Focus on Women; Judy Goldsmith

But let me start out with, as I said, some of the things that have been on my mind a lot in the past year. I thought a lot in particular about the values and principles that we stand for as feminists. One of the conclusions I've come to is that humility, which tends to characterize women, of course, isn't just a matter of good manners or mere etiquette. It is something that's rooted in a well-developed understanding of our human interdependence, of our need for each other as feminists, as citizens of this country, as women, and as inhabitants of this planet. We are people who are keenly aware of both the value and the inevitability of that interconnectedness. It's also that sense of connection that largely motivates our activism. Because we feel a responsibility to our communities and to the people who make up those communities,

we take action when we perceive that something is wrong and must be fixed. When we see, for example, that an injustice has been done and must be redressed. It is that proud legacy of unyielding commitment and that richly developed understanding of our interconnectedness that I'd like to talk to you about today. When I was a younger person in my thirties, I didn't join the women's movement at first. There were probably a number of reasons, but chief among them was that the fact that at that time I wasn't a joiner. I even took considerable pride in being not a joiner. I was young, not terribly bright, about some of life's more important realities, and perhaps a little smug about not being a joiner. It was considered sophisticated in those days. But as I gradually increased my activism, initially in the peace and civil rights movements

in the sixties and then the women's movement, I became increasingly aware of the irresistible logic of strength in numbers. I was pretty backward in learning that. That indeed, in the area of social change, there was no strength in anything else. That belief does not in any way detract from regard for the individual. But it does recognize that in trying to change a flawed social system, one person will get lost in the massive monolithic structure. It takes the mass and strength of an organized, unified effort to have an impact. We have banded together, and we have brought changes that have enhanced women's lives and made our society richer, because we understand those realities. There are others who understand them too, and who therefore oppose our being organized. The political pundits and analysts tell us that the one person that is pure madness

to attack today is Ronald Reagan. Well, I can't help it. If we felt ourselves bound by the current political wisdom, we wouldn't be the kind of people we are or do the kinds of things we do. In 1983, when I first spoke at the National Press Club, I said that Ronald Reagan was not a nice man. That wasn't considered wise then either, but my mother raised me to believe that nice is as nice does, and nice is very important in the Midwest. It is the ultimate virtue along with humility. So no matter how great he was at a party, no matter how endearing and charming he was with a quick-wise crack, no matter how sincerely he comforted bereaved family members after national disasters, some of them of his own making, Ronald Reagan was not a nice man. Why? Because nice is as nice does, and the man who denied funding for nutritional assistance

for pregnant women nursing mothers, infants, and children, who cut back funding to assist handicapped children and their families, who would have government make women's decisions about whether and when they would have children, who opposed women having full equality under the laws through the Equal Rights Amendment was not nice by any definition of the word. And now Ronald Reagan has emerged as the primary advocate of the me first society. This is the heyday of rugged individualism, of John Wayne riding tall in the saddle, and of Clint Eastwood playing Ronald Reagan, saying with a sneer, go ahead, make my day. Anyone in this brave new world who talks about caring for the poor or the disadvantaged is damned as a wimp or a captive of special interests. After all, we have been assured by no less an authority, figure, than the president of the United States, that it is all right now to pursue our own self-interests.

We need no longer be concerned about the less fortunate. We ended sex and race discrimination 20 years ago. The voluntarily homeless and the anecdotally hungry need not weigh on our consciences anymore. This is the best of all possible worlds, America is back in standing tall. That's why it is now possible to speak of this period as the post-feminist era. Post-feminist? I'm pretty sure I know what feminism is. I would describe it as the doctrine that advances the belief in the inherent equality between male and female, a conviction that neither men nor women should automatically enjoy an advantage or suffer a disadvantage of any kind simply because they happen to have been born, male, or female. How can we be post-that? Or is the suggestion that the women's movement is over? No longer needed because its goals have been achieved.

