1 00:00:01,320 --> 00:00:04,200 Speaker 1: Counthy guys. White gave the commencement speech at her alma 2 00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:07,520 Speaker 1: mater at the University of Michigan, talking about what she 3 00:00:07,640 --> 00:00:13,800 Speaker 1: talks about best, the insecurities of working American women. The 4 00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:17,400 Speaker 1: world expects so much of you right now. You'll be 5 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:22,920 Speaker 1: expected to be a dynamic businessperson, financial wizard, nurturing homemaker, enlightened, 6 00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:28,440 Speaker 1: involved parent, environmental activist, physical fitness expert, as sexy and 7 00:00:28,440 --> 00:00:32,800 Speaker 1: alluring yet responsible partner, champion of human rights, independent thinker, 8 00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:36,160 Speaker 1: community activists. And if you're a woman a size five, 9 00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:44,320 Speaker 1: all at once. Today, when the message is that anyone 10 00:00:44,400 --> 00:00:47,159 Speaker 1: can do anything, it's going to be very hard for 11 00:00:47,159 --> 00:00:49,879 Speaker 1: you not to feel that everyone else is doing something 12 00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:53,080 Speaker 1: and that you personally are stuck in your same old ruts. 13 00:00:54,520 --> 00:00:58,160 Speaker 1: And just in case normal humans insecurity doesn't nail you, 14 00:00:58,160 --> 00:01:01,920 Speaker 1: you'll be bombarded by images that will try Look at 15 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:07,000 Speaker 1: how women are bombarded. Look at the commercials. Look at 16 00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:11,240 Speaker 1: how they picture men and women in the commercials. Men 17 00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:14,119 Speaker 1: and commercials are always doing one thing. The women are 18 00:01:14,160 --> 00:01:17,399 Speaker 1: doing six things at once. Now the man in the 19 00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:21,520 Speaker 1: commercial will be mowing the lawn one job. The woman 20 00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:25,960 Speaker 1: in the commercial is giving herself a beauty treatment for 21 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:30,399 Speaker 1: her hands while she does the dishes. The man in 22 00:01:30,440 --> 00:01:35,319 Speaker 1: the commercial is grilling a steak one job. The woman 23 00:01:35,319 --> 00:01:39,280 Speaker 1: in the commercial is simultaneously cleaning the oven, disinfecting the floor, 24 00:01:39,400 --> 00:01:42,160 Speaker 1: popping a five course meal in the microwave, and faxing 25 00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:45,839 Speaker 1: the office while explaining the miracle of feminine hygiene products 26 00:01:45,840 --> 00:01:53,559 Speaker 1: to her daughter. And if you think that doesn't translate 27 00:01:53,640 --> 00:01:57,680 Speaker 1: into real life expectations, head for Detroit during rush hour 28 00:01:57,840 --> 00:02:01,480 Speaker 1: some morning and look around you on the anyway, if 29 00:02:01,520 --> 00:02:03,800 Speaker 1: you've been listening to this show, you won't be surprised 30 00:02:03,840 --> 00:02:06,480 Speaker 1: to hear the creator of Cathy Comics talking about the 31 00:02:06,640 --> 00:02:11,200 Speaker 1: unreasonable expectations often pushed on women, the sorts of expectations 32 00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:16,080 Speaker 1: that make one say, act speaking hypothetically. Of course, Cathy 33 00:02:16,080 --> 00:02:19,320 Speaker 1: Comics certainly changed in tone and mission as the strip 34 00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:21,760 Speaker 1: went on, but it serves as a document of a 35 00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:25,960 Speaker 1: woman's insecurities and concerns for thirty four consecutive years between 36 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:30,440 Speaker 1: nineteen ten, and the issues mentioned and not mentioned aligned 37 00:02:30,440 --> 00:02:34,960 Speaker 1: pretty closely with mainstream liberal views on women of this time. 38 00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:38,320 Speaker 1: There's also plenty to say about what this commentary does 39 00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:42,919 Speaker 1: not reference, a reflection of how American feminism has historically 40 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:47,120 Speaker 1: either ignored or been actively hostile to the interests of 41 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:50,360 Speaker 1: women of color, queer women, and working class women. So 42 00:02:50,400 --> 00:02:53,040 Speaker 1: in this episode, I'm gonna let Kathy lead us through 43 00:02:53,160 --> 00:02:56,760 Speaker 1: American feminist issues according to the funny pages, and I'll 44 00:02:56,800 --> 00:02:59,679 Speaker 1: fill in some blanks of what does not appear. So 45 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:05,120 Speaker 1: she burst into the world in nineteen seventy six, she's 46 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:08,160 Speaker 1: at what, she's out on dates, and she don't like politics. 47 00:03:08,440 --> 00:03:12,680 Speaker 1: From Mama and urban to with feminist friends. She's fighting 48 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:18,160 Speaker 1: all the stands with chocolate and hand Kathy, she's fighting 49 00:03:18,440 --> 00:03:22,760 Speaker 1: back to stressed with success. Let's cut her some slack, oh, 50 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:46,440 Speaker 1: Kathy Bkathyan Cather, She's gotta like go in all. So, 51 00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:52,400 Speaker 1: not to be patronizing, but Kathy Curtins did not invent feminism, 52 00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:54,560 Speaker 1: so we do require a little bit of set up here. 53 00:03:54,760 --> 00:03:57,840 Speaker 1: In order for all of the expectations that eventually stress 54 00:03:57,920 --> 00:04:00,640 Speaker 1: our heroine out during the second wave of feminism to 55 00:04:00,720 --> 00:04:04,080 Speaker 1: exist in the first place, a lot of social gains 56 00:04:04,320 --> 00:04:08,000 Speaker 1: had to be made beforehand. And quick disclaimer here, I 57 00:04:08,040 --> 00:04:10,240 Speaker 1: will be the first to say that this episode will 58 00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:13,160 Speaker 1: in no way be comprehensive, and so I want to 59 00:04:13,200 --> 00:04:15,040 Speaker 1: see at the top I don't have the purview to 60 00:04:15,040 --> 00:04:18,280 Speaker 1: give a full overview of the history of American feminism. 61 00:04:18,400 --> 00:04:21,000 Speaker 1: You could be in school for years on that topic. 62 00:04:21,160 --> 00:04:23,560 Speaker 1: But I will be including further resources in the show 63 00:04:23,600 --> 00:04:26,760 Speaker 1: notes to help bridge those gaps. So to begin, we 64 00:04:26,800 --> 00:04:28,760 Speaker 1: have to take a look at the first wave of 65 00:04:28,760 --> 00:04:32,880 Speaker 1: American feminism, which leads us to where Kathy alternatively thrives 66 00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:36,840 Speaker 1: and fails in the second wave. So let's go back 67 00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:42,240 Speaker 1: to the year eighteen forty eight. Okay, I can already 68 00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:48,599 Speaker 1: hear you grown, that's so long ago. Sit down and listen. 69 00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:54,680 Speaker 1: This is going somewhere, I repeat. Was popularly considered to 70 00:04:54,720 --> 00:04:57,480 Speaker 1: be the launch of the first wave of American feminism, 71 00:04:57,600 --> 00:05:01,200 Speaker 1: with the first formal women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, 72 00:05:01,279 --> 00:05:05,080 Speaker 1: New York. This wave, while containing many steps forward and 73 00:05:05,120 --> 00:05:09,600 Speaker 1: eventually steps backward, is considered to have continued through when 74 00:05:09,640 --> 00:05:12,320 Speaker 1: women got the vote in the US. Victories along the 75 00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:17,240 Speaker 1: way included increased educational opportunities, wives being granted custody of 76 00:05:17,279 --> 00:05:20,400 Speaker 1: their own children, women being able to own property in 77 00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:23,120 Speaker 1: their own name, and of course, the vote. In the 78 00:05:23,120 --> 00:05:26,279 Speaker 1: first wave of feminism and in every wave since, middle 79 00:05:26,320 --> 00:05:29,960 Speaker 1: class white women have been disproportionately centered in how the 80 00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:33,560 Speaker 1: activism is discussed and treated in pop culture. This was 81 00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:37,560 Speaker 1: well on display during this First wave. The majority of 82 00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:41,520 Speaker 1: commonly discussed women of this era in American feminism are white. 83 00:05:41,839 --> 00:05:46,239 Speaker 1: Your Susan B. Anthony's your Elizabeth, Katie Stanton's your Lucretia Motts, 84 00:05:46,320 --> 00:05:50,080 Speaker 1: You're Lucy Stones. While American feminists had certainly existed for 85 00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:52,520 Speaker 1: some time, it's in the mid eighteen hundreds that they 86 00:05:52,560 --> 00:05:55,640 Speaker 1: began to organize in large numbers. Much of this early 87 00:05:55,760 --> 00:06:00,479 Speaker 1: organization drew inspiration from prior experiences with the tem prints 88 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:05,080 Speaker 1: and abolition movements. Here's what historian Manisha Sinha in The 89 00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:09,159 Speaker 1: Slaves Cause, A History of Abolition said of first wave 90 00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:14,400 Speaker 1: American feminism. If not all female abolitionists became women's rights activists, 91 00:06:14,440 --> 00:06:19,159 Speaker 1: pioneering feminists owed their public careers to abolition, while women 92 00:06:19,160 --> 00:06:22,159 Speaker 1: of color spoke not just about the oppression of their gender, 93 00:06:22,279 --> 00:06:25,120 Speaker 1: but of race and class. The white middle class figureheads 94 00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:28,720 Speaker 1: of the first wave often ignored or made their insights unwelcome. 