Unknown Speaker  00:01
scholar and feminist conference. I'm very grateful to all of you for getting out of bed this morning for starters and for making your way here and I'm, I apologize for the lateness of the hour. But we felt all sorts of causes made this necessary to delay. But we have a wonderful program for you today. And I think most of you know that. To begin the program, I'd like to introduce Ellen butter, the president of Barnard College.

Unknown Speaker  00:35
Thank you very much as I'm delighted to greet all of you. And as Tana has said, This is the 15th annual scholar and the feminist conference. As I'm sure all of you know, or many of you know, this conference is sponsored by the Barnard Center for Research on Women, since its inception in 1971, which I can't help but mention was the year that I was graduated from this college, the Women's Center has been a vital link between the college and scholars from all over the world who are working on the advancement of women in society. Its research library houses an outstanding collection of works on women's issues. And each year, it sponsors this conference, the scholar and the feminist that provides a forum for discussion for participants from all over the United States and the world. Today's conference on the topic of motherhood versus sisterhood, is very much in the spirit of conferences during the last 14 years, as well as those that we project for the future. And as one who wants to invite you to enjoy today's conference, all that I can say is that as a daughter, as the mother of two daughters, as a blood sister of one, and a spiritual sister of many, I hope you have a most intellectually stimulating day, thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker  01:59
Well, many people have asked me what the title of this conference means. And so I'm going to tell you, it's very clear to some of us, and this is particularly clear to a research group that has been run through the center, much of the last two years, which is has been called a mother wrist study group. And what we have been studying is grassroots movements of women throughout the world. We've presented things at various conferences. And so those among us, which include members of this audience, know what we're talking about, but but large numbers of people don't. So what I want to do is make a very brief introduction, about five minutes to situate some of the panels and some of the workshops and some of the presenters today, it's actually become increasingly evident that there are fundamental differences among feminists about how to interpret every level of reality. We used to think 20 years ago that we were all in it together and that there were no distinctions. Some of us thought that many women of color knew from the beginning that that was not true. But there was a long time when we tried to keep the sameness together and tried not to talk about difference and as our movement has grown broader and stronger. Increasingly, the differences have made themselves apparent. And I just want to talk about one of them today. Whatever their age, most white feminists identify themselves as sisters and engage in intellectual and political movements as equal individuals. This includes women of color, but it's predominantly this, this wing has been overwhelmingly the wing of white feminists. As radical feminists, they assert the sisterhood is powerful. Their struggle is to gain not only equality of opportunity, but equality of results, designed to overcome women's oppression. These sisterhoods of citizens favor affirmative action programs for women, and often for people of color, but the emphasis is usually on women, and increasingly on women of color as well as white women. And these people have won, including many of us in this room have won many far reaching achievements in the 70s in the 80s. But other women throughout the world have to claim that as wives and mothers and daughters they have special collective rights to speak in the name of the community when survival is at stake. Here is mothers and potential mothers they are also daughters and sisters and but but but in fact, situate themselves in the social framework as mothers and potential mothers. These mothers and potential mothers either except the division of labor bisects or for strategic reasons pretend to accept it, from Alyssa Strada to the women's strike for peace to the mothers of the plaza. The Mojito in our Do Tina. Women have intervened to assert human rights. They frequently confronted soldiers and police in states proclaiming their right and their obligation to speak out on issues they regard as their special concern. These include peace, quality of life, housing, food, and very often questions about education at every level. Now, these issues often in parties are viewed as the women's issues. We like to think they are the human issues. But one of the questions we've never really confronted is what gives women the special right to speak out on these issues. And what enables them to speak out on these issues when masses of women feel shy about expressing their views on other issues. These women who are exploited as well as oppressed seldom demand that their rights as women as well as their rights as mothers be protected, and this is a disability of these movements. I think some of you may argue with that, among today's audience, and among the speakers are people who have come down on different sides of this implicit debate. In her book, Black Feminist criticism, Barbara Christian has redefined feminism so that it bridges the gap between individual rights and community need. Paula Giddings and when and where I enter has shown that Black Women's Empowerment has frequently been the result of their leadership of movements to end social evils, such as lynching. So the law longtime advocate of the poor, an increasing number of of whom are women, has helped set legal priorities that take the special needs of motherhood into account. And Rosie Bray Dotty as a literary critic has dealt with multiple levels of women's reality. Taking the motherhood versus sisterhood argument from a different perspective. My colleague Lesley cow Minh of the political science department at Barnard has raised the question our women's rights human rights.

