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.
What this made me think of are all the commercials we are flooded with on TV concerning vocational schools and training. We always see that one woman who is a young single mother who managed to get the drive to go make to school to become a medical biller or medical assistant or some sort of secretary.
ReplyDeleteI don't have the experience to know if these schools offer a potentially better life but i think they are generally under rated. Yes, the degree or training someone would get there isn't what we would necessarily consider "professional" but they offer women a chance to get out of minimum wage jobs where depends on hours and there is not opportunity for advancement.
When I worked in high school, the store where I worked was across the street from one of these junior college/tech schools. It seemed if anythiing that the people who attended were given the chance to socialize and make contacts with other women as well as acquire a skill.