The legacy of the 1980s

The 1980s had been a difficult period for the women's movement in the United States. Feminist theory continued to make a significant impact in a number of academic disciplines, especially history and literature but also in the study of jurisprudence where scholars such as Catherine MacKinnon developed approaches to legal issues and controversies which emphasized the significance of gender. Thus such difficult issues as the extent to which pornography should be protected by the First Amendment received a distinctive analysis in the hands of feminist critics.

The American women's- movement had never been monolithic ideologically and it splintered further in the 1980s. One major division was between those whose ideological perspective put them within the familiar American liberal tradition and those whose ideological framework was derived from Marxist or neo-Marxist criticisms of that tradition. Until the late 1960s the driving intellectual force in the women's movement had been groups and individuals whose claims to equality could be easily assimilated into the mainstream of political debate. From the late 1960s onwards, however, more attention was gained by radical feminists who focused on the structural and institutional inequalities in American society and on the cultural manifestations of gender. And within the radical feminist camp there were further divisions between those who favored exclusive political strategies (such as all-women political groupings or lesbian separatism) as the only ones calculated to empower women, and those who wanted to link radical feminism to broader political movements of the left. Of course even those who argued for an alliance of radical feminism with left-of-center ideological groups had somewhat limited appeal in the context of a society with little interest in developing concepts of revolutionary change.

The language in which many of these debates were conducted was often remote from the discourse of many liberal feminists; and it was hardly surprising if their somewhat intense and inward-looking character sometimes seemed to isolate the theorists of feminism from the pragmatic activists of organizations such as The National Organization for Women (NOW) whose primary and practical concern was getting women's issues on to the public policy agenda, although inevitably some of the divisions in the women's movement surfaced inside the organization.

Organizational disharmony also marked the American women's movement in the 1980s. Inevitably the tendencies towards fragmentation displayed by other broad movements such as environmentalism occurred within the realm of women's pressure groups. It could, however, be argued that the proliferation of feminist groups had the effect of strengthening the movement as a whole by allowing more women to remain inside the broad umbrella of American feminism because different organizations could take account of a variety of special interests and cater for different political persuasions.

The most important organization in the women's movement is the National Organization for Women which was founded in 1966; mention should, however, also be made of the Women's National Political Caucus which was founded in 1971, largely in order to increase the numbers of women in elective office. Both of these groups are firmly in the liberal and Democratic camp. The Women's Equity Action League stood to the right of these groups. In addition there were important specialist groups such as the Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund (which had been founded in 1971 to use the weapon of litigation to attack sex discrimination) and the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project. In addition ethnic minority women developed their own literature and organizational structure. Thus at the theoretical level there was an important growth of interest in the ideas and experiences of black women whose distinctive position in American society had been neglected by white feminist theorists. In 1973 the special concerns of ethnic minority women had been given organizational expression in the National Black Feminist Organization.

Over the 80s, conflicts and tensions surfaced within organizations as well as forming the basis for separate ones. The National Organization for Women was particularly affected by factions and in-fighting. Apart from financial difficulties and looses of membership, there was conflict over tactics.

Assignments: 1) Give a summary of the text

2) Compare women's issues in the US with those in Britain.

TEXT 3

Answer the questions:

1. How many American women are employed at different jobs?

2. What change has taken place in women's likes recently?

3. What are the traditional jobs of Ameri­can women?

4. Where is the percentage of educated women higher: among working women or those who are not employed?

5. What are the main reasons of growing participation in the paid labor force?

6. What should American business take into consideration?

WOMEN IN THE USA

Modern families are having fewer children. So the question for an American woman today is: "What else am I going to do in my life?" Read the text and say how American women exercise their right to choose what they are going to do.

Women in the USA constitute 51,4% of the country's population. Many of them are earning money outside their homes today. Among women who are eighteen to sixty-four years old, sixty-two per cent have jobs.

Today more women are holding jobs of greater diversity than ever before. The number of women in Taw and medicine rose dra­matically, from about 12,000 women lawyers and 34,000 women doctors, in 1972 to about 140,000 women lawyers and 108,000 women doctors in 1988. In high schools and colleges, women's studies courses in history, literature, and sociology have brought new attention to women's lives.

At the same time women traditionally dominate certain occu­pations. In recent years they comprised the great majority of nurses and telephone operators. They made up 98% of the total number of secretaries, typists, and stenographers in the country; 68% of all teachers, excluding those at the college level; and 97% of all private-household workers.

In general, working women have more education than those who stay at home. Of those who work, thirty-two per cent have attended college, compared with twenty per cent of those who do not have jobs. It's natural that college-educated women want to use their academic training after marriage. Besides, the task of running a household has become easier due to modern appliances and aids such as convenience foods, and many women choose to work primarily for the satisfaction derived.

Among women with jobs, eight out of ten drive a car to work, and eight per cent took a vacation away from home during the past year. Much of their travelling was by air.

These figures come from a report which was written for adver­tisers. The report gives advertisers a new picture of women today. For instance, it tells advertisers that fifty-one per cent of all American women have travelled by air – along with fifty-nine per cent of ail American men.

The lesson for American business is that a significant number of married women have entered the labor force for non-economic reasons because they want to have other interests in addition to their homes. They like advertisements which show women in of­fice, planes and cars.

TEXT 4

Read and analyze the text. Organize a discussion using for- and against-arguments from the text.