Looking For Feminism

Review: Looking for Feminism: Racial Dynamics and Generational Investments in the
Second Wave
Reviewed Work(s): The Trouble between Us: An Uneasy History of White and Black Women
in the Feminist Movement by Winifred Breines; Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist
Organizations, 1968-1980 by Kimberly Springer; Separate Roads to Feminism: Black,
Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America's Second Wave by Benita Roth;
Women of Color and the Reproductive Right Movement by Jennifer Nelson; Freedom Is
Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace by Nancy MacLean
Review by: Mary Ann Clawson
Source: Feminist Studies, Vol. 34, No. 3, The 1970s Issue (Fall, 2008), pp. 526-554
Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc.
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Lookingj or Feminism:
Racial Dynamics and
Generational Investments
in the Second Wave
Mary Ann Clawson
IN AN IMPORTANT I998 ESSAY, "Whose Feminism, Whose History?"

Sherna Berger Gluck pointed to "the deep investment on the part of the
participants in the early days of the women's liberation movement in
preserving the primacy of our particular experience and analysis." In her
view, the growing recognition of feminist activism by working-class
women and women of color had not been sufficient to force reconfigura
tion of the received paradigm. As a result, she argued, the writing of this
history "might best be left to the new generation of feminist scholars ....
a generation whose understanding of historical processes is not tied up
with their own direct experience and the sense of 'ownership' that this
seems to have engendered."1 Examination of five recent works on this
period, one by a veteran, four by somewhat younger-generation scholars,
confirms, contravenes, and complicates Gluck's provocative assertion.
DREAMS OF INTEGRATION
In The Trouble between Us: An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in the Feminist
Movement, Winifred Breines, writing as both a scholar and a veteran of 1960s

and 1970s radical and socialist feminist activism, looks at interactions
between black and white women in the civil rights movement; the univer
Feminist Studies 34, no. 3 (Fall 2008). ? 2008 by Feminist Studies, Inc.
526
Mary Ann Clawson 527
salist assumptions of white feminists; the r

milieu(s) of Boston-Cambridge during t
accomplishment of respectful, if tentative
feminists learned to accept the leadersh
issues concerning the black community. B
as an early participant to examine how "w
an integrated society and movement sh
agenda and the consciousness of white fem
Gluck's charge that first-generation sc
placency and not tackled the problems
BOOKs DISCUSSED IN THIs ARTICL
The Trouble between Us: An Uneasy History of Whit
Movement. By Winifred Breines. New York: Ox
Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organi

Springer. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Pre
Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and Whi
Second Wave. By Benita Roth. New York: Camb
Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Mo

York: New York University Press, 2003.
Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the Americ

New York: Russell Sage/Cambridge: Harvard
complicated, multilayered history" is chall

analysis of the assumptions and contra
thought and practice among white socialis
white feminists more generally).2 This occ
one, a thoughtful characterization of th
ized post-World War II liberalism; the seco
of white feminist activism as exemplified
group Bread and Roses.
In the first of these, Breines portrays a
racial consciousness that we know as the
528 Mary Ann Clawson
though color blindness is today most ofte

opposition to affirmative action and mul
characterizes its 1950s and 1960s version as th
liberalism, an "idealism in which racial diff
nied" (8) and in which the ability to overloo
moral/political accomplishment. A particu
account of her early fascination with Edward
which used photos of families from a multi
and racial and ethnic groups at different stag
in Steichen's words, "'the universal brotherh
tial oneness of mankind"' through its depict
and emotions in the everydayness of life." "
sameness," Breines comments, "moved us; it
For white activists and supporters, the civ
both to articulate and fulfill the dreams of
sisterhood and brotherhood ... where, han
create a just world" (9).3 But color blindness
ity in attitudinal terms, had complex implic
white activists and the movements they
Breines notes,
the early, idealistic "family of man" phase seems to have contained the
assumption that upholding universalist ideals, like integration, made the
one who upholds them into a newer sort of white person.... It made us
different, we thought (11).
No longer implicated, one might add, in the system of racial privilege and
the divisions that accompanied it. The unspoken and deeply problematic
assumption was that these "different" white people should be recognized
as such by black activists.
These attitudes played out, Breines argues, in consequential ways in
the development of 1960s and 1970s feminism. The ideals of 1950s liberal
ism and of the early civil rights movement enabled young white women
to "imagine[d], naively, that our 'I' was 'we'; we thought all women were
us, and we were all women" (10). The implications of such a formulation
were evident in both ideology and practice, even within socialist feminist
groups such as Bread and Roses that were d