Unknown Speaker  07:04
Although it would seem is at first that the answer is obvious, she points to one of the conflicts that is a principal theme of this conference on motherhood versus sisterhood, common rights. The issue of group rights is problematic for the feminist community in the United States. It echoes and amplifies in an international setting an awesome painful debate between between radical feminists who see the oppression of women as the prime target for social action. And many women of color in the United States, who feel that political action on behalf of their ethnic communities must take priority over issues that are of concern specifically to women. In the international arena. The emphasis on rights for family and community has been put forward and strongly supported by third world nations and spokespeople. While Westerners have pressed for the primacy of individual rights, which conception of rights is more beneficial to women is an issue worthy of analysis. And I hope some of the the lectures this morning and some of the workshops this afternoon will begin to grapple even further with some of these issues. calaman goes on to add that a perspective that seeks to guarantee the rights of women must also closely scrutinize the extent to which the family or community protects the rights of all individuals, including the women or whether supporting for the public good and family privilege masks the inequalities that are perpetuated by the family. And this is an old debate that we have suppressed for 20 years and it may be time to speak about it again. Do policy makers throughout the world include the rights of women among the rights of family, say around family planning issues, in case of conflict between men and women in the family who prevails. Feminists from Pakistan to some places in Africa join us feminists and saying let the women decide. Let the women of each ethnic community of each racial community of each social community decide but other women throughout the world engaged as they are in life and death struggles of survival. Often think the personal and political needs of women are subordinate to the mere survival not so mere to the survival of their communities as a whole. Several of today's workshops consider motherhood versus sisterhood from different perspectives. Joanne Braxton talks about the outrage mother figure in contemporary Afro American writing, Danny Kretzmann and net Lawson Francesca cajon and Jane brown rethink love adolescents and the family. Florence farmer discusses the search for you and And by adoptees and natural parents and Claire Riley looks at creating families the experience of lesbians. Other speakers who focus on survival include those on panels on images and ideologies the body, feminism, gender and the state, women and munitions workers in the First World War, women in political action in Asia and the effects of destabilization on women in southern Africa. But the issues today are much more than simply academic. In 1985, Adrienne Ashe, a feminist and disabilities rights advocate pointed to an unpleasant truth. One component of the abortion debate is who constitutes the community that is both sides disagree about who is in the human community. She wrote, quote, as a leftist feminist, I've always found much of the social contract libertarian rights language, used in pro choice arguments damaging to a vision of a broad, inclusive communal life. Some feminists who deal with literature wonder whether there was any reality at all, how do you begin to grapple? And is there any reality beyond the reality of the text? Others believe, as Nadine Gordimer has said, if you want to know the truth, read my fiction, whether or not we can analyze truth, we all inhabit a world in which political reality impinges upon us and the people to whom we are tied. There are a series of conflicts amongst sisters and mothers over maternal protection versus disability rights, how best to end violence against women and surrogacy to name a few areas of dispute. Unless we can harness the radicalism, feminism to the urgency and power of mass movements. Even the gains feminists have made in the past two decades are in danger of disappearing. This conference tries to begin yet another debate over what is to be done. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker  12:09
Now, our first speaker today is, is one who is known to you, many people asked me where she teaches, and she is both that courageous person who is an independent writer, but she always teaches in her writing and in in her conversation, and Paula Giddings, who's an author and in the story, and is going to speak today about black women in the Progressive Era.

Unknown Speaker  12:45
Thank you, Tim. Good morning. This is a stalwart crew out here this morning. It's good to see you. It's good to be here at Barnard. And for this wonderful, wonderful conference, where you know, we won some of the great things about conferences like this is that you get to meet a lot of people that you've whose work you've admired. Barbara Christian certainly is in that category. And it's very nice to meet her today. And it's good to see all of you out, actually, the name, the title of my talk is black women in a progressive era. And but you'll see what the reason is for that, I'm not going to go into talk so much about the even I will talk about a little bit about the progressive era, but a progressive era and what that means to us.

Unknown Speaker  13:41
There's something in there. No question about it. I think it first hit me when I heard William Buckley. One of my favorite commentators was asked a question on his show. And the subject of the show was South Africa, and he was asked, but Mr. Buckley told me the truth.

Unknown Speaker  14:14
If you were a black, South African, leaving the imagination, it's true. If you were black, South African, wouldn't you today, would you be a member of the ANC? But we thought for a second. And he said yes. You have to admire the man's intellectual honesty, even though he took great pains and next day in a syndicated column to explain his answer. It was very interesting. We're on the verge of a progressive era, again, in this country Got to be on the verge of something. But the signs are everywhere, the Jackson candidacy, this whole idea of a populist ideology emerging again, the defeat of the Bork nomination, the recent overturning of the Reagan vague veto of the civil rights restoration act. new questions about the distribution of wealth in the society, it's about time you start asking about that again. One sense is the gearing up of the political machinery of all the groups of blacks and women, of gays and lesbians, of Hispanics. I agree with those political commentators who say that the election of Ronald Reagan was not the beginning of the conservative era, but the culmination of a kind of creeping conservatism that began with the nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964. Of course, progressive and conservative era is a cyclical they seem to counterpunch one another. And at the height of one, the one always sees the seeds of the next. And as is obvious to you by now I'm using these terms of conservative and progressive era very, very loosely. And I'm not talking about them necessarily in absolute terms, but certainly in relative terms. And I think of progressive periods, when there is a societal focus, and some sanction for the lesson powered groups to demand and attain greater parity. Conservative periods are when the status quo remains rigid. And there's less sanction and or movement toward change. And so thinking about all of this, I've began to think a little bit about how each era tends to impact on blacks, and on women. And, you know, one of the sub themes of my book is that very important interrelationship between the two reform movements, so the black movement, and the women's movement and women's rights on the heels of black movements, or women's movements, and that happens all throughout history. It's no coincidence that the Seneca Falls convention of 1848, happens at the height of the militant abolitionist period. Or that one of its greatest feminists, was Frederick Douglass. Or that the amendment giving women the vote comes in the wake of another radicalized period, when blacks are demanding their rights after World War One with a new intensity. Or even that the wording of the amendment, the women's suffrage amendment is a variation of the 15th Amendment, which gave blacks the right to vote black men the right to vote. Or that, in fact, the 1964 Civil Rights Act becomes the legal foundation for the contemporary women's movement in this country. On the other side of that, when blacks have suppressed when their aspirations are suppressed, women don't do very well, either.

