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White political women: Paths from privilege to empowerment
86
Book Reviews
offered freedoms and privileges which they did not have at home, and, like slavery, oppression of subject races presented an analogy to the disenfranchisement of white women. Typical of the feminist imperialist conflict was the experience of Annette Ackroyd, an activist who founded a school for women in India. She underwent cultural confusion when she discovered that she did not respect the differences of Indian women, and later when the liberal reform of turning over judicial functions to Indian men raised her fears of native misogyny. She understood oppression but was afraid to give up race privilege. Part IV narrates the clash between the prohibitionist and anti-lynching movements. Because the purported safety of white women was the central propaganda tactic used to rationalize lynching in the American South after Reconstruction, the white women of the prohibition movement ultimately could not transcend fear and prejudice to stand behind Ida B. Wells’ anti-lynching campaign, which originally grew out of her political experience in prohibitionist politics. (Ironically, the worst conflict Wells had to overcome was among British feminists.) Success came finally as a result of work by dedicated activists, such as Catherine Impey, who were able to understand patriarchal power strategies. Her examination of the repressed conflicts between racial and gender identities leads Ware to a guarded optimism. In fact, her own work contributes to bringing these conflicts, and the patriarchal strategies which have exacerbated them, to consciousness. Ware stresses that a new linguistic and logical vocabulary is essential if we are to understand and overcome the conflicts between race and gender ideologies, and her analysis begins to develop such a vocabulary. Although Ware seems uninformed about similar projects by American feminist historians and philosophers such as Angela Davis, she has nevertheless covered some new ground and added significantly to the dialogue about race and gender. Feminist scholarship of the last two decades and Ware’s own contribution to higher journalism justify her guarded optimism about the future of world feminism and the fight against racism.
studying and speaking for people of color. Fowlkes perceptively examines the standpoints of her 27 interviewees towards American race relations and within America’s system of complex domination. Fowlkes’ research design and perspective is all the more valuable since the women in her study all reside in Atlanta, Georgia, where race politics has always been important and where the role of politically active women has been largely unexplored. Her interviewees include Republican and Democratic women, feminists and antifeminists, women working within the system for their political goals, and women creating separate systems and communities while pressuring for political change through the alternative lifestyles they live. There is one beautiful stateswoman, “a Wise Elder Woman,” who should be an inspiration to us all. Fowlkes’ use of literature on women’s history and politics is particularly adept when explaining this Wise Elder Woman’s politics and history in relation to her generation and experiences. Evidence of lifelong political socialization and evolution of these women’s standpoints and political consciousness is particularly valuable in this study. Some scholars of political socialization imply that a person’s political identity is fully formed after childhood. Although Fowlkes’s study reconfirms the central role of childhood socialization, and the impact childhood role models have on adult political positions, political efficacy, and civic commitments, she also shows how these women evolved, grew, and changed as adults. This insight is central to understanding many politically engaged women, who enter politics in “midlife,” and from conventional scholars’ points of view are surprising additions to the political scene. Fowlkes shows how imbedded in them was the potential for action. Ideas and ideals were sown in their childhood by grandmothers, fathers, or mothers, and under the right circumstances, emerged in the politics of their adult lives. Fowlkes’ expansion of the discussion on “countersocialization” is of central importance to scholarship about people who challenge authority. Fowlkes’ concludes that in the American political system, originally designed to protect the inalienable rights of white men of property, “two groups of women MARY S. POLLOCK are attempting to bring women as a collective force into ENGLISH DEPARTMENT the machinery of a government that was designed to acSTETSON UNIVERSITY commodate ‘individuals,’ and only privileged ones at DELAND, FL, USA that. These women appear to be drawing on the power that for them has been suppressed in the difference imposed on them because of their sex. From position of difWHITE POLITICALWOMEN: PATHS FROM PRIVILEGE ference they are seeking to achieve sameness, at least sameness of place in the power struggles that constitute