tion of class and race as systems of power w
In a chapter titled "Learning about Racism
and Bread and Roses," Breines points to
nuclear family as exemplifying the ideologi
and black women activists. Bread and Roses
tion of the family as an economic unit and
living unit of our society" (89), describing it
tion" (90) that should be replaced by new f
by the social provision of childcare, housing
socialists, they sought to extend social prov
thus to eradicate class and race different
recognize not only black women's attachme
site of resistance to the ravages wrought by
their own "ability to cut off ties with men
on the security of class and race privilege. T
but Breines's account is not only severe in it
of these pronouncements, terming them "m
insightful in its apprehension of the "blind
possible such analyses, that left these wome
class whiteness inflected their politics as
women's politics" (95).
Breines's sympathetic but critical portray
and race-blindness shaped the worldview of
and compelling, as is her autocritique of "w
of a race-blind society as an artifact of wh
preferred and distinctive ways of working,
written, is to couple historical research w
remembrances.4 This serves her well in the
less well in her discussion of black activism
use of small but telling observations to illu
worked hard to understand that black activ
share the dreams of white liberals and ra
differences "enriched the movement" even
Yet there is a persistent disjuncture bet

and the conclusions she draws.
This is exemplified by Breines's discuss
ment, which identifies black-white coo
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SN
connection," albeit "fragile" ones (49). Look
and white women staffers and volunteers,
"friendships developed, especially in the
record indicates that distance prevailed" (4
edges that black activists did not typically
tion of interracial harmony in the civi
integration was, for most of them, more a
rights than a goal of "building community
Despite these insights, and in considerabl
develops a narrative arc in which black and
to create a free and racially integrated s
order to find one another years later" (7
retains a vestigial attachment to the very
tions that her thoughtful account seeks
revealed in passages that extend to both bl
and sentiments that more accurately chara
as when she writes of black and white soci
forced to acknowledge differences they di
want to have, and that nevertheless deep
that black women were, like white women
and that they longed to erase these diff
dence of her residual investment in the un
central issue is the failure of her generation
nist movement, a failure she views with un
The books by younger-generation schol
to Breines's approach, both analytically a
ally. All of them see difference as a source
theory production. Kimberly Springer, in
Feminist Organizations, 1968-1980, identifies b
in the United States to theorize and act
gender, and class" (2), thus explicitly cou

women's movement histories that cate
disruptive and divisive" (165). Jennifer N
Reproductive Rights Movement, intends to
color have shaped mainstream feminism
Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White F
Wave, differs from Breines by her insiste
distinct contrast to the implication of
title, The Trouble between Us. Finally, Nel
Not Enough: The Opening of the American Wo
than organization-centered histories, foc
workplace rights respectively, diversif
activism by placing it in larger and more
PARALLEL AND MULTIPLE FEMINIS

TOWARD A SOCIAL-STRUCTURAL A
Like Breines, Springer, Roth, and Nelson
of color within the twofold context of a
self-conscious white feminist movement,
forceful dynamic of racial-ethnic nati
politics, especially pronounced in the
other. But unlike Breines, who locates
some five years after the birth of white
the development of feminism among wh
in the United States as both parallel and
and reactive. In Roth's precise formulatio
Some women of color who were activists

when some white women who were activist
time of heightened popular protest.... As
ments, these feminisms saw themselves as
ment than white feminists did, a self-pe
seriously (1 1).
As a result, Second Wave feminism is bes

movements made by activist women th
distinct from one another, and from

along racial/ethnic lines" (3).
If this were the case, why has femin
movement? Here both Roth and Spring
more sociological approaches that emph
explanation, as well as in their attenti
structured retrospective perceptions of f
points first to demography: "most femin
white because most people in the Unit
important, however, is the looking-in-th
which white scholars, conflating white f
tinized white feminist organizations for
nists of color and, not finding them th
"Not only were they not in white femin
in these explanations that they could
their own" (8). Often added to this was t
feminist politics was defined by a singul
that the intersectional thinking that c
that was black feminism's central theore
commentators, disqualifying.
Both Springer and Roth reject the f
personal experiences of interactional raci
development of separate feminist movem
to place black women "at the center of
rejects a narrative that sees black femini
racism in the women's movement" (37,
feminism emerged "from the civil rights
as" white feminism (4). Although specific
unintended, may have made the white
environment that was at worst hostile
women of color, it was the universalism
its failure to "challenge Eurocentric and
rendered it inadequate to address the n
larly notes that an exclusive focus on exc
and Chicana feminists as primarily react
their ideas and praxis reliant on the attitu

nists. Rejecting that approach, Roth and
originated in both social structural location
Inequalities of class and race shaped w
ings, assigned them to social locations a
governed their access to resources; "stru
pinning of choices feminists of color m
emphasized the racial/ethnic and class d
commonalities" (Roth, 45). While self-iden
tended to be recruited from among the
such a recognition does not capture the di
and levels of resources and vulnerabilities
within different groups. Middle-class bl
be more marginally and often more rec
resources and a more tenuous hold on th
this played out in multiple ways.
Drawing on resource mobilization theo
sizes that black feminist activists typically
family resources, and were in general una
tary and time resources to which white fem
points to the scarcity of economic resourc
for why a group like the National Black F
unable to sustain itself as a national orga
the grassroots enthusiasm its establishmen
emphasizes the explanatory value of ideolo
the importance of paying the rent and ans
reminder of the role played by resources in
Different class and racial locations also s
interest and collective identity. Because
role that structural inequalities of class an
lives and those of their communities, an a
the "marginalization and social isolat
students in predominantly white college
color, Roth argues, simply "did not see [wh
the struggle for gender, racial/ethnic,
Rather, "white feminists, as white women,

