Immigration of Thought

Alexander Duffy

Professor Shaw

20^th Century Political Movements

March 3^rd, 2013

Immigration of Thought

            The mass migrations of Eastern European Jews to the United States helped to progress women workers unions and women’s rights in the Lower East Side of New York City through the spread of Marxist and Socialist ideologies.  Beginning with the persecution of Jews in Russia during the pogroms, Jews brought their ideas of social justice, backed by religiously fueled philosophy, to the frontlines of the United States Labor Movement.  The likeminded thoughts of the Jewish immigrants and oppressed workers throughout New York City brought about the reformation of policies in the garment factories and the formation of many prominent unions. 

            In Eastern Europe, the Jewish people had been oppressed for much of the 19^th century, molding their thoughts into that of equality and wanting to rise up against their oppressors.  Towards the end of the 1800’s, Marxist philosophy had sparked thoughts of revolution throughout the people Europe, especially with those unappreciated workers to whom Marx’s words applied most.  The spread of these radical thoughts throughout Eastern Europe riled the people and intensified their political awareness, “The excitement of living in a revolutionary era imbued these young women with a faith in progress and a belief that political commitement gave life meaning.” (Orleck 17)

            While these beliefs in social justice were growing stronger in Europe, they were particularly influential among the Jewish people due to the coupling of their religious philosophy with those of Marx.  Unfortunately, anti-Semitism was running rampant through Europe at the time, leading many Jews to flee their homes for a better life in America.  Due to the hateful sentiments in Europe, the Socialist ideals were brought along with the Jews to America, where they prospered amongst the immigrant factory workers whose minds were being fertilized by the oppression they found in their occupations.

            The labor laws of the United States allowed factory owners to exploit immigrant labor, lighting a fire within the minds of those whose previous lives had fostered revolutionary thought.  Experiencing the same type of segregation that they had in Europe, the Jews congregated in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, an area that quickly became known for its political activity.  Here the Socialist ideas were able to grow along with a connected sense of being Jewish as well as being a woman. 

            Jewish mothers who were working as many jobs as they could to keep their apartments and feed their children were prone to the ideas of Socialism from Europe.   Due to the close proximity in which Jews from all over Europe lived, the thoughts and ideas from all different areas were at once united.  The mothers were either learning of Socialism and Marxism in the factories, or from Socialist newspapers such as The Forward and what employed members of the family were hearing.  The crosspollination of these thoughts lead to the political hyperawareness of Jewish women in the Lower East Side. 

            Apart from the upbringing of Jews in homes with Socialist thought, their religion reflected the ideals held by Marxism and Socialism.  The Jewish tradition is one that holds social justice in high esteem, making the works of Karl Marx echo that of scripture.  Without this necessary link that the Jewish people felt towards the radical beliefs of the time, the social movements that were started and fueled by them would have been nonexistent.  The Jewish workers organizer Sidney Jonas played upon the connection that she saw between the two and was to attract, in her own words, “Jewish workers who were deeply imbued with an Old Testament sense of social justice.” (Orlech 27)  One book that Orleck takes note of in Common Sense and A Little Fire is the book of Isaiah, which favors those who stand up for the poor and fight oppression.

            Through a combination of their homes being a hotbed of Socialist political activity and their religious beliefs Jewish women took charge of the labor movement by organizing strikes, boycotts, and other pro-worker activities.  However, they were at the same time not equal with all workers.  The divide between men and women was a problem for factory workers since men would sexually exploit women as well as not allow them to participate in unions under the belief that they could not organize.  Without a union, women’s rights in the workplace were violated they needed some reprieve from their suffering.  Thus the International Ladies Garment Worker Union was conceived. 

            Women who were not formally educated in the political goings on were forced to take that responsibility upon them.  By distributing books and ideas at the factory, women were able to educate themselves and give a greater sense of urgency to their cause.  Thus began the organization of unions and the progression towards women’s rights due to the expulsion of Jews from Eastern Europe and the spread of ideas to America. 

Jewish Identities on Strike?