Well, it would be lovely to think that. But unfortunately, we know better. And this is yet another variation on the old refrain. The women's movement is finally dead, isn't it? No. Well, no, actually, it isn't. When will they learn that no struggle is over while need exists and caring people see that need? We have seen the women in our communities chronically and systematically underemployed and underpaid, trying desperately to support their families with some semblance of dignity. We have seen the women suffer sexual harassment when they braid the challenge of employment traditionally closed to women and for that matter in traditional employment as well. We have seen women bruised and beaten in their homes. We have seen them sexually violated at a rate of occurrence that stays consistently high while the rates for other categories of crime ebb and flow. Just those women, if they think that sex discrimination is over and there's no longer

any need for an organized women's movement. The Reagan administration opposes affirmative action and says it's something they call reverse discrimination to try to remedy discrimination that occurred 20 years ago or 200 years ago as if there hasn't been any sense. And if sex discrimination was actively practiced 20 years ago and logic and reason and our very good memories tell us that it was, do we really think the people alive at that time and there are some of those who are actually still with us, completely rooted those evidious attitudes out of their psychies? For example, we've learned a lot in the past several years about discrimination and insurance. One of the things we looked at in our research was some of the sales and underwriting manuals which had been previously confidential that were introduced as evidence in an anti-trust hearing of a United States Senate committee in May and June of 1972.

Among other things, those manuals referred to divorced women as, then these are direct quotes, moral hazards, referred to employed women as, quote, marginal employees working merely for convenience, unquote, characterized women for health insurance purposes as, quote, delicately balanced machines eagerly awaiting a breakdown, unquote. Which probably explains why many insurance companies, most, didn't cover any disability resulting from, quote, organs peculiar to the female, unquote. They hardly went to the trouble to be subtle about their disdain. Now those manuals were in use in 1972, not 1872, 1972, and I repeat, many people are still alive from that period in our history. And it is logical to assume that some of the people who operated from those manuals may

still harbor some of those attitudes, however subtle the expression of those attitudes might have become. Do Ronald Reagan and his kind think that sex discrimination is really over? I don't know. We'd have to ask them. Personally, I have my doubts. I think they just don't want us organizing and are trying to discredit the concept of organizing, of people bending together to bring pressure on government or other institutions to make them more responsive to our needs. That's why Ronald Reagan champions, individuation, isolation, fragmentation, keep people in their little individual pigeonholes. Don't let them get together. So the Reagan administration will only deal with discrimination one person at a time. You must prove that you, as an individual, were discriminated against not as a member of a group. Never mind that the discrimination is group-based. That's what makes it discrimination.

They will only make you whole one person at a time. They will take no more class action suits that could remedy discrimination at one stroke for numerous people. They will not support the Equal Rights Amendment. Ronald Reagan says that would comprehensively and at all levels of government provide legal protection against sex discrimination, we must go, he says, statute by statute and state by state. And actually Reagan has been true to his word but with a twist, he has tried to kill legal protections against discrimination, statute by statute, step by step. The spurious charges against special interest groups during the 1984 election campaign were designed to discredit advocacy groups like ours. First the attackers redefined special interests, not the traditionally defined groups. Those who operated for private profit tobacco interests, oil interests, military suppliers. But those who operated for the public good, those constituencies of the population who

are in one way or another disadvantaged became the so-called special interests, women, children, the elderly, people of color, working people, lesbians and gay men, the disabled. Then challenged those who were attacking special interests, said, oh, well, of course, it isn't those people who are perverting our political system. It's the groups who represent them, what a clever thing to do. If advocacy groups are to be repudiated, then no one can advocate for the unique and legitimate concerns of those constituencies. Then they are reduced again to individuated, isolated people. People who can speak for themselves as individuals, but who, if they try to enhance their effectiveness by joining together with others, will be damned as a special interest. We are people who traditionally don't have the big bank roles that can command the attention of the system.

And we have traditionally been closed out of the councils of power where decisions are made that affect all of our lives. All we have is our numbers and the determination to use those numbers effectively to achieve our goals. We must understand this attack for what it is and respond accordingly. In particular, we must guard against the ongoing attempts of the Reagan right-wing forces to splinter us via classic divide and conquer tactics, to attempt to split us off from our natural allies. We should tell the world what it means when a Reagan spokesperson says, as Michael J. Horowitz of the Office of Management and Budget said about pay equity in 1984, quote, he said, there is nothing that holds as much long-term threat to the black community as comparable worth. The maintenance man will be paid less so the librarian can be paid more." That was divide and conquer, pure and simple.

