Class trumps gender? (Was Re: NOW and Marxism)

[nancybrumback@xxxxxx]

From: viveka
Subject: Re: NOW and Marxism
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 08:03:55 -0700

>> Louis: Six years ago the nearly all female and minority clerical
>> work force at Barnard College, organized by the UAW, went on strike
>> after the administration demanded cutbacks in their medical benefits.
>> The President of Barnard College is Judith Shapiro, a leading feminist
>> theorist, forced these women out on the picket line for more than six
>> months in one of the city's most visible labor struggles. The school,
>> which is staffed heavily with feminist veterans, found few willing to
>> take the side of the strikers who sat out in front of Barnard's gates
>> with their children on a daily basis.

>Viveka: Some weeks back, there was a similar discussion re gender v. class, and
>someone posted that "class trumps gender every time."  The above is quite
>illustrative of that point.  Given the choice of siding with their gender or
>their class, the decision of these educated upwardly mobile women to side
>with their class was a no-brainer.  The same might be said of black middle
>class folks that have made entry into the white world, who distance
>themselves from their black "brothers and sisters" in the streets.

Nancy: What exactly are you saying here? That in cases of workers'
actions to protect themselves from the greed of the ruling elite, class trumps
gender everytime? Of course class trumps gender in the case of workers' actions
to defend themselves -- the struggle was a workers' struggle in the first place.

>Viveka: My own observations about the workplace is that lines are drawn first 
>along
>class, with, certainly, men getting the lion's share within each sphere.  To
>focus one's efforts on increasing the proportion of women withIN each sphere
>does little to move us forward toward a classless society.

Nancy: Are you saying that in the workers' struggle, the addition of more women
would do little to move us forward toward a classless society? I disagree. More
women means more people, numerically, on the picket line. And more women means 
more
families in support of the strike in other ways -- economizing so as to live on
less as long as there is no income for the family, bringing sandwiches and 
coffee
to the picket lines, etc. It is obvious to me that a strike with women is 
stronger
than a strike without women. Any theorist who refutes this simple principle is
totally in her head and out of touch with reality.

As for Judith Shapiro, I have little respect for her kind of academic feminism.
Feminists like her are completely into the gender question as unrelated to the
social setting -- i.e., out of context. Another one who is out of touch with
reality.

nancy




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