No middle ground : women and radical protest / edited by Kathleen M. Blee.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Blee, Kathleen M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women radicals--United States.

Women radicals.

Women political activists--United States.

Women political activists.

Radicalism.

United States.

Women social reformers--United States.

Women social reformers.

Radicalism--United States.

Protest movements--United States.

Protest movements.

Physical Description:

viii, 329 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [1998]

Summary:

Working-class Appalachian women on the picket line, fighting for better working conditions. White women organizing against the racial integration of schools. Native American women struggling for Indian treaty rights. African American women in the Black Panther Party. What prompts women to adopt political stances far outside mainstream politics? How are women changed by personal experiences of militancy and activism?

Until recently, radical and militant activists have been viewed largely as male, while women have been assumed to be apolitical, more interested in domestic concerns and personal relationships than in public issues and political controversies. Despite evidence that women have been involved in a wide range of political activities, from revolutionary parties to racial hate groups, little attention has been paid to women's radical action.

No Middle Ground brings together a wide variety of contributors to uncover women's roles in radical and militant movements. Examining women's radicalism in the United States from the 1950s through the 1990s, the volume details women's activism in both right-wing and left-wing movements, in feminist as well as anti-feminist groups, and in movements supporting both racial equality and white supremacism. The essays shed light on the conditions which encourage women's militancy, the issues around which women mobilize, how they organize, and what divides them in organizations.

The essays and personal narratives in No Middle Ground advance our understanding of the gendered underpinnings of activism that occurs outside the "middle ground" of conventional electoral and pressure group politics. They suggest the significance of identity,consciousness, personal biography, and external context for understanding women's involvement with radical protest movements.

No Middle Ground brings new insight into women's oppositional politics, as well as into our understandings of radical action.

Contents:

1. Introduction: Women on the Left/Women on the Right / Kathleen M. Blee 1

Part I What's in a Name?

2. "I Am Kathy Power": Expressions of Radicalism in a Counterculture Community / Pam E. Goldman 19

3. "Something about the Word": African American Women and Feminism / Shirley A. Jackson 38

4. Winona LaDuke / Sonya Paul, Robert Perkinson 51

Part II Personal and Political

5. African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Spontaneity and Emotion in Social Movement Theory / Belinda Robnett 65

6. Goody Two-Shoes and the Hell-Raisers: Women's Activism, Women's Reputations in Little Rock / Beth Roy 96

7. Reflections of an AIM Activist: Has It All Been Worth It? / Karren Baird-Olson 133

Part III The Ties That Bind

8. Rattle on the Right: Bridge Labor in Antifeminist Organizations / Susan E. Marshall 155

9. Reading Racism: Women in the Modern Hate Movement / Kathleen M. Blee 180

10. Report from Seneca: (1985) / Cynthia Costello, Amy Dru Stanley 199

11. "It's Our Party

Love It or Leave It" / Jane Margolis 212

Part IV Night and Day

12. From the Fields to the Picket Line: Huelga Women and the Boycott, 1965-1975 / Margaret Rose 225

13. From Housewives to Activists: Women and the Division of Political Labor in the Boston Antibusing Movement / Julia Wrigley 251

14. "We're Fighting Millionaires!": The Clash of Gender and Class in Appalachian Women's Union Organizing / Sally Ward Maggard 289

15. Fighting for Environmental Justice: An Interview with Lois Gibbs / Multinational Monitor 307.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0814712797

0814712800

OCLC:

37115326