Unknown Speaker  18:36
And we've seen certainly that in this period. And in fact, this paradigm, which is I think, is a very important one holds true for all liberation movements. You know, I went to Kenya for the Women's Conference. And I'm talking to Palestinian women, and South African women and others, they all had to contend with this very same notion that black women did in the 60s, that what, wait till the group gets their rights. And then we'll deal with women's issues, when in fact, it's just the reverse. And in fact, one of the problems I would say even of the South African movement, the black South African movement, is the low status of women within South Africa, both in terms of the broader of the white power structure, and in terms of the traditional structure of women in that country. So in fact, it's just the opposite. That movements don't do very well. Black movements don't do well without women having a high status within them. And women in general don't do well when Black movements don't do well. So black women are very central to what I consider to the most important reform movement, certainly in this country, black and women's rights. But to the back to the question of impact of the two errors. Often certainly I do see things more clearly print the present more clearly when I look at the past, and that is, in my view, one of the functions of history, and it's a function of history that's often overlooked. I'm not really I mean, I don't consider myself in the store, and I'm a journalist who's interested in history. And I'm, and I am kind of a generalist. And if when I'm reading or talking about or writing about, or what interests me, has no reflection of things that are going on. Now, if there's no connection to me, it's it's rather meaningless. So I think it's important to make those connections whenever possible. We can't make them blueprints, of course, but I think they give us an idea, a way to look and a way to deal with what's happening to us now. I've always been intrigued by the uncanny parallels between the late 19th century and the late 20th century, the post Civil War period, and the 1970s and 80s. And of course, it was the late 19th century that led us into the what historians called the progressive era. The centerpiece of both of these periods almost exactly a century apart, is a technological revolution. That who is calling technological revolution that took place, within each of them. And whenever we have a technological revolution, it unleashes a great many dynamics, and happened in both of the periods. Certainly, it creates a whole economic restructuring, tremendous changes in the society. In the late 19th century, like now, a new class of millionaires emerge, like we have those young men who did the apple and all of that, in the late 19th century. That's when the Carnegie's the melons, of course, and the Rockefellers emerged. Those who are educated and skilled, who are on the right side of this technological revolution also do very well in these periods. And that includes women who were reaching unprecedented heights in terms of education, etc, etc, in this period, and blacks who were making tremendous gains in the late 19th century, those who are educated and had some skills. And that's been documented. You know, ours is not a history of never having anything. Ours is a history of having things being taken away, all the time. And when you begin to look at the progress of blacks on so many levels, at the end of the 19th century, we can see that very clearly women, black women, who are educated and skilled at doing seemingly well, as well. They are in unprecedented numbers in college. The 1880s is the time when black women were finishing law schools and passing the bar. The first women of any race, to be medical physicians in the South were black women, they are emerging in this period. There is for at least they all too brief time.

Unknown Speaker  23:39
Among this group, particularly a sense of idealism. mean after all, just a short time ago, new civil rights were gained, benefiting from them suffrage, sense of political empowerment, even black elected officials, very much like what happened a century ahead of it. Of course, very negative, things are happening as well. Because while the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. A lot of it having to do with this economic change and restructuring in the society. We have structural, particularly among blacks unemployment, for the first time in this period. This is when ghettos begin in the late 19th century, and they've gone through a new phase of deterioration. Now, there are drugs in those communities that time you know, they used to give coke to slaves. Help them work and of course, All these things happening so rapidly, unleashing fears of change that has new dynamics as well. funless fundamentalist movement emerges in the late 19th century. So very parallel the competing factions, and there's a racist and sexist paranoia

Unknown Speaker  25:29
just as what has happened recently, those civil rights games that I'm sure that people of the 19th century believed were irreversible, being won by blood and sacrifice as they were, would stay in place. But of course, they did not they were threatened. In this period, there was talk of even rescinding the 15th Amendment. The worst part that things that began to happen was these with a new ferocity, stereotypical images that begin to emerge, particularly about blacks, men, young men, particularly, are considered in this period. And this is a change now of being dangerous, violent monsters, capable of rape and of course, always accused of raping white women, that suddenly they had become uncivilized because they were free from their masters and fluence that they had somehow regressed. All of this was reinforced by the media, talking about the late 19th century now. And, of course, there is crime and violence in the black communities as there are with other groups. There's always the handmaiden of a poverty without hope. But there is such a feverish pitch about it in this particular period, that it's extrapolated to be seen to be threatening the entire society. And this is interesting to me. Someone just told me to read them. I don't know I forgot the recent issue of Esquire magazine with an article by Pete Hamelin it has anyone read the about the black underclass. And he makes the to me very interesting statement. That he said today, the black underclass is a greater threat to our national security than the Russians.

Unknown Speaker  28:02
And he's serious this is this is a liberal. The same kind of dynamic happening within the Russians. This kind of idea, certainly provokes a great deal of racial violence in the society in 1890s, it's no coincidence that this is the height of the lynching period.

Unknown Speaker  28:31
That certainly, particularly, but not exclusively, black men, are murdered with impunity. They're monsters, after all. They're subhuman. After all, they're violent, they're threats to the entire society after all. What was not spoken? As overtly about that was also part of the sociological literature. And we always have very interesting sociological literature that comes out in these periods. That's why sociology was created. That the source of this problem with the men, the women, I mean women the blame for everything, always. That they were the reason behind the story of behavior. But the wives are promiscuous mother is a moral sort of mindlessly fornicating and having children

Unknown Speaker  29:32
of particularly out of wedlock no wonder that the race was so wretched. When you think about the media images now a century later,