95 00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:32,320 Speaker 1: There were divides among white feminists as well. Working class 96 00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:36,440 Speaker 1: women were concerned with factory conditions and labor exploitation, while 97 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:39,120 Speaker 1: white women of the middle class and above were primarily 98 00:06:39,160 --> 00:06:43,280 Speaker 1: concerned with gaining rights as individuals outside of marriage, including 99 00:06:43,279 --> 00:06:46,719 Speaker 1: the ability to own property, have child custody, and vote. 100 00:06:47,040 --> 00:06:51,320 Speaker 1: Feminist scholar and general legend Angela Davis explains why upper 101 00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:54,320 Speaker 1: class white women gained an interest in seeking suffrage for 102 00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:59,000 Speaker 1: women around this time in her classic book Women, Race, 103 00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:04,560 Speaker 1: and Class. An ideological consequence of industrial capitalism was the 104 00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:08,159 Speaker 1: shaping of a more rigorous notion of female inferiority. It seemed, 105 00:07:08,200 --> 00:07:10,680 Speaker 1: in fact, that the more women's domestic duty shrank under 106 00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:14,080 Speaker 1: the impact of industrialization, the more ridge became the assertation 107 00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:16,960 Speaker 1: that women's place was in the home. They have been 108 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:19,320 Speaker 1: productive workers within the home economy, and their labor have 109 00:07:19,400 --> 00:07:23,000 Speaker 1: been no less respected than their men's, and manufacturing moved 110 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:25,520 Speaker 1: out of the home and into the factory. The ideology 111 00:07:25,560 --> 00:07:27,480 Speaker 1: of women who begin to raise the wife and mother 112 00:07:27,560 --> 00:07:31,360 Speaker 1: as ideal as workers, women had at least enjoyed the 113 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:34,720 Speaker 1: economic quality, but as wives there were destined to become 114 00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:39,200 Speaker 1: appendagous to their men, servants to their husband's As mothers, 115 00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:42,080 Speaker 1: they would be defined as passive vehicles for the replenishment 116 00:07:42,120 --> 00:07:46,320 Speaker 1: of human life. The situation for that white housewife was 117 00:07:46,440 --> 00:07:50,760 Speaker 1: full of contradictions, and it bear as much repeating that 118 00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:55,200 Speaker 1: black feminists, many of them born into slavery prior to abolition, 119 00:07:55,360 --> 00:07:59,480 Speaker 1: were instrumental in this movement, although their contributions are frequently 120 00:07:59,560 --> 00:08:03,440 Speaker 1: an un fairly deemphasized by white feminists even today. So 121 00:08:03,560 --> 00:08:05,840 Speaker 1: Journal Truth was one of the most prominent black women 122 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:09,000 Speaker 1: in the movement at this time, speaking about her experiences 123 00:08:09,040 --> 00:08:13,400 Speaker 1: intersectionally as both a formerly enslaved black person and as 124 00:08:13,480 --> 00:08:16,000 Speaker 1: a woman. Here's a quote from her famous speech Ain't 125 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:19,000 Speaker 1: I a Woman? From an Akrons Woman Convention in eighteen 126 00:08:19,080 --> 00:08:23,080 Speaker 1: fifty one, read by Performer st for the Sojournal Truth Project. 127 00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:30,880 Speaker 1: In I I am a woman's rights. I have as 128 00:08:30,960 --> 00:08:34,360 Speaker 1: much muscle as any man, and I can do as 129 00:08:34,480 --> 00:08:39,960 Speaker 1: much work as any man. I have plot and reaped 130 00:08:40,440 --> 00:08:45,800 Speaker 1: and husked and chopped and mode, and can any man 131 00:08:46,200 --> 00:08:51,480 Speaker 1: do better than that? I have heard much about the 132 00:08:51,640 --> 00:08:56,160 Speaker 1: sexiest being equal. I can carry as much as any man, 133 00:08:56,360 --> 00:08:59,400 Speaker 1: and I can eat as much too, if I can 134 00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:05,000 Speaker 1: get it. I am as strong as any man. That is. 135 00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:09,000 Speaker 1: Today the poor man seemed to be all in confusion. 136 00:09:09,640 --> 00:09:13,839 Speaker 1: They don't know what to do. White children. If you 137 00:09:13,960 --> 00:09:17,880 Speaker 1: have woman's rights, give it to her and you will 138 00:09:17,960 --> 00:09:22,360 Speaker 1: feel better. You have your own rights, and they will 139 00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:26,960 Speaker 1: be so much trouble. While truth speech was a huge 140 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:29,960 Speaker 1: hit in eighteen fifty one, Angela Davis explains that a 141 00:09:30,080 --> 00:09:32,640 Speaker 1: number of white women at the conference did not want 142 00:09:32,720 --> 00:09:35,840 Speaker 1: truth the only black woman at the convention to speak 143 00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:38,760 Speaker 1: at all. The racism displayed by white feminists of this 144 00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:41,720 Speaker 1: time is worthy of more discussion and has been chronicled 145 00:09:41,840 --> 00:09:45,320 Speaker 1: in seminal text like White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby 146 00:09:45,360 --> 00:09:49,840 Speaker 1: hammad On, Intersectionality by Kimberly Crenshaw, and Davis's Women, Race 147 00:09:49,880 --> 00:09:52,880 Speaker 1: and Class, among many many others. I will link to 148 00:09:52,920 --> 00:09:55,720 Speaker 1: these books in the description of this episode. What needs 149 00:09:55,720 --> 00:09:58,240 Speaker 1: to be said is this white feminist leaders like Susan B. 150 00:09:58,360 --> 00:10:01,360 Speaker 1: Anthony and Elizabeth Katie stand In, who had supported the 151 00:10:01,400 --> 00:10:04,920 Speaker 1: abolition of slavery and even worked with Frederick Douglas to 152 00:10:04,960 --> 00:10:09,480 Speaker 1: win the vote quote for both women and African Americans unquote, 153 00:10:09,520 --> 00:10:12,960 Speaker 1: would later actively work against the black vote and the 154 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:16,480 Speaker 1: interests of black women in particular, over and over in 155 00:10:16,520 --> 00:10:19,160 Speaker 1: an attempt to get white women the vote ahead of 156 00:10:19,240 --> 00:10:23,120 Speaker 1: black men. The message being sent by these leaders was clear, 157 00:10:23,320 --> 00:10:26,920 Speaker 1: the white woman's vote took precedence over all women's votes 158 00:10:27,080 --> 00:10:30,440 Speaker 1: for Anthony and Stanton following the dissolution of their alliance 159 00:10:30,480 --> 00:10:33,360 Speaker 1: with Douglas, who had previously stood up for the women's 160 00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:36,320 Speaker 1: vote at the Seneca Falls Convention in eighteen forty eight. 161 00:10:36,400 --> 00:10:41,000 Speaker 1: Stanton and Anthony created the National American Woman's Suffrage Association 162 00:10:41,160 --> 00:10:45,520 Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty nine, specifically to oppose the fifteenth Amendment, 163 00:10:45,600 --> 00:10:48,760 Speaker 1: which granted black men the vote. Anthony famously said she 164 00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:52,000 Speaker 1: would cut off her right arm before demanding voting rights 165 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:55,800 Speaker 1: for black men instead of women. With the significant biases 166 00:10:55,800 --> 00:10:58,280 Speaker 1: of white leaders in mind, one of the strengths of 167 00:10:58,320 --> 00:11:01,880 Speaker 1: the first wave of feminism as its clear goal and focus, 168 00:11:02,080 --> 00:11:05,840 Speaker 1: which was suffrage, and after seventy years, that was achieved 169 00:11:05,880 --> 00:11:09,680 Speaker 1: in n In these years, even the most liberal wings 170 00:11:09,679 --> 00:11:13,200 Speaker 1: of the movement were met with vitriol from American patriarchy. 171 00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:15,560 Speaker 1: A best selling book in eighteen seventy three stated that 172 00:11:15,600 --> 00:11:18,680 Speaker 1: women could not last in careers and would suffer quote 173 00:11:18,760 --> 00:11:22,920 Speaker 1: exhaustion of the feminine nervous system unquote, and President Theodore 174 00:11:22,960 --> 00:11:26,360 Speaker 1: Roosevelt once said that a white woman who postponed childbirth 175 00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:30,520 Speaker 1: to do literally anything else was a race trader. So 176 00:11:30,600 --> 00:11:32,960 Speaker 1: in the years of this movement, steps were made in 177 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:36,640 Speaker 1: the right direction. Women gained access to higher education to 178 00:11:36,760 --> 00:11:39,920 Speaker 1: keeping their wages, as well as early whisperings of widespread 179 00:11:39,960 --> 00:11:43,240 Speaker 1: birth control access. Following the success of the women Suffrage 180 00:11:43,280 --> 00:11:46,559 Speaker 1: movement in securing the vote, the nearly seventy five years 181 00:11:46,600 --> 00:11:51,040 Speaker 1: of consistent feminist activism began to slow down, in part 182 00:11:51,280 --> 00:11:55,760 Speaker 1: due to active antagonism from American patriarchal structures who blacklisted 183 00:11:55,800 --> 00:11:59,559 Speaker 1: feminists from publishing their work in major publications and labeled 184 00:11:59,600 --> 00:12:03,840 Speaker 1: many communists and a quote serious threat to the country. 185 00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:07,240 Speaker 1: This led to one of the most notable backlashes against 186 00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:10,640 Speaker 1: the gains of feminists in American history. But keep in 187 00:12:10,679 --> 00:12:13,959 Speaker 1: mind that even with this passing, black women's votes were 188 00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:18,280 Speaker 1: still not treated equally. Martha S. Jones, author of Vanguard, 189 00:12:18,400 --> 00:12:21,719 Speaker 1: How Black Women Broke barriers, won the vote and insisted 190 00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:26,680 Speaker 1: on equality for all told time in the following quote. 