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Gender and Representation in Students for a Democratic Society

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Gender and Representation in Students for a Democratic Society Stephanie Lyn Bateson PhD. - Gender and Representation in Students for a Democratic Society Department of History, University of Shetlield September 2002 Stephanie Bateson Gender and Representation in Students for a Democratic Society This project is a detailed study of gender and representation in the foremost group of the American New Left, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) The thesis charts the progress of the organisation, from the publication of its unofficial manifesto, the Port Huron Statement, to the group's descent into factionalism and its demise by 1970. This study is more than an organisational history, however, and reflects on broader areas where SDS was active and where gender proved particularly salient These include SDS's relations with black nationalism, the organisations' participation in the movement to resist the Vietnam War draft and the group's involvement with the counterculture. It also charts the rise of feminist thought within the New Left and considers the emergence of women's liberation groups. The thesis takes a gender history approach, moving away from the narrow confines of women's history, which considers women in isolation. Thus, by focusing on social constructions of masculinity and femininity and by considering the ways in which men and women in this highly influential group related to each other, allocated sex roles and used sexual symbolism, this study aims to be a more inclusive history of SDS than has previously been written. The thesis finds that gender relations were of great significance within SOS. The study accepts the generally held view that the New Left marginalised women, but also gave them opportunities to develop key skills and confidence, This ultimately resulted in women articulating their grievances at the sexism within the Movement, which saw the creation of women's liberation groups. However, ~his study advances the historiography ofSDS in a number of ways. It reveals the i.npOItant effect that elitism and intellectualism had on men and women throughout the group's existence and finds that the impact of sexual liberation had both an emancipating and repressive effect on gender relations. The study discusses the constructions of identities within the organisation and pays close attention to representations of machismo and within SDS. It looks at the violent and aggressive rhetoric at play in SDS as the decade progressed, discusses the creation of alternative masculinities in the anti-draft movement and considers the fashioning of macho personas and alternative approaches to femininities in the SDS faction, Weatherman and in certain black nationalist groups. Acknowledgements This seems a fitting opportunity to say a heartfelt thank you to those people who have helped me to see this project through to its conclusion. Particular thanks go to my supervisor, Dr Hugh Wilford, who was generous with both his time and with his encouragement and was never less than supportive with his commcnts and advicc. Thankyou to the other American historians at Sheffield, especially my secondary supervisor Robert Cook, for their suggestions and advice, particularly in the American history seminars. I should also like to thank the other postgraduates at Shetlicld for their support and friendship. I am grateful for the financial aid given by the University of Sheffield which enabled me to deliver conference papers and am appreciative of the grants from the British Association of American Studies and the Royal Historical Society which allowed me to conduct essential research in the United States. 1 am also indebted to my oral history respondents for their time, assistance and perceptive comments. Thankyou also to my friends, especially Nat, Lara and Helen. Your friendship has proved invaluable to me and your humour and enthusiasm and encouragement has kept me going. My greatest debt however, is to Mum and Alan, Dad and lilly, and to Ben, for your unwavering support, encouragement and love. Thankyou for everything, you really have been my towers of strength and I couldn't have competed this thesis without you. For Grandma, I know you would have loved to have seen this moment... Contents Introduction p.l Chapter One: SDS 1962-1965 p. 19 Chapter Two: ERAP p.63 Chapter Three: SDS and Revolutionary Black Nationalism p. 98 Chapter Four: SDS and the Draft p. 130 Chapter Five: SDS 1966-1968 p. 165 Chapter Six: Weatherman p.212 Conclusion p.2S1 Bibliography p.262 Appendix A p.272 Abbreviations CADRE -Chicago Area Draft Resistance COFO - Council of Federated Organizations CORE - Congress of Racial Equality CUAW - Citizens United For Adequate Welfare ERA -Equal Rights Amendment ERAP - Economic Research Action Project GROIN - Garbage Removal or Income Now HINLC -Hoover Institute of War and Peace Studies New Left Collection ISL - Independent Socialist League JAH -Journal ofAmerican History JOIN - Jobs or Income Now LID - League for Industrial Democracy NC - National Convention NLN -New Left Notes NO -National Office NOW - National Organization of Women NYU NLC - New York University Tamiment Library New Left Collection OHC CU - Oral History Collection Columbia University 001 - Own Oral History Interview PL - Progressive Labor SDS - Students for a Democratic Society SNCC - Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee UFAF - United Front Against Fascism WP -Workers Party WSA - Worker Student Alliance YAF -Young Americans for Freedom YPSL -Young People's Socialist League Introduction Introduction Gender and Representation in Students for a Democratic Society Men have un realised potential for self-cultivation, self- direction, self-understanding and creativity. The goal of man and society should be human independence: a concern not with image or popularity but with finding a meaning in life that is personally authentic. The Port Huron Statement June 16, 1962. There can be no life - no culture - without the gun. We can be nothing but scared ass hankies if we can't face the pig and with the power of cmtmic con~·ciowme ...· ... · put a bullet through his racist belly. A Weatherwoman, "War Report", Rat, February 23- March 7, 1970. I The 1960s continues to capture people's imaginations, and the decade, even as we reach the twenty-first century, still functions as a by-word for cultural and musical innovation, revolutionary social and moral attitudes and political activism, radicalism and protest. This project is a study of gender and representation in the leading American student and New Left group Students for a Democratic Society (SOS). I The Port Huron Statement in James Miller. Democracy is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 329-374; A Weatherwoman, 'War Report', Rat. Vol. 2. No. 28 February 23-March 7,1970. p.7. quoted in Alice Echols, Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in the United States 1967-1975 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 133. Introduction Some scholarship has emerged on SDS, yet very little attention has been paid to gender within the organisation. This thesis sheds new light on gender relations within the organisation and considers the way that masculinity and fcmininity were constructed and represented by men and women in SDS. The project is a detailed study of gender within SDS from the publication of its unofficial manifesto, The Port Huron Statement, in 1962, until its collapse into factionalism in the late 1960s and its demise as a recognised organisation by 1970. The thesis charts the progress of this organisation, which initially consisted of a few friends and acquaintances with a politically liberal outlook, through the rise in interest in SDS as a consequence of the Vietnam War, and its growth as an increasingly militant organisation to the mass organisation of over 100,000 members and a radical Marxist-Leninist philosophy by 1968. Moreover, the project considers SDS's descent into factionalism at the end of the decade, the split between the revolutionary communist h'fOUP Weatherman and the Maoist Progressive Labor (PL), and Weather's ascent to control what remained of the organisation by 1969. Weatherman's subsequent descent underground in 1970 effectively heralded the end of SDS as a political force in American radical politics and highlighted the distance that the organisation had travelled from its modcst, yet ambitious beginnings. This study, however, is not solely an organisational history. It has a broader scope, including key crossover areas where SDS was active and where gender relations proved particularly significant. The thesis considers women's pivotal role in SDS's community organising projects, reveals alternative constructions of masculinity in the draft resistance movement and investigates liberating and repressive attitudes to sex within the counterculture. It also reflects on SDS's relationship with civil rights 2 Introduction groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party, paying particular attention to gender, race and constructions of machismo within the groups. Moreover, it charts the gradual rise of a fcminist consciousness within SOS, which culminated in the emergence of women's liheration groups, and reflects on the factionalism and the Politico/Radical split within the women's movement. This thesis reveals representations and social constructions of masculinity and femininity in SOS, investigating the ways that men and women In the highly influential movement approached gender issues and made gender-based assumptions.
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