Unknown Speaker  29:46
and you know, what is ironic is that and we'd never know it. But since 1970, for example, the rate of black teenage pregnancy has been going down since 1970. Isn't it interesting that this is a period where it's projected Bill Moyers at all another liberal projects, these images of black women during these conservative periods, there's a very interesting emphasis on individual behavior. This was certainly happened then and now. And this rationale is perceived in a kind of perverted way to explain why groups are failing to achieve in the society. It has nothing to do with all of these changes, or the racism, or the economic structural changes in employment and all that it has to do with some kind of individual problem of social behavior. And we certainly seen this come out again, in the late 20th century, that there's some kind of that there's the pathology of the underclass, a new term. And no one is talking very much about the external changes that are creating this underclass. The interrelationship of all this is very important, I think with all other groups. As is always true, the same perception, which may be targeted towards blacks affects everyone. The focus on individual behavior, for example, in the late 19th century, you know, that they began looking askance at immigrants as well. Who were falling under a slightly lesser but the same kind of categories have this uncivilized behavior. Eastern Europeans, especially coming into the country, and Jews, especially coming to the country, were looked upon in a certain way, this whole idea begins to pervade everyone, with women, Justice now, something's wrong with your our individual behavior that makes us unhappy. And trying to deal with all these things that we're trying to deal with, is some kind of shortcoming maybe even inherent in the gender, you know, has nothing to do with going on outside again, that focus. But and, well, racism and sexism, though, is a symptom, I think, rather than the source of many of these reactions. Is detonated very often by economic developments, which bring out the most insidious aspect of a culture based on Calvinism puritanism and capitalism. When there is the opportunity for greater accumulation of wealth, due to some structural change in the society, men start to act in a way that goes against the mores of civilization, quote, as it's defined by the culture, and they project that behavior on others. The striving for wealth is seen as good, even godly, in this culture, and to accumulate when must have certain virtues, certainly suppress any urges of immediate gratification, have to have a very tight nuclear family unit, you must save, you must keep one seed to one's mate, and, of course, work extraordinarily hard. They're all seen as virtues. But when the possibility of wealth become so great, when these economic changes take place, there are excesses and temptations, and thus the corruption of one or all of these virtues. So it's projected on others, you know, in another period of industrialization earlier in the 19th century, when the whole idea of the minstrel first emerged. It's very interesting to me, it's the same kind of dynamic. And the thing about these white men putting on blackface and suddenly being able to flail their arms and dance and whirl around tell no pun intended off color jokes.

Unknown Speaker  34:41
And they take off that black face and they're savers and good husbands and anything else but the money brings corruption. The Jimmy Swaggart phenomenon is no have, you know it's a part of this era? George, will this another sign something's happening, George Will wondered out loud on a TV program. If corruption was inherent in Republican administrations, George Wilson and of course, what happens is the Republicans this laissez faire business brings starts all this a tripwire for all these kinds of things beginning to happen. And so in a way, it's not Republican ism as such. But that kind of philosophy they have that does bring on a lot of corruption.

Unknown Speaker  35:45
There's no coincidence either that in these periods, because when this kind of stuff happens, it goes so much against the grain of what this culture says you should be in this projection, and also affects women terribly. I lecture a lot. And the incidence, I always ask on a campus where some of the issues going on before I go. And the number of date rapes on campuses, number of rapes. What's happening is quite incredible. That's happening everywhere. This need to suppress and control when one feels out of control begins to happen. And feeds all by itself. Now, when an entire group and these kinds of periods looked on in such a negative way, something else happens. Interesting. That's very interesting. What Nathan Huggins story and it's called emblematic leaders arise. People who are who are chosen to be representative of what this group that I'm speaking of blacks particularly should be like. They're conservative, for the most part, Booker T. Washington was our emblematic leader of the late 19th century. And what was interesting about him is that he went for this, and he did some positive things. I think I'm not gonna go into Booker T. Washington today. But he also remember in his op from slavery talked about, not about what was happening, again, externally around with, with lynching reaching new heights, and all this going on trying to take back the 15th amendment. Booker says to us, you know, if you have good behavior Up From Slavery, don't you know, if you just change your bid, if you kneel at the altar of Preston virtues, you're gonna be okay in the society, clean up, you know, take a bath. This was going to solve problems. In the meantime, of course, other groups are politicizing. And they're creating political machines in the cities at the turn of the century. And well, that's a whole nother question. We have black conservatives who came up saying the same thing in this period. It's very, very interesting. The number who started talking about it's not really racist the issue, it's our individual behavior. That's the issue. It's all a part of all of this. A more positive aspect of this. And we have emblematic figures right now, Cosby is an emblematic figure. This is not to undermine or I love Bill Cosby is wonderful. But there's a reason why he becomes a number one media phenomena in this period, he would not do have beaten the more crisp progressive period and watch us as we move, see what happens. I'm going to end soon I'm perfect. I'm going to law. If Black. One of the paths another positive thing that begins to happen is that is no also no coincidence that it's the late 19th century that black women begin to form. I think the most important movement in our history. The they formed in 1896, and National Association of colored women, Mary Church, Terrell was the was the first president. And one reason that impelled them to do it was because there was also some sanction in this period when black women can look at their own particular needs and exigencies separate related but separate from blacks from the group as a whole. In the 1890s, the activist Fanny barrier, Williams observed if black women have become sufficiently important to be studied apart from the general race problem, that fact is gratifying evidence of real progress. And they had that sense, then. And it was out of this period that the rationale for not just black suffrage, but for women, black women needing the vote specifically was developed. It was a period of tremendous renaissance in terms of women's literature. In terms of the arts, in general, black women are very sure of themselves that they had a worldview