In Annelise Orleck’s Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900-1965, Jewish women are able to seize some sort of political control over their neighborhoods. It seems their success is bound in the strength of their communities. Orleck does not explore directly how their Jewish identities shape their community structure, but combined with class and immigrant-status, it is a significant part of how communities are structured.

Orleck explores how living as Jews in Eastern Europe in the last two decades of the 19^th century led the women and their families abroad. Governments at home targeted socially responsive Jews. Poor and vulnerable, many Jewish communities were toying with socialism, Zionism or a kind of “Yiddish cultural nationalism.” Such movements and ideals bound people together, and many ideas stuck as families moved to America (18).

The women, Orleck notes, were “ushered into a world swept by a firestorm of new ideas, where the contrasting but equally messianic visions of orthodox Judaism and revolutionary socialism competed for young minds” (17) Such a statement made me wonder if immigrants had to choose between their Judaism and socialist revolutionary activism at home or in America. Are there certain ties that bind people away from activism, and what else did these women have to sacrifice?

Though the beginning to the book highlights the Jewish cultural history that may have ignited seeds of discontent and charged the women with a mission. In later chapters, however, their Jewish identities and activities become secondary. I am left wondering if, like other detailed aspects of their social lives, their identities are intentionally left out of the book.

Through the book, women are rounding up not only factory workers and female laborers, but those in their own areas of the city. Immigrant communities were divided by nationality, and their Jewish, European identities held them together.

In chapter six, Clara Lemlich serves as a leading “spark plug” in her neighborhood, and the importance of having community members leading the Kosher meat boycott movements in various part of Brooklyn is clearly important. We learn that her soapbox speeches are in Yiddish and English, a moment that signals that her life is a bit different than the story normally portrays. There are no stories of her putting away her soapbox on the Sabbath, or meeting women at the Jewish women’s club or synagogue, but they may exist and be left out just as the rest of her non-activist activities are. Orlech’s decision of omission an important one, because readers come away with a sense that these women were able to make change by devoting all waking hours to fighting the fight. However, as immigrants in Brooklyn, I am sure these women were in some way connected with their Jewish heritage, though its significance is not clearly explored.

Tightropes and High Hopes: Managing Celebrity Identity Then (1900s) and Now (2000s)

Recent Super Bowl performer Beyonce seems to be running the world, not because she is a girl, but also because she's (almost) mastered the ability to carefully manage her public identity.   Hailed in the scholarly media sphere as both genius and successful at fending off celebrity magazines taking photos of her cellulite or spinning stories about her marriage, Beyonce has carefully created tools that reveal her “true” self before the threatening hands of celebrity gossip creators get a hold of her. 

In April 2012, for example, she released her own tumblr (her first major involvement with social media) on which she posted pictures taken by herself and Jay-Z (her husband)—intimate shots on vacation and small, yet seemingly profound, moments in B’s life.  Fans went crazy for the tumblr.  (Really, check it out!)  Even more strategically, Beyonce recently released a self-created, directed, and written documentary about herself for HBO, “revealing” the “true” story of her life.  Although the documentary was criticized for being a bit boring and surely self-abosorbed (but, really, what do people expect from an autobiographical documentary?), both it and the tumblr attest to Beyonce’s ability to carefully manage and strategically mobilizes a particular kind of image of her self, one that we surely know isn’t necessarily “real,” but we still, nonetheless, take as more real than her on-stage alter-ego Sasha Fierce. 

Beyonce managing her celebrity identity in an interview with Oprah.

Beyonce is time and time again hailed for her revolutionary way of publicly presenting herself.  It’s not hard to see her genius if we compare her to, say, Britney Spears and the head-shaving incident that was not carefully managed.  BUT maybe B isn’t that revolutionary if we compare her to the leading women of the Jewish immigrant worker activists (1900-1965), given celebrity status because of their leadership during the working-class women’s labor movement. 