for unfair advantage, just as white men
interpersonal interactions with white femin
sify these views, "this different vision occu
ties mattered on the ground" (45). This
feminists, with their focus on the universa
unawareness of themselves as raced and cl
tion of the commonality of women's experi
tions, grasp. The structurally based idea tha
between groups of feminists from the s
represents a very different model than the
all women as potential and logical allies u
racist episodes or systematic exclusionary p
the assumed trajectory of common self-int
Their locations in a divided society also
had been politically formed in different op
New Left, the civil rights and Black Power
ment. Equipping them with "organizing skil
organizations were the sites of their ideolog
with core political perspectives that continu
loyalties that were "particularly acute for f
each case, women first sought equality in
each movement, male activists derided t
responses to men's attacks differed consider
period of time in each case, to reconcile con
White women's liberation, for example,
refashion gender relations within the Ne
decried their relegation to movement "hous
to sexual exploitation, and their exclusion f
their assumed constituency was an internal
New Left men's antagonistic response led em
to see the movement as a microcosm of the
that radical men were incapable of reform,
men. As a result, women's liberationists
tuency to include "all women" who suffered
men" and thus opened the way for an a

based on the concept of the universality of
that placed white feminism in opposition t
sified racial and ethnic nationalisms. Thus
by racially unmarked white feminists was n
even had they wished to claim it.
Like that of their white peers, black fem
by gender dynamics internal to their rac
political shift from civil rights to black na
that equated black empowerment with m
increasing limits on women's movement ac
archal family model in which women's gre
lution was to support their men and care f
this, and even shaping it, were influential
notably the Moynihan Report, with its foc
principal explanation for the persistence of
popular media representations, the repo
black family but seemed to make black
pathology and thus complicit in the oppres
The inclusion of Chicana feminism in Rot
gives added analytic leverage, as well as con
incorporation into the broader narrative
activism. Like early white and black fem
gender equality as a way to enhance the eff
and, like black feminists, they faced charg
feminism, as well as the trivialization and
feminist women in all these movements en
responded to such accusations by findin
history of previous indigenous and Mexican
they were able to appropriate the Chica
recovering and using indigenous tradition
authentically Chicana feminism and to reje
import. Because the goal of Chicana femini
cal presence in the wider Chicano movem
in women's caucuses within mixed Chicana
of autonomous organizing was a strategy t

ment rather than an end in itself, as wh
izing quickly became.
Like their Chicana peers, black femin
between affiliation with white feminism a
movement. And, like other black activists,
ity as the principal standard of a meaning
not accept was the charge that feminism
Accordingly, they sought to maintain t
turning the tables on their nationalist cri
uncritical acceptance of the Moyniha
espousing the patriarchal family as a polit
adopted a white bourgeois model inimical t
Despite such efforts, it is clear that th
black community for self-identification a
black feminist, could be substantial and
standing of the movement's developme
Regional Conference is a case in point. W
grounded in a combination of universa
unease, was largely clueless about the co
of black feminism, the major account t
Brenda Verner's Encore article "Women
"scathing" denunciation that asserted the
convert black women to lesbianism and
white supremacy" (Springer, 99). "Vern
"belied an investment in maintain[ing] the
unauthentically [sic] black and traitorous t
effect, both white feminists and black na
as incapable of articulating an independent
As a result, black feminism seems to
tendency that was organizationally distant
nist movement but from black nationalism
Chicana feminism's closer relationship t
in part to the burden of the Moynihan
seem to have been more limited than t
particular, the Chicana strategy of validatin

their nationalist movement by placing it in
nous women's activism was less available to
nationalist politics rested on a repudiatio
previous black struggles and frequently a v
nized, for example, the civil rights moveme
as its integrationist rhetoric. Springer's use
that is, inhabiting a small narrow space in
entities, captures this sense of detachment q
PLURALISMS AND CONTINUITIES IN T