Unknown Speaker  40:49
that was distinctly their own and very, very important. They were very well prepared, in many ways to move into when the period began to shift when it became a progressive period. And there's lots of reasons for that I'm not gonna go into today. But when it shifts, they are prepared to deal with it. And as reformers in this age of reform, they're quite fantastic. It was really catalyzed the catalyst for that organization. And for much of this was on a Wells's anti lynching campaign in 1892, which was quite brave, because it was before anything was sanctioned to be moving into reform. It really is on the cutting edge of that and as an extraordinary figure. But as a result of that, women, as you know, you may know the story women come to meet, and to support her when she comes to New York, because she has run out of Memphis at this point. And at that meeting, they begin to form these what they called clubs. And it becomes a national movement in 1896. And one of the things they said was, got it so glad to serve so glad to see someone actually take to actually do something because all these things were happening just now. So many things are happening. And black leadership in general was kind of in disarray. They didn't quite understand, you know, you had Booker on this side. And, and the boys doesn't really come to a little bit a little bit later. And no one knows what to do. But it just says, well, we've got the stuff. And single handedly single handedly has begins a campaign that is goes as you may, as you know, to England even and becomes very important and has a quantifiable impact on the demand. She administers lynching in the country. Black women formed created their own schools when the federal just you know, like now, the federal aid begins to dry up. Blacks have enough. There's no more support for schools as had been in the heyday, the Freedmen's Bureau. So black women start their own schools, Mary McLeod, bassoon, many, many others. Very concerned about children and working mothers, because black women of every class always worked, and really are in the forefront of the take care movement, beginning there at the turn of the century, create all kinds of community organizations. The Atlanta neighborhood union in Atlanta, started by Virginia burns hope I was very happy to hear Gerda Lerner recently say that that union which dealt was had a health clinic and also community improvement and other kinds of things. That union she said was every month every month as significant as Jane Addams is whole house. Never hear about it, though. Certainly organized for suffrage. Organized women workers Mary Church Terrell, whose father was one of the first black millionaires in the south, and who wanted her to be a gentle woman. And Terrell was known for the white gloves, you know, for strand of expensive pearls. But didn't keep her from organizing. Black women in a South way journalists domestics, oyster shuckers and others very involved in that movement. But what was interesting to me is that these women saw no conflict at all. And particularly we see it when they're talking about suffrage. Between the black movement and the women's movement, they're interrelated. They're a part of one another, it was their racial, in fact, consciousness that inspired the feminism I think that we're getting ready to see a similar burst of energy. Again, black women, another progressive period, many of the problems are the same.

Unknown Speaker  45:46
But some mistakes must be avoided. And some new elements, I think, put in place. There's little evidence that the reformers of the late 19th century, understood, and even if they did, I don't know what they could do about it. But they understood that America was moving into a corporate age, certain kinds of self help and uplift efforts, which are wonderful. But they had the faith that those efforts alone would be able to uplift the entire community. And you can't do it in a corporate age. You have to, in some ways, have a corporate response to that. And I think we have to think about that, in a way. Good when progressive periods began again, things happen. white feminists, black feminists and black people become more radicalized begin to peel away from each other. There are heated debates, again, about what takes primacy race, or gender. We know of the division in the late 19th century, we can't afford that kind of division, again. In fact, the I think some of the wounds of the late 19th century still affect us now, in terms of that. So we have to deal with that. There is one difference, and I'm going to end with this. That's very, very important between white women and black women in these periods as well, is that where as white women continue that whole sense of distinct Ness, and movement, in terms of the exigencies of the gender, black women tend to be as very understandable, become more subsumed into the general, progressive movement. Certainly, we saw that in the 60s. And it was problematic for us. Largely because we didn't understand this relationship, I think, of feminism and race that women did a century ago. And so we have to watch out for that we have to institutionalize some of our views, which have not been done this point. And finally, with this in the past, and this talks a little bit about the motherhood versus sisterhood issue. In the past all those great leaders, those great black women marry Trish Terrell manager, you Cooper, Mary McLeod, bassoon, and Ida B. Wells. Were really accepting times of tremendous crisis not sanctioned to lead really anyone except other black women, and youth. Even black women's organizations today have a very hard time and moving beyond their own constituency, to what John Gardner talks about cross boundary crossing leadership. And that's very essential. It's very essential that we understand the centrality of our experience. One of the problems has been is that again, like those 19th century women so much, and it's we understand why, of what we have been about is service to the community. You know, the more educated and skilled a black woman has been, the stronger her back had to be to deal with a social because she was the backbone of social institutions in that community. And did had little possibility of plying her skills or her education or her thoughts beyond the immediate needs of that kind of oppressed community. And that image is still very much you know, women have a very hard time no matter where they are, in particular, all women particularly black women, and moving into other than staff positions and these corporations that we're now in, in having a kind of sense of having the right to be an intellectual even. I think one reason why black women don't have the kind of nonfiction scholarship we haven't certainly, in the creative writing is because black women have you know, the can you think of a prototype of a black woman intellectual? Even those who were we don't we don't ever call Phyllis Wheatley, an intellectual even though certainly is what she was. We're Anna, Julia Cooper. And intellectually even though it's what you would call an educator, the boys taught to.

Unknown Speaker  50:50
And so that's one of the things what is problematic about that is that we can't do all of that service and deal on that intellectual plane, too. We can't be in academia, and be responsible for advising everybody on personal problems. And especially black students, but everybody comes to us the archetype nurturer. Work on all those committees tend to all those needs. And do the kind of critical thinking and work that is required. difficult for us to move out of that, from that nurturing mother idea to that of the scholar. But we must do it. Because not only because it affects blacks, and it certainly does affect blacks. I mean, I do believe and Anjali Cooper says only the black woman can say when and where I enter. And the undisputed dignity of my woman who had been in there, the whole race enters with me, but also, for black women do is so important and central to the reform of all those outside of the power structure. And when we begin to realize that and able to act on it, I think we will think very much in this new era, as Anna Julia Cooper did. In her era, the late 19th century when she said to be alive in such an epic is a privilege to be a woman Sablon Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker  52:54
Okay, our next speaker, to my knowledge made her television debut on during the Bork hearings. Some of you know her for her legal work in aid of poor people's movements over the past almost two decades. It's really a great honor to introduce Sylvia law.