191 00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:29,560 Speaker 1: The nineteenth Amendment did not eliminate the state laws that 192 00:12:29,679 --> 00:12:32,800 Speaker 1: operated to keep Black Americans from the polls via poll 193 00:12:32,880 --> 00:12:37,000 Speaker 1: taxes and literacy tests, nor did the nineteenth Amendment address 194 00:12:37,080 --> 00:12:40,920 Speaker 1: violence or lynching. Some African American women will vote with 195 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:45,319 Speaker 1: the Nineteenth Amendment unquote. This backlash is carefully documented by 196 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:50,360 Speaker 1: writer Susan Faludi in her book Backlash, which documents both 197 00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:54,720 Speaker 1: the major American feminist movements and the near certainty that 198 00:12:54,800 --> 00:12:58,040 Speaker 1: periods of women's gains would be followed by a period 199 00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:02,080 Speaker 1: of severe backlash, backlash that extends to the political, to 200 00:13:02,160 --> 00:13:06,800 Speaker 1: the cultural, and within the feminist movement itself. Fluti describes 201 00:13:06,840 --> 00:13:11,000 Speaker 1: the first twentieth century backlash as happening in the nineteen twenties, 202 00:13:11,160 --> 00:13:14,600 Speaker 1: with a wave of anti feminist media, demonization of women 203 00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:18,040 Speaker 1: who wanted to get divorces or abortions, and an increased 204 00:13:18,080 --> 00:13:21,680 Speaker 1: emphasis on looks and consumptions, exemplified by the rise of 205 00:13:21,679 --> 00:13:25,000 Speaker 1: the Miss America pageant that started in ninety, the same 206 00:13:25,080 --> 00:13:27,600 Speaker 1: year that women got the vote. And the thing about 207 00:13:27,640 --> 00:13:31,480 Speaker 1: backlashes is they tend to erase a lot of progress. 208 00:13:31,679 --> 00:13:34,920 Speaker 1: According to Fluti, by nineteen thirty, there were fewer women 209 00:13:34,960 --> 00:13:38,240 Speaker 1: doctors than there had been in nineteen ten. Fast forward 210 00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:41,720 Speaker 1: a bit to the late thirties early forties, women surged 211 00:13:41,760 --> 00:13:44,640 Speaker 1: back into the workplace in America. During World War Two, 212 00:13:44,960 --> 00:13:47,000 Speaker 1: with men leaving the country to fight in the war, 213 00:13:47,240 --> 00:13:50,319 Speaker 1: five to six million women entered the workforce, two million 214 00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:53,480 Speaker 1: of which entered heavy industry jobs, the government began to 215 00:13:53,520 --> 00:13:58,160 Speaker 1: provide wild stuff like daycare assistants. Working class women fought 216 00:13:58,160 --> 00:14:01,679 Speaker 1: for unions, and young girls grew up wanting their own careers. 217 00:14:01,840 --> 00:14:03,600 Speaker 1: And keep in mind that this is the era that 218 00:14:03,720 --> 00:14:07,120 Speaker 1: Kathy guiss Wide's mother, as well as the comic character 219 00:14:07,280 --> 00:14:09,680 Speaker 1: of Mom, would have been growing up in. But when 220 00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:13,480 Speaker 1: the war ended, backlash again, where the Rosie the Riveter 221 00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:16,760 Speaker 1: messaging of women's roles in war efforts led some to 222 00:14:16,800 --> 00:14:19,920 Speaker 1: believe that their place in the workplace was here to stay. 223 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:23,440 Speaker 1: In came the nineteen fifties. Those two million women in 224 00:14:23,520 --> 00:14:26,840 Speaker 1: heavy industry laid off and forced out of their job 225 00:14:26,920 --> 00:14:29,960 Speaker 1: to make room for veterans returning from war. As ever, 226 00:14:30,200 --> 00:14:33,680 Speaker 1: working class and women of color often remained in the workplace, 227 00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:36,360 Speaker 1: but not with the same status or pay as in 228 00:14:36,400 --> 00:14:40,560 Speaker 1: the wartime. Women were denied unemployment pay flat out, and 229 00:14:40,600 --> 00:14:43,800 Speaker 1: middle class white women were generally pushed into the Donna 230 00:14:43,880 --> 00:14:48,240 Speaker 1: Reeve nineteen fifties era cult of domesticity. Just ten years later, 231 00:14:48,560 --> 00:14:52,520 Speaker 1: the culture dictated that jobs and education were very unfeminine, 232 00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:57,600 Speaker 1: and calling yourself a feminist was once again and ama anathema, 233 00:14:57,880 --> 00:15:00,760 Speaker 1: And calling yourself a feminist was once again and an 234 00:15:00,760 --> 00:15:03,760 Speaker 1: athema never said that word out loud before. Good job, 235 00:15:03,840 --> 00:15:08,200 Speaker 1: Jamie Okay. Integral to this an all periods of backlash 236 00:15:08,360 --> 00:15:12,920 Speaker 1: is an emphasis on consumerism and on improving the individual. 237 00:15:13,200 --> 00:15:16,160 Speaker 1: The economy is flourishing in the nineties and fifties in 238 00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:19,400 Speaker 1: the US made women a larger consumer block than ever, 239 00:15:19,640 --> 00:15:23,080 Speaker 1: and defining oneself through consumption was a great way to 240 00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:26,840 Speaker 1: distract from, you know, being mad about not having rights. 241 00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:30,360 Speaker 1: Kathy Guys White, born in nineteen fifty spent her formative 242 00:15:30,440 --> 00:15:34,400 Speaker 1: years within a period of backlash that predated the second 243 00:15:34,400 --> 00:15:37,320 Speaker 1: wave feminist movement, which most people consider to have been 244 00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:40,040 Speaker 1: started in nineteen sixty eight, when a New York Times 245 00:15:40,120 --> 00:15:43,680 Speaker 1: magazine article by Martha Lear coining the term was released. 246 00:15:44,240 --> 00:16:01,800 Speaker 1: So where were women's rights by the sixties. The nineteen 247 00:16:01,840 --> 00:16:05,280 Speaker 1: sixty three President's Commission on the Status of Women Report, 248 00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:10,200 Speaker 1: which was initially commissioned by a preassassinated President Kennedy, Remember him? 249 00:16:10,320 --> 00:16:12,400 Speaker 1: People love that guy? But would they have if he 250 00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:16,560 Speaker 1: had We'll never know. This commission was led by Eleanor Roosevelt, 251 00:16:16,640 --> 00:16:19,200 Speaker 1: and while it was still very you better be a mommy, 252 00:16:19,320 --> 00:16:22,800 Speaker 1: eventually in its tone this report acknowledged a lot of 253 00:16:22,800 --> 00:16:28,400 Speaker 1: commonly recognized discriminations against women, using hard federal data to 254 00:16:28,520 --> 00:16:32,720 Speaker 1: back it up. These acknowledgements included recognition of the wage gap, 255 00:16:32,920 --> 00:16:36,800 Speaker 1: of employment inequality, of low support for working class women 256 00:16:36,800 --> 00:16:39,760 Speaker 1: and women of color, of a dearth of child care services, 257 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:42,400 Speaker 1: and on and on. And just like with the first wave, 258 00:16:42,520 --> 00:16:45,240 Speaker 1: this feminist movement came on the heels of a major 259 00:16:45,360 --> 00:16:49,000 Speaker 1: racial reckoning in the United States via the Civil Rights Movement, 260 00:16:49,120 --> 00:16:52,280 Speaker 1: where again black women in leadership positions spoke on their 261 00:16:52,360 --> 00:16:56,720 Speaker 1: role in American society, intersectionally with leaders like Marianne Weathers, 262 00:16:56,840 --> 00:17:00,320 Speaker 1: Ella Baker, who founded the Student Non Violent coword Nating 263 00:17:00,320 --> 00:17:03,680 Speaker 1: Committee and more. During the Civil Rights Movement, black women 264 00:17:03,760 --> 00:17:07,160 Speaker 1: worked from the radical and liberal wings and were instrumental 265 00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:10,119 Speaker 1: in community organizing that led to wins like the Civil 266 00:17:10,200 --> 00:17:12,760 Speaker 1: Rights Act of nineteen sixty four and the Voting Rights 267 00:17:12,760 --> 00:17:16,040 Speaker 1: Act of nineteen sixty five, and by the late nineteen sixties, 268 00:17:16,080 --> 00:17:19,160 Speaker 1: a new wave of the women's movement had certainly been building. 269 00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:23,640 Speaker 1: Challenging American white patriarchal structures were moved along by both 270 00:17:23,760 --> 00:17:26,919 Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Movement and the energy from the protests 271 00:17:26,960 --> 00:17:30,240 Speaker 1: surrounding the Vietnam War as well as the growing number 272 00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:34,879 Speaker 1: of options in American feminist literature and organizations, which brings 273 00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:38,040 Speaker 1: me to Betty for Dan. Oh, you thought we weren't 274 00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:40,560 Speaker 1: going to get to Betty for Dan while buckle In, 275 00:17:41,119 --> 00:17:44,240 Speaker 1: she is best known as the author of nineteen sixty 276 00:17:44,280 --> 00:17:49,080 Speaker 1: three is the Feminine Mystique, a gospel for dissatisfied housewives 277 00:17:49,119 --> 00:17:53,080 Speaker 1: that bucked and rejected the idea that a woman naturally 278 00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:57,080 Speaker 1: derives purpose from marriage, children, and housework. We'll get to 279 00:17:57,119 --> 00:18:00,119 Speaker 1: its shortcomings in a bit, but this mystique was as 280 00:18:00,440 --> 00:18:03,119 Speaker 1: free Dan put it, quote the problem that has no 281 00:18:03,359 --> 00:18:06,760 Speaker 1: name unquote, and this clearly spoke to a young Kathy 282 00:18:06,800 --> 00:18:10,520 Speaker 1: Guy's white. She references the feminine mystique in her work constantly, 283 00:18:10,720 --> 00:18:13,600 Speaker 1: both through her character and through herself. Here she is 284 00:18:13,640 --> 00:18:16,760 Speaker 1: describing her teen in college years in a PPS News 285 00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:21,159 Speaker 1: Hour clip promoting her essay collection Fifty Things That Aren't 286 00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:25,840 Speaker 1: My Fault. My generation was right in between the two 287 00:18:25,840 --> 00:18:30,600 Speaker 1: Betties Betty Crocker and Betty for Dan, and I wanted 288 00:18:30,600 --> 00:18:32,600 Speaker 1: to be both of them, and a lot of women 289 00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:35,399 Speaker 1: did at that time. It was and I literally gained 290 00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:40,040 Speaker 1: forty pounds on one Betty's chocolate funge layer cake mix 291 00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:44,080 Speaker 1: while reading the other