PART I SAN REVIEW
195
recent Chinese film ostensibly made to honor and praise the women
soldiers in Mao's army in the 1930s,
The Red Detachment of Women.)
To break radically with sexual stereotypes, even ,if just temporarily
seems
<to come easily to
pol~tical
radicals only when they engage in
insurrection, in "peDple's war," in guerrilla struggle, or in undergrDund
resistance .to foreign occupation. In situations that fall short of military–
type urgency, the treatment
Df
WDmen in radical political organizatiDns
is
in faat anything but exemplary. Despite their often-proclaimed
feminist "views," the internal life of almost all radical organizatiDns, in
or out of power - from the official Communist parties to the new Left
and semianarchist groups active since the 1960s - uncritioally condo!l1es
and promotes all sorts of sexist
"hab~ts."
Thus, the present wave of feminism was born out of the painful
awakening of women in the largest radical student organization in
America in the 1960s to the faot that they were being treaJted like
second-class members. Women were never listened to with the same
seriousness at meetings; it was 'always women members who were asked
(or volunteered ) to take the minutes, or to leave a meeting in progress
to go into the kitohen to make coffee. Often chivalrously protected
by
their men comrades from police violence during demonstrations, they
were invariably excluded from positions Df leadership. To be sure, the
complacent sexism of radical organizaJtions has lessened somewhat, at
least in America, precisely because of the protest these women made.
At first only an isolated, ridiculed minority, they heralded a new level
of consciousness
Dn
the part of many women - whioh, having started in
America, is now belatedly spreading (though in a tamer and
mOore
limited
way) to
We~tem
Europe. In the 1970s WDmen seeking to
liberate themselves and other women can find more allies than ever
among radical men. But working within existing revolutionary organiza–
tions is not enough. At this point, it
is
not even centr,al.
Now and for some time to CDme, I
1:hink,
the primary role must be
played by women's mDvements.
HDwever
many radical men can now
be counted as allies (and they are not
that
!l1umerous), WDmen have
to conduct ,the main part of ,the struggle themselves. Women must form
groups
in each class, each occupation, each community, to sustain and
encourage different levels of struggle and emerging consciousness. (For
example: all-women professional collectives -of doctors who will treat
only
women patients, of lawyers and accountants who will handle Dnly
women clients - as well as all-women rock groups, farms, film-making
crews, small businesses, and so forth.) Politically, women will not find a
militant voice until they organize in groups which they lead - just as
blacks
did not find their ,true political militancy as IDng as they were