Unknown Speaker  53:29
Thanks, Tim. It's great to be here. I'm going to begin this morning with two true stories. The first involves a dialogue between two new yorkers four years old, sophisticated children of professionals. The girl says let's play building I'll be the plumber. The boy says girls can't be plumbers and she contemplates her experience and realizes that he may be right. And ask well what can girls be? He says you know girls things like nurses or doctors or lawyers. My second story also true. Is a personal story. One recent morning at 7am on a gentle spring day. I meet Eva Diane Linda and loose next to the shell of a building soon to be luxury condos at the corner of 95th and Columbus. Eva is an employment specialist with non traditional employment for women new and is our leader. She She is seeking jobs today for these three women. And also information for other women who've completed apprenticeship programs in the skilled trades worked as laborers on jobs that are now completed. The other women are women of color, as well as mothers and recipients of AFDC you even choose the women out as we gather on the corner there like a drill sergeant one's wearing earrings, the others forgotten her hard hat. We tramp then from building to building down Broadway seeking construction work. The women had walked this route before and knew each side the open elevators, the names of the foremen, the progress of the work, even knew where laborers would be hired that day carpenters tomorrow plumbers the following week. Yet she could not find construction work for these able bodied trained women. I'm here on the street corner. Because since 1986, I served as the chair of the board of nonconstant non traditional employment for women. The women of new have taught me most of what I know about women in construction, and I'm deeply indebted to them for that. And for their inspiration and example, Diana Linda Linden Luce have not yet landed their first job and construction, they could be hired today on the spot as laborers. And within a week join the laborers Union. In New York City laborers make $14 an hour. In this city, all women, including Wall Street Partners and law professors and secretaries and domestics make on the average $7.50 an hour. I was quite frankly petrified to tramp from construction site to construction site. Like most women after a lifetime of walking across the street to avoid these sites. I do not regard them as friendly territory. In dozens of buildings with hundreds of workers we did not see one other woman. The man greet us of course with cat claws and obscenities. We pretend to ignore them. Stoney and unintimidated some man call to one or another of the women and say, Hey, honey, you come back here alone, I'll get you a job. You don't do yourself any good hanging out with these folks. Occasionally either tells the foreman that the project is tax evaded by the city of New York, implicitly conveying the message that the site is required to have a fixed percentage of low income workers. Everyone knows what she's talking about. No one's impressed. Not one woman was hired that day, and our greatest victory, which Eva achieved through 45 minutes of sophisticated yelling, we watched a foreman call a subcontractor to confirm that he expected a woman apprentice among the crew arriving later that week. This story that I've just told is a common story. Every day millions of women in this country seek work. The vast majority of us are in the labor market. Construction work is big business. It employs one American worker of every 20. This process of shaping up in construction sites in the morning is a common way in which laborers are hired also come and is this subtle and not so subtle harassment, not just blatant sexual harassment, but the isolation and inability to get support and training once you're on the job.

Unknown Speaker  58:21
It's also common that people seek to maximize their income. There is something tremendously exciting, wonderful, perhaps distinctively American to see a person moving an instant, from dependence upon the most degrading and stingy welfare system in the developed world to a job that pays $14 an hour, doing satisfying work, if good benefits. Most women like most men seek work in construction because they have families to support and the work pays reasonable wages. Finally, it's common that some women like some man find satisfaction in working with their hands and physical work. I think anyone who goes to a gym or a swimming pool these days, understands that women are interested in developing strong bodies. In orbit a tiny number of trades, ordinary physical physically fit women can do construction work with total safety and efficiency. The story I've told is, however also unusual. In many respects, it's highly unusual, at least four respects first, construction is much more sexist, sex segregated than other kinds of work in America today. I can't find any other kind of work that is sexist and sex segregated as construction. In 1987 women held one and a half percent of the 3 million jobs in construction and New York City it's a little bit better. 2% By contrast, for example, in the legal profession, traditionally understood as a field demanding male qualities of aggression. All women today now hold 23% of the jobs. Second, the story is unusual because whether as a consequence or cause of that segregation, few women escaped the conditioning that prevents them from even thinking of themselves as construction workers. So these women were unusual in that in that way. And the women in my story are unusual, and yet another respect in that there are people of color and poor as well as female. The handful of women who have traditionally sought working construction have mostly been white daughters and nieces of construction workers who learned something of the trade and its culture in their home. They often enjoyed some paternalistic protection from relatives and friends. Those who work in this field report the construction workers are particularly threatened by and hostile to women of color that is just hard for traditional male construction worker, white or black to accept the notion of a black woman