Betty's feminine mistaque and a lot 292 00:18:44,080 --> 00:18:47,960 Speaker 1: of women I think found themselves like the place I 293 00:18:48,119 --> 00:18:51,800 Speaker 1: was in. But she's not wrong. Betty for Dan is 294 00:18:51,840 --> 00:18:55,199 Speaker 1: a Betty of note for better and for worse. For 295 00:18:55,359 --> 00:18:57,880 Speaker 1: Dan was one of the figureheads of the liberal wing 296 00:18:58,040 --> 00:19:01,000 Speaker 1: of the Second Wave, going on to found the now 297 00:19:01,119 --> 00:19:04,479 Speaker 1: the National Organization for Women in nineteen sixty six with 298 00:19:04,560 --> 00:19:08,439 Speaker 1: forty eight others. Like Anthony and Stanton before them, The 299 00:19:08,560 --> 00:19:13,080 Speaker 1: organization was extremely polarizing throughout the second Wave due to 300 00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:16,400 Speaker 1: it say it with me over emphasis on the issues 301 00:19:16,520 --> 00:19:20,399 Speaker 1: of straight, middle class white women above everyone else. Also, 302 00:19:20,480 --> 00:19:22,919 Speaker 1: like the first movement, the liberal wing of the second 303 00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:26,080 Speaker 1: Wave came with a pretty clearly defined goal. It was 304 00:19:26,119 --> 00:19:29,160 Speaker 1: all about passing the e R, a equal Rights Amendment, 305 00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:33,119 Speaker 1: a proposed constitutional amendment that had been unsuccessful in making 306 00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:37,560 Speaker 1: progress since ninety three. The amendment sought to and get 307 00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:42,280 Speaker 1: ready for some controversial stuff, guarantee legal rights regardless of gender. 308 00:19:42,560 --> 00:19:44,960 Speaker 1: To this day, it's never been signed into law. Isn't 309 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:49,000 Speaker 1: that nice. This area of the movement was popularly referred 310 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:51,720 Speaker 1: to as women's liberation, and there was a part of 311 00:19:51,760 --> 00:19:55,520 Speaker 1: it women's libbers. The struggle to apply women's lab to 312 00:19:55,600 --> 00:19:59,560 Speaker 1: everyday life is thoroughly explored in the first few years 313 00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:02,720 Speaker 1: of the Happy Comics. But women of color, while again 314 00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:07,360 Speaker 1: being sidelined and actively disregarded by liberal, white centered organizations 315 00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:10,919 Speaker 1: such as the n OW, were extremely active during the 316 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:14,320 Speaker 1: Second Wave years. Some organizations of note membership in the 317 00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:17,879 Speaker 1: Black Panther Party was over sixty percent women. Kathleen Cleaver, 318 00:20:18,040 --> 00:20:20,840 Speaker 1: who was a communication secretary with the Panthers, was once 319 00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:23,560 Speaker 1: asked what a woman's role in the revolution was, and 320 00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:26,760 Speaker 1: she replied, quote, no one ever asks what a man's 321 00:20:26,800 --> 00:20:30,639 Speaker 1: place in the revolution is unquote. The National Black Feminist Organization, 322 00:20:30,760 --> 00:20:33,320 Speaker 1: founded in nineteen seventy three, was one of the first 323 00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:35,880 Speaker 1: to include a lesbian agenda as a part of their 324 00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:40,119 Speaker 1: mission statement. Asian feminists were extremely active organizers as well, 325 00:20:40,160 --> 00:20:43,240 Speaker 1: with projects like Asian Sisters in l A drug Abuse 326 00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:46,320 Speaker 1: Center founded in nineteen seventy one, and the l A 327 00:20:46,320 --> 00:20:49,400 Speaker 1: Asian Women's Center was an organizing hub until it closed 328 00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:53,240 Speaker 1: in seventy six. In nineteen seventy four, Indigenous American women 329 00:20:53,320 --> 00:20:57,439 Speaker 1: formed the Women of All Red Nations or WARREN, based 330 00:20:57,440 --> 00:21:00,520 Speaker 1: on concepts of tribal women's traditions and with the key 331 00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:06,119 Speaker 1: distinction that patriarchy and colonialism were inseparable concepts, and because 332 00:21:06,119 --> 00:21:09,240 Speaker 1: of the hostility that these organizations were sometimes met with 333 00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:13,320 Speaker 1: by the white feminist mainstream, the label of feminists sometimes 334 00:21:13,359 --> 00:21:17,920 Speaker 1: be resisted. Here's Angela Davis speaking on this at talk 335 00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:22,439 Speaker 1: at the Center of Contemporary Culture in Barcelona. Everybody started 336 00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:25,960 Speaker 1: referring to me as a feminist, and my response was, 337 00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:32,200 Speaker 1: I'm not a feminist, you know, I'm a black revolutionary 338 00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:35,960 Speaker 1: because I didn't see how the two had anything to 339 00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:39,119 Speaker 1: do with each other. But I realized that I was 340 00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:45,359 Speaker 1: talking about a certain kind of feminism, a bourgeois feminism, 341 00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:51,800 Speaker 1: a feminism that is still white, white bourgeois feminism, which 342 00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:57,040 Speaker 1: is unfortunately the the most represented feminism today, and most 343 00:21:57,040 --> 00:22:00,919 Speaker 1: people think of that as feminism. But that ignores the 344 00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:06,560 Speaker 1: fact that huge numbers of organic and academic intellectuals who 345 00:22:06,560 --> 00:22:14,760 Speaker 1: are women of color have transform the very nature of feminism. 346 00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:19,480 Speaker 1: And the hallmark of feminism today is what we call intersectionality, 347 00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:26,359 Speaker 1: a recognition of the and not only not only the 348 00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:33,679 Speaker 1: inter relating um uh character of identities, but as I 349 00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:38,480 Speaker 1: frequently say, I think intersectionality is is most helpful when 350 00:22:38,480 --> 00:22:43,920 Speaker 1: we think about the intersectionality of social justice struggles. Queer 351 00:22:43,920 --> 00:22:47,840 Speaker 1: women experienced active hostility from the mainstream movement as well. 352 00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:52,359 Speaker 1: Activists Mercia Johnson and Sylvia Rivera organized for trans rights 353 00:22:52,359 --> 00:22:55,439 Speaker 1: with Star after Johnson had been a key figure at 354 00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:59,040 Speaker 1: the Stonewall Riots, and both worked with Degay Liberation Front 355 00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:04,120 Speaker 1: during these years. Betty free Dan was actively homophobic, referring 356 00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:08,680 Speaker 1: to lesbians as the quote unquote lavender menace in nineteen 357 00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:12,680 Speaker 1: sixty nine and did not welcome queer women into the Now, 358 00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:15,760 Speaker 1: and of course people were pissed. Rita May Brown, who 359 00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:18,320 Speaker 1: was a lesbian activist, broke off from the New York 360 00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:22,000 Speaker 1: branch of the Now and began radical lesbians who wore 361 00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:25,320 Speaker 1: t shirts that said lavender menace and staged an action 362 00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:28,680 Speaker 1: at the Second Congress to Unite Women in nineteen seventy, 363 00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:32,840 Speaker 1: an action that forced a discussion about homophobia and the 364 00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:36,840 Speaker 1: exclusion that lesbians experienced in society as well as within 365 00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:40,640 Speaker 1: the feminist movement. While some straight feminists with the liberal 366 00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:45,000 Speaker 1: mainstream movement, including Gloria Steinem, wanted to be more inclusive, 367 00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:50,000 Speaker 1: Betty fre Dan purged lesbians and lesbian sympathizers, as she 368 00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:53,440 Speaker 1: put it, from the now before in nineteen seventy one, 369 00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:56,560 Speaker 1: change was made to once again allow queer people into 370 00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:59,960 Speaker 1: the organization. So again, with the second wave of feminism, 371 00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:03,520 Speaker 1: there were radical and liberal wings with very different interests, 372 00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:08,560 Speaker 1: which created significant interior conflict. The Kathy comics are really 373 00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:12,639 Speaker 1: only engaging with this mainstream liberal movement, in no small 374 00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:15,760 Speaker 1: part because the strips author was a liberal white woman 375 00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:19,320 Speaker 1: in a majority middle class white area, writing to some 376 00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:24,119 Speaker 1: extent about her own experiences and opinions. Kathy strips do 377 00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:26,920 Speaker 1: not feature people of color or queer people, and it's 378 00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:31,680 Speaker 1: radicals like Andrea have politics that actually skewed pretty liberal. 