Springer, writing as a "next generation blac
current and future mobilization, emphasize
nism. Analysts, she argues, should avoid e
treating black feminism as "monolithic" (17
Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organ
the Third World Women's Alliance (TWW
Association of Black Feminists (NABF), B
Action (BWOA), and the Combahee River
another in their goals, organizational struct
and boundary formations.
TWWA, for example, growing out of SN
ated as a kind of cadre organization, its titl
with Third World liberation movements
world. Within this milieu, Frances Beal's
"Double Jeopardy" was an early theorizing o
sion, later expanded to include class, as Tripl
newspaper, proclaimed. In contrast, NBFO a
zation, addressing a wide range of black
based in Chicago, espoused something of a s
consciousness raising sessions for black wom
women and men of all races on topics inc
female-male relationships, assertiveness
discussions of beauty standards and body
Bay-area group, emphasized leadership train
advance women's issues and assert their presen

mobilization. Finally, the Combahee River Collecti
classic theorizing of the "interlocking" character
sexual, and class oppression" (quoted in Spring
writing and theory production as an important fo
hee did not seek to become a large membershi
primarily on movement analysis and support f
activism in coalition work. Composed predomin
the first black feminist organization to elaborate a
identity that explicitly incorporated sexuality in i
In critiquing the notion of a monolithic blac
emphasizes that difference was played out with
organizations, especially as regards class and sexua
background, current economic resources, and e
question of whose needs would be met and w
organizations aimed to empower. Within NABF
emerged between highly educated women who
providing resources for further economic and
income women who wanted it to focus on the
"the grassroots woman" (127-28).
Combahee, a much smaller organization, did
expanse of class and educational differences that c
despite its greater homogeneity and socialist fem
interviewees identified a tension between those w
and intellectual work as forms of activism and
roots community work. For some within the grou
political disagreement about how to define and pr
a class divide insofar as theory production might
vidual advancement. At the crux of Combahee's
comments, "were differences over how educat
collective ideas of class struggle" (129). In general,
marginalized in the practice of black feminist
theoretical centrality.
Sexuality was an even more problematic divis
appeared in tensions between lesbian and heterose
sions of homophobia, especially in NABF

sense, Springer charges, it represented a f
the meaning of sexuality to black feminism
women in NABF, including the organization
separate interest group, deserving perhaps
feminist agenda: "a category separate from
and the Combahee River Collective, the
not interpret heterosexism as an oppressiv
regardless of sexual orientation" (130), and
lines of black lesbian struggle in the 197
"specify the ways black communities were
rosexism" (130). Their critique was "strateg
the interest of establishing the foundation
Combahee's black feminism and black comm
The conclusion Springer draws from this
tion of a "uniform oppositional consciousn
nize the multidirectional flow of power
outside their organizations" (14) was as u
black feminists as for feminists more gen
serves, "were not the only ones guilty of u
ing the categories of women and sisterhood; A
also underestimated the limits of defining t
ignoring the heterogeneity of black women
If Springer looks productively inward, de
black feminism too often seen as mono
outward to emphasize commonalities as
Chicana feminisms within a larger protest
extra-institutional political milieu . . . that
about how to organize and with whom" (
was characterized by a distinctive and w
stretching across race and gender lines, an
symbolic and practical resources. Both fact
for the formation and trajectory of women
Roth defines the influential "ethos of
generalized, consensual, and specific ins
authentic leftists" (200), usually unders

within one's own racial/ethnic group. S
white participation was particularly inf
widely held belief that, in women's liberat
"'the most radical thing to do was to fight
(quoted in Roth, 204), a sentiment later
Collective's statement that "we believe
potentially the most radical politics come d
as opposed to working to end somebody
view, the "organize one's own" ethos autho
of white women's feminism while strength
zational and communal divisions through
whereby feminists agreed among themse
them to organize across lines of race and e
One of Roth's most original insights is th
in a crowded and competitive social mo
existing "economy of social movement a
were responsible for much of the day-
maintenance in all of the mixed-gender
period, feminist organizing threatened
sequently, Roth argues, male activists' an
much on practical self-interest as on id
opposition to feminist claims may have
cause "ideological arguments were m
emerging feminist challenge than admittin
to type one's own minutes and make on
black and Chicano movements, domestici
way it was not for whites, because of th
roles as a means of reconstructing the c
Black Liberationist emphasis) or preservi
tion (the Chicano version)" (184); but f
women's labor was an immediate threat
men's own convenience.
Finally, Roth sees the era's crowded soc
sifying what Deborah H. King, in an im
"monism."6 In jockeying for power and re

to legitimate and differentiate themselves
tion, by focusing on single axes of oppr
"fundamental." Roth thus sees monism as
inter-movement competition for resour
that is original and compelling, yet incom
powerful influence of Marxism on these
ments. Feminists, like black nationalists,
privileging of class, but they freely embrac
In this vein, the Redstockings, and others,
" 'male supremacy"' as "'the oldest, most b
that alleviating it became "the key revolut
nists asserted a politics of multiple oppres
emphasis on identifying a single historical
of universal emancipation: "'If Black wome
bahee River Collective, "it would mean t
be free since our freedom would necess
systems of oppression"' (quoted in Roth, 1
In situating these movements in a larger
at the center of her analysis-competition
for moral authority and revolutionary cred
on feminists and other social movement ac
sion making and responsive to political opp
an original and compelling perspective on
history, that is most often told in purely
confines her, it seems to me, within an
example, she sees white feminists' univ
oppression, at least originally, as largely d
motivation. To combat New Left men's c
were "narrower than those of the work
peoples)," and thus unworthy of serious at
to insist that "gender oppression was as
racism and class domination" (188). Simi
mixed-gender white Left is seen as primaril
the hands of male peers, with an emphasis
542 Maty Ann Clawson
Left rather than the pull in the form of the