Unknown Speaker  1:01:29
on the job undermines their sense of themselves. Third, the story is unusual, in that hiring patterns in construction, are highly decentralized and complex. This is not necessarily bad. But it does pose special difficulties for people seeking work in contexts from which they've traditionally been excluded. Most work today is organized in hierarchical bureaucracies, where an external social voice can say something to the person who runs the organization, and can expect that to have some impact down the hierarchy. And if it doesn't pan exact some sort of punishment. That's not the way construction is organized. It is a labyrinth of purchaser developer contracts with a general contractor manager who in turn contracts with a lot of subcontractors who in turn deal with a whole bunch of unions. Hard to break into hard to understand. And finally, the story I tell is unusual, in that most women and blacks who seek work in construction do not have an organization like new to provide them with guidance and support to negotiate the labyrinth of construction hiring. Most of news funding is provided by public job training programs designed to help low income women each year over 1500 economically disadvantaged women contact new for help in moving from welfare to economic self sufficiency. Most do not have high school diplomas. Most are mothers virtually all receive public assistance over 90% are black and Latina news purpose is not only to train women, but to ensure that they actually find and keep jobs in 1987 new arranged employment paying an average wage of over $10 an hour for over 200 women. That's not many women in construction this city. New educates women about the range of work available in construction in the trades, the structure and economics of industry, the history of women and non traditional work, legal rights. It trains women in basic skills, including the use of tools, blueprint reading math. And it acclimates women to beginning work at seven o'clock in the morning provides body development, nutritional information, and sensitizes them to the dynamics that fuel sexism and racism and helps them to develop techniques for dealing with that prejudice and hostility in strong and constructive ways. Now, there are a few programs like this around the country, but not many, never been many, and there are fewer now than there were 10 years ago, cuts in federal funding changes in the structures by which federal job training funds are provided that makes it more difficult to place women in these challenging jobs and atrophy of a funding for community organization and community based work generally. The story I tell is also a story of illegality. Obviously sex discriminate as unemployment is illegal under the Constitution under Title Seven of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act bars employers and unions from using tasks or job requirements that have the effect of excluding women and are not related to actual skills needed on the job. Further, Title Seven now protects women from sexual harassment on the job and affirmatively requires employers to maintain a workplace environment in which women will be free from such harassment. In addition to the rights provided under Title Seven, executive order 11246, initially signed by President Nixon requires that firms which contract with the federal government must make a good faith effort to assure that they're open to blacks and women, specifically, every project constructed by a union or a contractor that's received more than $10,000 in any form of federal subsidy over the past year, every such project, which is virtually every construction project in the country

Unknown Speaker  1:06:22
must have 6.9% women on the job. That's been a requirement now since 1978, and it was set very low 6.9 is very low, it was set very low, with the understanding that it would be revised upward once that figure had been reached. I'm available data suggest that no construction project subject for law meets this modest requirements for women in construction, the gulf between the norm of equality on the one hand, and the reality of sex based discrimination on the other is vast. legal norms further are cast in unusually precise and mandatory terms. non compliance is blatant, systemic, persistent over time and place. I just want to say a few things about it, how we understand this and more pressingly to explore strategies for change that might have some prospect of success. Three issues it seems to me are critical and assuring equality of opportunity to women for working construction, one, the legitimacy of affirmative action, including numerical remedies, to support for well constructed aggressive initiatives for equal opportunity, and three vigorous enforcement of title sevens prohibition against job requirements that are discriminatory in effect and can't be justified as job related. Now, just to say a few words about affirmative action, the Reagan administration and others have opposed affirmative action on a whole variety of generally hot well sometimes grounds in principle, that it's all that the Constitution requires that we always be colorblind, though, in fact, there's no historical basis for that notion. And with respect to gender, virtually no one maintains that we must always be blind to the possibility that there are differences in the situation, man or woman. But more broadly, the Reagan administration and its allies opposes affirmative action on highly individualistic grounds that argue that both under the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection guarantee only app to individual victims of discrimination may benefit from race conscious remedies. And that burdens may be imposed only upon actual proven individual wrongdoers, it's a search for victims and sinners.

Unknown Speaker  1:09:17
This position rests on a presumption of sharp distinction between individual claims even handed treatment individual claims to a fair shake, and group claims to equality of result. Now, I think the woman the women that I went out with that morning here on the Upper West Side seeking working construction, deny that dichotomy. Those women are both individuals and identified by their membership in a collective group. On the one hand, it seems wholly unrealistic to evaluate those women's claims to a fair Shake in wholly individualistic terms, powerful acculturation, and the reality of sex segregation limits women's capacity to even conceive of doing such work. And if she does conceive of doing such work, she will be refused the most basic information about how she might go about acquiring it. And if an indomitable individual resists all this and does seek such work, she will be treated as a woman as a very bizarre woman, rather than as a serious ie male worker. In all those ways, that woman is a collective, a collective identity. On the other hand, it's the individual woman, not some Feminist Collective, who must seek such work, arrange for the care of her children, that we can imagine some other arrangement where it wasn't her responsibility to arrange for the care of her children. But the stark reality is that she has to figure out what to do with the kids before she gets to the street corner. In another borough, it's seven o'clock in the morning. And if she gets the job, she has to do the work. She the individual has to do it. The Supreme Court has rejected the broad Reagan assertion that either the constitution of Title Seven requires that race or sex conscious remedies be limited to make whole relief for personal victims identified of an identified discriminator and has recognized the legitimacy of voluntary or court ordered affirmative action that provides something more than compensation to individual victims. And I'm not gonna say much about the standards for determining when that's okay. But rather, I'd like to move to the question of what works in terms of constructing affirmative remedies. Since Brown v Board of Education, the federal courts have played a very important role in opening traditional white male opportunities to blacks and women, particularly in periods when the federal executive fails to enforce anti discrimination mandates, or the city executive in the city as a matter of fact. And when public and private support for grassroots community based anti discrimination groups has been a period that we're hopefully just now coming to an end of. But we've certainly seen lately, particularly in periods like that the role of the courts in enforcing anti discrimination principles is very important. have affirmative race or sex conscious remedies ordered by courts been effective in achieving equality of opportunity and integration and construction? Well, there is virtually no experience with respect to courts, helping women achieve equality of opportunity and construction. It's just not been tried. So to think about this question we have as women to look at the experience of black men. And I think that we can learn a lot from that experience, because there has been a lot of effort to integrate the construction to open the construction industry to black men. And while the engines of discrimination and the mechanism for remedy are different for blacks and for women, I think we can learn a lot from the experience of black man and in developing our own experience. 10 Perhaps enable us to think about the continuing problem of integrating black men into the construction industry straight through or into anything else through new eyes. I think there's a potential here for mutual benefit.