379 00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:35,760 Speaker 1: This is exemplified in the consciousness raising sessions that Andrea 380 00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:39,520 Speaker 1: runs after work in the nineteen seventies, which Kathy originally 381 00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:42,560 Speaker 1: finds to be kind of naval, gazey and bizarre, although 382 00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:46,600 Speaker 1: she does give it a fair shake. Here's Andrea. Little 383 00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:49,920 Speaker 1: boys are always encouraged to boast about their achievement. Well, 384 00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:53,560 Speaker 1: little girls are scolded for boasting because it's unfeminine. But 385 00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:57,800 Speaker 1: with assertiveness training exercise number two, women can rediscover the 386 00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:00,960 Speaker 1: prad we have every right to express. Each one of 387 00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:03,480 Speaker 1: you will stand up and say out loud the one 388 00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:07,360 Speaker 1: thing you're most proud of yourself. I am very proud 389 00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:11,280 Speaker 1: of the fact that I have never boasted. Andrea goes 390 00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:14,200 Speaker 1: relatively hard in these early years. There's also a funny 391 00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:17,000 Speaker 1: storyline from the late seventies where she gets a job 392 00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:23,480 Speaker 1: as a mall Santa to challenge the patriarchal construct of Santa. 393 00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:27,160 Speaker 1: Actual radicalism at this time took a very different form 394 00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:31,120 Speaker 1: and often rejected consciousness raising groups on the same grounds 395 00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:33,800 Speaker 1: that Kathy did. And he thought they were two centered 396 00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:36,840 Speaker 1: on the self above the collective. Here's a quote I 397 00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:41,080 Speaker 1: love from the nineteen seventy anthology Sisterhood Is Powerful, from 398 00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:46,240 Speaker 1: radical feminist Robin Morgan. This is not a movement one joins. 399 00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:49,720 Speaker 1: There are no rigid structures or membership card. The women's 400 00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:53,200 Speaker 1: liberation movement exists where three or four friends or neighbors 401 00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:56,280 Speaker 1: decided to meet regularly over coffee and talk about their 402 00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,920 Speaker 1: personal lives. It also exists in the cells of women's jail, 403 00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:03,920 Speaker 1: the welfare lines, in the supermarket, the factory, the convent, 404 00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:07,680 Speaker 1: the farm, the maternity ward, the street corner, the old 405 00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:11,199 Speaker 1: Ladies home, the kitchen, the Steno pool, the bet. It 406 00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:14,200 Speaker 1: exists in your mind and in the political and personal 407 00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:17,760 Speaker 1: insights that you can contribute to change and shape and 408 00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:22,439 Speaker 1: help its growth. This interest in viewing consciousness raising as 409 00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:25,919 Speaker 1: a wider construct was not shared by all feminists, but 410 00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:28,760 Speaker 1: the emphasis that everyday lives of women should be up 411 00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:32,879 Speaker 1: for discussion definitely was. New York Radical Women member Carol 412 00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:37,000 Speaker 1: Hannish popularized the phrase the personal is political in the 413 00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:39,840 Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine essay, That is to say that women 414 00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:43,359 Speaker 1: speaking about their problems in marriage and access to healthcare, 415 00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:48,080 Speaker 1: in labor issues in appearance was important and emphasizing in 416 00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:51,360 Speaker 1: these groups that it was counterproductive to say that not 417 00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:55,200 Speaker 1: living up to this expected image was a personal instead 418 00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:59,080 Speaker 1: of a systemic failure. Sidebar, Hannish was just very cool 419 00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:01,840 Speaker 1: in general. He was one of four radical feminists who 420 00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:04,680 Speaker 1: hung a women's liberation banner over the balcony at a 421 00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:09,000 Speaker 1: Miss America pageant in ninety eight. Good stuff. So the 422 00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:13,679 Speaker 1: Kathy character is at first resistant towards consciousness raising because 423 00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:18,240 Speaker 1: of it's in her perspective, unwillingness to accept gradual change. 424 00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:21,359 Speaker 1: While she is open and even wants to feel better 425 00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:24,560 Speaker 1: about her station in life, she isn't a full women's 426 00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,000 Speaker 1: liber in the sense that she wants romantic love with 427 00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:29,920 Speaker 1: a man and has a tendency to not assert herself 428 00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:32,399 Speaker 1: in the relationships she cares about, as well as in 429 00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:37,119 Speaker 1: the workplace. The example of her screaming at a consciousness 430 00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,000 Speaker 1: raising session when the leader suggests that men should be 431 00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:43,720 Speaker 1: removed from women's lives altogether is a perfect example of this, 432 00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:46,840 Speaker 1: and Kathy guys White has a vested interest in exploring 433 00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:50,200 Speaker 1: how men reacted to the women's liberation movement taking off 434 00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:54,280 Speaker 1: through characters like irving Mr. Pinkley and the Parade of 435 00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:58,280 Speaker 1: Losers that Kathy dates and rejects throughout the nineteen seventies. 436 00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:02,640 Speaker 1: Also referenced in these strips is the then new term miss, 437 00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:06,320 Speaker 1: brought into the mainstream by feminist Sheila Michaels and popularize 438 00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:09,960 Speaker 1: further by Glorious Dynham's magazine of the same name. The 439 00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,720 Speaker 1: whole idea behind it is that women in the workplace 440 00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:15,960 Speaker 1: and in general shouldn't be pressured to disclose their marital 441 00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:19,399 Speaker 1: status when introducing themselves, and Cathy is on board with this. 442 00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,280 Speaker 1: When the Kathy character asks to be called ms in 443 00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:28,000 Speaker 1: the late seventies, a male employee comments this Mrs Mss 444 00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:32,560 Speaker 1: or miss miss oh you're single, then no, I'm miss 445 00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:35,280 Speaker 1: women invented miss, So you wouldn't be able to label 446 00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:38,440 Speaker 1: us as single or married. Well that may be, but 447 00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:42,720 Speaker 1: the only woman I see you actually use mss are single. Miss. Miss. 448 00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:45,040 Speaker 1: You don't know that I'm a miss? Yes, I do. 449 00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:47,680 Speaker 1: If you were married, you wouldn't worry so much about 450 00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:51,479 Speaker 1: being labeled single. This is what I think Kathy strips 451 00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:55,120 Speaker 1: do really well. Take this step forward for the feminist movement, 452 00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:58,640 Speaker 1: like a simple demand to not be defined by marital status, 453 00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:02,840 Speaker 1: and reflects how the institutions that resist these changes reacted, 454 00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:06,080 Speaker 1: usually in a way that makes our heroine feel less than. 455 00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:09,600 Speaker 1: This is also reflected in Cathy's relationship with Irving, a 456 00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:13,520 Speaker 1: man who is clearly uncomfortable with the changing role of 457 00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:16,600 Speaker 1: women in the world, and unlike some popular criticism would 458 00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:20,280 Speaker 1: lead you to believe, Irving's behavior was criticized within the strip, 459 00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,840 Speaker 1: although some took rateful issue with the Kathy character herself 460 00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:27,520 Speaker 1: absorbing a lot of toxic and abusive qualities stemming from 461 00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:31,200 Speaker 1: his own insecurities, and people were rightfully critical of the 462 00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:34,600 Speaker 1: fact that she married him for some reason. I digress. 