Just as it was when Assistant Attorney General William Bradford Reynolds called affirmative action a racial spoils system. It's nothing more than an appeal to people's bassist instincts, fears and prejudices and is designed to reduce our numbers, to keep us from joining together with the people with whom we share common concerns and agendas and thereby strengthening our resources. But I also fear in more general terms for the impact on our society of this determinately me first rugged individualist attitude that has been so successfully marketed by the Reagan forces. This attitude that says, I've got my VCR and PC and SL360. And if you prefer to sleep on gradings outside and eat out of garbage cans, that's your business. I've talked to a lot of teachers of college campuses in the past year and many of them have said, and this will come as no surprise.

I'm sure that one of the biggest changes in their students over the past 10 to 15 years is that back then, students used to talk about going out to do something to make the world a better place, to make their contribution. Now they talk about which career will make them the most money and think that anyone who talks about wanting to make the world a better place is a wimp or a fool. It's important to understand the pitfalls of naivete. I've had some problems in that area myself. But I'm not sure that the dangers of smug cynicism aren't much worse. There's nothing in that callous self-indulgent attitude that satisfies the soul. There's no sense of connectedness to the human community that promotes a sense of self-worth. I worry about its effects on our young people. I cannot, for example, help but be haunted by a nagging conviction that the current high and growing rate of suicide among our teenagers is somehow related to a new national model

of success that is so terribly lonely and shallow. The 1960s were a time of great social unrest with the peace and civil rights movements at levels of very intense activity. It wasn't many ways a very difficult time, and we were certainly not without our problems, but so many people then were really involved, and being involved with each other was profoundly healthy. That's why I am very proud to be a part of us, and a part of the movement we represent proud of its history and its present reality, proud of the people who made it and make it all happen. I'm proud of our determination to include and empower, because that's part of our humility too, to understand that none of us can do it alone. That however seductive is the appeal of the one great charismatic leader, it is destructive of the concept of equality and participatory democracy.

It produces followers who do not think for themselves and leaders who dare not be questioned. That's not our model as feminists. We are determined to promote leadership throughout our organization and send out thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of leaders who can enrich their communities in their homes, in business, in education, in politics. No, the women's movement is not dead, and will not be until it is no longer needed because the golds have been achieved. As Susan B. Anthony said in her last public speech, until women have the same rights as men on this great green earth, there will never be another season of silence. And I thank you. After her speech, Goldsmith held a brief question and answer session.

She says the suspension of class action suits relating to sex and race discrimination and affirmative action was an arbitrary move by the Reagan administration designed to divide and conquer women and minorities. She also said the ERA would have made this impossible. They just arbitrarily said they wouldn't take any more. They wouldn't take any more. Right. That's right. And you know why that happened? That happened because why it could happen is because there is no equal rights amendment in the Constitution. They've done a number of things. They've said no, we will not enforce, we'll not recognize the concept of pay equity. And therefore, we'll not enforce that as a part of Title VII, which is the federal law that's supposed to protect us against discrimination and employment. The Reagan administration through its, excuse the expression, justice department, argued before the Supreme Court for the narrowest possible interpretation of Title IX for protection against discrimination and education before the Supreme Court.

So we got the Grove City decision, which means that we now effectively have lost the protection against discrimination in education. For all of these students, if there had been a statement grounded in the bedrock of the Constitution of the United States, which is where all of our laws ultimately come to be tested, they couldn't have done that. The problem is that because there is no clear statement in the Constitution, we can still waffle and sit around and scratch our heads and ask whether this is sex discrimination or whether it is not. If it is, is it acceptable sex discrimination? Because there's still the concept that some is all right, you know, and some is not. Like it used to be considered all right to tell women that they could not be bar tenders. Because it was bad for women to be bar tenders and we had to protect these little women from doing things like that. And in most cases, what those kinds of protection this legislation did was to protect women out of good paying jobs.

But in all of these cases, so we end up having debates about how much sex discrimination can dance on the head of a pin. Because there is nothing in the Constitution of the United States that says, equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex, simple, clear, absolute principle. And so they can get away with it. They can do it because there's no ultimate legal protection. Goldsmith attributes Reagan's great popularity to the manipulation of the media by the Republican Party, something she calls propaganda wars. One of the things we must take very careful and specific recognition of is the fact that we are in, I think, nothing less than a propaganda war. You talk about the carefully worded statements. The 1984 presidential campaign on the part of the Republicans was, I think, the most slick, high-tech, sophisticated, massive propaganda campaign there has probably ever been in history.

