industrial observer"
card tenders, picker tenders, mechanics, machine in more concrete terms. Both Julian West and Min­
fixers, landscapers, and a woman who stenciled nie Brown grew up in Westpoint , Georgia, where
flower designs. A survey of seventy textile mills in their fathers worked in the mill . When West
Virginia, North Carolina , and South Carolina in turned eighteen in 1 932 he entered the mill as a
1 95 1 reported that black workers were employed full-time worker. Brown got a mill job in 1 942,
as painters, plumbers, carpenters, and electricians when she was twenty-eight years old, after having
as well as truck drivers, sweepers, and janitors. worked for over a decade as a domestic worker.
Finally, in the late 1 960s Richard Rowan reported Both West and Brown retired after 1 97 5 , and
in his study of black workers in southern textiles their worklives spanned four decades of change for
that "Close scrutiny of the jobs in the laborer black workers in the industry. Their own careful
category would probably result in some of them descriptions of their work delineate the param­
being reclassified as semiskilled . . . . the nomen­ eters of their industrial experience and demon-
clature remains basically the same that it has been
,,
since the early 1 900's. 7
The positions which black workers held in tex­
tile mills were more varied and required greater
skill than southern industrial lore has recorded.
Moreover, mechanics, teamsters, painters, carpen­ \

ters, and sweepers had considerable mobility with­ ...

.�

in the mill. Unlike white operatives who could not

leave their spindles or looms, black workers had
the freedom to move from one section of the mill
to another. As roving workers, black employees
observed industrial work and learned about the
overall operation of the mill. When blacks worked
as mechanics and 100m cleaners they became fa-
.
miliar with industrial machinery, and as carpen­
ters ' electricians, and painters they were among
the few workers in textiles who labored as crafts­
men within an industrial setting. Thus, black work­ I
ers employed in textiles prior to 1 965 became Woman sweeper, girl s pinner, and boy doffer

30
 strate the subtle distinctions which have to be the time came that West was needed as a card
made when correlating job descriptions with job tender he was well prepared :
classifications. 8
Julian West's family moved to Westpoint in They wouldn't bother you, you see it
1 920 when he was six years old, after his father was allright if the racker would help the card
got a job as a sweeper in the mill. When teenagers, tender keep his job up. I had to be around
Julian and his two brothers went down to the mill the machine anyway because I had to service
with their father to help out in the cloth room for the machine . What I mean by that is that I
had to keep enough cotton up here for the
a few hours a day, and by the time West was
card tender to run. I couldn't let the cotton
eighteen he had a full-time job cleaning and
go out of the machine. And at the same
"chucking cloth ." West left the mill in 1 943 , went time, when I got through supplying the
to Michigan for several months, and when he re­ machine, putting enough cotton on the ma­
turned asked for a job in the carding department . chine then see I had to sweep around it and
Hired immediately, West stayed in the carding de­ keep the floor clean and all that kind of
partment until he retired in 1 978, and it was in the thing. So every chance I got to get up an
card room that West became an "industrial ob­ end, as we call it , and start that machine
server." Familiar with the mill since he was a child, back running, well then it was a help to that
knowledgeable about the cloth room where he had card tender, and finally, a long time before
worked with his father and two brothers, West they gave me a job running them, I'd learned
how to do it. One day the boss came out
entered the card room as a sweeper in 1 943 . Pro­
there and he asked me, "Julian, you reckon
moted to lap racker in 1 948, West became a card
you could run a set of those cards?" I told
tender in 1 965. But West knew how to tend cards him "yes, sir." And the next morning he
long before he got promoted to a card tender's gave me a job on them.
position. As he explained,
Well, you see, when I was a lap racker I'd Unlike Julian West, who changed positions
put up a bolt of cotton on this card ma­ three or four times during his worklife in the mill,
chine. Well maybe now the end of that card Minnie Brown worked for thirty-four years in the
has stopped. I mean the cotton has broke
same job. Hired in 1 942 as a "cleaner," she retired
out and the card has stopped or either kept
running and run over. Well, I would go over in 1 976 in the same position. As a child, Brown
there . Now the card tender, he'd possibly be "had been used to going to the mill carrying my
way down the line somewhere, and he got a daddy's dinner" ; years later, when one of the few
card up here that's overrunning. Well, I jobs available to black women opened up , she was
would stop and pick that cotton up and put eager to apply because the wages were much high­
it back in there and start it back to running,
••
er than those she could make as a domestic work­
although that wasn't my job. But I'd do it, er. Brown's j ob as a cleaner took her "all through
see, and that's the way it'd run. the mill from one end to the other." But Brown
For seasoned "industrial observers" like Julian did not just clean. Through her "white friends" in
West, transition to a production job did not in­ the weave shed and spinning room she learned how
volve additional training. By allowing West to to weave, decided against spinning ("I'd seen how
"learn cards" and help the white card tender, it Was done all right, but I didn't fool with it"),
management had ensured his training, and when and settled on work filling batteries:

31
 I'd be caught up with my job, you know, southern urban/industrial workers, not isolated
and I'd go down there and they'd let me fill subsistence farmers or sharecroppers. Like their
batteries. Just every night I'd go on back white counterparts, these first-generation black
down there to the weave shed. I'd get down textile workers came from agricultural back­
there and they'd say "start up there." And grounds to take jobs within the mills. But the
I'd throw that spool in and whip it around movement of black workers into industrial work in
there and like that. And I began to like it .
textiles was a three-step process involving three
They had so many to do . I didn't charge
generations of employees. The initial stage in­
nothing 'cause I was just learning. They'd
say "when you get ready just come on down volved migration from farms to southern urbani
here," and I'd say "all right ." industrial communities and jobs as sweepers and
cleaners in the mills. The second step, taken by
The testimony of workers like West and Brown the children of this first generation , involved the
confirms the existence of an informal work struc­ obtaining of jobs at the level of picker tender and
ture within the mills which differed from the lap racker. The final step, by the third generation,
formal job and wage classifications used by man­ included the large-scale movement of black south­
agement. While classified in "non-production" erners into operative positions beginning in the
jobs, both West and Brown performed tasks which mid-1 960s.
directly affected production. Moreover, within Second, within the context of local southern
"segregated" mills West and Brown worked side communities these individuals formed a small but
by side with the white workers who trained them. important group of workers whose ability to earn
White employees expressed appreciation for the regular cash wages augmented their standing with­
help they received and, according to West, would in the black community and their power within
reciprocate with cash payment or favors. Thus, the larger community. For example, among the
everyone benefited in some way from the opera­ 1 1 5 long-term black workers in the LaGrange ,
tion of this informal system . White production Georgia, mills at least 40 percent owned their
workers received much-needed assistance , black homes and many had credit at local furniture and
workers got industrial training and some extra pay, clothing stores. It was the norm for the children of
and management gained from increased produc­ these workers to finish high school, and many sons
tion without additional wage costs. In the long and daughters of this black community graduated
run the industry benefited most because it got a from college . Active in church work, a majority of
well-trained reserve workforce of black men and the LaGrange sample served as officers, deacons,
women eager to move permanently into higher­ or lay preachers within local black congregations.
paying jobs as production workers. The experience of black textile workers in
LaGrange was not unique . In Westpoint, Georgia,
FARM-TO-FACTORY MIGRATION in the "relatively progressive community" in •
AMONG BLACK TEXTILE WORKERS which Julian West grew up and then raised his own
children, the prevailing philosophy of life was
The historical and political significance of this based on the adage "If you work hard you can
group of "industrial observers" is twofold . First, make it ." Black families coming into town from
the experience of black textile employees in the nearby farms sought to buy a plot of land, build a
decades between 1 900 and 1 940 was that of house, and send their children to school. Parents

32
 workers who became textile operatives after 1 965
did not come from the agricultural sector. Rather,
their families were already part of a southern
urban/industrial workforce, and they were second­
or third-generation city dwellers and often second­
generation mill workers. But unlike southern white
textile workers, black workers had experienced
little mobility within the mill, and had made their
homes in communities shut off from equal access
to full political, economic, or social participation
even in the larger community of textile workers.
The combination of these two factors, familiarity
with industrial work and industrial skills on the
one hand, and the denial of equal participation on
the other , made southern black textile workers
more predisposed to both collective action and
union organizing than the white workers who had
preceded them into the mills.
For example , when Jim Thomas's grandson be­
Hyster operator, Elm City Warehouse and Yards, came a textile operative in the mid-1 960s, his
LaGrange Mills, 1 949 knowledge of industrial work was based in part on
worked extra hard to keep their children out of his grandfather's experience in the card, picker,
the mills. Mattie Ivey, whose grandfather was a and opener rooms of the Unity Spinning Plant in
slave and whose father worked on the railroad, LaGrange from 1 929 to 1 954. Young Thomas's
worked the 6 p .m . to 2 a.m. shift as a cleaner in familiarity with factory town living came from
an Alabama mill, and she held two additional his father's position in the Elm City Weave Room
domestic cleaning jobs to send her four children in the 1 950s and his own childhood spent in
through college . She and her husband, a mill ele­ LaGrange . For Julian West, who grew up in the
vator operator, "survived and succeeded through black community in Westpoint , Georgia, and
hard labor." They labored in the mill for over whose father had retired from the mill, a job in
thirty years, "did not drink, smoke or party," and textiles meant continuing his father's fight for
used what little money they had so their sons and civil rights within the workplace . Inside the mill,
daughters could "follow what they learned." The working for equality meant fighting for the union,
children of southern black mill communities were and West's allegiance was second nature . In the
taught to work hard and maintain their allegiance plant, West worked for the union , and at home he
to church and school. 9 fought to keep his children out of the mill and
Firmly grounded in well-established black com­ send them to college. l O
munities, many southern black workers who en­ Both Jim Thomas's grandson and Julian West
tered the mills in the 1 960s and 1 970s had sub­ worked in tandem with previous generations of
stantially different backgrounds from those of black textile workers. The children of people who
white operatives who migrated from farm to fac­ believed that "if you were going to survive in this
tory between 1 900 and 1 940. Numerous black society you had to be able to hold a job" struggled

33
to provide their own children with the opportuni­ the land when work was irregular in the mills, and
ties for work which they had been denied. Taught vice versa. One advantage of this dual farm/factory
by their parents to "go ahead but be careful," worklife by families has been that as black workers
black workers in the period between 1 940 and organized in the mills they had resources and op-
1 980 used their positions within the community tions rarely available to earlier generations of t))
and the plant to fight for the right to fill jobs they white workers who lived in company-owned hous-
could already perform, to have access to better ing. For example, in a study of mill workers in a
jobs, and to earn wages equal to those of white rural North Carolina community, Dale Newman re­
employees. ported that two black workers involved in collec-
tive action to improve working conditions in the
RURAL INDUSTRIALIZATION plant expressed "sensitivity to the possibility their
actions might result in losing their jobs but as they
Another version of the multi-step migration were both landowners, they and their wives were
,
pattern by black workers who have become textile willing to take the chance . , 1 2
operatives occurred in eastern North Carolina and
in low-country South Carolina where mills were CHANGING PATTERNS
built and still operate in small rural communities. OF EMPLOYMENT
In these areas the children of black sharecroppers
have quit farming and come into the mills in a way The number of black workers in the textile
which initially appears to duplicate the farm-to­ industry has changed dramatically within the last
factory migration of white workers in the years be­ forty years. Between 1 940 and 1 978, the partici­
tween 1 900 and 1 940. But the lives of black work­ pation of black textile employees multiplied six­
ers migrating to the mills in the 1 960s and 1 970s fold (from 24,764 in 1 940 to 1 52,458 in 1 978).
have been influenced as much or more by their The greatest increase in black employment oc­
experience off the land as by the fact that their curred between 1 966 and 1 968 when in North
parents were sharecroppers. For example , when Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia the propor­
James Boone, a black North Carolinian in his early tion of black workers rose from 1 0 to 1 5 percent.
twenties, took a job as a doffer in 1 97 1 , he came In South Carolina and Georgia, the southern tex­
into the mill after already having worked for sev­ tile-producing states with the highest black popu­
eral months in textiles and as a store clerk in Wash­ lations, the percentage of black workers within
ington, D.C. Boone had grown up in the country the industry traditionally has been higher than the
outside Roanoke Rapids, but he had come into regional average . For example , in South Carolina
town to attend high school, and unlike the white in 1 920, black workers comprised 1 0 percent of
tenant children who had migrated to textile com­ the state's textile workers, at a time when the in­
munities in the 1 920s, he was familiar with the dustry average was 2.6 percent. The representation
local J. P. Stevens plants. His father had worked of black workers has been consistently highest in •
for many years in a paper mill and was a proud Georgia, where between 1 966 and 1 968 the per­
member of the International Woodworkers Union centage of black employees increased from 14 to
of America. When the textile workers union came 18 percent with black men comprising 22.5 per-
to Boone's plant in 1 974, he was "rarin' to go ." l l cent of all male textile employees in the state in
In more rural areas, many workers still live with 1 968. The gains made in black employment in the
family members who farm ; they have depended on textile industry in the 1 960s continued and were