463 00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:38,240 Speaker 1: Here is a late nineteen seventies strip with Irving and Kathy. 464 00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:41,840 Speaker 1: You want me around until you read some women's article, 465 00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,080 Speaker 1: and then all you care about is your career. Then 466 00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:46,719 Speaker 1: you get disillusioned by your career and you search for 467 00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:49,080 Speaker 1: some big romance to give meaning to your life. You 468 00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:51,760 Speaker 1: do yo yo's. You beg me to come back. I 469 00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:55,880 Speaker 1: come back, I threaten your space, you throw me out. 470 00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:58,959 Speaker 1: You don't even know what you want. Kathy at last, 471 00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:04,280 Speaker 1: a man who really understands me. Something that's always really 472 00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:08,880 Speaker 1: fun is seeing Irving's character get torn to shreds whenever 473 00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:11,280 Speaker 1: he comes into contact with Andrea, who thinks that he 474 00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:13,320 Speaker 1: is not good enough for Kathy, all the way up 475 00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:15,640 Speaker 1: until the two marry in two thousand five. Here's a 476 00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:18,360 Speaker 1: seventies era interaction with the two of them, with Cathy 477 00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:25,400 Speaker 1: sitting silently beside Irving. Throughout history, women have been suppressed, repressed, 478 00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:31,280 Speaker 1: and oppressed. Irving, We've had miserable jobs, hideous pay, humiliating benefits, 479 00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,400 Speaker 1: and not one shred of respect as close to equal 480 00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:38,080 Speaker 1: human beings. What possible injustice is? Do you think men 481 00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:42,440 Speaker 1: have suffered that even come close? We never learned to cry. 482 00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:46,160 Speaker 1: You never had anything to cry about. While the Equal 483 00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:49,760 Speaker 1: Rights Amendment ultimately failed. The nineteen seventies proved to be 484 00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:53,240 Speaker 1: a very productive time for American feminists. According to Fluty, 485 00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,600 Speaker 1: millions more women entered the workplace, the wage gap closed 486 00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:00,520 Speaker 1: to about seventy for upwardly mobile white women in let's 487 00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:04,080 Speaker 1: be clear, access to birth control increased. Title nine pass 488 00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:07,360 Speaker 1: which welcomed women into high school and collegiate sports. The 489 00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:10,880 Speaker 1: Equal Credit Opportunity Act of nineteen seventy four was passed, 490 00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:14,160 Speaker 1: which banned discrimination in access to credit on the basis 491 00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:19,040 Speaker 1: of gender, marital status, race, religion, national origin, and age. 492 00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:22,680 Speaker 1: There was, of course, row View eight, the ninety three 493 00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:27,240 Speaker 1: Supreme Court decision that finally four now gave people with 494 00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:29,880 Speaker 1: uterus as the right to get an abortion for up 495 00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:34,800 Speaker 1: to three months. This movement absolutely lacked in intersectionality and 496 00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:38,160 Speaker 1: solidarity with women of color and with queer women, and 497 00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:41,880 Speaker 1: the Cathy character benefits from much of the progress of 498 00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:45,200 Speaker 1: this time. As a middle class white woman, she is 499 00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:48,440 Speaker 1: able to eventually buy her own home. As a single woman, 500 00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:52,080 Speaker 1: she ascends in the workplace. She struggles and fails to 501 00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:55,000 Speaker 1: get equal pay, but at least isn't legally barred from 502 00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,720 Speaker 1: pursuing it technically, and that is how the comic plays 503 00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:00,880 Speaker 1: out in the seventies, but by the end of the 504 00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:04,720 Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, the second wave feminist movement was considered to 505 00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:07,480 Speaker 1: have ended. And it's when we get into Kathy's strips 506 00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:10,440 Speaker 1: from the nineteen eighties that I think the strip really 507 00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,680 Speaker 1: hits its stride. While Kathy comics were never designed to 508 00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:18,800 Speaker 1: communicate or promote radical feminism, the semi autobiographical format was 509 00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:21,720 Speaker 1: well equipped to comment on the backlash to second wave 510 00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:25,360 Speaker 1: feminism that took place throughout the nineteen eighties. As a 511 00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,800 Speaker 1: general rule, Kathy was a reactor to trends, not a 512 00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:32,480 Speaker 1: creator of trends, sort of an ancestor to the hashtag 513 00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:37,440 Speaker 1: relatable content that haunts a million abandoned Instagram pages today. 514 00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:40,280 Speaker 1: In the nineteen eighties, as Reagan came into power, the 515 00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:43,560 Speaker 1: vast majority of American women saw the winds of the 516 00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:47,760 Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, and those who had advocated for them treated punitively. 517 00:32:48,040 --> 00:32:51,520 Speaker 1: Here's how Susan Faludi describes the concept of backlash in 518 00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:56,480 Speaker 1: a forward to a new edition of her book. The 519 00:32:56,560 --> 00:33:00,240 Speaker 1: backlash against Women's rights works in much the same way. 520 00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:04,240 Speaker 1: Its rhetoric charges feminists with all the crimes it perpetrates. 521 00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:08,000 Speaker 1: The backlash line blames the women's movement for the feminization 522 00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:11,920 Speaker 1: of poverty, while the backlash is own instigators in Washington 523 00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:15,240 Speaker 1: pushed through the budget cutch that helped impoverish millions of women, 524 00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:19,840 Speaker 1: thought pay equity proposals and undermine equal opportunity laws. The 525 00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,880 Speaker 1: backlash line claims the women's movement cares nothing for children's rights, 526 00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:27,400 Speaker 1: while its own representatives in the capital and state legislatures 527 00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:31,520 Speaker 1: have blocked one bill after another to improve childcare, slashed 528 00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:34,640 Speaker 1: billions of dollars in federal aid for children, and relax 529 00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:38,360 Speaker 1: state licensing standards for daycare centers. The backlash line accuses 530 00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:42,120 Speaker 1: of the women's movement of creating a generation of unhappy, 531 00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:45,520 Speaker 1: single and childless women, but its purveyors in the media 532 00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:48,200 Speaker 1: are the ones guilty of making single and childless women 533 00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,560 Speaker 1: feel like circus fruits. To blame feminism for women's blesser 534 00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:56,240 Speaker 1: lives is to miss entirely the point of feminism, which 535 00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:59,480 Speaker 1: is to win women a wide range of experience. Feminism 536 00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:04,480 Speaker 1: remains a pretty simple concept, despite repeated and enormously effective 537 00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:06,960 Speaker 1: efforts to dress it up in grease paint and turn 538 00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:12,720 Speaker 1: its proponents into gargoyles. Oh. This backlash of the nineteen 539 00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:18,160 Speaker 1: eighties manifested both in large, systemic and small, innocuous, everyday ways. 540 00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:20,759 Speaker 1: For as close as the Second Feminist had seemed to 541 00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:24,560 Speaker 1: passing the Equal Rights Amendment just years earlier, there was 542 00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:28,640 Speaker 1: significant pushback from the evangelical right and from former allies 543 00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:32,120 Speaker 1: of the feminist movement throughout the decade. Cathy's strips focus 544 