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Labor Feminists and the Long History of the Women's Movement

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Labor Feminists and the Long History of the Women's Movement Dorothy Sue Cobble. The Other Women's Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. xiv + 315 pp. $39.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-691-06993-7. Reviewed by Joan Johnson Published on H-1960s (November, 2005) When exactly did the "first wave" of the wom‐ bor feminists offer clues as to how women can en's movement end and the "second wave" begin? best fght for rights both as women (thus empha‐ Dorothy Sue Cobble has written a history of labor sizing women's difference from men) and as citi‐ feminists which suggests that historians might do zen workers (emphasizing women's equality with well to consider a "long women's movement" in men). Extremely important, she reminds us that much the same way that Jacquelyn Hall recently labor feminists never chose between difference proposed a "long history" of the civil rights move‐ and equality--rather they wanted equality but also ment in which decades of activism preceded the special treatment when necessary. If the "mascu‐ dramatic events of the 1950s and 1960s.[1] Cob‐ line pattern" did not work for women, then they ble's history of labor feminists shows that they re‐ rejected being treated by the same standards as mained active and influential from the progres‐ men and sought to change the pattern. sive era forward. This book, especially in its em‐ While Betty Friedan was writing The Femi‐ phasis on employment issues and its inclusion of nine Mystique (1963), which detailed the inability African-American and non-college-educated wom‐ of mostly college-educated women to fnd fulfill‐ en, fundamentally challenges assumptions about ment in their roles as housewives, Myra Wolfgang the second wave of the women's movement. Cob‐ was president of HERE, the union of Hotel Em‐ ble explains that middle-class feminists (and his‐ ployees and Restaurant Employees. In this capaci‐ torians) often cast working women as opponents ty, she bargained with Hugh Hefner over the of feminism because labor feminists opposed the working conditions of Playboy bunnies in his De‐ ERA (they feared it would endanger state legisla‐ troit Club, including the exact length in inches of tion designed to protect female workers). Yet Cob‐ the bunny suit and other grievances. Picketers ble insists that those who worked to improve surrounded the club with signs reading, "Don't be women's lives and eliminate discrimination a bunny, work for money." With her focus on the against women, no matter what tactics they used, Playboy Club and attention to sexual objectifica‐ should be considered feminists. Furthermore, la‐ H-Net Reviews tion, Wolfgang sounds like the radical feminists of values of, and would provide opportunities for, the late 1960s and early 1970s who protested the male and female workers. Thus Cobble argues Miss America Pageant. But Wolfgang and her fol‐ that just as the civil rights movement inspired col‐ lowers were also very different from both the rad‐ lege women, the union movement provided work‐ icals and Friedan. Wolfgang believed that union ing women with the experience, discourse, and membership was the key to solving women's op‐ training that helped spark the women's move‐ pression, and she prioritized employment issues. ment. As in the civil rights movement, women Furthermore, she was against the ERA until 1972. held few of the top national union positions, but When she and Friedan debated each other in gained power and experience in many of the sec‐ 1970, each accused the other of being an Aunt ondary positions and in state and local positions Tom. What struck Cobble was "that the Wolfgangs of leadership. of the world, far from being oddities, were, at Who were these women? Cobble points out times, the dominant wing of feminism" (p. 3). Cob‐ that many came from the pre-war leadership of ble's book draws much-needed attention to these women like Rose Schneiderman, while others be‐ labor feminists who did not see obtaining a career came active in the postwar period. Significantly, outside the home as a panacea to women's op‐ Cobble identifies many African-American women pression, because they had already experienced in leadership positions including Addie Wyatt, discrimination in the workplace. born in Mississippi and introduced to unions as a One of the most significant points Cobble teenager working at a meatpacking plant in makes throughout the book is that the United Chicago during World War II. Wyatt became vice States provided welfare to its workers not only president and then president of her UPWA (Unit‐ through government programs, but also and pri‐ ed Packing Workers of America) local, even marily through benefits received directly from though many of the members were white men. employers. Therefore labor feminists fought on She experienced frst hand the power of the union two fronts: they tried to use collective bargaining to address her grievances. She helped found the to force employers to improve pay and working National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966, conditions, and they lobbied the government for as did labor feminists Caroline Davis (NOW's frst laws that would protect and benefit workers. secretary-treasurer), Dorothy Haener, and Lillian By the 1940s, more and more women, espe‐ Hatcher. Wyatt was one of many working-class cially mothers and wives, worked outside the women at the forefront of the labor movement; home. These women saw themselves as mothers there were also college-educated middle-class as well as workers, and they believed that if they women who helped run unions, like Esther Peter‐ were paid more while working fewer hours, they son, who became the highest-ranking woman in would become better mothers. Seeking to im‐ the Kennedy administration as the Assistant Sec‐ prove working conditions, hours, and pay, they retary of Labor. joined unions in record numbers. In 1940 there Cobble traces the focus of labor feminists on were only 800,000 organized women workers; this achieving higher pay as well as equal pay for number grew to 3 million during World War II equal work (or equivalent work). Although states and rose to 3.5 million by the mid-1950s. Women had been the frst to pass maximum hours and grew to represent 18 percent of organized work‐ minimum pay laws for women, the New Deal ers, while some unions, like HERE, had as many as brought workers the Fair Labor Standards Act 45 percent women. These women believed that which extended similar provisions to men and the rhetoric and demands of unions spoke to the women nationally. However, many women (and 2 H-Net Reviews people of color) were left out because the jobs found they could not simply adapt men's policies they worked--especially in agriculture and domes‐ to women, because, practically speaking, it did not tic service--were excluded. When women fought work. They wanted child care facilities and an for equal pay for equal work, they had difficulty end to the practice of fring and refusing to rehire finding positions where women performed the pregnant women. Few labor feminists were con‐ same work as men, because employers forced to cerned that special treatment for pregnant wom‐ pay the same wage to both sexes generally pre‐ en might mark them as different and therefore ferred to hire men. Therefore labor feminists less able. Rather, they argued that, because preg‐ changed their demand to equal pay for compara‐ nancy was "a social function," society had a duty ble work. Cobble also provides examples of to support pregnant women (p. 128). When labor unions that, paradoxically, both supported and re‐ feminists debated childcare needs, they argued sisted women's demands. that although providing better and cheaper child Labor feminists also debated the idea of a care was helpful, it ultimately did not change the family wage--one with which a worker could sup‐ fact that women had to work long hours for little port a family of four. On the one hand, this ap‐ pay. Instead, they proposed that women be al‐ proach elevated men's wages. On the other, it en‐ lowed to work a six-hour day for more pay. Men shrined women in the home. Countries in Europe did not necessarily agree with this approach and increasingly turned to the concept of an individu‐ were more willing to work longer hours, because al worth wage, but their governments provided they were not expected to take on domestic duties support for families through state family al‐ and identified more with the workplace than with lowances or state wage supplements based on the domestic space of the home. Women also wor‐ number of children. The United States had (and ried that without a maximum hours law, volun‐ still has) no universal paid maternity leave, no tary overtime was never really voluntary. universal system of family and child allowances In 1961 John Kennedy announced the Presi‐ (direct income supplements paid to parents), and dent's Commission on the Status of Women; the no universal, publicly funded infant care pro‐ Equal Pay Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and grams. Cobble suggests that American policy de‐ amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act veloped without these supports because there was (FLSA) soon followed. Cobble correctly reminds us no widespread support for minorities and the that these occurred before the rise of the mass poor, and because Americans did not want to movement--and that therefore credit must go to grant government support to those who were not the labor feminists who had been pushing for in the labor force. Interestingly, the American changes that affected working women.
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