34
 consolidated in the 1 970s. By 1 978 black workers time industries and the subsequent diversification
in Georgia held 28 percent of all available jobs of local manufacturing within the South, textile
within the industry, and 34 percent of all black firms began losing employees. As one Macon,
employees worked as operatives. Looking at Georgia manufacturer lamented ,
fI) Georgia and the Carolinas combined in 1 978,
black workers held 26 percent of all positions and About World War II on, things started get­
32 percent of all operative jobs. 13 ting kind of rough. A lot of other industries
The pivotal point at which textile employment came to this area and your skilled people,
such as loom fixers, were the first ones they
in the South opened to black workers occurred in
would hire away from you. They would
the mid-1960s, a period which black workers refer move in here with the same wage scales they
to as "the change ," and which Richard Rowan had up East, which was way above what we
described as "a virtual revolution in employment were paying down here.
in the southern textile plants." But the ground­
work for this transformation was laid in the 1 940s The hiring of black workers increased during the
and 1 950s. In the forties with the growth of war- 1 940s. In the LaGrange sample of 1 1 5 long-term

Arrow Shirt Factory , Atlanta, Georgia

35
 •

until 1 96 5 , delivered the mail to a plant where the and businesses within the black community. Inte­
receptionist , a white woman who sat in the front gration of the schools in most southern towns and
office, always called him "boy." Harris, then a cities followed closely behind integration of the
man in his mid-thirties, repeatedly tried to get the workplace . But a man like Floyd Harris will tell
woman to address him by his first name. In 1 970, you that despite integration in the workplace and
Harris, newly elected as one of two black mem­ the schools, the mill community he lives in "re­
bers of the local city council, became assistant mains segregated, like it was." John Foster agrees
personnel manager in the mill where this recep­ that "segregation is still a part of this society," and
tionist still worked . No words were exchanged as adds that "You still have the same basic feeling
the two adjusted to a new hierarchy which placed being a minority, and you know that in everything
Harris in a supervisory role, but as Harris recalled, you do, you will succeed or fail through how you
,
"I hadn't forgotten, and I'm certain she hadn't
, respond to the majority.' 19
i I either .' 1 8 Tangible differences between the totally seg­
Nevertheless, once black workers could not be regated society of the past and the partially inte­
denied jobs in the production areas of the mills, grated communities of the South today include
Julian West emphasized that "The atmosphere the fact that black children no longer have to leave
changed. They changed and I changed. We got the region to become successful, that a decent edu­ •
closer together in every way." The opening of pro­ cation in an integrated public school is attainable
duction jobs to black workers in southern mills for both black and white, and that black workers
affected the ways in which black and white em­ are not denied industrial jobs on the basis of their
ployees interacted in the workplace , and the high­ race. John Foster agrees that "There is a marked
er wages earned by black workers new to operative difference now, and people who couldn't get away
positions brought material improvements to homes from here fast enough are coming back comfort-
I i
38
 ably." Foster grew up in Alabama in the 1 930s, the union consistently divided along racial lines:
served in a segregated unit in World War II, headed
the mill-run recreation program for black workers I was for it. If we could have got it in there
while fighting for civil rights on the grass-roots everybody felt like they would have bettered
') level in the 1 950s and 1 960s, and today is an em­ themselves. Where we didn't have a union
ployment manager for a major southern textile and didn't succeed in getting it, well then we
just had to put up with what we did have.
company . Reflecting on the changes he has experi­
White voted it down. It meant equal rights.
enced, he concluded: The white voted it down to keep me down.
If the white had voted the way the black
I consider myself now as living in two voted then the union would have gotten in ,
worlds, the one I remember and the one that would have taken over control. Then that
I'm involved in now. Now the younger black would have made me get just as much as
doesn't have the hesitancies that I have in a they get. They just didn't want it, it was a
lot of situations because of the changes in matter of keeping it segregated . 22
the local area and in the southern region
since he's been growing up. I find myself cau­
West viewed the refusal of white workers to vote
tioning him about my experiences and about
his relationship to the white majority. 20 for a union as a political act intended to maintain
the status quo both within the plant and within
Foster and Harris, who are among the few the community .
blacks who have been promoted to white-collar Since the 1 960s, just as the textile industry has
jobs in textiles, are uncertain of what will happen relied on black labor to run the mills, so have the
next . They are concerned that black workers have textile unions depended on black southerners to
not moved into management jobs as rapidly as organize , to win elections, and to fight decertifica­
they did into operative positions. And they noted tions. The effects of black participation on efforts
that the affirmative action program, "the tool that to organize in textiles are evident in recent union
has helped us get into these areas," is under fire elections across the South. For example , the favor­
both on the federal and local levels. It is arguable able vote at the Roanoke Rapids plants of J. P.
that the impetus for continued black equality in Stevens plants in 1 974 was ascribed to a 70 per­
cent black vote . Neither the Amalgamated Cloth­
hiring, wages, promotion, and seniority cannot
ing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) nor the
come from within the textile industry itself, but
International Ladies Garment Workers Union
must be promoted by unionized workers on a
(ILGWU) records the race of its members in the
regional and national basis. 2 1
South, but unofficial tallies indicate a black major­
TEXTILE UNIONS ity. It has been argued that the unionization of
textiles depends on black workers looking for the
t) Beginning in the days of the CIO, textile unions "promise of the civil rights movement." In fact,
in the South came to symbolize both the hope of the most active black leaders in the textile unions
equality and the promise of justice under the law. grew up in southern urban/industrial areas, learned
In the 1 950s and 1 960s a black man like Julian their organizing skills in the civil rights movement,
West found himself fighting for the union in bat­ lived outside the region in New York, Chicago, or
tles that were waged once or twice a year. In his Detroit , and then returned South. These activists,
plant in southwest Georgia , votes for and against together with local union leaders from both urban

39
 But although many southern black women semiskilled jobs. Textile workers today, as in the
came to textiles from nonindustrial backgrounds, first decades of the twentieth century, are among
they have brought with them to the mills a firm the nation's lowest-paid industrial workers. In the
commitment to improving their lives by working fall of 1 980 the average wage for cotton textile
together, the way their mothers worked within the workers within the region was $ 5 .2 1 per hour, 'l)
church. The two women who became the leaders compared to a national average manufacturing
of the organizing drive in Macon, Georgia "prayed wage of over $8.00 per hour. Black operatives,
for those yeses to come" as the NLRB official like generations of white operatives before them,
counted the ballots at the Bibb Company's Bellvue are exposed to the crippling effects of byssinosis
plant in the spring of 1 980. For one woman, an from exposure to cotton dust. Moreover, in the
inspector in the mill for three years before the early 1 970s many southern mills, faced with labor
election , working for the union was "working for shortages and government pressure to reduce cot­
,,
God by working for humanity . 30 This continued ton dust levels within the mills, began to invest in
dedication on the part of individual workers will­ new, automated machinery which simultaneously
ing to work together for the common good is increased production and reduced the size of the
critical for the eventual success of textile unions workforce. As a result, the number of US textile
in the South. workers, at over one million through the 1 950s
and slightly below a million in the 1 960s, declined
CONCLUSION to 779,620 workers in 1 966 and 754,296 workers
in 1 978. The industry has never regained the em­
In the last four decades southern black textile ployment levels which existed before the recession
workers, once considered marginal, invisible mill of 1 974- 1 975. In the Southeast (with three­
laborers, have become the region's most prominent fourths of the workers), 95 ,000 jobs have been
group of industrial employees. But even in 1 940, permanently lost. Figures on the 1 98 1 -82 reces­
black workers in fact formed a significant part of sion are beginning to appear and indicate that the
the workforce in most southern mills, held a vari­ effects may be worse than in 1 974.3 1
ety of essential positions, and also observed and At present unionized workers in textiles across
I performed production jobs whenever possible. the Southeast are being pressed for concessions on
I After World War II, black textile workers became a model patterned after the auto industry - but in
a well-trained reserve workforce ready to replace plants where operatives make one-fourth the wage
those white workers leaving the mills for jobs in a of auto workers. Textile employees from North
newly diversified southern economy. Knowledge­ Carolina to Alabama are on short-time; in South
able long-term workers and important local leaders Carolina, twelve mills closed in the last six months
within well-established black mill communities, of 1 98 1 .32 As the most recently hired workers,
many black textile workers fought for unioniza­ black employees are bearing the burden of much
tion within the mills and for civil rights legislation of the current downturn in textiles. The rapid 6N
1'1 within the larger community. movement of black workers into the industry in
I
I the 1 960s and 1 970s transformed the industry and
But while black workers have brought about
substantial changes within the textile industry, altered the interaction between management and
they have also inherited many of the traditional labor; but now the problems of plant closings and
Ii problems characteristic of this labor-intensive, low­ unemployment, antiunion wage battles and decer­
I
wage industry with predominantly unskilled or tifications have replaced industrial segregation as
I II
42
 the problems faced by black textile workers in the and Ronald L. Lewis, eds., The Black Worker, Vol. IV
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979), p. 315;
South. The solutions will be hard-won. Today, as
U.S., Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, 1922,
black workers lead efforts to organize the southern "Negro Women in Industry in 15 States," Bulletin of the
textile industry, their long and complex experi- Women 's Bureau 20:32; life and work history data of 115
. ence as southern industrial workers enriches and
' Georgia workers obtained from the Callaway Beacon ,
informs that work, just as their participation in Vols. 1-18 (1949- 1969), LaGrange, Georgia, hereafter
cited as "LaGrange Work Data" ; Donald Dewey, "Negro
the civil rights movement of the 1 960s serves as a
Employment in Seventy Textile Mills, October 1950-
model for achieving the right to bargain collective­ August 1951," in Selected Studies of Negro Employment
ly in the 1 980s. The struggle to earn wages that in the SoutH, National Planning Association Committee
equal the national average industrial wage , to par­ of the South (Washington : National Publishing Company,
ticipate in industry decisions about automation 1955), p. 184; Richard Rowan, "The Negro in the Textile
Industry," in Negro Employment in South ern Industry ,
and health and safety, and finally, to gain union
edited by H. R. Northrup, R. L. Rowan, D. T. Barnum,
representation will demand all the strength and and J. C. Howard (Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl­
courage of the men and women now running the vania Press, 1970), p. 84.
looms of the South. 8. The information and quotations which follow are
from interviews with Julian West and Minnie Brown in
Westpoint, Georgia on April 20, 1982. The names of
Footnotes
those interviewed have been changed to protect their
privacy. All interviews conducted by the author.
This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Con­
9. Interview with Mattie Ivey, Fairfax, Alabama,
ference on Recent Black American History at Boston
April 21, 1982.
College, February 27, 1982. I would like to thank Jim
10. Data about the Thomas family from Callaway Bea·
Green and Herbert Hill for their helpful criticism.
con , Vol. 6, No. 35, September 6, 1954 ; West interview.
1. U.S., Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 11. Quoted in Mimi Conway, Rise Conna Rise: A Por·
Minorities and Women in Private Industry , 1978, Vol. I, trait of Sou thern Textile Workers (Garden City : Double­
p. 19. day, 1979), pp. 122-124.
2. Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World 12. Dale Newman, "Work and Community Life in a
the Slaves Made (New York : Pantheon, 1972), p. 495; Southern Town," Labor History 19 :222.
Robert S. Starobin, Industrial Slavery in the Old South 13. Rowan, "The Negro in the Textile Industry," pp. 54,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 13, 167. 98-99, 141; EEOC, Minorities and Women in Private In·
3. C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, dustry , 1978, 1 :19.
1 8 77·1 913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University 14. West interview; Brown interview; Rowan, "The
Press, 1951, 1971), pp. 132, 222, 261 ; Jonathan M. Negro in the Textile Industry," p. 85; interview with
Wiener, Social Origins of the New South: Alabama, Finley Wickham, Macon, Georgia, September 198 1 ;
1 860·1 885 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University "LaGrange Work Data. "
Press, 1978), pp. 193-194 ; Paul B. Worthman and James 15. Interview with John Foster, Shawmut, Alabama,
R. Green, "Black Workers in the New South, 1865-1915," April 20-21, 1982.
in Key Issues in the A fro·A merican Experience, Vol. II, 16. Interview with Floyd Harris, Westpoint, Georgia,
1,1 edited by Nathan Huggins, Martin Kilson and Daniel M. April 20, 1982.
� Fox (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, Inc., 17. West and Foster interviews.
1971), pp. 47-69. 18. Harris interview.
4. Herbert J. Lahne, The Cotton Mill Worker (New 19. Interviews with West, Harris, and Foster.
York : Farrar and Rinehart), p. 81. 20. Foster interview.
5. Ibid., p. 82. 21. Interviews with Foster and Harris.
6. State of Georgia, Department of Labor, Second An­ 22. West interview.
nual Report, 1938, p. 24. 23. F. Ray Marshall and Virgil L. Christian, eds., Em­
7. Lahne, Cotton Mill Worker, p. 289; Phillip S. Foner ployment of Blacks in the South: A Perspective on the