autonomous feminist organizing.
Most simplistically, this could includ
rewards to be gained from claiming the ma
and, for some, the key to historic agency [
history?] "'What a relief it is to discover
marked Pam Allen (and quoted in Roth, 197)
white feminist regarding the interaction
and more lasting sense, Roth's emphasis
response downplays, if not ignores, the rev
partial) insights-intellectual, political, perso
lens of gender to name and comprehend wo
is the emancipatory pull of the emergin
community it offered white women in par
ing of men's opposition to feminism is
insightful but ultimately incomplete insofa
as employers with a labor recruitment
profound intellectual, political, cultural,
ments in their masculinity and the privileg
FORMAL IMPLICATIONS OF INFORMA

THE LIMITS OF SOCIAL NETWORKS
The important role of social networks in
central theme in the sociological study of s
social movements do not commonly emerge
unconnected strangers; rather they build
acquaintanceship, whether informal or or
for rapid communication, social bonding, an
famously, the civil rights movement relied
church and of students at historically bla
liberation movement emerged among stude
movement veterans. An implicit corollary
ments can rely on pre-existing networks,
motivating they will be and the less they w
of external resources for their inception and
The greater spontaneity and creativity as

hierarchical groups is often observed and a
The formation and multiplication of consci
for the development of so many key Secon
initiatives, exemplifies a method of inform
ment mobilization that has typically bee
authentic, as well as more innovative th
tions such as the National Organization for
The works discussed here suggest as well
society divided by race and class. Roth mak
analysis of the demographics of U.S. society
that "most [young Northern whites] kn
tainly, one might speculate, not as age pee
tors, as opposed to employees or other raci
The problems associated with informal, n
exemplified by Bread and Roses' efforts at t
feminist commitments mandated. Accordin
took the form of support actions for th
meant, in practice, working with that orga
leadership. This approach to interracial coo
vated in part, as she notes, by the Panther
the white Left. But it is also likely that the
with a visible leadership structure, offered
nity for political collaboration, whereas th
mal ties between black and white women w
kind of work with black women that so
troubled by the authoritarianism and m
leadership, would have found more ideol
ial. Nelson's account of more concerted
socialist feminists in the Committee for
Sterilization Abuse (CARASA) to establis
Latina women activists around reproductiv
suggests that a lack of networks continued
by white feminists and women of color ev
agreement on the issues.
Thus the lack of peer-based networks pr

movements so heavily reliant on person
as Francesca Polletta has pointed out, on
basis for social movement activism). Altho
to sustain even within internally homogen
it was especially problematic insofar as
women to embrace the idea of friendship w
tion for alliance.10 Yet examination of is
political ideas frequently crossed racial, eth
aries.
ISSUES VERSUS ORGANIZATIONS

In seeking a more concrete understanding of "how exactly women of
color have shaped mainstream feminism" (179), Nelson departs from the
more frequently encountered model of the organizational history, here
exemplified by Springer and Roth, to craft an issue-based study of repro
ductive rights activism. Examining the perspectives of white radical femi
nists, black and Puerto Rican nationalists (both female and male), black
feminists, and predominantly white socialist feminists reveals "how essen
tial women of color were to the transformation of the abortion rights
movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s into a more inclusive move
ment for reproductive freedom" (179). In its most expansive formulation,
the idea of reproductive choice would come to include not just equitable
access to birth control and abortion, not just protection from sterilization
abuse, but the demand for basic human-needs provision (adequate
income, employment and educational opportunities), such that women
could make unconstrained decisions about having and rearing children.
Nelson is especially judicious in identifying and contextualizing the
contributions of various political groups and tendencies. For example,
despite her obvious commitment to a broader reproductive rights agenda,
she gives a cogent and sympathetic explanation of why early white radical
feminists, as exemplified by the Redstockings, saw the right to abortion on
demand as a central condition for gender equality: "without the funda
mental right to control reproduction in every instance, women remain
subject to men" (15). As this formulation suggests, the Redstockings
conceived reproductive rights as the right n