Rose Schneiderman,  Fannia Cohn, Clara Lemlich Shavelson, and Pauline Newman, unlike Beyonce, didn’t have a hired publicity team.  They carefully managed their identities solely on their own, stepping on soap boxes, eschewing solely homelife in favor of an activist-motherhood lifestyle, and relentlessly maneuvering themselves in a patriarchal, capitalist, racist system that continually rendered them powerless. 

In Common Sense and a Little Fire, Annelise Orleck digs deep into both the public and private lives of Schneiderman, Cohn, Shavelson, and Newman, telling us stories about their lives instead of an historical account of the movement.  Constantly having to represent their causes and be heard in an environment that muted women’s voices, the women were scrutinized in the public eye, and they knew this.  As a result, they regulated themselves accordingly, always thinking about how they presented themselves would affect the movement’s potential for success and their leadership within that movement. 

Orleck, in two particular occasions, describes the women as walking an identity tightrope: “Schneiderman was…walking the tightrope between class and gender politics…militancy and respectability” (265); “Newman walked an identity tightrope.  By day she had to mold herself to the gruff, emotional Jewish workingman’s world…At night she had to blend into the more polished upper-class feminine style” (311).  Here, I take identity tightrope to mean a thin, intensely wobbly line, that these women had to unrelentingly try to carry themselves on, for with one wrong move, they could fall off of it, symbolically negating all the hard work they had done to revolutionize gender politics and working women’s lives. 

Pauline Newman managing her identity in the spotlight of the press.

While Beyonce is applauded time and time again for having a paid entourage help her to navigate the modern-day celebrity identity tightrope, these 1900s activist women are surely not given enough credit for walking an even more unstable (and longer) tightrope in their day, by themselves.  They had no private life to protect, like B does, because their private life was political and automatically public. 

While we’re busy flipping our hand back and forth singing about being a single lady, these four intelligent and courageous women were actually being single ladies, sacrificing a more self-fulfilling, selfish identity for one that would move a greater cause. And the fact that we can even dance to Beyonce's music is in part due to these 1900s celebrity activist women. If we hail B, we must infinitely more so hail these women for their ability to manage their celebrity, and their selves, in such an intricate and careful way so as never to fall off their tightropes (which Common Sense and a Little Fire should more explicitly state and devote more time to). It's not just our social movements that have an inherited history, it's also our (female) celebrity culture that has one too, and not necessarily from the places we would commonly think.

Beyonce has a net under her tightrope that’s made of millions of dollar bills—these women didn’t.  

Industrial Feminism vs. Modern Hollywood

          Everyone loves “Awards Season.” Or at least everyone I know does. The mornings after the award shows are filled with discussions of who/what won which awards, whether or not people agree with the decisions, and most commonly: what actress wore the best dress. On the surface, there is little wrong with these kinds of conversations, but something was made very clear after this year’s Oscars: things in Hollywood (and everywhere else) need to change. Seth McFarlane (creator of Family Guy) hosted the Oscars this year, and no one was very happy with his performance. The opening number was called “The Boob Song,” and it doesn’t take much to realize that the actresses called out because the audience “saw their boobs” in certain films were highly un-amused (particularly Charlize Theron). Throughout the rest of the award show, more misogynist and highly inappropriate comments were made, which led to an article entitled “Why Seth McFarlane’s Misogyny Matters” in New York Magazine's the Vulture. The piece began with some shocking information that I was unaware of: “Seth MacFarlane made a whole bunch of sexist, reductive jokes at the Oscars last night. It's frustrating enough to know that 77 percent of Academy voters are male. Or to watch 30 men and 9 women collect awards last night.” As an avid tv and film watcher, I am proud to say that I could name just as many if not more female performers than males. However, I am ashamed to admit that I know significantly more male producers and directors than female, although I’m learning this is not entirely my fault. 