43
1 960 's (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), pp. 143-
146; Frank Guillory, "N.C. Textile Firm Finally Union­ Jree spirits 1
ized," Washington Post, September 2, 1974; Bruce Ray­
annals oj the Insurgent
Imagination
nor, "Unionism in the Southern Textile Industry," in
Essays in Southern Labor History , edited by Gary M.
Fink and Mer! E. Reed (Westport, Conn. : Greenwood explores American traditions of radi­
Press, 1977).
cal culture and liberatory d�lop­
24. Chip Hughes, "A New Twist for Textiles," in Work­
ments around the world, linking daily
ing Lives: The Southern Exposure History of Labor in
life and the arts of:
the South , edited by Marc S. Miller (New York: Pantheon,
anarchism, architecture, blues, car­
1980), pp. 350-351; Doug McInnis, "A New Chill on Or­
ganizing Efforts," New York Times, May 30, 1982, 4F-5F. toons & comics, children, clowns,
25. Newman, "Work and Community Life in a Southern communism, cranks, crime, dance,
Town," pp. 220-222. dream, ecology, ethnic cultures, fan·
26. Quoted in Carolyn Ashbaugh and Dan McCurry, tas)', feminism, film, games & play,
"On the Line at Oneita," in Miller, ed., Working Lives, horror & science fiction, humor,
p. 210. intJention,jazz, magic, music, naitJes,
27. Debbie Newby, "Long Campaign Worth It, Say narratitJe, native·american ritua�
Those Who Worked for Union," Macon Telegraph ,
oral tradition, painting, perfor­
March 21, 1980, IB, 8B; interview with Laura Curry,
mance, poetry, radio, �culpture, sexu­
Macon, Georgia, September 1981.
28. Quoted in Conway, Rise Gonna Rise.
ality, socialism, sports, surrealism,

29. Interviews with Harris, Brown, and Ivey. television, theater, trance, subversion,
30. Newby, "Long Campaign," lB. utopias.
31. U.S., Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statis­
tics, Atlanta, Georgia, "Southeastern Textile Mills Em­ City Lights Books
ployment Monthly Reports," October 1980; U.S., De­
261 Columbus Avenue,
partment of Labor, Southeastern Regional Office, Bureau
San Francisco
of Labor Statistics, "Textile Products Industry Employ­
ment in the Southeast, 1947-1979."
32. "South's Textile Mill Closings Continue from '74
Recession," New York Times, February 17, 1982.

MARY FREDERICKSON was raised in the Mid­ COUNTERSPY

west and attended Emory University and the
University of North Carolina. She was assistant P. O. Box647, Ben FrankZin Sta.
director of the UNe Oral History Project. She Washington D. C. 2004 4 U. S. A . -

now teaches history at the University of Alabama

at Birmingham. S ince World War lI t the U . S .
government has made more than
20 nuclear war threats t many �)
aimed ag ains t Third World coun­
tries and liberat ion s trug g les .
READ: U. S . NuaZear Threats : A
Documentary History . $2. 60.
Wri te for disaounts .

44
 Shopping Around

-jp metimes you have an hour

'
th at is not filled with groceries or
shoes for the kids or your husband's dinner
an hour when you leave the baby
whining in his stroller
Documentary
and move past rack on rack
of dresses
You say it doesn't have to be
blouses
so cut & dried like day or night,
lingerie
friends or lovers. You say this
an hour when you for two years
imagine yourself in every major eastern city
finding here among Muzak while numerous house guests sleep
and artificial plants in the dark behind you.
the one garment Life is long, you remind me
that fits long distance, while I edit films
like your old skin reeling like a Love Documentary:
that brings your face nights I watched you

into focus again watch every man who came into the bar

and shows you in the mirror & later every woman; your body
never quite filling your clothes-
the woman
pants baggy, shirt blowing.
you remember
You say you're in my life
for keeps like blood sisters,
Bron wen Wallace
that I can count on you.
Splice: dog sleeps in the sun,
columbine grows behind a shed,
First published in Fireweed. a door swings open
& you walk towards me-
your arms outstretched, your face
a shock of summer light.

Robin Becker

45
 •
#0h�""J

Clarence John Laughlin. The Masks Grow to Us

MOTHERING ,
�HE UNCONSCIOUS,
AND FEMINISM

Judy Housman

The women ' s liberation movement cuts deep in calling for changes in who we are and
in how we live and love . It calls for deep-seated changes in our characters and in the content
of our most intimate relationships and examines our most private behavior and fantasies.
It has opened up questions of gender and of power relations between men and women which
pervade all aspects of our social and personal lives, but about which orthodox Marxists and
liberal theorists have largely remained silent . The women's liberation movement and other
autonomous movements have complicated our understanding of what is politically signifi­
cant. Exploring, within consciousness-raising groups and elsewhere, the complexity of how
this oppression takes hold has led to rejection by feminists of simple Marxist answers
( "women's oppression is merely the result of exclusion from the workplace. ") Certain
socialist-feminists have drawn upon and given a new political significance to the more open
strands of Marxism. They have been drawn to exploring the cultural forces which shape
not only behavior, but feelings, fantasies, and desires, and to exploring the tensions which
.remain between individuals so molded and the society within which we must exist.
" Nancy Chodorow undertook her work* at a time when the women ' s movement was
redefining the terrain of political discussion and action. In the antiwar movement with its

*This discussion is based on Nancy Chodorow's book The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology
of Gender (University of California Press , 1978) and on three essays by the same author: "Being and Doing: A Cross­
Cultural Examination of the Socialization of Males and Females" in Women in Sexist Society (Basic Books, 1971), pp.
259-9 1 ; . . Family Structures and Feminine Personality" in Women, Culture and Society (Stanford University Press , 1974),
pp. 43-66; and "Feminism and Difference, " Socialist Review, 9 (July-August 1979), 5 1 -69.

47
i

,I I'
I
I

emphasis on draft-age men, and only slightly more oppression suggested it has deep psychic roots
subtly in the New Left in general, women found within typical male and female character struc­
their participation was marginalized at the same ture. Women who projected themselves as
time that the New Left espoused equality of all strong and powerful within the public sphere
people. Partly in reaction to our exclusion, women sought to explain why they experienced them-_
came together and rediscovered what the New selves as intimidated and defenseless in intimate
Left's illusory cross-sex solidarity made us forget: relations with men. As the women's liberation
that we were women, that we were marginalized movement won legitimacy, we sought to
as such, and that our personal relationships explain why the attempt to create nonsexist
reflected a pattern of domination. Together women structures was only very partially successful.
uncovered and challenged hitherto invisible norms Nancy Chodorow examined the implications of
surrounding housework, childcare, sexuality, and mothering - i.e. the fact that for girls the
sex roles. T his challenge to standards of normalcy primary caretaker is someone of the same sex,
and deviance, prescribed gender roles, and sex­ for boys someone of the other sex - for gender­
ual repression was taken up and deepened by the related character structure. She indicated how
later emerging lesbian and gay movements. primary parenting by women psychically
T he myth of equal access to political decision adapted men and women to the oppressive sex
making and political power in the New Left was roles they inhabit. In so doing, she gave a
exploded. Women articulated the ways in which psychological depth to our understanding of the
male bonding, structural aspects of heterosexual way in which the political shapes the personal.
couples, and the confining of women to less Nancy Chodorow' s work is now set within a
visible " nurturing" roles restricted our partici­ different political context. T here is a turning
pation in the world at large and in the New Left away from the feminist impulse to articulate
itself. In this context, challenging unequal divi- _ women's needs independently of the traditional
sion of labor and authority within the family, roles of mother and sex object. A powerful New
within heterosexual couples, and in relations Right has reasserted pre-New Left norms: patri­
between women and men in general was viewed archal and paternal authority, the locus of per­
as crucial. In particular, women challenged sonal sustenance to be located in the family and
exclusive female responsibility for parenting. the family alone, hierarchial obedience and
We challenged it for the direct way it limited the discipline, rigid regulation of sexuality. Certain
participation of mothers and because of the way leftists, in imitation of the New Right, would
the association of women with mothering rein­ proclaim themselves the true "Friends of
forced subservience. One place in which the Families" sanitizing the challenge to traditional
division of childcare and housework was chal­ norms represented by gays, lesbians, women
lenged was within the individual relationships sexually active outside of marriage, and single
",' l
."
with husbands and boyfriends, but that chal­ mothers. Portions of the peace movement would
lenging was backed by the bonds women forged have women's participation in antiwar activities
within consciousness-raising groups and our be as nurturers of the next generation and would
public challenge to sex roles. silence discussions of sexual harassment or
Nancy Chodorow uncovered another reason abortion crucial to challenging traditional
we had to challenge women's primary responsi­ female roles.
bility for childrearing. T he persistence of female In the current changed context, Nancy

48
 Chodorow's work takes on a different and dan­ kind of person one ought to be in a changed
gerous meaning. Her work ceases to be taken as society. Nevertheless, the slogan articulates and
a (partial) explanation for the social creation of develops the best of the women's liberation
,.en and women as they now are and becomes movement's heritage from the New Left. It indi­
a formula for change in and through changed cates that changing our sense of self and the
family structures. The way to end sexual domi­ content of our personal relationships and com­
nation is through the equal participation of mitments must form a part of the process of
fathers in childrearing. Women's ability to act political change. At the same time, it indicates
for changed relationships between the sexes is a recognition that aspects of our seemingly indi­
seen to lie in their role as mothers and within vidual and private life remain embedded in and
individual struggles with men concerning deeply affected by social institutions which are
parenting. Amazingly, lesbians and, indeed, all independent of our immediate control. Here,
women outside of heterosexual couples with neither the personal nor the political is taken to
children are rendered invisible and irrelevant to determine the other. Rather, the two sides of the
feminist struggle. Absent is the acknowledge­ slogan indicate a tension between the changed
ment of the powerful political meaning female ways of relating to oneself and others that we
bonding has taken on in the context of the are trying to effect in the here and now, and a
women's liberation movement. Regarded as society which does not support such change, a
secondary are the daily, hourly social pressures society whose psychic hold captivates us even
outside the family - through schools, religion, as we resist its terms.
the mass media, peer groups - which reinforce I am concerned that our new theories retain
sexual inequality and shape the meaning given the open and exploratory quality of the early
to the sexual division of labor within the family. women's liberation movement . It would be
At a time when the New Right is demonstrating unfortunate if our new sophistication about the
its sophistication in using religion, the mass family resulted in a new, albeit expanded, rigid
media, and the state to shape and control sexual­ and dogmatic set of answers. My aim is , thus,
ity and sex roles, Chodorow's work appears to to set The Social Reproduction of Mothering
suggest that the politics of personal life can be within the feminist exploration of the roots of
separated out from the politics of society. the personal within the political, while calling
Rather than examining the politics of personal attention to questions which remain excluded.
life, feminist politics is defined by changes in
personal life, and personal life is reduced to CHODOROW'S ARGUMENT
family life.
The slogan " the personal is political" has fre- There are ways in which prevailing institu­