ability to terminate a pregnancy would c
traditional womanhood" (27-28). Althoug
ticularity of this perspective, with its confi
needs, Nelson is equally sensitive to the sign
insistence that "women needed to be centra
laws" (15). It was their insistent naming of
rather than the domain of medical and le
move the debate out into a broader political
Similarly, in discussing black nationalis
control and abortion as genocidal, Nelso
masculinist bias while simultaneously placin
critique of both contemporary population c
traditions of eugenics directed against the p
The race-based pro-natalism of the early
opposition to abortion, birth control, and s
improved healthcare in poor communities
Black Panther Party thinking had shifted t
tion provision in the black community as p
provision" (108-9), a shift that reflected th
the party as well as the influence of black
fight for abortion rights with an anti-steril
Panthers ultimately emphasized "that im
care, a living wage, adequate housing, and su
to be present before a woman could know s
fertility" (57). Thus Nelson's account sugg
may have exerted an influence despite the
autonomous black feminist organizing."
The controversial 1973 sterilization of
federally funded clinic was an important ca
sterilization abuse in communities of color,
among black women activists as early as
Rights Organization (70) and in 1970, by Ton
1970 collection The Black Woman, which "la
women's reproductive rights discourse th
nationalist and mainstream feminist re

point" (80). Black women, Beal wrote in "Do
have the right and the responsibility to dete

ests of the struggle to have children or not
right and responsibility to determine when it
The lack of availability of safe birth control m
practice, and the inability to obtain legal abo
decadent society that jeopardizes the health
the entire Black race). (Quoted in Nelson, 80)
Melding individual and communal sel

women writers, intellectuals, and activ
empowerment was central to the black str
black nationalist perspective that made
centerpiece of racial advance.
Most remarkable is Nelson's identifica
activists who advanced a a comprehensi
within the framework of a mixed-gend
York's Young Lords. "For the first time,
ganization, composed of people of color, m
tion central to their political ideology" wit
[that] . .. encompassed access to voluntar
abortion, a quality public health system
poverty" (114). Moreover, the Young Lor
rights, based on a "politics of multiple ide
important influence on the thinking of th
feminist activists who in 1977 formed C
combined the defense of abortion rights, o
and support for welfare rights, subsidiz
safety in the workplace.
Given the volatile and rapidly shifting
movements, Nelson's strategy of writing a
activism is a particularly fruitful one that
range of key players and influential positi
with one another, and to show how they
narrowly defined "movement for the lega

ment for reproductive rights to address th
women, and particularly the need of wome
be free from reproductive abuses" (16-17).
her recognition of how important femi
tion could be developed within the framew
alist organization, a recognition that raises
models we use to identify feminist practice
LOOKING FOR FEMINISM

To the extent that scholarly definitions of
been grounded in continued investment
strategic choices made by an earlier gener
they have worked to render alternative or
practices indistinct, if not altogether invi
black, Latina, Asian American, and white w
ingly acknowledged, it is too often bracke
rather than prompting a needed rethinkin
major issue here are questions about how t
activism and when and where to look for
As noted earlier, Roth responds to wh
question by asserting a full temporal pa
what different tack, differentiating betwee
black feminist organizations, and black femin
movement encompasses not only black f
analyses, critiques, and polemics that pr
feminist texts such as The Black Woman, fo
with a very public, if controversial, forum
This more expansive conception of socia
feminist model in which organization, esp
group, was necessarily either coterminous
tion and suggests one of the ways the narr
ment has been paradigmatic in defining fem
Similarly, scholarly model-making, c
investments and strategic decisions of t
liberationists, has tended to identify auton

tion as a principal requisite for discerning a
effect of this is to equate particular org
constructions with feminist practice more
duce, rather than interrogate, the politi
forty years ago. Early women's liberatio
women-only groups, called themselves fem
to "politicos"-women who chose to co
mixed-gender Left groups and who wer
placed loyalty to men over their femini
women activists, the politicos have been
both short-lived and retrograde. But R
analyses suggest that for black and Latina
opposition is not so easily maintained.
Chicana feminists formed autonom
advance feminist demands within the m
their groups as intrinsically part of the la
than as the starting point for a separate
identity. The case of the New York-bas
Rican women leaders, working within a m
zation, developed an important formulation
this a step further; yet strict use of the a
standard would preclude their recognitio
distinctive contributions of these women,
to distinguish between feminist organization

be able to comprehend the full range of fe
An exemplification of Roth's point that
lens, determines to some degree what we c
continued use of autonomous organization
nism may have had the effect of erasing
tions that occurred in other locations and
A broader framing of feminist practice
engagement, indeed the leadership, of w
bureaucratically organized sphere of equal
feminist activism grew out of networks f
political association between white and

under the auspices of the U.S. Departme
and especially in progressive labor union
fostered through formal, institutional pos
personal ties that characterized radic
Organizations like the National Women's
acterized by Sara Evans as the most divers
operated with a conception of formal r
regularized means of input through th
caucuses into governance structures and
involvement of women of color in plannin
tions. As a result, Evans observes, "The lea
NOW and NWPC contrasts with the nea
early meetings of women's liberation." 13
The struggle against gender discriminati
point, as MacLean's recent book, Freedom Is
American Workplace, makes clear. Her rese
gender activism, reveals the disproportion
in developing strategy following the enact
Civil Rights Act outlawing workplace discr
neys (Pauli Murray, Eleanor Holmes Norton
Johnson, a longtime researcher for the In
Workers); and policy activists (Phyllis W
Opportunity Commission [EEOC]'s top re
a former union activist who was one of th
well as the second president of NOW, fo
argues that feminist employment activ
including individual complaints to the EEO
insufficiently recognized wave of grassr
pally women's caucuses, among both w
women employees. Above all she empha
character of these practices, as well as the
practitioners.
Title VII, for example, did not enact cha
serving as a resource for activists and a
process of understanding and organizing around