00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:36,520 Speaker 1: on the more innocuous but still clear backlash, partially as 545 00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:39,440 Speaker 1: a privilege of her race and class, and personally because 546 00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:42,800 Speaker 1: nothing too depressing was really tolerated in the funny pages 547 00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:45,200 Speaker 1: at that time. One of the things she addresses is 548 00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:49,000 Speaker 1: a severe uptick and sexual harassment in the nineteen eighties workplace, 549 00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:53,280 Speaker 1: as demonstrated by Cathy's boss, Mr. Pinkley, harassing and pressuring 550 00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:56,720 Speaker 1: her to let him into her home. In two, Cathy, 551 00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:59,520 Speaker 1: being way cooler than anyone ever, gave her credit for 552 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,160 Speaker 1: chi him in the face. He is not punished for this, 553 00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:05,880 Speaker 1: but Charlene and Cathy then begin a whisper network in 554 00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:08,520 Speaker 1: the workplace to protect others from it happening to them. 555 00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:11,600 Speaker 1: In the first episode, we touched on Andrea's reaction in 556 00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:15,320 Speaker 1: trying to motivate Cathy to advocate for herself in the aftermath. 557 00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:19,960 Speaker 1: Here's the slice of that strip. All right, then, what 558 00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:22,920 Speaker 1: are you going to do about Mr Pinkley. I'll show him. 559 00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:29,800 Speaker 1: I'll quit my job. That wrong, wrong, wrong. The hopelessness 560 00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:33,960 Speaker 1: of this situation is very Eighties Women who pursued justice 561 00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:36,880 Speaker 1: after being harassed at work were often met with well, 562 00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:41,040 Speaker 1: no job and further harassment. To this end, Andrea takes 563 00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:44,280 Speaker 1: center stage in the comic strips commentary on the struggle 564 00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:49,080 Speaker 1: of working mothers, specifically with maternity leave. Andrea began as 565 00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:53,200 Speaker 1: almost a parody of nineteen seventies women's livers, originally vowing 566 00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:56,360 Speaker 1: to focus on her career and ignore dating in children, 567 00:35:56,480 --> 00:35:58,680 Speaker 1: but she has a change of heart in the nineteen eighties. 568 00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,560 Speaker 1: She gets married and has her first child, Zenith. By 569 00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:03,960 Speaker 1: the end of the decade, the comic basic clear that 570 00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:08,239 Speaker 1: this isn't a betrayal of her values. Andrea's personality and 571 00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:11,839 Speaker 1: tireless advocacy for women continues, both in the way that 572 00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:15,200 Speaker 1: she ensures her marriage to husband Luke remains an equitable 573 00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,200 Speaker 1: one and with her attempts to retain her power in 574 00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:21,680 Speaker 1: the workplace while raising her daughter. After giving birth to Zenith. 575 00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:25,400 Speaker 1: Andrea returns to work to confirm her maternity leave, only 576 00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:29,400 Speaker 1: to discover there is no maternity leave. Here's a strip 577 00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:33,680 Speaker 1: from with Andrea talking to the secretary at her work. 578 00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:37,200 Speaker 1: What do I fill out to begin my maternity leave? 579 00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:42,839 Speaker 1: We have no maternity leave here? What no leave, no pay, 580 00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:45,600 Speaker 1: no job? When you come back, I think I'm going 581 00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:48,759 Speaker 1: to be sick. Better say it. You only have three 582 00:36:48,880 --> 00:37:06,000 Speaker 1: days of paid sick time coming. Andrea then goes to 583 00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:09,400 Speaker 1: her boss to confirm that she was never guaranteed maternity 584 00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:13,160 Speaker 1: leave and it's true. Personnel confirms that she can either quit, 585 00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:17,640 Speaker 1: be fired, go broke, hiring childcare, or collapse from exhaustion 586 00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,479 Speaker 1: doing it herself. She takes some time off without pay 587 00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:24,000 Speaker 1: and returns to work again, asking to build back up 588 00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:27,040 Speaker 1: to her normal workload while keeping Zenith at work to 589 00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:31,320 Speaker 1: avoid expensive childcare she can't afford. But this time she's 590 00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:34,959 Speaker 1: told her job has been given away altogether. In this trip, 591 00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:38,520 Speaker 1: she's holding baby Zenith in her arms, and as someone 592 00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:42,239 Speaker 1: trying to raise a young feminist herself, she's furious. Here 593 00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:45,560 Speaker 1: she is talking to the same secretary, How could you 594 00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:49,560 Speaker 1: give my job away? Companies aren't required to hold jobs 595 00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:53,160 Speaker 1: for women who take time off to have babies. Andrea, well, 596 00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:57,840 Speaker 1: that's ridiculous of the whole labor forces woman and of 597 00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:02,040 Speaker 1: us will have children. This is six. Let's just say 598 00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:07,520 Speaker 1: this company believes in old fashioned values. What they found 599 00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:11,080 Speaker 1: someone who would take your job for a nineteen fifty salary. 600 00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:14,799 Speaker 1: Andrea is using real statistics from six here. And she 601 00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:17,719 Speaker 1: goes to the matt fighting for parental leave in her workplace, 602 00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:21,280 Speaker 1: but ultimately loses in spite of the millions of mothers 603 00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,960 Speaker 1: in this same era that we're facing the same issue. 604 00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:27,000 Speaker 1: She tries to raise en in a gender neutral environment, 605 00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:29,200 Speaker 1: but she fails at this too. The toys of this 606 00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:32,640 Speaker 1: time are extremely binary, and she ends up giving up 607 00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:36,320 Speaker 1: due to lack of options and energy. Is that an 608 00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:42,240 Speaker 1: inspiring or motivational storyline. No, it's very bleak. And Andrea 609 00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:44,600 Speaker 1: goes on to work as a tempt for six fifty 610 00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:47,239 Speaker 1: an hour. But the thing is this was reflective of 611 00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:50,640 Speaker 1: a very real possibility for working women of this time. 612 00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:54,600 Speaker 1: Andrea comes into play again when campaigning from Michael Dukakis 613 00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:59,280 Speaker 1: in his presidential bid against George Bush, Sr. Enlisting Kathy 614 00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:02,239 Speaker 1: in the efforts as well. As I mentioned in episode one, 615 00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:06,760 Speaker 1: including an overt political endorsement, got the Kathy strip dropped 616 00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:09,960 Speaker 1: from some papers and moved to the editorial pages by 617 00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,160 Speaker 1: other papers. But Kathy guys White and her characters held 618 00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:16,560 Speaker 1: firm as fluty notes in Backlash, du Caccus with later 619 00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:19,759 Speaker 1: pretty severely backpedal on his promise to working women in 620 00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:21,800 Speaker 1: pearance by the end of his bid and a failed 621 00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:24,759 Speaker 1: attempt to gain wider support, and so a decade after 622 00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:28,560 Speaker 1: Andrea was dutifully raising consciousness in her community, she was 623 00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:30,960 Speaker 1: a married mother who had been all but banished from 624 00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:33,840 Speaker 1: the successful career she'd spent a decade building, and she 625 00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:37,160 Speaker 1: was understandably piste off about it. Unfortunately, she starts to 626 00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:39,440 Speaker 1: fade from the comics as the years go on, but 627 00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:42,879 Speaker 1: the storylines involving Andrea in the seventies and eighties are 628 