,fluently been given unfortunate interpretations tions damage men and women's characters and
which are used to justify two distortions of femi­ ability to relate to others in similar ways. How­
nism. On the one hand, the political is reduced ever feminists, and with them Chodorow, par­
to the personal: changes in lifestyle are seen as ticularly focus on the differing nature of the
political actions in and of themselves. Alter­ damage done to men and women. They note that
nately, the personal is repressively reduced to women have a greater difficulty sustaining an
the political: our personal life in the here and independent identity and a sense of individual
now is to be dictated by an ideal image of the and distinct needs. Men, on the contrary, tend

49
 Paul Gittings Studio. Houston. Texas
to be unable to sustain a sense of connectedness to innate biological difference. She focuses her
to others, to notice and take seriously the needs attention on the powerful forces of character for­
i I
of others, and to see their identity as partially mation at work in infancy and early childhood.
rooted in close, emotional relationships. Even Her central claim is that the differing typical
when we attempt to form structures which don't early experiences that males and females face in
reinforce these gender-related character traits, our culture (and with some variation across all
these incapacities often persist. I Remembering cultures in which women do the predominant
that our alternative structures are embedded in mothering) shapes adult male and female fears .
the larger society seems insufficient to explain and incapacities, abilities and possibilities in Ii))
the depth, for example, of male disdain for asymmetrical ways. She unravels the psycho­
women or of the power of families over our dynamics of prevailing forms of childrearing.
imaginations. We carry our ways of relating to Her work, thus, gives a psychological depth to
others with us. the way in which the political is understood to

I: Chodorow attempts to explain the persistence shape the personal.

of such character traits without attributing them Chodorow's starting point is that in examin-

50
 Paul Gittings Studio. Houston. Texas

ing cross-cultural data two generalizations can character traits in different societies, cross­
be made: culturally women tend to cluster at one end of
(1) Women are devalued in all societies. the spectrum with respect to certain character
While women do different things in different traits while men tend to cluster at the other. For
societies, there is always a sexual division of example, women are more likely than men to
labor. Furthermore, whatever cultural role define themselves through their relations to
women assume is accorded less power and pres­ others and to be personally involved with
tige than that which men assume. She cites friends. Men, on the other hand, tend "to be
t Margaret Mead
)
on this point "If such activities independent participants rather than involved
(like cooking and weaving) are appropriate with friends."
occupations of men, then the whole society, Since what women do and are like differs in
men and women alike, votes them as important. different societies, such generalizations are not
When the same occupations are performed by to be explained biologically. Chodorow seeks
women, they are regarded as less important. " an explanation in terms of social patterns which
(2) Whereas women and men exhibit different tend to prevail cross-culturally and thus focuses

51
 and more " nurturing, " even as women must Biological differences as well as historically
develop greater self-confidence and assertive­ created differences between the sexes could
ness. Given the recognition of the positive and remain salient in a nonoppressive society. T he
negative aspects of both female and male char­ possibility that biological sex could remain a
acter structure implicit in this posItlon, source of identification is angrily rejected b �
Chodorow's identification with this point of many feminists. T his rejection is understandable
view is not surprising. But the historical reality in light of repressive ideologies that use biologi­
for women both of oppression and of partial cal differences to argue for constraining female
self-definition through supportive female net­ roles. But I believe that there is also a compo­
works makes this demand as perverse as nent of the fear that Dinnerstein writes so
equating the elimination of racism with the forcefully of: fear of recognizing the contribu­
elimination of any racially distinctive culture. A tion to our human existence of our animal and
nonracist society would not make irrelevant any instinctual roots. And it is this fear, in part,
particular identification with being black. which underlies the retreat from the explorations
Rather it would allow, as would a nonsexist of sexuality which were so powerful in the early
society, such an identification to free itself of its women's movement and which remain more
defensive component. necessary than ever today in the face of the
T here is a tendency within the Left to regard repressive New Right.
difference as merely an occasion for oppression
and power relations, rather than offering a THE SOCIAL REPRODUCTION OF
source of potential celebration and appreciation. SEXUAL OPPRESSION
T he call for the elimination of difference (the
homogenization of culture) connects to a gray Chodorow's insufficient attention to the un­
flannel vision of socialism that is less than conscious is paralleled by an insufficient atten­
inspiring. (After the revolution everyone will tion to the effects of the larger culture. T hey are
have enough strawberries to eat. But I don' t like the two sides of a too-exclusive focus on the
strawberries! After the revolution you will like " actual" and the immediate. Chodorow's ac­
strawberries). Does the push to end variety count is of individual families: how families
mask a desire to get rid of autonomous move­ with a certain structure produce men and women
ments and the troublesome tensions between with particular types of character and a desire to
distinct groups so that we can get on with the enter into families which reproduce this struc­
"real work" of class struggle? ture. I want to argue that by naming individual
T here is in fact a degree of tension between families as the source of gender differences and
the kind of equality which genderlessness as a power relations she reproduces the public/pri­
goal suggests (the lessening of male-female role vate split which has been used to restrict both
differences and the consequent increase in male­ .
the activities of women (Women ' s place is in the
female solidarity) and a positive identification home) and the impact of feminist politics (What
with femaleness and other women. We need to do you mean, a specifically feminist analysis of
explore the concrete ramifications of this ten­ militarism! ?) In so doing, she fails to recognize
sion as we build an autonomous women's move­ how deeply into the unconscious the dominant
ment with the power to connect with and have culture reaches. How we incorporate our experi­
I an impact on other social movements. ences, even our earliest experiences, is shaped

56
 by cultural nonns and the unconscious fantasies caught between those aspects of childrearing
they give rise to as well as by our immediate which they do control and the impact of the
situation. larger society . Jane Lazarre illustrates precisely
Nancy Chodorow 's work assumes a split be­ this tension in her book On Loving Men when
�een personal life and public life defined as she discusses her tom feelings in dealing with
paid labor. Her analysis presents the family as her son's request to wear a dress for coolness in
reproducing itself through an autonomous summer. And children will continue to deny
dynamic. Families in which women mother and their actual experiences in the interest of appear­
fathers are psychologically unavailable are the ing " nonnal. " Thus the common experience of
effect of the psychodynamics of this fonn of children who go to female doctors, even
family structure in the previous generation . children whose mothers are doctors , who persist
Early childhood experience within families is in playing games in which only the boys are
taken to produce the sort of men and women doctors and all the nurses are girls. When ques­
who enter into such families in adult life. But tioned, why do such children insist, contrary to
such an analysis neglects the institutions their own experiences , that these questions are
(schools , church, the mass media) and the fonns silly, that "only boys are doctors , girls are
of social organization (sports, culture, bars , nurses " ?
youth culture , female friendship and kinship I t is not to deny the richness o f Chodorow' s
networks) which publicly establish the nonns work to note that she places the later fate o f the
regulating personal life. child squarely in the hands of the early care­
Somehow the social reproduction of character taker. She reflects the middle-class hope that
is lost in Chodorow 's model . Instead the actual even if one can pass on neither an inheritance
structure of the child's particular family is nor a skill at least by proper socialization one
assumed to be the force effecting the reproduc­ can bequeath to one ' s children the character
tion of gendered character. Unacknowledged traits that will enable them to make it in this
are the powerful ways in which cultural nonns world. Working-class parents tend to be more
infonn the experiences of those whose situations fatalistic recognizing reluctantly that " You can't
do not confonn to cultural ideals . Without atten­ bring up your own children. " The differing atti­
tion to the impact of the larger society on char­ tudes in part reflect the realities of the situation
acter fonnation, we are at a loss to explain why of each. But the middle-class dream of proper
children of depression families in which the upbringing equipping one's children for life is
mother worked and the father took on major increasingly undercut by the influence of the
childcare responsibilities often assumed quite media and the schools , by the vicissitudes of the
traditional sexual roles. While such children economy, and by a peer culture which to a cer­
were affected by the nonnonnative aspects of tain extent cuts across class boundaries . The
tJ
their situation, they were also aware of and failure to explore (and perhaps a fear of) youth
affected by the social shame attached to their culture is related to a problem we discussed
family' s structure. Both the situation within the earlier, Chodorow's failure to explore the
child's home and its relationship to societal effects of movements in redefining and reshap­
nonns affect the development of character. If ing one 's way of feeling and living and of giving
cultural norms remain unchallenged by political new meaning and significance to characteristics
struggles, childrearers will continue to be which persist.

57
 Chodorow has made the important contribu­
tion of connecting sex-linked character traits
which help perpetuate male-domination to the
asymmetries of parenting. But neither our
theories nor our strategies for change can view
this aspect of sexual oppression in isolation . We
must come to understand the ways in which the
larger culture takes up, articulates, reinforces,
and implicates these sex-linked propensities
within a system of social domination. * We need
to acknowledge the daily, hourly pressures in
everyday life: work, peer groups, popular
culture, advertising and the media, which rein­
force whatever initial propensities exist. We
must explore the concrete social forms which Joe Steinmetz Studio. Heinz Pier, Florida

express male rejection of women: the ways in

which interest in sports facilitates a bond be­ towards conformity . Without an analysis of
tween father and son against the mother and these factors we are left in the dark as to what
how the gang , the fraternity , and the locker besides individual confrontations between men
room function as means of controlling female and women will bring about the transformation
behavior (and in particular female sexual in childcare responsibilities which Chodorow
behavior) . We must recognize that the socializa­ has demonstrated is necessary .
tion of children is not and has never been solely Chodorow' s separation of social organization
accomplished within isolated families . We need into the mutually affecting, but structurally ex­
to explore the changing nature of female kin and clusive areas of family and work fails to provide
friendship networks in order to build upon their the theoretical underpinning for demands which
positive aspects while changing negative con­ attempt to break down this division. Chodorow
tent. Furthermore, we must acknowledge our shows how the fact that many women lack a sig­
continuing discomfort with sexually determined nificant attachment to paid work reinforces their
roles despite internal and external pressures investment in mothering. But the underlying
structuralism tends to suggest a separation be­
*Colleta Reid' s caution against equating lesbian role­ tween feminist demands on the workplace and
playing, when it exists, with male-female power relations
feminist demands on the family. A focus which
also implies that character or role differences become
examines childrearing as exclusively confined
systematic oppression only when drawing support from a
complex system of social, economic, and cultural sanctions to the family fails to give a theoretical backing
and norms. Reid admonishes that "Even if there is a to demands concerning childrearing which t)
"butch, " she cannot marshall social pressure of female modify the workplace. The recent case of a fire­
friends and acquaintances to keep her femme dependent.
fighter who was ordered to stop breastfeeding
She cannot legally rape her . . . she has no church, mar­
her infant during breaks raised the important
riage contract or legal structures on her side. Behind the
male role is social power, economic clout . . . There is no issue of the embodiment of gender - related
such reality behind a butch . "5 norms in the work rules governing traditionally
male fields . Calling for the modification of the

58
 workplace to allow for needs around childrear­
whole. Sexism is frequently an intimate enemy ,
ing has the potential for raising the general ques­
manifested within particular personal relation­
tion of modifying the workplace to accord with
ships . But sexism also permeates our entire
human needs.
I)
culture and is upheld by a complicated , inter­
connecting set of institutions and ideologies .
CONCLUSION The sexism within individual relationships is in­
formed by and supported by institutionalized
By itself, Chodorow's theory substitutes a aspects of women' s oppression. There is a ten­
psychological pessimism almost as deep as
sion in developing a politics which supports per­
complete biological pessimism. Change in the
sonal relationships as an arena for feminist con­
relationship between the sexes awaits a new
frontation, without restricting feminist struggle
generation of children mothered by men and solely to this sphere. A strong women' s move­
women who have not themselves been warped ment can provide support and a broader context
by their upbringing . There is a legitimacy to a
to individual confrontations while addressing
pessimism which recognizes the depth of inter­
the institutions and ideologies which uphold
nal resistance, while acknowledging the possi­
inequalities reproduced within individual rela­
bility of partial change. Robin Morgan articu­ tionships . In the absence of such a movement,
lates this in a love poem to her ex-husband as
their relationship disintegrates during her
struggles against oppression as a woman:
"You 're trying very hard. I know that and you
can't imagine how I wish it were enough . "6
But if we do not try to discover and work toward
the kind of political climate which creates
pressure on men to regard women's concerns in
new ways, we are left with women endlessly
obsessing and adjusting to the incapacities of
men. Men are able to shrug off responsibility for
a response with "That's the way I am . " But the
experience of the women's movement has indi­
cated that consciousness-raising groups have
helped support a changed sense of self for
women. Furthermore, consciousness-raising
groups, women' s caucuses , task forces on sex­
ual harassment and battered wives, and so forth
�ave been at least partially effective in placing
pressure on men to change their way of relating
to women and of viewing themselves. We must
reaffirm the sense that some change is possible
in the here and now.
Chodorow's work participates in a dilemma
which confronts the feminist movement as a Herbert Bayer, The Kiss