The fire of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company is something that I had known about before reading Annie Orleck's Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900-1965. However, I was previously unaware of the labor unions formed by women in the early 20th Century. Until two weeks ago I had know idea who Fannia Cohn, Rose Schneiderman, Pauline Newman, or Clara Lemlich were, or the immeasurable influence these women had during the early 1900s. By joining and creating working-class unions they gave other women a space to gather the knowledge and skills necessary to gain better wages and working conditions. Nevertheless, even when these women gained leadership positions within the unions, it was common for a man to be sent in to either replace her, or do the same job with better pay. This was the case for Pauline Newman: “The final straw came when John Dyche sent a male organizer to join Newman in Cleveland and paid him a higher weekly wage. Newman decided the time had come to quit the ILGUW for a career as a writer and freelance organizer. ‘You, Rose, know that the seven dollars does not bother me but there is a principle involved and for that I am ready to fight’” (Orleck 69). When the unions believed a man could do the same job as a woman, and do it better, they didn’t hesitate to insert him into the situation and pay him well. Along with being pushed aside by male organizers, the women also had to be concerned with their appearances in a way that is similar to Hollywood women today. Although they were taking on these powerful roles, they were frequently condemned for their more masculine appearances (most often: Cohn), or, in some cases, being to demure: “Schneiderman dressed and acted in ways thought of as “mild” and conventional. Newman was outspoken and passionate and dressed as she pleased. She wore her hair short and had a taste for tweeds and ties. She did not seem to care much about what others thought of her” (Orleck 136). They learned early on that how they dressed and behaved could sway how their ideas were received by others, and therefore the success they could have if they catered to their audience.

The final way (that I will explore) in which the women of the industrial feminism movement struggled in a way that is similar to the women in Hollywood, was their fight to be seen as actual people with a sense of individualism and personhood: “By breaking through poor women’s isolation in the home, by encouraging them…to learn about and become active in changing the world they lived in, the housewive’s movement promised to empower and liberate wives and mothers, for when mothers became activists they also became individuals…That required of children and husbands an acknowledgement of the mother’s personhood – a difficult thing for many family members to grant” (Orleck 226). As a collective audience we often believe that the lives of actresses belong to us – that we have every right to know what they’re doing, when they’re doing it, and whom they’re doing it with all of the time. In the 1930s women wanted to be recognized as an entity outside of their household in relation to their husbands and children.

The jump from working-class politics in the early 1900s to an Oscars host in 2013 is large, but one that immediately came to mind as I read about the four women who made major changes in unions and education at the turn of the century. A reoccurring theme…or mantra that we have repeated throughout the semester is “We always claim ‘we’ve come so far,’ but when you really look at it, things haven’t changed at all,” and that’s what I was thinking as I connected the work of these women to the Vulture article. Sure there are women working in Hollywood, but we rarely hear about the ones that work behind the scenes. Instead we focus on the “beautiful” and “talented” actresses. But what’s wrong with a female director, screenwriter, or even composer? The answer we all want to hear is: nothing. There’s nothing wrong with an intelligent, successful woman being responsible for an award winning score or plot. However, their chances of being recognized are stifled by the number of men in the industry. Not only that, but who cares about the non-beautiful women in Hollywood, or the traits that make the “beautiful” ones worthy as humans too? Margaret Lyons, the 54,000 people who recommended the article via Facebook, and undoubtedly many more people care. Which leads to the question: will there ever be a group of women to stand up for their rights and make a difference like these four women in the 1900s? I sure hope so, and when it comes to Hollywood...my bet is on Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.  

Finding the Spark: Common Sense and a Little Fire's applicability to modern social movements.

A main question that I have been grappling with since about halfway through our text (Common Sense and a Little Fire, Orlek, 1995) is exactly how the four women in this book found the strength and conviction to fight for so long against such opposition.  The text explores their circumstances, and the particular hurdles and victories of each of their lives, but it left me wanting to know more about what fueled them in their fight.  What was it about their characters that allowed them to be so utterly committed?  Especially in the case of Fania Cohn, this commitment (specifically to the success of the education program within the International Ladys' Garment Workers Union) drove her to lead a solitary life, nearly void of leisure and completely void of romantic love.  All of the women involved in the Industrial Feminist movement were most likely moved to the point of physical action at one point or another; they marched in the streets and repetitively held strikes to force factory bosses to listen to them.  They organized at night, after a long shift at the factories and taking care of their families. So what exactly gave them the strength to do this? And what was different about their situations from modern situations in which the same types of injustices and oppression are still happening? And, most importantly, is it even possible for modern activists to replicate their success?