TO EMPOWERMENT, by Diane L. Fowlkes, 255 pages. ‘the political”’ (p. 225, italics in original). Two other University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN, 1992. Pagroups of women are fully accepting of their difference per, US $14.95. from men, but interpret and utilize this difference in almost completely opposite ways. One group, the “ladies” The complexities of women’s lives, overlayed by experibelieve in essential differences between men and women ences based on gender, class, race, and family, and the and accept and celebrate the notion of a woman’s proper myriad pathways women travel to political engagement sphere. These ladies believe women have unique perspecand possible empowerment are illuminated by Diane tives to bring to politics. They do not eschew power, Fowlkes’ in-depth study of 27 white American women. “they believe they can gain power best through linking Fowlkes is very sensitive and respectful of the overgenerthemselves into the power that others legitimately posalizations and inaccuracies possible when researchers sess and will use for them” (p. 226). On the other side are speak of women as a monolith and thus gloss over imwomen community activists who also accept and celeportant differences such as race and class. She labels her brate women’s differences but who reject the roles asstudy truthfully, therefore, as a study of white women. signed to women in America’s system of complex domiHer introductory chapter provides a succinct summary nation. This group has moved outside of conventional of the debates and literature concerning white scholars
Book Reviews
politics to create their own communities and networks. These women challenge patriarchy rather than try to work it to their advantage. Fowlkes’ sensitivity to her own power and position as “a knower” trying to understand the lives of these politically active women enriches this book. As Fowlkes so gracefully displays, each woman’s story is unique and different, but all display how important the intersections of private and public lives, standpoints toward being women in a male dominated system, and personal context shape the mobilization and sometimes empowerment of white women in America. This book is an important contribution to Women’s Studies and political science. In this smoothly written political morality play, in interviewees own words, with insight and guidance by Fowlkes, the reader understands how and why some women spin the many interconnections that constitute being and becoming a woman, and sometimes spin threads into networks of political empowerment. It is an insightful portrait of the balancing, shifting, accommodating, and often challenging activities these politically engaged women negotiate to hold together the complicated mosaics of their lives. LAURA R. WOLIVER DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA COLUMBIA, SC, USA
IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST: THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS,1920-1970, by Louise M. Young, xiii + 199 pages. Greenwood Press, Inc., Westport, CT, 1989.
In her book, In The Public Interest, Louise M. Young surveyed the history of the first 50 years of the League of Women Voters (1920-1970). To supplement her knowledge of the League gained through cataloguing the organization’s papers (which are housed in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress), Young drew upon an impressive bibliography concerning women, federal policy, and American history to provide an account of the League set within the context of a rapidly changing American society. The League was formed in 1920 as a successor organization to NAWSA (The National American Woman Suffrage Association) in order to “‘develop the woman citizen into an intelligent and self-directing voter and to turn her vote toward constructive social ends”’ (p. 49). Its first legislative aim was passage of the SheppardTowner Maternity-and Infancy-Protection Act. “This commitment,” Young observed, “spilled over into other areas relating to children-health, education, child labor, judicial treatment-and constituted the bulk of the League’s work at the community level during the first decade” (p. 61). Through its first half century, the League of Women Voters, under the leadership of eight capable national presidents, strove to adapt its methods of operation, programmatic focus, and organizational structure to maintain its relevance in a nation undergoing continual change. Committed to a study/action format, the League issued carefully crafted position papers on a number of issues to prepare informed citizens to take constructive action. The leadership tried to avoid the alluring snare of
87