59
however, the attempt to reorganize individual The feminist thinking which has grown out of
families can become one more retreat from con­ the women's liberation movement has multi­
frontation with the larger society to a sup­ plied the occasions of confusion, puzzlement,
posedly insulated private life . Even Readers and exploration of the issues of sexual domina­
Digest's new magazine Family agrees on the tion. It addresses relationships and dynamic.
need for greater male involvement in parenting. which are at once individual and social . Femi­
Our disagreement is about why and to what end nists have had to develop a politics and a way
such involvement should take place. Ending the of thinking about politics which is open and
oppression of women, even changing the sexual allows for the exploration of the subtlety and the
division of labor within families, cannot be many-faceted nature of the occasions of male
accomplished solely by adjustments within indi­ domination . It has, of course, identified certain
vidual families . If we forget this, we risk also areas such as the family, sexuality , and
forgetting the centrality of female solidarity , women' s control of their own bodies as vitally
political and personal , as a locus for political in need of further exploration . But at it best its
change. recognition of the importance of these areas has
As feminists, we must fonnulate the discus­ not been at the expense of closing off discus­
sions which will uncover the complex, intercon­ sions of other areas of significance. My hope is
necting factors which create and reinforce sex­ that the discussions which take off from
ual domination. But at a time when the New Chodorow see her work as opening up new
Right is using the power of Church and State to areas that we must incorporate into our politics.
restrict women' s reproductive and sexual My fear is that it will be taken to identify
freedom, we must not allow the domain of ultimate causes which (is all) we must address.
feminist struggle to be restricted to the Jessica Benjamin warns us that "A politics
rearrangement of the sexual division of labor which denies . . . which tries to sanitize or
within individual families . Our explorations rationalize the erotic, fantastic components of
clearly deepen the politics of struggles around human life will not defeat domination, but only
sexuality, reproductive control, and violence play into it. ' ' 7 In developing a politics which
against women which feminism has politicized tentatively opens up and tries to address a com­
and claimed as its own. However, the insights plex reality, feminism has developed methods
feminism has unleashed must also be brought to which can enrich the exploration of the nature
bear on the politics of the movement against and connections between different fonns of
military intervention, nuclear war, and racism domination (racism, homophobia, ageism, and
which have traditionally been regarded as the economic exploitation as well as sexism) . It has
province of the male-dominated mixed Left. given a new depth to politics through raising the
Prevailing concepts of "manhood" support possibilities of linking our private pains to their
racial violence and militarism as well as sexism. public dimension. Because of the newness of thet)
The task of unraveling the complex and per­ subject matter it uncovers , the openness of its
vasive significance of gender for all our political methods , and its concerns with personal
struggles is an integral part of our work as dynamics within the process of revolutionary
socialists as well as feminists . For feminism at change, feminist politics and politics which are
its best has hooked into something deep to our in sympathy with feminism have sometimes
lives. been criticized for being slow-moving. But this

60
may be the necessary consequence of refusing a
premature clarity which is reached at the price
of blindness to complexity . And the strength of
our politics is based, in part, in the depth of our
Jision.

Footnotes

I would like to thank Joel Griefinger, Margaret Cerullo,

and, in particular, Marla Erlien for the conversations of JUM� CUT, No . 27 $2.00
which this is in large part the written record. I would also Special Section:
like to thank Joe Interrante, Judy Smith, and the other
editors of Radical America for skillful editorial assistance.
Film and Feminism in Germany
1 . Dorothy Dinnerstein , The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Today : The German Women 1s
Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise (Harper and Movement; Hel ke Sander on Fem­
Row, 1976), pp. 1 1 , 29.
2 . Sigmund Freud, 1905, "The Sexual Aberrations , "
i nism and Fil m; Gert rud Koch 01'"
Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, " tran s . A . A . Female Voyeurism; Interviews
Brill (Dutton, 1962), p . 30. with Helga Reidemeister, Jutta
3. Chodorow, Social Reproduction of Mothering, p. 1 10
fn.
Bruckner, Christina Peri ncioH ;
4. Jane Lazarre, On Loving Men (Dial Press, 1978), Reidemeister on Documentary
p. 160. Fi l mmaki ng; more .
5. Colleta Reid, "Coming Out in the Women ' s Move­
ment, " Lesbianism and the Women 's Movement (Diana
Sti l l Ava i l able:
24/25 $2.50
Press, 1975), pp. 98-99.
6. Robin Morgan, "Quotations from Charwoman Me, "
Double Issue
Monster (Vintage Books, 1972), p. 1 8 .
7 . Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds o f Love: Rational Vio­ Special Section: Lesbians and
lence and Erotic Domination, Madness and the Irrational , " Fi l m : Fil mography of Lesbian
Feminist Studies. 6 (Spring 1980), 171 .
Works, Lesbian Vampires, Les­
bians in I Nice l Fi l ms; Fi l ms of
JUDY HOUSMAN is active in the women 's Barbara Hammer; Fi I ms of Jan
movement in Boston. She is a founder and staff Oxen berg; Growi ng Up Dyke
person for Community Works, a coalition of with Hol lywood; Cel i ne and
social change groups raisingfunds through pay­
Jul ie Go BoatinSi Maedchen In
roll deduction.
Uniform; more .
.)
US subs: 4 issues, $6.00 i®�
Abroad : 4 issues, $8.00 �V�T1
�
JUMP CUT
PO Box 865
Berke Ie CA 94701
61
Bea Nettles
,SEXUALITY AND
MALE V IOLENCE

Peter Bradbury

Every woman adores a Fascist,

The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
- Sylvia Plath

This article is an attempt to redress an uneasy balance. For the most part it is women
who have made painful attempts at unraveling and understanding what is involved in
violence. Men have remained, on the whole, conspicuously silent - not that in our various
roles as doctors, psychologists, sociologists, politicians, and teachers we haven't spoken
and written reams about the phenomenon of violence and frequently acted as though we
had some special access to the experience of victims of violence . What we have done is to
distance ourselves from violence through professionalism or exclamations of horror; to
depersonalize and thereby evade the crucial issue which women cannot confront for us :
what it is to be violent, and what that violence means for our existence as men.

I) While men inflict violence on each other, and women sometimes initiate or participate
in violence, it is usually the case that in the context of our private lives it is men who are
violent and women who are the victims. In the sphere of organized , "legitimate" violence,

A longer version of this article originally appeared in Achilles Heel (No. 5), a British antisexist socialist men's journal, as
part of a special issue on Masculinity and Violence. Copies are available from Ach illes Heel, 7 St. Mark's Rise, London
E8, England.

63
for example in war or sports like boxing, violence or physical assault.
becomes a contest between men (often with wom­
en as the prize). But in life as it is experienced PATRIARCHY, THE FAMILY,
from day to day, that is not the case. AND THE STATE
I have chosen to concentrate on sexual vio­ •
lence, since it is here that there is least understand­ Since the sixteenth century , the development
ing. The most recognizable form of sexual violence of capitalist commodity production and its neces­
is rape. But I want to get away from the habit of sary organization around large stabilized work­
discussing rape as a singular event and look more forces and markets has meant the development
at the distressing range of violences which are sex­ of wage labor and a consequent fragmentation of
ually related and which, it seems to me, make rape personal and work life. Where once it was possible
not simply a possibility but a logical outcome of for the majority of people to live and work to­
what our society generally sees as "normal" sexual gether in community-based families, sharing to
relations. Not only is that the case, but the very some extent (though not completely) the work
act of ascribing normality to particular forms involved in producing necessities, capitalist pro­
of sexual behavior - heterosexual fucking - sets duction has made such a structure impossible to
up the conditions for violence. The reasons for maintain. With fewer men in control of the larger
aggression toward gay men and lesbians are very scale of productive activity, families have be�n
complex, but in this context I shall see them as forced to release members into a segregated work­
stemming from the arrogant reduction of sexuality force for a large period of the day, thus entrench­
to the power of the phallus. This allows men a ing already-existing dominations of women by
'
sense of justice in the intrusions they make on men and drawing a harder line between their
homosexuals, yet ironically it is tied up in the accepted spheres of operation.
threat and danger posed by nonheterosexual Together with this change in the productive
relationships and behavior. life of communities has come the development
While I am convinced that in various forms the of professional, scientific institutions and ideolo­
entire range of human relationships is sexual, I gies whose position in the managerial and techno­
shall confine my arguments to behavior which at logical organization of the industry has given them
some point becomes recognizably sexual, involv­ the power to determine what most of us perceive
ing some form of sensuousness and the expression, as normal, good, or inevitable. Thus, through
however indirectly, of desire. Similarly, I shall filters of education, media, and legislation, and
limit the sense in which I understand violence. It the sharing of these in private talk, we come to
can be argued that in subtle ways all kinds of take as our assumed starting point the relationship
manipulation and control are violent in that they between work and the family, and the respective
operate against someone's will or against their roles of men, women, and children in it. !
best interests. But I will be particularly concerned Patriarchy predates this history, and an exten- .)"
here with acts which, through physical power or sive discussion would analyze the importance of
verbal coercion, inflict an immediate damage on patriarchy in making such a history possible. Pa­
the victim. That damage may be emotional or triarchy is a system of governance by which all
mental as well as physical, and it may be inflicted men have some stake in determining the lives and
through verbal abuse, threat, imprisonment histories of the women and children assigned by
(whether in a state institution or in the home), whatever system to their care . The hierarchy

64
 which operates within this structure of governance contraception, and so on, are now secularized
is thus shared out among the men, rather than concerns handled by a professional bureaucracy.
including women who are reduced alike to their To that extent, the state has become the supreme
)
jeproductive and domestic roles. Those women patriarch. The extent to which individual men
who break out have , at least until the recent ad­ still exercise their power seems to depend on the
vent of the women's movement, done so on male intrusive power of the state in a particular society.
terms and individually . While violence, like patriarchy, predates capital­
The difference which capitalism has made to ism, it has developed new expressions and gener­
patriarchy is to take it out of the hands of individ­ ated new forms of control and channeling. It has
ual men or communities and place it in the more also, as I have already mentioned, generated new
scientific, professional hands of the state. Men are forms of analysis and explanation. It has been ar­
still invested with the dominant role within the gued, by Sartre and Marcuse among others,2 that
family, and are encouraged to exercise the power violence occurs because , as men, we too are vic­
they have developed over the history of our "civil­ tims: of the aggressive alienation of work, of the
ization." Yet this power has been narrowed con­ constant bombardment of our senses and egos by
siderably. State control, say in Britain, has taken capitalist media (including advertising). Our isola­
over many of the fUnctions once attached to the tion in the workplace and the frustrations and
position of individual patriarch. Education, the schizophrenia induced by the lack of control that
public care and welfare of children, taxation, goes with it - so the argument goes - supply ripe
and various forms of legislation around divorce, conditions for individual aggression. And - it

David Hockney, 1974

65
 don't have the capacity to strike back with their
violence). Because to the extent that we are vic­
tims, we still hold a power - as men to enact
-

rage and authority on those who have no power, .

or who have struggled for it against enormous
odds. And despite the authority vested in us as
men - as husbands, fathers, sometimes as pro­
fessionals - we still choose , deliberately or other­
wise , to enact that power with the hand, to com­
municate not in a language of gentleness but in
and through the skin.

