Socialist Feminism, the First Decade, 1966-76 - Softcover

Martin, Gloria

9780932323002: Socialist Feminism, the First Decade, 1966-76

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0932323006 ISBN 13: 9780932323002

Publisher: Freedom Socialist Pubns, 1986

Records the forging of the first Marxist feminist party in history -- the Freedom Socialist Party. Set in the tumultuous upsurges of the '60s and '70s, the book is charged with audacity, verve and optimism. Gloria Martin vividly describes the eruption of the women's liberation movement amidst the antiwar and civil rights struggles, scathingly critiques the role of most of the Left, and probes with a sharp scalpel the internal conflicts in the movements for social change.

This is a story of years of intense work by radical women and men. It is a chronicle, a reference, an analysis, a judgment, and a guidebook. Its central message is inescapable: socialist feminism as a theme and strategy has never been more urgently needed than it is today.

Includes index and bibliography.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Back Cover:

"Demonstrates forcefully that socialist feminism was not just a fad, but is a visionary politics of tomorrow." MITSUYE YAMADA, feminist poet and teacher at Cypress College, Irvine, CA

"Gloria Martin's analysis...describes a scenario of multi-dimensional change; from the heart to the workplace, from the fields to the schools, from the initial words by lovers of humanity to the global liberation of all." JUAN FELIPE HERRERA, Chicano poet, author of Exiles of Desire

"A must for union activists...linking racism and sexism with economic exploitation and describing the central role women play in unions -- from organizing on the worksite and walking the picket line to winning in court." CAROL TARLEN, editor of Real Fiction, member of AFSCME Local 2318, San Francisco

"Magnificent...extraordinarily honest, productively self-critical and powerfully inspiring. No other feminist organization has been so committed to the necessity of a national and global multi-issue movement. Gives me great hope." DR. CATHIE DUNSFORD, writer and Pacific lesbian feminist activist, New Zealand

Review:

This history deals with all the major issues that have split women's groups, divided socialist parties, and caused dissension in the general society over recent years. It reviews these issues through the perspective of the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP), a Marxist Feminist group based in Seattle. For readers interested in conflicts which have riven the women's movement...or conflicts on the left...this book will be good reading. Not, however, because it explains the forces in conflict, but because it IS a force in conflict.

Members of the FSP, unlike some other Marxist groups, believe that feminism is NOT in conflict with socialism, and that sexism is NOT merely a vestige of bourgeois capitalism... [The FSP] is a group that is fighting its battles with a vision of itself as the vanguard of a world movement... Of course, the early history of the Communist Party in Russia and of the Women's Movement in Seneca Falls read the same way, and readers can judge for themselves the ultimate outcome for this group. -- Small Press, January-February 1987

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.