preparation- the danger of finding in study an escape from direct engagement in political life” (p. 113). Certain overarching concerns continued through the years. From the beginning, the League was committed to “a peaceful and secure international order, good government and citizen rights, the well-being of the leastprotected members of society, and resource conservation” (p. 162). These emphases translated at different times into support of specific programs or goals such as establishment of a World Court, authorization of the Tennessee Valley Authority, support of the United Nations, reapportionment of legislative districts, and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. In the 194Os, the League “transformed itself from a federation of state leagues to an organization based on its individual members” (p. 138). This structural change was designed to increase communication with members of local leagues and to motivate more active grass-roots response. Still, Young acknowledged the difficulty of getting all local leagues behind a national agenda and of appealing to citizens beyond the “middle and uppermiddle sectors of society” who generally composed League membership (p. 157). Young detailed some of the opposition the League faced through the years-from political parties frustrated by the organization’s non-partisan stance; business interests who objected to propounded changes; and other women’s organizations who feared encroachment onto their “turf.” Suggested changes in federal policy led military and governmental opponents to label some of the leaders as “pacifists, ““socialists,“or “reds.“Periodically, a “spider-web chart” or similar listing linked League women with other groups considered subversive. Louisiana Congressman Otto Passman’s criticism of the League’s efforts to influence foreign aid legislation expressed an even more basic opposition to women’s interest in federal policy. “‘They’re a fine bunch of ladies,’ he said, ‘but they don’t know anything about the program . [and] would be better advised to concentrate on matters they are more qualified to handle, like child-rearing”’ (p. 165). As the League entered its second half century, Young noted demographic changes which would present new challenges, including: movement of middle class population out of big cities (which sapped the strength of urban leagues); rapid entry of women into the work force; and a “new phase of feminist consciousness [which] . . . would be likely to direct some part of the female activism once available to the League into different channels” (p. 178). Yet, she concluded with the optimistic prediction that the League would find some way to continue to be a “vital and constructive . . . force in service of the public interest” (p. 179). Young has provided a well-documented study of an important 20th century women’s organization which in more recent years has expanded its mission to address the needs of all citizens. Her generally balanced though laudatory account of the women who led the League is enhanced by intriguing photographs. Studies of local and state organizations in various regions of the country would provide a valuable supplement and additional evidence of the way local members adapt a national program to their own interests and needs. JOANNE V. HAWKS THE UNIVERSITY OFMISSISSIPPI UNIVERSITY, MS, USA
Book Reviews
offered freedoms and privileges which they did not have at home, and, like slavery, oppression of subject races presented an analogy to the disenfranchisement of white women. Typical of the feminist imperialist conflict was the experience of Annette Ackroyd, an activist who founded a school for women in India. She underwent cultural confusion when she discovered that she did not respect the differences of Indian women, and later when the liberal reform of turning over judicial functions to Indian men raised her fears of native misogyny. She understood oppression but was afraid to give up race privilege. Part IV narrates the clash between the prohibitionist and anti-lynching movements. Because the purported safety of white women was the central propaganda tactic used to rationalize lynching in the American South after Reconstruction, the white women of the prohibition movement ultimately could not transcend fear and prejudice to stand behind Ida B. Wells’ anti-lynching campaign, which originally grew out of her political experience in prohibitionist politics. (Ironically, the worst conflict Wells had to overcome was among British feminists.) Success came finally as a result of work by dedicated activists, such as Catherine Impey, who were able to understand patriarchal power strategies. Her examination of the repressed conflicts between racial and gender identities leads Ware to a guarded optimism. In fact, her own work contributes to bringing these conflicts, and the patriarchal strategies which have exacerbated them, to consciousness. Ware stresses that a new linguistic and logical vocabulary is essential if we are to understand and overcome the conflicts between race and gender ideologies, and her analysis begins to develop such a vocabulary. Although Ware seems uninformed about similar projects by American feminist historians and philosophers such as Angela Davis, she has nevertheless covered some new ground and added significantly to the dialogue about race and gender. Feminist scholarship of the last two decades and Ware’s own contribution to higher journalism justify her guarded optimism about the future of world feminism and the fight against racism.