THE LANGUAGE OF
SEXUAL VIOLENCE

How do we learn, as men, to speak a language

of domination? There are many reasons, some of
which can be seen if we look at what happens as
we go from birth to what we have learned to call
adulthood . The language we speak to our mothers
moves, in that time, from the most intimate and
sensual - the shared utterances of skin and first
speech - to the tyrannical, the instrumental, and
the dismissive . At some time between birth and,
Eadward Muybridge say , twenty, we learn to recognize our mothers as
servant, nurse , giver of birth - that is, as socially
continues - because we eventually return to the inferior beings from whom, by a process we learn
home, the most available object of aggression is to ignore or disparage, we have somehow sprung.
the woman. Where work becomes scarce (as in In this conflict between recognition and denial,
Britain now), violence is more readily enacted on we lose the language of intimacy and the knowl­
other men as well as women, and it becomes more edge of our mothers we must once have had. The
of a public show, gang-based rather than simply reality of the woman who gave birth to us and
individual. We could add that racial and class brought us up is reduced in our perceptions to
tensions also become involved at this point. its physicality.
Now at one level that is a convincing argument, This is the first violence, the severing of inti- .
and one that I would offer limited support. Yet it �'
macy. We learn to identify with the father, real or
remains both descriptively evasive and nonexplan­ absent, either through his example and teaching,
atory. It doesn't confront the issue of why, after or through the powerful indoctrinations of the
all, it is men on the whole who are violent and media and education. Ironically, as sons we are
women who are the victims of that violence in a position both to dominate and to be domi­
(though, as I have said before , this means neither nated. We dominate because , as male children,
that women are passive as victims nor that they there is some special status attached to us and our

66
 development. We are encouraged to demand from me, but I l �call as I think about it an ongoing
our mothers, and later from other women, the struggle in which my father attempted to enlist
nurturance and physical care that our early help- my support against my mother, usually in terms
}jessness made necessary. We learn quickly that of my intellectual development. My refusal for a
there is no need for us to produce the minutiae of variety of reasons to comply with this engendered
our material or emotional lives: it will be done for its own set of violences, which operated through a
us while we get on with the job of becoming men. kind of rage and fear at the power over me of this
Many of us, I think, become little tyrants in the distanced, petty man.
course of this development . A conflict arises, how­ The violence we enact first against our mothers
ever, between our sense of the power thus given to is sometimes physical: we push them away, or
us and the everyday position of the mother in the hit out, or "terrorize" in our boyish games. Or,
home. While it is generally the case that discipline as we grow older, it is carried through a look,
is ritualized in the province of the father - that is, through silence, or through tone . As we become
we are dealt with when He comes home - the adults, have girlfriends, lovers, wives, and mates,
small and seemingly inconsequential diSciplines we have already learned the habits of violence
and controls are enacted by the mother, especially which, to my mind, become almost so automatic
at the early stage. While the generalized and dra­
matic discipline of the father engenders respect
and in some cases awe , partly because of his physi­
cal presence and partly because of his continual
absences from the home, the littler disciplines of
the mother come into conflict with our sense of
her as servant and nurturer. I can remember early
expressions of my own violence being "caused" in
this way by the indignant resentment I felt at be­
ing punished by someone who was simply a physi­
cal presence and one who, at the same time, was
clearly scorned and not respected by my father.
Even as an adolescent the bitterness and rage I felt
at my father's unjust tyranny of diScipline didn't
make me as indignant and resentful as my moth­
er's more desperate and less damaging methods of
discipline.
It seems to me also that the father, seeing the
. t> naked conflict between the dominating and the
being dominated, challenges his own intimacy
with the mother and sides with the son. This is
what happens in the fIlm Ordinary People, in
which the director takes the side of father and son,
seeing them as the "natural" allies against the
mother and eventually forcing her out of the script
altogether. That didn't happen in the same way to Eadward Muybridge

67
 Jane Schreibman

as to be inevitable in some form : whether the vio­ of organizing thought and perception, so fucking,
lence is enacted on someone else or turned inwards for example , is a way of organizing desire . If our
in self-destructiveness, it is still there, part of the desire is tied up with the kind of attitudes to
abrasive conflict between ourselves and the world . women discussed so far , then that will become
One way of understanding this, I think, is to apparent in our fucking. If we are challenged by
look at the languages of men which precede vio­ the woman we desire, then it is inevitable that
lence against women and to a certain extent fucking in some way becomes violent, involving
against other men as well: languages which reduce the play of physical power which is the most
.).
women to their physicality while organizing their concrete basis for our domination .
sexuality around a reproductive or passive model,3 As agents of patriarchy, reproducing it to a
and release men to determine the range and variety greater or lesser degree as individual men, we have
of their own sexuality. I don 't , here, mean lan­ developed a language of what I would like to call
guage merely as the spoken or written word, but determinations. This, I should stress, is a language
as the range of means by which relationships are which cuts across class and racial boundaries and
communicated and articulated. As words are a way is present in educated and illiterate speech alike.

68
r---- - - -

The articulate language of academia is just one sumptions and perceptions thus become so gener­
example, albeit a very powerful one, of this "lan­ alized as to part company with the recurring
guage of determinations." Because it is limited and machinery of daily life. It is frequently pointed
Jf a certain extent fossilized, it ca� be learned by out that men are perfectly good at doing things
passing through endurance tests In the develop­ which need some general engineering perceptions,
ment of specialized vocabularies. What I mean is but that the finer details are often missed. I think
something more basic : it is a language which, on that's very true. We need look only as far as the
the whole, is removed from the minutiae of private kitchen or child's bedroom to see it in action. I
life and which reflects a concern with broad, remember being taken aback and mortified when
assumed categories of behavior and perception. I was looking after children on a daily basis and
was pleased with myself for the success I was hav­
OUR DAILY NEEDS ing in getting them dressed in the morning. The
problem was, I kept asking their mother what
We learn such a language during the process dis­ they should wear, where the socks and knickers
cussed earlier of growing into adulthood. But it and other little things were kept, until she got so
doesn't stop there. Most of us, as men, have not pissed off that she pushed me aside and did it
on the whole had to attend to the satisfaction of herself. It is a question, I think, of men failing to
our daily needs. At work, these are supplied by take responsibiiity for the things we regard as
the employer and frequently administered by petty but which are primary and essential to life.
women and low-paid workers - especially non­ The fact that as men we are taught and encour­
white people - such as tea women, secretaries, aged to think and feel in generalities means that
and cleaners. This will vary according to class we demean those areas of production which we
position: bosses have secretaries, workers don't. see as petty. For the most part, it is women who
But the structure of the patriarchal-capitalist carry out those functions, and they therefore
workforce is such that even the worst-paid male take on an appropriate status. Those of us who
workers can be sure that there will be someone, have somehow been forced to recognize the im­
usually a woman, less skilled and less well-paid and portance of such activities find that the recogni­
doing more shit work. If not, then there is the tion challenges our sense of our own importance
home, where our needs are supplied by mothers, so thoroughly that we can frequently become
wives, girlfriends, and daughters. What is most abusive as a result. An example : . seeing myself
extraordinary is that it is not just a single, narrow as a writer, I often locked myself away from the
set of needs that is satisfied by women, but a house I was living in to get on with the job of
majority of them. Our subsistence is supplied and writing, which I valued very highly and expected
our egos are cosseted either by a tactful woman everyone else to value as well. This meant that
companion or by some victory in the war for pos- childcare , cooking, and cleaning up became the
. "session of women as objects. Our frustrations are responsibility of those whose work was less im­
soothed and our desire is received. portant than mine. This is a familiar scenario.
This satisfaction of our ongoing daily needs What I think is significant is that when I was chal­
has, on the whole, given us as men the freedom lenged about my withdrawal, physically and emo­
and opportunity to develop a language which tionally, I became frustrated and resentful that she
need confront and contain only the truth of our did not understand the importance of what I was
own, self-contained, masculinist world. Our as- doing. I also managed to channel guilt into my

69
response , which ended in clenched fists, verbal most part this works, and over the centuries wom­
abuse , and finally my kicking a hole in the kitchen en have been forced to comply by developing
door. I suspect that in various ways the same kind languages of their own which we call "intuition,"
of violent response has been experienced by most "gossip ," and so on. It is when that language .
men. threatens to move out of our control, or chal"
lenges our understanding and authority, that we
"NAGGING" become violent . For it is only through abuse,
assault, and battering that we can establish and
The most common experience of such a re­ maintain the dominance which supplies us with
sponse is to what we have learned to call nagging. our sense of ourselves.
Nagging is insistence. Yet as men at work or in Similarly, when women begin to assert their
education we live daily with many forms of insist­ own sexuality, especially if that does not involve
ence to which our response is different. Why is it, a dominant position for the man, the response is
then, that when it is women in the home who frequently automatic violence (though sometimes
insist that we recognize a need or that we do it is organized, as in gang rape). Attacks on lesbian
something really useful, we often respond in rage women, on prostitutes, and on women who appear
or assault? One reason is that what is being insisted aggressive in some way (for example , academics)
on frequently confronts us with what we want to seem to me the result of this kind of reaction. A
evade, thus forcing us to consider or act on some­ combination of phallic arrogance and threat is
thing which alters our sense of ourselves. Another involved. In the more frequent cases of rape within
is because it denies the harmony, agreement, and the family, for example , the threat may not be
collusion on which our authority and importance there but the arrogance is, on top of the assump­
are based. What makes it irritating to the point of tion that - because a girl or a woman is no more
violence is that this is a truth coming from no­ than her body - it doesn't really matter.
where, from beneath us. The supposed invisibility Given the reality of violence , it has become the
of its source has changed, and we are confronted habit to explain it away as a legitimate response to
with what we do not wish to accept. Thus, for nagging, or an urgency of desire . Where the extent
those of us involved in alienated work situations, of violence becomes intolerable , as in the case of
the expected language of comfort and ego building the Yorkshire Ripper murders, we either reduce
has altered. It has become a language suggesting the question to one of "individual psychosis" and
truths that are threatening in both their sense and thus evade our own complicity, or fall back upon
their delivery. our position as "protectors." Much of the public
urgency surrounding the Ripper investigation was
Because women are understood in terms of the indignant response to the threat he posed to
their reproductive function, their domestic posi­ other men's women. Indirectly , the same response
tion, and their physicality, it is in those terms that made it possible for the prosecuting counsel to •
the phallic power of male sexuality is expressed make a moral distinction between the prostitutes
in penetration. Because they operate for us in the and the murder of women who were girlfriends
physical domain, it is women's bodies we pene­ or daughters.
trate. When we can't penetrate women's minds Much of what needs to be done is being done
we deny their importance, evade their questioning, now. Women are organizing perhaps more than
and relegate them to petty categories. For the they have ever done before to resist and combat

70
the proliferation of sexual violence. But rather
than retreating into silence , men need to come out
now with attempts at getting to the bottom of
why we resort to violence , and doing something
::,I);ut it at that level. Pious moralism is more
dangerous even than silence. This article, while
making no claims to being exhaustive , is an at­
tempt to move the discussion of violence on to .Die neuen Schergen der neuen Herren
gingen tlUS, jene tluszurotten, die die
our ground, where we can make some sort of Wtlhrheit stlgten, die Ntlmen jener in
contribution to understanding and resistance. Schtlnde tluszuloschen, die dtlvon sprtl­
chen, tlufi neue zu beginnen. Doch so
viele sie ihrer tluch toteten, sie konnten
Footnotes die Hoffnung nicht vemichten, die flit
ist wie die Trtluer und jung wie die
1 . Two accounts of this history that I have found useful Morgendammerung . •
and absorbing are Ann Foreman, Femininity as Aliena­ Manes Sperber

gegenstimmen berichtet vierteljahrlich iiber

tion, London, Pluto, 197 7 ; and Eli Zaretsky, Capitalism,
the Family and Personal Life, New York, 1976.
Opposition, Repression, Alltag, Kultur und
2 . See Herbert Marcuse, "Aggressiveness in Advanced
Krise in Osteuropa.
Industrial Society," in Negations, London, 1968 ; and
Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique of Dialectical R eason, London,
1974.
3. Marie-Antonietta Macciochi, "Female Sexuality in
Fascist Ideology," Feminist R eview, 1, 1979.

PETER BRADBURY is a poet living in London

and preoccupied with the issues that accrue
around sexuality. He works for the Greater Lon­
don Arts Association.

Beitrage , Gesprache von und mit:

Bahro • Biermann • Chojecki • OOos • Fainberg •
N EW M I SSISSIPPI, I NC. frasyniuk • Haraszti • Hegedus • Iwanow • Kis •
Kowalewski •Kuron • Lubarski • Markovic • Markow
• Mlymir • Podrabinek • Suk • Szlajfer • Tolz •
typesetting $1 2 an hour plus postage Tomin . Uhl · Vajda . Vosnesenskaja ·

also editing, research, proofread ing

Jahresabo oS 80. - , Auslandsabo oS 120.-. Forderabo
oS 200 . - (4 Nummem). Bestellungen und Probe­
21 "New Mississippi Songs" by Jan H i l l egas exemplare: gegenstimmen, Posrfach 4 1 , A- 1033 Wien

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P. O. Box 3568, Jackson, MS 39207

601 /969-2269
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71
 Capitol Punishment

Terrorist
Kook
Loner
•
who didn't want a nuclear war
(who would?)

was shot dead by federal sharpshooters

who, attempting to hit his tires,
hit his tired old body as well,

fitting punishment for the crime

of holding hostage a national icon
that suspiciously looks like an MX
except that you gotta buy them in dense-packs
can't get 'em in singles

or can ya? The prez says he's willing to talk

about a deal

Even-up, one 66 year-old terrorist

loner
kook (with a criminal record
that included leafletting without permission)
for one national icon
that suspiciously looks like an MX

But then, mainstream movement that

secretly meets with the president
might not want a terrorist ,
let alone a kook,
certainly, god forbid, not a loner
to challenge respectability and media time

do you really think you 'd miss the Washington

monument
in the mass confusion of Armageddon
or am I getting too picky .