Now, I understand that times are different. The text spans from 1900 to 1965, with most of the militant actions focused in the earlier years of the chronology. The living and working conditions in an immigrant ghetto for a garment factory at the turn of the century were deplorable by today's standards. The political atmosphere, dealing with two World Wars and then McCarthyism, are also not exactly what we are currently facing in modern America.  But even so, are there not still injustices in society to be attended to? There is clearly still cause to take to the streets, as we saw with the Occupy movement in 2011, teacher's union strikes, the ongoing string of climate change protests, and other movements like immigrants' and  farmers' rights, current up to this week with the McDonnald's workers strike in Harrisburg, PA.  Clearly there are still things worth fighting for and groups of people who are motivated to strike, if only for a day.

Wait, the Harrisburg McDonnalds strike lasted only for a day? The Occupy Movement lost media attention rapidly and is still bleeding out? Where is the dedication of Fania Cohn and her sister organizers?  Perhaps their caliber of dedication lost to the past, and our generation of leaders can never hope to mimic those who were raised in foreign lands by Jewish families on the ideals of Socialism and Marxism. Or, is it we who have changed? Is it not a lack of dedication on the part of would-be revolutionary leaders, but rather our reticence as everyday American citizens to rise in solidarity? To be moved to emotion and action? To live with both eyes open to poverty and injustice, and strive to eradicate it?  I would argue that it falls to every single citizen to become as Fania Cohn was: though her family was relatively wealthy and she could have lived comfortably, she chose to be on the ground working to give voices to the women that had no agency to find their own.

Are these times really so different from the 1900s-1960s?  Immigrant rights and workers rights are still under attack.  Entry-level jobs and internships can demand exceedingly high hours for low (if any) pay, simply because of the stack of resumes a foot high that they can choose from.  We are living with the same sense of competition that the garment workers faced: if you cause too much trouble, or ask for better conditions or higher pay, you will be thrown out the door past the girls lining up to replace you. Complacency is keeping us in check. Work may be hell, but at least we have a job, right?  "I have no time to enjoy my books or my furniture, but without a paycheck I will lose my apartment."  "I have no time to spend with my children, but I would rather see them starving for attention rather than food." I think our reason for complacency has to do with the same sort of national politics that brought a close to the Industrial feminism Movement in the 1960s: much as the Red Scare and McCarthyism shut down any sort of social uprisings in the post-war era, modern America is still reeling from the Terrorism legacy of 9/11.  We have been taught to love our country more than ourselves, and that to sacrifice for "the good" of your country (as defined by those in economic and political power) is a sacrifice you should be willing to make.

So we are left again where Cohn, Schneiderman, Lemlich, and Newman were stymied.  Just as they had difficulty finding a leader to carry on their legacies amongst the new generation of female union members, we are still failing to rise to that challenge today.  I'm not arguing that there hasn't been progress made in the 50-some years since their deaths, but rather that it is time to re-define what makes America great. It should not be because we are slaves to a capitalist machine, but rather because of our citizens are leading contented lives.  We must realize that complacency is not enough, and that better conditions are still possible. We must bring ourselves out of the 21st century media-induced stupor, and go out into the streets to see what is really going on in our communities.  We must care about our neighbors and their welfare as much as we care about ours.  We must hold those four women as our standard, and deny our culture of fear and helplessness. We must choose action over complacency. We must denounce "barely getting by".

(Queer) industrial feminists: Power and social mobility at what cost(s)?

When one is of queer identity, there are just some parts of preconceived "normality" with which your life's trajectory will never quite fully align, whether by choice or not. A person's queerness is alienating to society that has yet to consider an identity outside of heterosexuality as normal. We are conditioned to see gender and sexual diversities as abnormal at best, even perverse. As a result, many queer communities in history form new "families," or communities of resistance organized to address the need for self care as well as the personal politics that come as a part of their experiences as marginalized individuals. Queer families throughout history have become powerhouses of intellectual thought, direct action organizing, and revolution.

