Red Feminism: American Communism and the Making of Women's Liberation

Historians have generally contended that the American Communist Party of the 1930s-1950s had little interest in women's issues and that its party line stated that sex oppression was merely a by-product of bourgeois decadence. Weigand, an archivist at Smith College, overturns this conventional understanding by uncovering a history of feminist activity within the Communist Party and detailing its later influence on the women's movement of the 1960s and '70s. She argues that while such Communist women as Mary Inman, Betty Millard and Eleanor Flexner had to fight against party officials' refusal to admit that working-class men might abuse their wives, they also had to battle more banal instances of everyday sexism. For example, there was quite a controversy surrounding the Daily Worker's ""cheesecake"" photos of scantily clad women (with captions such as ""Mrs. New York-- and she can cook too!"") and the struggle to get such images removed from official party literature. Weigand argues that the writings of early Communist women helped shape the core values of second-wave feminism: a 1946 letter in the Worker, for instance, calling for ""an end to the separation of `personal' and `party' life"" profoundly anticipates the ""personal is political"" mantra of '70s consciousness-raising groups. Equally interesting is Weigand's discussion of the Party's antiracist work and its sometimes na ve attempts at promoting racial equality: in one effort to encourage desegregation, the party offered dancing lessons to white men so they wouldn't be embarrassed to ask African-American women to dance at party functions. Although this richly detailed study is academic in focus, it will appeal to general readers interested in the history of U.S. progressive movements and women's history. (Dec. 28)