studying and speaking for people of color. Fowlkes perceptively examines the standpoints of her 27 interviewees towards American race relations and within America’s system of complex domination. Fowlkes’ research design and perspective is all the more valuable since the women in her study all reside in Atlanta, Georgia, where race politics has always been important and where the role of politically active women has been largely unexplored. Her interviewees include Republican and Democratic women, feminists and antifeminists, women working within the system for their political goals, and women creating separate systems and communities while pressuring for political change through the alternative lifestyles they live. There is one beautiful stateswoman, “a Wise Elder Woman,” who should be an inspiration to us all. Fowlkes’ use of literature on women’s history and politics is particularly adept when explaining this Wise Elder Woman’s politics and history in relation to her generation and experiences. Evidence of lifelong political socialization and evolution of these women’s standpoints and political consciousness is particularly valuable in this study. Some scholars of political socialization imply that a person’s political identity is fully formed after childhood. Although Fowlkes’s study reconfirms the central role of childhood socialization, and the impact childhood role models have on adult political positions, political efficacy, and civic commitments, she also shows how these women evolved, grew, and changed as adults. This insight is central to understanding many politically engaged women, who enter politics in “midlife,” and from conventional scholars’ points of view are surprising additions to the political scene. Fowlkes shows how imbedded in them was the potential for action. Ideas and ideals were sown in their childhood by grandmothers, fathers, or mothers, and under the right circumstances, emerged in the politics of their adult lives. Fowlkes’ expansion of the discussion on “countersocialization” is of central importance to scholarship about people who challenge authority. Fowlkes’ concludes that in the American political system, originally designed to protect the inalienable rights of white men of property, “two groups of women MARY S. POLLOCK are attempting to bring women as a collective force into ENGLISH DEPARTMENT the machinery of a government that was designed to acSTETSON UNIVERSITY commodate ‘individuals,’ and only privileged ones at DELAND, FL, USA that. These women appear to be drawing on the power that for them has been suppressed in the difference imposed on them because of their sex. From position of difWHITE POLITICALWOMEN: PATHS FROM PRIVILEGE ference they are seeking to achieve sameness, at least sameness of place in the power struggles that constitute TO EMPOWERMENT, by Diane L. Fowlkes, 255 pages. ‘the political”’ (p. 225, italics in original). Two other University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN, 1992. Pagroups of women are fully accepting of their difference per, US $14.95. from men, but interpret and utilize this difference in almost completely opposite ways. One group, the “ladies” The complexities of women’s lives, overlayed by experibelieve in essential differences between men and women ences based on gender, class, race, and family, and the and accept and celebrate the notion of a woman’s proper myriad pathways women travel to political engagement sphere. These ladies believe women have unique perspecand possible empowerment are illuminated by Diane tives to bring to politics. They do not eschew power, Fowlkes’ in-depth study of 27 white American women. “they believe they can gain power best through linking Fowlkes is very sensitive and respectful of the overgenerthemselves into the power that others legitimately posalizations and inaccuracies possible when researchers sess and will use for them” (p. 226). On the other side are speak of women as a monolith and thus gloss over imwomen community activists who also accept and celeportant differences such as race and class. She labels her brate women’s differences but who reject the roles asstudy truthfully, therefore, as a study of white women. signed to women in America’s system of complex domiHer introductory chapter provides a succinct summary nation. This group has moved outside of conventional of the debates and literature concerning white scholars
Book Reviews
politics to create their own communities and networks. These women challenge patriarchy rather than try to work it to their advantage. Fowlkes’ sensitivity to her own power and position as “a knower” trying to understand the lives of these politically active women enriches this book. As Fowlkes so gracefully displays, each woman’s story is unique and different, but all display how important the intersections of private and public lives, standpoints toward being women in a male dominated system, and personal context shape the mobilization and sometimes empowerment of white women in America. This book is an important contribution to Women’s Studies and political science. In this smoothly written political morality play, in interviewees own words, with insight and guidance by Fowlkes, the reader understands how and why some women spin the many interconnections that constitute being and becoming a woman, and sometimes spin threads into networks of political empowerment. It is an insightful portrait of the balancing, shifting, accommodating, and often challenging activities these politically engaged women negotiate to hold together the complicated mosaics of their lives. LAURA R. WOLIVER DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA COLUMBIA, SC, USA
IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST: THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS,1920-1970, by Louise M. Young, xiii + 199 pages. Greenwood Press, Inc., Westport, CT, 1989.