Unknown Speaker  1:14:11
Once the court has found a history of discrimination, systemic discrimination, continuing to the present time, current Supreme Court understanding of the meaning of Title Seven and the Constitution allows the court to order an affirmative numerical remedy to open jobs or union blacks or women. In Settings such numerical gold, the court must make the difficult determination of deciding what proportion of women would be on the job or proportion of blacks would be on the job. But for discrimination, obviously, that's a very hard thing to figure out, because it's just not possible to know. Oh, In, in a world where construction was truly open to women, would 80% of the workers be women? Would 50% of the workers be women? Would 10% of the workers be women? I don't have a clear view on this. I'm sure it'd be more than one. And for starters, that's all we need to do is to set an interim a temporary explicitly temporary Erica. So then what happens? You find discrimination. You gotta go, you ordered the defendants to stop what happens next on the plethora of unenforced meaningless goals for integrating women in the construction industry, I think demonstrates that goals without more have little impact, very controversial, but not particularly meaningful. discriminators are unlikely to change simply because the court has more specifically quantified, but the law has long required. So what happens? Well, few federal judges want the responsibility for day to day administration of construction site hiring, or recruitment into a skilled craft apprenticeship program, no matter how racist or how sexist the defendants have been proven to be. Furthermore, Federal Court judges have little competence to perform those tasks. So that's possibility is out. Ah, another possibility is to trust that the plaintiffs the women who brought suit, or the man who brought the suit will monitor compliance and will institute contempt proceedings if the defendants do not change their discriminatory way. Plaintiffs after all, had the motivation to challenge and trench traditional discrimination and are apt to be highly motivated to assure that discrimination ends. In addition, the people discriminated against have the on the ground knowledge of the mechanism by which discrimination is effectuated and the ways in which it might best be sure. And organizationally cohesive plaintiff like new are, I think, is I think, an important resource in enforcing anti discrimination, and one that should be treasured and nourished by a federal court. But even the strongest organizational plaintiff needs financial support enable to enable them to do the complex work necessary to eradicate entrenched discrimination, requiring defendants to provide that support seems both fair and likely to be effective. Essentially, the court says to the discriminatory defendants, you have to pay these folks to run a program to integrate you and tell you achieve the goal we've defined as reasonable. Unfortunately, however, there are not many cohesive organizational groups on the ground. Often the plaintiff in an anti discrimination suit is not an organization or part of an organization, but rather a few individuals who filed an individual complaint and got joined together in a class action by their lawyers. The individual plaintiffs, the named individuals move, they grow up, they get a job, they get a job and they don't have the time to be enforcing this order. The unnamed individuals who won don't even know that they were that they want. Ice isolated individual victims of discrimination do not ordinarily have the skill or tenacity to create a program necessary to ensure compliance with an anti discrimination order.

Unknown Speaker  1:19:07
Another option available to a court that's found a pattern of systemic discrimination is to trust that the plaintiffs lawyers will monitor compliance and Institute contempt proceedings, if warranted, like the plaintiffs, their lawyers have demonstrated their passion for the infor integration. Some plaintiffs lawyers, I think, possess the skill, inclination, respectful relationships with their clients that enable them to create and sustain programs to recruit women, educate them in the intricacy of contract construction, take and support them in finding work. There are equal rights advocates in San Francisco, Philadelphia legal services, and there are groups like that that have functioned in this way groups organized around lawyers. Like the cohesive organization The plaintiff, the lawyer with a stable commitment to integration is an enforcement mechanism that I think should be treasured and supported by the federal treasury by the Federal Court and supported by the defendants found guilty of discrimination. Often, however, Title Seven plaintiffs are represented by a briskly rotating succession of lawyers, whether from private practice public interest organizations or the government agencies. Furthermore, talented litigators are no more likely then isolated individual victims of discrimination or Federal Court judges for that matter, to have the skills necessary to create a program to ensure compliance with an anti discrimination order. If neither the plaintiffs nor their lawyers are, have the organizational cohesion, to be able to create a program to ensure movement towards the goal. And that will be most situations what what happens then what can we do to enforce these orders. In some anti discrimination cases, courts have appointed advocacy oriented masters to organize a program to integrate to promote integration to provide training and support, again, financed by the defendants, then the principal consequences of defendants failure to establish that they've made a good faith effort to meet the courts compliance goal is that they have to continue to fund the program administered by the court appointed Master. I'm essentially what I'm arguing here for is for judicial support, and judicial support and discriminant, Nadir financing for community based advocacy organizations that are the essential link between the reality of discrimination and the goal of integration. Um, let me just say that in conclusion, the mouths of children say that girls can't be plumbers but must better be doctors, nurses, secretaries or lawyers. At this moment in history, the older of us in the legal profession have lived its transformation from a white male field to one that now includes racial minorities and women, race and sex based inhibitions. presumptions of incompetency still exist in our profession. But we've also seen enormous change and most of us in the legal profession, I think, know that the enterprise legal education and the law has been enhanced by the inclusion of these previously excluded voices. gender integration, gender integrate, integration has come much slower in blue collar work, and especially in construction. This is not surprising.

Unknown Speaker  1:23:18
Those of us blacks or women who aspire to work in management or the professions education, do so in part because we possess particular skills, that is verbal agility, a capacity to understand and manipulate social structures, we can understand collective arrangements, and we can make them work for us. We have mobilized the law, the media and other cultural institutions to help us while blue collar work, and construction, in particular have their own culture and collectivity, which I understand only very dimly. People attracted to this work possess a range of skills that is quite different from that of managers and professionals. These women, I believe, have fewer resources, economic and human resources for organizing collective action to seek the kinds of changes that are necessary to transform complex institutions such as this. I hope that in the next decade, we'll see that change. Thank you