Consider the stories in Annelise Orleck's Common Sense and a Little Fire. Queer industrial feminist activists Rose Schneiderman and Pauline Newman and perceived heterosexual activists Fannia Cohn and Clara Lemlich Shavelson dominate the herstorical expose: from their shared Jewish heritage, influentially Marxist upbringings, and original measures of civil disobedience well into their later years. Upon the rise of communism within the union structures these women crafted, however, an ideological split occurred that permanently destroyed the bonds between Clara, who tied herself to communist ideologies, Fannia, who remained neutral in the hopes of maintaining as much support for her carried cross of union education for women, and Rose and Pauline, who eventually renounced Socialism altogether in support of the Democratic party. Their embittered division could perhaps be chalked up simply to the fact that democratic ideologies vs. communism is essentially reflective of the qualm of reform vs. revolution in the restructuring of the broken parts of society and the law. Rose and Pauline chose reform while Clara sought to revolutionize motherhood for the working class. In addressing the choices these women made in the structuring of their methods and strategies to effect change, it is essential to call into question the nature of their personal lives, specifically their sexualities, in determining why Rose and Pauline could so easily give up socialist rhetoric while Clara clung to it for dear life.

In the first half of the twentieth century, it was rare for anyone to live as we modernly define "out". The rhetoric public health officials and the media were espousing were that of scientific racism and not so subtle hints that abnormality as it was defined then meant genetic inferiority. Rose and Pauline responded to these and other elements of adversity they experienced as intersectionally Jewish, immigrant, queer, female, and members of the working class. They did so through the formation of a cross-class family, a core of female suffragists, industrial organizers, and union broads. They formed a culture of physical, emotional, and intellectual resistance in the face of non-homogenous adversity. And then, most interestingly, they denounced their original political affiliations and stressed cross-class relations amongst women in unions and wealthier suffragettes, most notably Eleanor Roosevelt.

Roosevelt (left) and Schneiderman (center)

Perhaps the times and the many rounds of failure doled out to these two were what made conformity more appealing after severing ties with Lemlich and any affiliation with communism. Schneiderman and Pauline's family of their partners, political friends and allies came to amass legislative power through structures created by the patriarchal system already in place. Requiring short, comprehensive demands such as specific shortenings of hours and increases of wages for domestic and industrial working women allowed them to effectively introduce legislation that ensured their desired changes delivered immediate results to women slaving in factories and in the homes of the elite. These were women who were working unfairly long, exhaustive hours and getting pennies to men's dollars when they performed the same jobs or perhaps more machine-heavy work. In a public sphere created for men, by men, women needed to access the law to rythmically enforce the drum beat of social change so it could be woven into the fabric of society over time. Access to the law was strategically acquired by the women in Rose and Pauline's circle through a camaraderie with those who rose to power, namely the Roosevelts, and through a masculinized campaign. These were women forced into the spheres of male influence, the workforce and the public, and they had to play a clever game. Rose amped her own appeal through her external hyperfemininity, taking care to apply lipstick, wear lacy dresses, and evoking softness. Pauline externally occupied the opposite side of the gender binary and dressed mainly in men's clothing. As a result, she was given less prominent positions and not considered a spokesperson for the industrial feminist movement but had tremendous influence for her time nonetheless. While Rose clung to her femininity, Pauline forcefully distanced herself from such constrictions. In this way, the activism of these two women in particular reflects a growing trend of deradicalization 100 years later in the queer movement. 

Clara chose, despite having a more traditional domestic arrangement, the radical approach to femininity, activism, and motherhood. Her heterosexuality was at odds with her ideological beliefs as she experienced external pressure from her husband and children to provide more of a nurturing role. Clara, interestingly enough, perhaps served as a revolutionary powerhouse because of her extreme living contradiction. A pioneer of radical motherhood, Clara successfully scooped up those women the labor movement failed to address the needs of: working class wives and mothers. True to her roots in the communist party until the end, Clara never offered to water down her ideologies to obtain political power, for she understood thoroughly that as housewives, women were the center of the economic system as consumers and unpaid caregivers. Utilizing the rhetoric of Marx and tailoring it to the needs of women, Clara addressed the structural roots of the problems facing working class immigrant women and organized as a result tremendously successful consumer-based direct action, more often in the form of boycotts. Clara embodied revolutionary mentality crucial to the restructuring of a more intersectionally conscious workforce. 

