nt societyВ» in the balance and found it wanting. The housewife epitomised this affluent world of gadgets, and in fact was one herself. As Betty Friedan put it, she found herself with a vague, inexplicable feeling of В«Is this all? В»Alienation and feelings of powerlessness provided the impetus for the growth of the Women's Liberation Movement.
Consciousness raising groups were therefore the first tasks of the movement. Women came to understand that personal feelings of inadequacy and helplessness were shared, that they were related to the social situation of women. Alienation was discovered to be a result of lack of control over the conditions of your life. In Women's Liberation terms this meant no abortion or childcare centres, restricted job opportunities and low wages, and above all the role expectation that whatever the individual propensities or talents, all women must become wives, mothers and housewives.
Betty Friedan's organisation, NOW, had little trouble establishing a strategy consistent with its limited aims of improved status for women within the system, and followed the standard pressure group tactics. However the Women's Liberation Movement, with its aim of fundamental change, required a strategy broader in scope. When the momentum of the movement slowed after the initial burst of enthusiasm, the movement had to face its own lack of social power, which is essential for change. In the absence of a strong and clearly radical working class movement, the movement turned inwards.
The movement at this stage had an extremely emotional, tense atmosphere. Many women, discovering the oppressive nature of the role with which they had always identified, suffered an identity crisis, and sought support and identity in the movement, in sisterhood. Many turned to the movement as if to a lover, seeking from this new relationship the fulfilment promised but never provided by the traditional role. In its inability to find a strategy, the movement rallied its one obvious strength - Unity. p> Radical feminism grew out of this search for a theory to unite all women, a search for a В«FemaleВ» culture to replace the В«maleВ» culture which was seen as being the main enemy. All those social realities which do divide women were ignored by the simple expediency of relegating them to the male domain, whereby they were made unimportant.
From the beginning, the movement had argued that many В«femaleВ» characteristics such as emotions were in fact good and necessary for all humans. This gave way now to an advocacy of the female culture, which in turn amounts to the only thing that does cut across all class, race and national lines for women: the female role.
As Radical Feminism has grown and developed it has retreated more and more into the female role.
Just as so many men have told us in the past. Radical Feminists now tell us that women are earthy, un-aggressive creatures, who think differently and whose sexuality is different - more diffuse and romantic.
Thus the constant pressure in the movement to be В«sisterlyВ», to have no disagreements, and to relate totally to everybody. Articles are written attacking thought and theory as В«maleВ». Women, В«suddenlyВ» develop an interest in crafts, particularly those not exactly traditionally regarded as unsuitable for females, eg weaving or crocheting. When an action is not completely successful the response of many Women's Liberationists is to blame themselves. p> It is extraordinary that Radical Feminist women, while complaining that males have written women out of history, will unflinchingly make these generalizations. To ignore politically powerful (and warlike) women such as Scrimavo Bandaranaike, Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir; or even the hundreds of women psychologists and sociologists who have studied sexuality - among them Margaret Sanger, Helene Deutsch, Margaret Mead; to ignore these women is to deny that women do have a history. p> Furthermore, to maintain that women have been successfully and totally suppressed to the point where they have been completely unable to participate is to accept the idea that women are passive; and it is to deny that women have repeatedly been able to overcome their conditioning so far as to break through to real activity.
The exceptionally elitist attitudes to their less famous contemporaries who participate in В«male dominatedВ» left organisations is not only insulting; it is inconsistent with any ideas of sisterhood to have such contempt for the sincerely held beliefs of socialist women.
The reaffirmation of the female role is taken to its logical conclusion by Jane Alpert. Her theory that women should rule and be worshipped by virtue of their potential motherhood brings us full circle, back to the gilded cage from which we have so desperately been trying to escape. But this time the purpose of the bars is not to keep ...