John Demeter
December 10, 1 982

72

-- . ._-_. ----
 his illness. Because the report is not absolutely
definitive, the timid Middlebrook elects to withhold
the information.
While waiting in the corridor for his appointment,
Moses establishes a friendship with a restless lad of
about ten named Joshua. The high-spirited youth
confides that he and his sister get home from school
about an hour before either of their parents and regu­
larly reenact the Battle of Jericho. They sing wildly,
thrust with makeshift swords, and dance vigorously
to shake down the walls of their enemies' fortresses .
Josh gives a demonstration which immediately brings
over a white guard who is apprehensive about the
noise and camaraderie of the white child and a black
man old enough to be his grandfather. Later, follow­
ing a confrontation in which a black guard assists his
white compatriot, Moses thinks of Emmet Till and
Little Rock and muses:
Why was it they always went after the children,
Ernie Brill, I Looked Over Jordan. Boston: South working them over as soon as they were ready to
End Press, 1 980, 292 pp. paper, $6.00. walk almost? Was it to let them know early where
they stood in life - sock it to them quick, or was
At a time when narrative forms of fiction are out it that plus more - that cowards prefer children?
of favor with many critics , Ernie Brill's collection of Back in their respective homes, the boy and the old
loosely related short stories demonstrates the strength man each reconsider the day' s events. Josh, realizing
available in writing with a clear-cut political perspec­ how grave his new friend' s illness is, identifies him
tive, realistic dialogue, and fully developed characters. with the Biblical Moses who will not enter the Prom­
The social setting is an area of health care rarely ised Land. Moses starts to use his oxygen equipment
touched on in the popular media: the world of hospi­ to aid breathing and imagines people mocking him
tal orderlies, nurse' s aides , practical nurses, and the with new words to an old tune: Old Mose Green with
terminally ill . Brill has been there, having worked as his breathing machine/Old Mose Green with his
an orderly in hospitals in Boston and San Francisco. breathing machine. Slowly , through his own reason­
The author has a near-perfect ear when it comes to ing abilities , he correctly identifies the source of his
rendering dialogue, and the momentum of many of disease and begins to tally how many coworkers have
his stories is built around the taut, often funny, been similarly stricken. In a reverie, his mind mixes
usually acerbic interchanges between his protagon­ scenes from throughout his life with those of Little
ists. The title story which concludes the book is one Joshua darting about in his Jericho dance and an ima­
. arf the best and it illuminates Brill's major concerns . ginery campaign in which he rallies his fellow
M oses Green, a black worker who had been workers in one last struggle against the employers.
employed in the asbestos industry, is in a hospital to But, of course, it will never be. As scraps of song and
see how diagnostic tests have turned out. Middle­ moments from the past mix with hallucinations, we
brook, the white doctor assigned to him, knows that realize Mose is dying. At the end, he sees his de­
Moses has only a short time left to live and is in parted wife and says, "Time to turn in, honey . " One
anguish about whether to give him a report which of his grandchildren tugs on his arm and pleads,
Cites corporate indifference as being responsible for "Carry me home, grandpa, carry me home . "

73
 What works so well in this story is that rather than astutely diagnoses Nurse Lodge's motivations and
belaboring the calumny of capitalists and racists, the stakes out her own territory, ending with her ima­
story is securely rooted in an old worker's common gined retirement to a haven in the Caribbean, The
sense and a child's rebellious imagination. The poli­ Torrid Zone:
tical points are registered through implications and They got evenings there where the stars are drip",)
reasonances and even the most negative characters ping like they was split open melons, that's how
are depicted as having some virtues . In other tales, they look - it's like the whole sky was like my
the most sympathetic figures often snarl and shout at purse only brand new and a whole lot bigger - and
maybe I'll find me some magician stud, some
one another as lustily as they address their real foes.
magic man, who can tum these rhinestones into
Following an altercation at the hospital , a member of
diamonds and who appreciates and respects a
a small radical group asks , " Point of clarification.
woman of my bearing.
Mac is the other r.n. - the right-center one?" The
exasperated hero responds, "Right-center, right Like most stories in I Look Over Jordan, "Crazie
schmenter, " and drawing on other characters de­ Hattie" does not end with a decisive triumph for the
nounces his comrade's " horrible habit of categor­ main character. Much as Hattie and others like her
izing people like news analysts or generals , as if may rage at the system and struggle against it, given
working people were one undistinguished mass and their political and economic situations, they are for­
not older women who slept with birds and young tunate if they can force even a minor concession and
women who ate cupcakes and had ulcers, served usually must settle for a stalemate. However admir­
oolong tea to the FBI, wore yellow sweaters, under­ able they may be, they also come with bad breath,
went divorces . " However, when this outburst is nasty tempers , and a high quotient of irrational
over, the hero reflects upon the generous sentiments behavior. But these ordinary and flawed people have
behind sometimes stupid or even obnoxious tactics. values that argue for the possibility of a better
Unlike so many authors, Brill refuses to take the America, and Brill, very much in touch with the liv­
convenient option of using a disagreement about tac­ ing language, captures these values in their many
tics to disengage from the struggle for change or to individual cadences and vocabularies. His guarded
cut himself off from militants in that struggle. optimism reflects an American talent irrevocably
rooted in the revolutionary aspirations of the 1960s
Brill amplifies his political observations with a
but one tuned to the realities of the 1980s.
variety of sophisticated literary devices . In some like
"Autumn Leaves, " which deals with the Kennedy
Dan Georgakas
assassination, they fail; but in most, like "Crazie
Hattie, " dramatized by Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis
------------------ --- ---
for public television, they are quite successful. The
action in "Crazie Hattie" begins with a group of
hospital workers watching Nurse Superintendent Staughton Lynd, Shutdown: Youngstown 's Fight
Judy Lodge, white and fortyish, berating Nurse's Against Steelmill Closings. Singlejack Books , Box
Aide Hattie Perkins, black and sixtyish. Lodge 1906, San Pedro, CA , 90733 . $ 1 1 .00 .
scolds Hattie for her methods, says she endangers the
safety of their patients, and threatens to have her .
Staughton Lynd's Shutdown i s a model o f radical '
dismissed . Part two of the story is a transcript of the political history written by an active participant in the
official memorandum Nurse Lodge writes for her nation's most important struggle against plant clos­
superiors . The concluding segment is mainly an ings. It is an important addition to Singlejack's im­
interior monolog by Hattie in which all the events of pressive list of "little books" written by workers
the first two sections are seen from her point of view. about work and work relations . This book - which
Without resorting to simplistic frames, Hattie is longer and more ambitious than previous publica-

74
tions - describes historical and political events that a workers' cooperative owned entirely by former
transcend individual work experiences. Shutdown is employees. Apparently , the capital-intensive nature
also a more overtly political discussion, one that will of the industry and the need for enormous equity
have a major bearing on the debates over shop clos­ capital required such a model. Lynd is convinced that
'Jgs and will undoubtedly sting the officers of the the structure of such an Employee Stock Ownership
Steel Workers and other international unions who plan would have worked . Whether the plan could
have actually retarded the rank-and-file struggle to have been allowed to work is quite another matter.
reopen plants under worker control . Lynd discusses the various problems with existing
RA readers have already seen part of Lynd's worker-run firms and states that although public
account ("What Happened in Youngstown," July­ ownership is the only long-term answer to plant clos­
August 1 9 8 1 ) and now the full story is available. It ings, the Youngstown struggle showed that plans
is a story that takes advantage of historical subjectiv­ should not depend too much on the federal govern­
ity without falling into the errors participant ment. In any case, the merits of the plan aside, the
observers often make. In the tradition of Rank and most exciting descriptions are devoted to workers
File, the "personal histories by working class discussing how "Community Steel" in Youngstown
organizers" edited by Alice and Staughton Lynd, would be run .
this partisan account of workers' struggle shows how In an earlier review (RA, March-April 1979) Lynd
workers themselves can intepret this past with remarked that the struggle to reopen the Campbell
present-day questions in mind. works brought workers face-to-face with questions of
Written in a clear, accessible style, Shutdown pain­ socialism, and they then brought these questions
stakingly reconstructs the events that led to the shut­ before the community. This may have been one of
down of three major Ohio steel mills between 1 977 the reasons the Steel Workers ' international leader­
and 1979, and shows how workers and their allies ship played such a negative role in the struggle. But
responded . S imply by setting out the complex chron­ it does raise the question for Lynd of whether or not
ology of events, Lynd contributes to our understand­ socialists wouldn't get better results by working
ing of the shop closing problem. Indeed , what stands horizontally for alliances between unions and com­
out in this contemporary chronicle is the importance munity groups, rather than focusing entirely on
of timing. By waiting in critical instances the workers reforming or capturing big international unions .
suffered serious harm. Lynd also discussed the need for including shop clos­
Shutdown begins with useful biographical sketches ing issues in collective bargaining. He would not of
of the main participants in the struggle and then pro­ course rely entirely on such a strategy. The lessons
ceeds to an explanation of how major steel companies of the struggle against the Brier Hill plant shutdown
refused to invest in modernizing their Ohio plants was that the activists who occupied the company
and decided to shut down instead. Lynd describes the offices for a few hours, should have maintained their
human impact of the closings on communities and sit-in. The need for direct action also seems clear in
then explains how an "Ecumenical Coalition" of the recent fights against shutdowns in Canada and
church groups began an effort to reopen the Camp­ Britain.
bell Works at Youngstown under employee-commu- One problem the book raises requires more discus­
fAity ownership. There might have been more discus­ sion. When Ed Sadlowski ran as a reform candidate
sion of the role played by the Institute for Policy for Steel Workers president he suggested that some
Studies and specifically by Gar Alperovitz who steelworkers could be supported to use their talents
developed the visionary plan for reopening the steel in less alienating, more useful occupations . To
works . The plan, which required massive federal Youngstown steelworkers this sounded like a sellout.
loans , stipulated a private, profit-making corporation But clearly workers and unions in sick industries
in which workers owned part of the stock rather than need a strategy for demanding new kinds of jobs to

75
 1
replace those being eliminated. The Communications little blood shed. He wonders if Solidarity doesn't
Workers will be bargaining along these l ines based on use the phrase as a "psychological crutch" - "a
a study which predicts the efforts of new technology way of covering what some concede is their shame
in their industry. However, it would clearly be disas­ over the fact that there wasn't more resistance. "
trous for workers to concede to shutdowns and aban­ Of course the Polish state, not Solidarity, declaredtn
don direct action so that their unions and lawyers can an official "state of war" December 1 3 , 1 98 1 . In any
negotiate for job training programs . Unfortunately, case, as Tymowski writes in his introduction, Poland
shutdowns force workers to defend their jobs and is in a peculiar sort of propaganda war of " Orwellian
their job security first and foremost, but these kinds proportions . " "Its unique and determining feature
of crises often show that workers are not just was the absol ute isolation imposed on everyone . . .
economic creatures . If workers can mount struggles in the first hours" after martial law was declared.
to reopen industries under their own control they can Solidarity Under Seige includes many important
begin to discuss how to change the jobs they work documents like Solidarity' S Radom statement issued
and the products they make. Labor history shows us on the eve of martial law as well as Tymowski's own
that so-called defensive struggles can unleash perceptive comments on topics like "Did Solidarity
creative visions of the future. When all seems to be Go Too Far?" "The answer in hindsight is no, there
lost people sometimes begin to discuss the validity of was nothing that could have prevented the coup.
the status quo . Short of Solidarity 's repudiation of everything it
Shutdown will stimulate discussions on many stood for, an attempt at military intervention was
important questions about a socialist future. It will inevitable. "
also be read by activists involved in the day-to-day The most important documents for understanding
struggle to save jobs and communities. Solidarity' s current possibilities (as of the summer of
1 982) are the contrasting strategic statements by
Jim Green Jacek Kuron and Zbigniew Bujack.
Kuron, a leading intellectual of KOR (Committee
for Workers' Self Defense), and a moderate in early
Solidarity debates , now repudiates two of the move­
ment' s key principles: ( 1 ) open participation and
Andrzej Tymowski, ed. , Solidarity Under Seige activity at all levels, and (2) the concept of a "self­
(D. H. Back Press, Box 7 14, New Haven, CT , limiting revolution" designed to avoid Soviet inter­
065 1 0 - $2 . 75 plus .75 postage) . vention. He now believes that it would be "a mistake
to ignore the imminent possibility of direct, all-out
Andrzej Tymowski who compiled, translated, and conflict with Soviet power. " Therefore Polish soci­
edited the excellent documentary The Strike at ety must create a centrally controlled national
Gdansk (available for $2 .00 plus postage from the resistance movement to defeat an occupation. Kuron
address above) has put together another timely, does not call for armed resistance against occupation
important report on the Polish workers' struggle. For like the opposition to the Nazis. In fact, he condemns
leftists who have been frustrated and angered by the terrorism and wants an organization that would head
journalistic coverage of Poland under martial law, it off. According to Kuron: •
Solidarity Under Seige is an enlightening if not en­
A well organized, mass resistance movement is the
couraging publication. Poles' only chance. Only such a movement can
In a sympathetic but rather apolitical article in the negotiate a compromise . Only such a movement
New York Times Magazine (August 22, 1 982), John can tum back the tide of terrorism; and, in the
Darnton says the notion of a " state of war" existing event that no one from the government steps for­
in Poland is a curious one because there has been so ward with a compromise, only such a movement