Interestingly, the Rose and Pauline root seems to be the way of the popular queer movement nowadays, which focuses on gay marriage as a central civil right and milestone in the gay movement. Structurally, queer people are blacked from economic benefits, social safety nets, and a variety of other privileges enjoyed by married couples. But what would Clara Lemlich think today about this focusing of energies towards obtaining the same access to archaic institutions like marriage? There are distinctive parallels to to politicization of queerness then and now. As reflected in mainstream society, the dominant, often white and male leading voices of the gay marriage movement seems to still be calling the shots as to where the focusing of activism should be directed. Queer movements should do well to examine the recent herstory of Clara, Rose, Pauline, and Fannia. The red hunt is long over and yet the stigma of radicalization is still forcing the queer community to act out hidden injuries of gendered, internalized oppression. While the work of Rose and Pauline was tremendously influential, their failure to dismantle the structures in place rests on the newer generations' shoulders. We can either choose what's easy and effective in the short term, or we can rebuild from scratch an egalitarian vison of radical motherhood and achieve queer liberation.

For more on queer liberation (revolution) vs. gay rights (reform), click here

Blog 2

Disclaimer --It is a team effort to make a baby; in this blog I aim only to probe the stigma surrounding mothers and specifically housewives. I acknowledge that many complex relationship dynamics exist, however for the purposes of understanding the depth of Clara Shavelson’s life and the perception of women becoming mothers and losing personhood, I ignore many of those dynamics. --

There is no doubt that having a child entails sacrifice, but what does it mean to be a mom? For Clara Shavelson it meant giving up her dream of being a doctor. Her activism shifted from shop floors to organizing Jewish working wives and mothers.  While in many ways she neglected “motherly” duties, Clara was her own person and did not solely define herself by the role she held in her family. She sacrificed some of her personal goals for her family and she sacrificed some aspects of family life for her activism. Even while on a “socially sanctioned path” Clara was not a traditional mother.

Mother is a stigmatized term; the dictionary defines it as “a female animal in relation to its offspring.” Societal norms create a different definition for what a mother should be; there is something to mothers that the dictionary definition just doesn’t capture. The verb to mother, meaning to “bring up (a child) with care and affection,” touches more closely on what it means to be a mother in American culture.

The stigma surrounding motherhood is held in the expectation that a mother sacrifice her selfish desires for her children. The children become the priority, above all other things. Not only is the mom supposed to give up her life for her kids, she is supposed to love rearing her children. When a woman has a child, she is no longer her own person; she becomes a person in relation to the children she has brought into the world. Clara rejected the expectation of losing herself to her motherhood.

The expectation of mothers in the early 1900’s was much more restricted than it is now, however, women are still dealing with many of the same issues surrounding expectations in motherhood. The foundations of what motherhood is today are rooted in the model of the housewife who serves her husband and children. She cooks, cleans, does laundry, and she does it all with a smile. The housewife model denies personage to the wife. The housewife is limited to hobbies that will not interfere with or distract her from the caretaking she must do. The housewife has evolved and been complicated by cultural shifts.

The housewife role gets complicated when a single income cannot support the household. The mother must work a job and maintain her household. When mothers work, or workingwomen become mothers we run into issues with maternity leave, childcare, wage gaps between genders, and societal expectations about who should raise the child. The role of nurturer and caretaker is assigned to women, but how society values motherhood is demonstrated in the ways that businesses and legislators address the above-mentioned issues. The stigma is challenged when a woman must rely on forces outside herself to care for her children.