of employment discrimination as a systemic p
very structure of the labor market. Consider, fo
understanding of sexual harassment as a form of
women played a leading role in the developme
given Carrie Baker's finding that "African-A
most of the early precedent-setting sexual haras
lates that it is precisely their experiences with
ment relationships that made black women m
harassment as a systemic rather than an individua
Baker argues, awareness of black women's involv
tive insights they brought has not been signific
theoretical model that, as noted earlier, has tend
as primarily reactive to trends initiated by white
The recognition of sexual harassment as a
exemplifies the multidirectional processes that c
tivism at its peak in this period. In the midst of
ment, MacLean and Baker demonstrate, litigation
movement practice that both relied on and s
based activism rather than standing apart from it
Again, the experience of black women with the us
rights movement may help explain their dis
within and orientation to this mode of femini
the case that black women's activism focused dis
encing state policy because of their more visi
sion, as clients and recipients (thus the welfar
because of the fact that black professional w
concentrated in government and non-profit
greater discrimination in the private sector, f
point that structural location and previous soc
crucial in shaping the targets, character, and loca
Like Nelson's work on reproductive rights, Free
issue-based history, written on the most ambiti
works. MacLean expands our conception of social
activism and in doing so enables us to recogni
tion and leadership roles of black women,

within a more constrained conception of
Challenge 'Jane Crow,"' along with a late
efforts to open up skilled working-class em
most obviously relevant to the focus of thi
"the movement looks more diverse and
butter needs ... when the focus of inqu
women's liberation activists ... to the old
lized around issues of employment" (118). B
at work" as her subject of inquiry, a sub
community's development of models for
crimination; the crucial importance of th
interactions, both cooperative and rivalrou
cies, including African Americans, wome
the shifting formulations of conservative
MacLean has constructed a truly intersec
diversifies our vision of feminist activism
expansive terrain of struggle.
CONCLUSION
Taken together, what do these books contribute to the reformulation of
our models of feminism during the period of the Second Wave? What
resources do they offer us and what kinds of limitations do they continue
to reproduce?
Roth and Springer demonstrate the importance of bringing social
structural factors more fully into the analysis, not just in terms of identi
fying the demographic characteristics that signify difference but in looking
at how economic, social, and cultural factors united and divided women
within the frameworks of everyday life, constructing networks and boun
daries and shaping perceptions of individual self-interest and collective
affiliation. Yet despite structural divisions, political ideas often crossed
back and forth across racial, ethnic, and organizational boundaries,
enriched and complicated by the stimulus of different social, cultural, and
economic contexts. Issue-based histories, as typified by Nelson's and
MacLean's work, are thus one important way to expand the scope of our
vision.16 At the same time it is important t

when unsupported by shared social netwo
not, as Roth observes, "dictate association" (
Finally, the conceptual models we use t
feminism need to encompass a fuller under
mass social movement. Breines argues th
especially the black socialist feminism of th
"transformed feminist thinking" (149), it
ment" (133) on a massive scale. But if bl
mained small, failing to achieve the statu
communities, it is equally the case that the
in such a valuable way by Breines also re
dency, one that arguably paralleled black fe
cal insights have tended to overshadow
accomplishments.
To a significant extent, all the works disc
to the generation of feminists that emerged
cized within 1960s oppositional movements-
Second Wave feminism became a mass m
argues in Feminist Generations, through its a
women who were politicized directly by
about it, the racial dynamics of that tran
explored.'7 In expanding our vision of wh
studies of first generation black, Latina, and
starting point for that effort.
NOT E S
1. Sherna Berger Gluck, "Whose Feminism, Whos
the History of (the) U.S. Women's Movement(s)," in
Politics: Organizing across Race, Class, and Gende
Routledge, 1998), 33, 54.
2. Ibid., 54.
3. It should be noted that such sentiments were, for many, a response to the fact that
racial difference had most often been used to justify racial hierarchy and denigration,
used in the United States and elsewhere to deny basic human rights and used, not
that long before, to justify the wholesale slaugh

deemed "different."
4. See, for example, Wini Breines, Young, White, and Mis
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1992).
5. The Combahee River Collective, "A Black Feminis
Reader in Feminist Theory, ed. Linda Nicholson (New
6. Deborah H. King, "Multiple Jeopardy, Multip
Black Feminist Ideology," Signs 14 (Autumn 1988): 4
7. See also the earlier statement by Marianne Wea
Alliance that "forming a Black women's moveme
building an all-encompassing movement that wo
dren, a movement that would be pro-human f
Roth, Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and W
Second Wave (New York: Cambridge University Press,
8. See, for example, Jo Freeman, "On the Origins
Protest: Social Movements since the Sixties, ed. Victori
Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 7-24; Aldon D. Mo

Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Chan
Internet now makes movements composed of pr
much more feasible. But while the Internet excel
clear how it allows for more sustained social bondi
9. Nonetheless, scholars also find that such group
than more explicitly structured, and often better
Suzanne Staggenborg, "Stability and Innovatio
Comparison of Two Movement Organizations," Soci
92; and Staggenborg, "The Consequences of Profe
the Pro-Choice Movement," in Waves of Protest, 99-1
10. Francesca Polletta, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: De
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), esp. ch
11. Despite a host of well-known abuses, the Black P
gender-egalitarian of black nationalist organizat
history include Tracye Matthews, "'No One Ev
Revolution Is': Gender and the Politics of the Black
D. LeBlanc-Ernest, "'The Most Qualified Person t
Party Women, 1966-1982"; and Regina Jennings, "G
Party: An Africana Womanist Reflection," all in The B
Charles E. Jones (Baltimore: Black Classics Press, 1
Power: A Black Woman's Story (New York: Anchor Boo
12. Sara M. Evans, Tidal Wave: How Women Changed Am
Press, 2004), 26, 72; Dorothy Sue Cobble, The Other Wom
Social Rights in Modern America (Princeton, N.J.: Prin
13. Evans, Tidal Wave, 116. The point here is not t
liberal feminist organizations but rather to sugges
of the models we use to identify feminist pract

other end of the organizational spectrum, see Ann
informally organized, often impromptu struggl
another form of feminist activism in the 1960s and 1
Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism (Du
2008).
14. Carrie N. Baker, "Race, Class, and Sexual Harassment in the 1970s," Feminist Studies 30
(Spring 2004): 7-27. These included "the first successful Title VII cases in the federal
district court (Dianne Williams), the federal courts of appeals (Paulette Barnes) and
the Supreme Court (Mechelle Vinson), and the first successful cases involving harass
ment of a student (Pamela Price), coworker harassment (Willie Ruth Hawkins), and
hostile environment harassment at the appellate level (Sandra Bundy)," 9.
15. Litigation obviously played a similar role in the civil rights movement throughout
much of the twentieth century.
16. Nancy Matthews, Confronting Rape: The Feminist Anti-Rape Movement and the State (London:
Routledge, 1994) is an earlier example of an issue-based history that does an excellent
job of tracing interactions of gender, race, and ethnicity.
17. Nancy Whittier, Feminist Generations: The Persistence of the Radical Women's Movement (Phila
delphia: Temple University Press, 1995).

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Review: Looking for Feminism: Racial Dynamics and Generational Investments in the

Mary Ann Clawson

IN AN IMPORTANT I998 ESSAY, "Whose Feminism, Whose History?"

Movement, Winifred Breines, writing as both a scholar and a veteran of 1960s

salist assumptions of white feminists; the r

BOOKs DISCUSSED IN THIs ARTICL

The Trouble between Us: An Uneasy History of Whit

Movement. By Winifred Breines. New York: Ox

Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organi

Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and Whi

Second Wave. By Benita Roth. New York: Camb

Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Mo

Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the Americ

complicated, multilayered history" is chall

though color blindness is today most ofte

groups such as Bread and Roses that were d

Yet there is a persistent disjuncture bet

gender, and class" (2), thus explicitly cou

PARALLEL AND MULTIPLE FEMINIS

Some women of color who were activists

As a result, Second Wave feminism is bes

distinct from one another, and from

their ideas and praxis reliant on the attitu

Rather, "white feminists, as white women,

men" and thus opened the way for an a

of autonomous organizing was a strategy t

particular, the Chicana strategy of validatin

PLURALISMS AND CONTINUITIES IN T

advance women's issues and assert their presen

sions of homophobia, especially in NABF

authentic leftists" (200), usually unders

"monism."6 In jockeying for power and re

Left rather than the pull in the form of the

FORMAL IMPLICATIONS OF INFORMA

The greater spontaneity and creativity as

Thus the lack of peer-based networks pr

ISSUES VERSUS ORGANIZATIONS

conceived reproductive rights as the right n

nationalist and mainstream feminist re

have the right and the responsibility to dete

Melding individual and communal sel

narrowly defined "movement for the lega

liberationists, has tended to identify auton

to distinguish between feminist organization

political association between white and

process of understanding and organizing around

tion and leadership roles of black women,

vision.16 At the same time it is important t

that long before, to justify the wholesale slaugh

Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 7-24; Aldon D. Mo

of the models we use to identify feminist pract

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