And some of that is because we have technology now that would make it possible. But the use of that technology by the Republicans in promoting Reagan's presidency, I think, is unprecedented. And it stayed miles away from the issues. It stayed miles away from old pesky little problems that the Democrats wind about, you know, like national deficit and trade deficit. What are we worrying about now? Never mind. It stayed miles away from the issues sent a comforting, soothing, doctor-feel-good kind of message to the entire nation, which was America is back and standing tall. You don't have to feel bad anymore about Vietnam, about Watergate. You don't have to feel cynical about your government. Look how wonderful we are. You don't have to worry about all of those wretched poor people who have been weighing on your consciences and all, and these women and these black people and Hispanics and minorities

who are just, you know, they're really fine. We really saw their problems. The only ones now who are saying there's a problem is those who are whiners. So you don't have to worry about them. So you can sit back and relax. We've got it now. This is the best of all possible worlds. And it was a rose-colored glasses, pink cotton candy, warm, fuzzy message that people write. It made them feel good. Now there's nothing inherently wrong with feeling good. And I think it was one of the immensely clever things the Republicans did was to recognize that people were feeling very demoralized and depressed and not good self-image. Now one of the things they did was to focus on women, in spite of the fact that throughout 1982 and 83, when we were saying Ronald Reagan has a women's problem and the gender gap that less support for him from women than from men went as high as 18 to 20 points, less support from women.

The White House was saying, oh, poo-poo, there's no gender gap. Women know that Ronald Reagan is better for them because he has brought down inflation and all that. All this stuff. We're not worried about it. The reality was they were very worried about it. They were so worried about it that they did a poll in 1983 when a standard sampling for a nationwide poll is 1,500 people. You call it 1,500 people. You interview them and then you project the rest of the population. The Republicans who were terrified about the gender gap, pulled 64,000 women. This on the word of Richard Wurthland, the Republican pollster, broke the 64,000 down into eight categories and those eight into eight subcategories analyzed all of them in detail to see which groups were, they gave a woman's name to each one. Which ones were absolutely theirs, which were absolutely not, and that was a very small number, and then looked at the rest and said, what messages will reach these women? What messages will persuade them to support the president?

Which messages will neutralize them if you can't persuade them? Extremely intelligent, extremely smart. It worked, and there was still a gender gap, but it wasn't enough to make the difference because the majority of women voted for Reagan. But it worked. It was effective. Don't you wish we'd get that smart? Goldsmith said that unless more women get into elective office, policies affecting women and minorities will remain insensitive to their needs. The formulation of policy is extremely important. On the governmental level, the federal government, the state government, we can have the most immediate impact if we are sitting in those very important decision-making seats. To have a woman's eyes reviewing the legislation that comes before the legislatures and the Congress is extremely important. Not necessarily because the men, 86% state legislatures, legislators, and the Congress, 96% are necessarily sexist, although here and there, a few of them are.

But because they have grown up with a male set of experiences and they don't know female realities that need to be addressed in public policy, as expressed in the laws that we make. So we've got to have women there. Goldsmith said that although the right-to-life movement concentrates its efforts on outlawing abortion, it's true aim is to eliminate birth control as well. I think we need to focus on ensuring that people understand that women in particular obviously understand that the clear goal of the anti-abortion movement is to outlaw birth control. That these folks are not just talking about terminating pregnancies. They are talking about no birth control. There are quotes from Judy Brown, the head of the, what is she, the right-to-life lobby. From Joe Schiedler, the Green Beret of the anti-abortion movement who has said he finds birth

control disgusting. They are after birth control. They do not want women to have any control over our reproductive functions. That's the bottom line here. After the IUD, after most forms of the pill, after anything that interferes at any stage after fertilization, basically that covers almost everything. People do need to understand that that is what is at stake, that we have no control over our reproductive functions at all, is what these folks are talking about. Judy Goldsmith spoke in front of the New Mexico chapter of the National Organization for Women at their State Conference in Santa Fe last week. Before focused on women, this is Chris Martín at KUNM in Albuquerque.