In her book, In The Public Interest, Louise M. Young surveyed the history of the first 50 years of the League of Women Voters (1920-1970). To supplement her knowledge of the League gained through cataloguing the organization’s papers (which are housed in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress), Young drew upon an impressive bibliography concerning women, federal policy, and American history to provide an account of the League set within the context of a rapidly changing American society. The League was formed in 1920 as a successor organization to NAWSA (The National American Woman Suffrage Association) in order to “‘develop the woman citizen into an intelligent and self-directing voter and to turn her vote toward constructive social ends”’ (p. 49). Its first legislative aim was passage of the SheppardTowner Maternity-and Infancy-Protection Act. “This commitment,” Young observed, “spilled over into other areas relating to children-health, education, child labor, judicial treatment-and constituted the bulk of the League’s work at the community level during the first decade” (p. 61). Through its first half century, the League of Women Voters, under the leadership of eight capable national presidents, strove to adapt its methods of operation, programmatic focus, and organizational structure to maintain its relevance in a nation undergoing continual change. Committed to a study/action format, the League issued carefully crafted position papers on a number of issues to prepare informed citizens to take constructive action. The leadership tried to avoid the alluring snare of
87
preparation- the danger of finding in study an escape from direct engagement in political life” (p. 113). Certain overarching concerns continued through the years. From the beginning, the League was committed to “a peaceful and secure international order, good government and citizen rights, the well-being of the leastprotected members of society, and resource conservation” (p. 162). These emphases translated at different times into support of specific programs or goals such as establishment of a World Court, authorization of the Tennessee Valley Authority, support of the United Nations, reapportionment of legislative districts, and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. In the 194Os, the League “transformed itself from a federation of state leagues to an organization based on its individual members” (p. 138). This structural change was designed to increase communication with members of local leagues and to motivate more active grass-roots response. Still, Young acknowledged the difficulty of getting all local leagues behind a national agenda and of appealing to citizens beyond the “middle and uppermiddle sectors of society” who generally composed League membership (p. 157). Young detailed some of the opposition the League faced through the years-from political parties frustrated by the organization’s non-partisan stance; business interests who objected to propounded changes; and other women’s organizations who feared encroachment onto their “turf.” Suggested changes in federal policy led military and governmental opponents to label some of the leaders as “pacifists, ““socialists,“or “reds.“Periodically, a “spider-web chart” or similar listing linked League women with other groups considered subversive. Louisiana Congressman Otto Passman’s criticism of the League’s efforts to influence foreign aid legislation expressed an even more basic opposition to women’s interest in federal policy. “‘They’re a fine bunch of ladies,’ he said, ‘but they don’t know anything about the program . [and] would be better advised to concentrate on matters they are more qualified to handle, like child-rearing”’ (p. 165). As the League entered its second half century, Young noted demographic changes which would present new challenges, including: movement of middle class population out of big cities (which sapped the strength of urban leagues); rapid entry of women into the work force; and a “new phase of feminist consciousness [which] . . . would be likely to direct some part of the female activism once available to the League into different channels” (p. 178). Yet, she concluded with the optimistic prediction that the League would find some way to continue to be a “vital and constructive . . . force in service of the public interest” (p. 179). Young has provided a well-documented study of an important 20th century women’s organization which in more recent years has expanded its mission to address the needs of all citizens. Her generally balanced though laudatory account of the women who led the League is enhanced by intriguing photographs. Studies of local and state organizations in various regions of the country would provide a valuable supplement and additional evidence of the way local members adapt a national program to their own interests and needs. JOANNE V. HAWKS THE UNIVERSITY OFMISSISSIPPI UNIVERSITY, MS, USA