So we have to ask, why do we expect women to do it all? Is it fair for a woman to be expected to sacrifice her whole self for her children? Is it fair for a woman to be consumed by her status as a mother? I think there is a great deal of injustice surrounding parenting. The structures we have built ask mothers to do so much, sacrifice so much of themselves, without lending sufficient aid such as mandatory paid maternity and/or paternity leave, mandatory child care options for working women, equal pay, etc. Clara Shavelson organized to make changes that would increase the quality of life for her community. Is it time for women to organize and demand that the value of motherhood be instituted in businesses, legislation, and media? Clara would think so.

Blog 2: Women's Education and the Labor Movement

Throughout history, women’s education has arguably been one of the most important pieces of women’s liberation, including within the women’s labor movement. As Annelise Orleck describes in her book Common Sense and a Little Fire, some organizers within the women’s labor movement placed working women’s education very highly on their list of priorities. Orleck describes Fannia Cohn’s beliefs regarding education, stating that Cohn fought for women’s education because she thought it allowed women to become aware of the economic disadvantages they were being subjected to and why they were not allowed more vital roles in employment opportunities and within the unions (170). In Cohn’s time, this education included lessons in “trade unionism, methods of organizing, and English” (175). In having the education to name their oppression through awareness of their situations, working women would be able to have the knowledge and skills to work to change when they worked, how they worked, and what they earned from working. Additionally, Cohn argued that women workers’ educations could aid the labor movement in changing male workers’ perceptions about female workers, effectively changing the success of the movement (170). As male workers often did not take women workers with the same seriousness as they regarded themselves, it might be that in getting them on their side women workers would have a firmer foothold and backing for the changes that they wished to make. In educating working women, unions and labor movement activists hoped to provide women with space for personal growth, knowledge to name their personal situations in the larger context of situations faced by working women as a whole, and ideas for how to bring about change. Furthermore, it seems to me that as working women gained this type of education, they also achieved a sense of personal self-confidence, friendship, and the other social connections necessary to be able to do the work of the labor movement by identifying wrongs and working for change.

Nevertheless, providing women with education was surprisingly undercut from sources within the unions women worked with and belonged to. Male members of the education boards made the assumption that women were not taking the educational classes for personal growth and knowledge, but rather in order to meet the male teachers, and that women workers did not have the “intellect and discipline [needed] for serious academic work” (180). Clearly, as there have been many smart and motivated female scholars, this was another attempt to remove women from the public intellectual and working worlds to push women back into the private, domestic sphere of marriage, housewifery, and subsequent motherhood. Additionally, the education department appointed male directors to lead Cohn’s education programs (180). These actions lead me to believe that while unions (whether as a collective whole or as individual union leaders, I’m not sure) outwardly supported women’s education as a means for the success of the labor movement, they were not actually supportive of women’s education and its implications. While providing women with education also provides them with personal development by means of self-confidence, friendship, and social connections, in undercutting attempts at educating women it seems that the goal of unions (again, I’m not sure whether as a collective whole or individual union leaders) was really to keep women subservient in denying them the self-confidence and social connections they could have gained through education in order to have knowledge of the wrongs of their working situations and have the strength and motivation to work to change those wrongs.

I see many parallels between Cohn’s involvement in the labor movement and the situation of the working class today. While many might argue that most working class persons are no longer laboring excessive hours in factories, there are still many problems with how we work today. We work for low wages, with many jobs at or just barely above minimum wage, and often without benefits such as health insurance and paid sick time. The cost of living is extremely high, and many people cannot make ends meet. With respect to all of this, I can’t help but wonder: What would happen if we used Cohn’s strategies regarding education and work today? What would this education provide to today’s working class, especially women? Would knowledge about effective organization help us in creating social change? Would we be provided with the same self-confidence and sense of social connection to demand more for ourselves and others in terms of better working conditions, wages, and benefits? Just as Cohn was able to point out the unions as a source of disempowerment through education, would we be able to see where and how we are being disempowered? I personally am not sure of the answers to these questions, but thinking about them may lead us in the contemporary moment to similar levels of successes in the working world that Cohn and the women’s labor movement had experienced in past times.