76
 can reduce the risk of Soviet retaliation. . . . The exactly the opposite: decisions need to be made at
occupying regime' s strength lies in its ability to the factory level and lower. . . . Such a decen­
keep society disorganized by shifting a small tralized structure protects against infiltration,
number of pacification squads from one location to reduces the extent of losses in case of detection,
I) another. For this reason - the contrast to our stra­ and makes it much more difficult for our activities
tegy before August 1980 we must now organize
- to be disrupted.
around a central nucleus and accept its discipline.
Even in this desperate period of history Solidarity
Against Kuron, Zbigniew , Bujack argues for a continues to inspire advanced forms of political
continuation of the widespread, decentralized resis­ discussion about how to mobilize workers' resistance
tance that would eventually force the state to seek a and to carry on the struggle for self-determination.
social contract that would allow for economic gains Anyone who has followed the emergence of Solidar­
and reduce sabotage. As Bujack says of Solidarity: ity from its dramatic appearance two years ago will
Before December 1 3 , strong centralizing tenden­ want to read this excellent collection on Solidarity
cies began to appear within the union. Increas­ Under Seige.
ingly, decisions were being made at the Regional
and national levels. Conditions today call for Jim Green

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77
 LETTE RS feminist theorists have shown that the having and
raising of children is an essential aspect of social
labor. There may well be something distinctive about
Dear Radical America: the condition of biological and psychologica.
I am writing in response to the essay " Feminism motherhood which would make for a distinctive con­
and Anti-Militarism" by Margaret Cerullo and Marla tribution of mothers to political life, including the
Erlien (RA, Vol 1 6 , Nos. 1 & 2). anti-war movement. Obviously , what this distinct
Cerullo and Erlien make many important points in contribution would be is a matter for mothers to
their essay . However, I am concerned with that part decide. However I question the manner in which
of their essay which addresses the way women have Cerullo and Erlien, if I have understood them cor­
been characterized or stereotyped as mothers when rectly, seem to deny this possibility . Perhaps they do
they enter anti-war politics. Of course it is oppressive so because they accept the sexist image of
and sexist, as Cerullo and Erlien argue, to suggest motherhood as the only basis on which motherhood
that women can only enter anti-war politics as can be understood. Perhaps they believe that
mothers, or that a woman who is a mother is thereby "motherhood" as a political identity is inherently
defined only as a mother. Yet I think that the authors sexist, whereas the sisterhood of feminism (women
ignore the possibility that being a mother might con­ as women) can be liberating. However, just as female
stitute a significant or even decisive influence on a identity had to be reclaimed from a sexist culture, so,
woman' s politics. They state that "To assert our hopefully, will that of "mothers . "
needs and interests as women, as opposed to as
Roger S . Gottlieb
mothers, can become as difficult in the movement as
it is in the society at large" (their emphasis, p. 5 1) .
I wonder if they mean to suggest by this statement
that women who are mothers do not have, as Response
mothers, a particular set of interests (or values, or Our wariness about identifying motherhood as the
experiences, or attitudes). If this is what they do source of women's opposition to militarism grows
think, I wonder why they do. out of problems that arise in our present historical
I would suggest the following possibilities. First, context. Since at least the 1980 election, a "gender
the physical and psychological experiences of preg­ gap" has visibly surfaced in voting patterns and most
nancy and childbirth may well be a distinctive experi­ strikingly in men's and women' s increasingly
ence for a woman such that she then has (or may divergent views about war and peace, evident both in
have, or may be led in the direction of having) a char­ polls and surveys and, dramatically, in women's acti­
acteristic attitude towards life and death, boundaries vism in the disarmament movement. Roger Gottlieb
between people, violence, etc. This attitude may be is not alone in attributing women's opposition to war
different than that held by all men and by women to our distinctive relationship to issues of "life and
who have not had children. Second, the psychologi­ death, boundaries between people, violence, " etc . ,
cal effects of caring for children (discussed in detail via mothering. But women have always been socially
in recent works by a number of feminist theorists , in­ defined as mothers . And our history includes no.;
cluding Chodorow, Dinnerstein, and Harding) may only opposition to but also complicity with
also lead in the same direction . militarism. After all, mothers have traditionally
Now these points are not meant to suggest that sacrificed their sons, with pride, to the fatherland.
women should be mothers; or that mothers "must" Our question was how to explain the historical break
have certain attitudes. Yet Marxist theory has long with these traditions. Our challenge was to those who
claimed that one's participation in social labor is answered by emphasizing continuities with women's
essential to determining one's politics. And socialist- traditional identity where we saw a rupture.

78
 We recalled the early women' s movement because ance, etc. When women's distinct contribution to
that revealed that women's involvement in antiwar politics is articulated instead in terms of traditional
activities led to challenging our prescribed identi­ female values, we sacrifice our own rebellion against
ties - as mothers and sex objects - which we had our role in the culture. The issue is whether we can
&rried from the culture into the movement. Femi­ embrace motherhood as a political identity without
nists developed a critique of the nuclear family, carrying the traditional - self-sacrificing, desexual­
childrearing, the denial of women's sexuality, izing - terms of motherhood into politics . Roger
thereby both exposing the operations of male power Gottlieb holds out hope, but fails to make concrete
and deepening our understanding of the roots of war how advocating nurturance as an opposition breaks
and imperialism in our way of life. We opposed with its self-sacrificing meaning for women.
women's traditional roles as nurturers and com­
Margaret Cerullo and Marla Erlien
forters. Such roles burdened us with responsibility
for softening the daily assaults of an inhuman public
sphere and inhibited us from acting against male
power within the private sphere. We saw that both as
mothers and sex objects our role was to service the
needs of others . Our immersion in the needs of others
prevented our discovering our own needs and desires.
With this recognition came the assertion of a female
sexuality unbound by the cultural norms. The rupture

BOAT. 0)
with men lay here, not in the demand to legitimize
nurturance. Sisterhood became the power base from
which we resisted the guilt, the (internal as well as
external) accusations - selfish, demanding, cas­
trating - that accompanied our break with women' s
traditional behavior and roles.
We restate this because these perceptions seem dis­
R ead how it's done by squatters, rebel
fem i nists, draft resisters, pacifists, fed-up
tant from our present. The current attack on abortion
workers, m i l i tant cyclists and malcontents
rights dramatically reveals to women the resilience of everywhere. All i n the Open Road -- the
the culture against feminist demands. In our article, la rgest ci rculation English language
we drew on our experience in trying to keep the issue a n a rchist newsj ournal today.
of abortion alive in a peace movement that was wel­ Sample copy: $ 1 .
coming the participation of the Catholic Church. Subscriptions: Two hours wages per year.
When women raised the issue within disarmament
Yes, I'd l i ke to read how they do it.
organizing, the old abuses were hurled - selfish,
putting your own needs first, etc. - the same accusa­
Name ______________________________
tions antiabortionists make to women demanding
ttIPortion. The difficulty many women have had in Address ___________________________
�sisting such accusations reveals a key to the New
Right's ability to gain ground. The values that have C i ty ________________
traditionally kept women in their place are deeply
internalized and have yet to be uprooted. We need a Amount enclosed
political articulation which supports women' s chal­ Send to: Open Road, Box 6 1 3 5 , Sta. G,
lenges to values that have denied our needs in the Vancouver, B.C., Canada. V6R 4G5.
of the needs of others , the greater good, nurtur- ----------------- - �

79
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 "RADICAL AMERICA: A 1 5 YEAR AN­
THOLOGY" - Special retrospective with selection of
articles that have appeared in RA since 1967: Black • • • • •• •• • • • • •
• •• Liberation, Work-place Struggles, Feminism, Com-
munity Activism, American Left , Culture and Art .

Articles, commentary, poetry and art by C.L.R.

James, Sara Evans, E.P. Thompson, Herbert Mar­
cuse, Diane DiPrima, Ken Cockrell, Margaret Ran­
dall , Staughton Lynd , Manning Marable, Todd
Gitlin, Mari Jo Buhle, Ann D. Gordon, Ellen Willis,
Michael Lesy, David Montgomery, Aime Cesaire,
Bernice Johnson Reagon, Sonia Sanchez, Dan
Georgakas, Leonard Baskin, Gilbert Shelton, Edith
Hoshino Altbach, George Rawick, Marlene Dixon,
Mark Naison, Sheila Rowbotham, David Widgery,
Ron Aronson, Harvey O'Connor, Lillian Robinson,
David Wagner, Hans Gerth, Peter Biskind, Daniel
Singer, Jean Tepperrnan, Martin Glaberman, Stan
Weir, Dorothy Healey and the editors of Radical
America. Edited by Paul Buhle.
"FACING REACTION" - Special double issue on
the New Right and America in the 80s . . . Vol. 1 5 , Nos . • • • • • • • • • •
•• 1 & 2 (Spring 1981) . . . 160 pages, illustrated.
Featuring: IN THE WINGS: NEW RIGHT
ORGANIZING AND IDEOLOGY by Allen Hunter;
THE CONTINUING BURDEN OF RACE: a review
by Manning Marable; ABORTION: WHICH SIDE
ARE YOU ON? by Ellen Willis; THE LONG
STRUGGLE FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS by
Linda Gordon; THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENTS:
FEMINIST AND ANTIFEMINIST by Barbara
Ehrenreich; RETREAT FROM THE SOCIAL
WAGE: HUMAN SERVICES IN THE 80s by Ann
Withorn; also THE NEW TERRAIN OF
AMERICAN POLITICS by Jim O 'Brien;
ECONOMIC CRISIS AND CONSERVATIVE
POLICIES by Jim Campen; DEMOCRACY, SOCI­
ALISM AND SEXUAL POLITICS by the editors of
Gay Left; and Noam Chomsky and Michael Klare on
COLD WAR II and US INTERVENTIONISM IN
THE THIRD WORLD. Plus, BILLBOARDS OF
THE FUTURE!

"DREAMS OF FREEDOM" - Special double issue

featuring "Having a Good Time: The American • • • •• •••• • • • •
Family Goes Camping" . . .Vol. 16, Nos. 1 & 2 (Spring
1982) . . . 180 pages.
Featuring: Interview with Carlos Fuentes; SPECIAL
SECTION: Reviews of recent Radical History on
women, blacks, rural populists, auto workers and
responses to industrialization; POSTAL WORKERS
AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT by Peter
Rachleff; PEACE AT ANY PRICE?: FEMINISM,
ANTI-IMPERIALISM AND THE DISARMA­
MENT MOVEMENT by the editors; SOLIDARI­
TY, COLD WAR AND THE LEFT by Frank
Brodhead; E.R.A., R.I.P.-BUT HOW HARD
$4.00 (plus 50'f postage)
SHOULD WE CRY AT THE FUNERAL? by Anita
SPECIAL BULK RATE AVAILABLE: Diamant; and, poetry, movie satires and more.
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