00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:46,160 Speaker 1: truly some of my favorites. A lot of Kathy and 629 00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:49,799 Speaker 1: Andrea's friendship is built around the cost of cards. That is, 630 00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:52,560 Speaker 1: the woman who has it all, someone who is a 631 00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:56,160 Speaker 1: career woman, a domestic goddess, and a doting mother, all 632 00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:58,759 Speaker 1: without breaking a sweat. As the comic goes on, Guy's 633 00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:02,520 Speaker 1: Whites commentary is clear not only is this an unrealistic 634 00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:07,160 Speaker 1: expectation for anyone, but the powers that be in the workplace, government, 635 00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:11,240 Speaker 1: and often a woman's own home were sometimes actively working 636 00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:14,040 Speaker 1: against this being a possibility, and so in the nineteen 637 00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:16,720 Speaker 1: eighties we see a lot of Cappy feeling bad about 638 00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:19,799 Speaker 1: herself when asked by pop culture to compare herself to 639 00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:22,880 Speaker 1: other women. To put that in context, a huge component 640 00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:26,640 Speaker 1: of backlash against social causes is an increased focus on 641 00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:31,280 Speaker 1: consumerism and self improvement through things like observing fashion trends, 642 00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:34,400 Speaker 1: investing in self help books, and joining health clubs and 643 00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:40,960 Speaker 1: gyms versus collectively organizing helping run, listen to world, Get 644 00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:46,160 Speaker 1: you showing the world what you can do. Get in 645 00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:54,520 Speaker 1: shape her you love feeling. Get it in shape. It's 646 00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:57,359 Speaker 1: so feeling and run. Let's see what ju the wait 647 00:40:57,400 --> 00:40:59,800 Speaker 1: if you work out? Twisted to All comes at formatons 648 00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:04,399 Speaker 1: It's I'll be doing a whole episode on Kathy Guys 649 00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:08,040 Speaker 1: Whites commentary on food, fashion, and beauty later in this series. 650 00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:11,319 Speaker 1: But even outside of the advertising blitz that defined and 651 00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,640 Speaker 1: distracted so many in the nineties, it's interesting to watch 652 00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:17,960 Speaker 1: the Kathy character constantly feel that she isn't living up 653 00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:21,000 Speaker 1: to the standards that she's supposed to, standards that are 654 00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:24,920 Speaker 1: basically impossible to achieve. Here's a strip from the early eighties, 655 00:41:25,200 --> 00:41:28,120 Speaker 1: Kathy sitting on her armchair at home watching a TV 656 00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:31,920 Speaker 1: show that says this, Welcome to the Women's Hour, and 657 00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:35,920 Speaker 1: now here's your host, Mr Bob Black. Hello, we're talking 658 00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:39,440 Speaker 1: to Margie Miller, married, mother of two, founder and president 659 00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:42,560 Speaker 1: of a small manufacturing empire, and author of two best 660 00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:46,120 Speaker 1: selling novels and three plays. Margie at age nine, and 661 00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:48,279 Speaker 1: with all this going on, how in the world do 662 00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:51,839 Speaker 1: you have time to be on our show today? Margie says, Oh, 663 00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:54,320 Speaker 1: it's nothing, Bob. The little ones are at their Greek 664 00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:56,880 Speaker 1: literature workshop and the opera I have a small pardon 665 00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:00,400 Speaker 1: doesn't begin until seven o'clock. He replies, well, must have 666 00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:02,920 Speaker 1: a lot of help at home. As the show continues, 667 00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:07,640 Speaker 1: Kathy begins to sink down in her chair, Margie says, actually, 668 00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,800 Speaker 1: I find a well organized house rends itself. Of course, 669 00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:12,560 Speaker 1: it has to be a bit cluttered because of the 670 00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:16,000 Speaker 1: addition I'm building this week. The host says, my, my, 671 00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:19,360 Speaker 1: you don't do anything the traditional way, do you. Kathy 672 00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:23,880 Speaker 1: grabs her TV in anxiety. Margie says no, not unless 673 00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:26,480 Speaker 1: you count the two fifty sweater sets nit each year 674 00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:30,040 Speaker 1: for needy causes. The host says, Margie, thank you so 675 00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:32,560 Speaker 1: much for being with us today. And the last panel, 676 00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:36,239 Speaker 1: Kathy is sobbing in front of her TV as the 677 00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,360 Speaker 1: host says, it's women like you who are helping women 678 00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:43,759 Speaker 1: all over the world feel better about themselves. I love it. 679 00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:46,960 Speaker 1: This came from a very personal place for guys White, 680 00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:51,800 Speaker 1: who wrote on this, saying in Syrie, we all say 681 00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:56,680 Speaker 1: we've rejected the notion of being superwoman. In practice, I 682 00:42:56,719 --> 00:42:59,719 Speaker 1: don't know anyone who isn't still trying. Kathy, Guys White, 683 00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:02,439 Speaker 1: was you meekly suited to comment on this time? Here? 684 00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:06,080 Speaker 1: She is to the Detroit Free Press when asked about 685 00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:10,239 Speaker 1: her works views on feminism, Kathy puts feminism in a 686 00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:13,560 Speaker 1: light that's more acceptable to many women than the hardline 687 00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:19,360 Speaker 1: feminism that turns some women off. It's true Kathy is vulnerable. 688 00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:23,880 Speaker 1: She doesn't win all the time. She's always trying to 689 00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:28,560 Speaker 1: improve her life, and she often falls short of her goals. 690 00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:30,600 Speaker 1: Some may say that's a bad way to portray the 691 00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:34,680 Speaker 1: new woman. Well, I say it's realistic. I know no 692 00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:38,680 Speaker 1: woman who has it totally together, and I think that's okay. 693 00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:41,640 Speaker 1: I think you can be a feminist and still balance 694 00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:44,239 Speaker 1: your checkbook by changing banks every six months or so. 695 00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:47,319 Speaker 1: I think you can still be a feminist and eat 696 00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:50,799 Speaker 1: frozen donuts right out of the freezer and still say 697 00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,600 Speaker 1: yes when you mean no, or no when you mean yes. 698 00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:58,560 Speaker 1: My goal is to keep Kathy honest and close to 699 00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:03,920 Speaker 1: real life. But declaring yourself a feminist was not necessarily 700 00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:06,680 Speaker 1: a very cool thing to do in the eighties. It's 701 00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:09,680 Speaker 1: no secret that women are not a monolith, and many 702 00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:13,200 Speaker 1: have upheld their own oppression for power, profit, or just 703 00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:17,640 Speaker 1: fun over the years. Phillish Laughley emerged as the big 704 00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:20,480 Speaker 1: bat of the feminist movement in the nineteen seventies and 705 00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:24,799 Speaker 1: successfully campaigned against the Equal Rights Amendment so hard that 706 00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:27,560 Speaker 1: Kate Blanchett played her on a TV show and Women 707 00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:31,880 Speaker 1: Have No Rights Awesome. The eighties uplifted many women, mostly white, 708 00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:35,480 Speaker 1: who denounced the feminist gains of the seventies while visibly 709 00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:38,840 Speaker 1: benefiting from those same gains. That is to say, the 710 00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:42,799 Speaker 1: reason that many of these women, including Phillis Shlaughley, were 711 00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:46,640 Speaker 1: able to become such prominent anti feminists was because they 712 00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:50,120 Speaker 1: had child care and support to focus on their careers. 713 00:44:50,440 --> 00:44:54,520 Speaker 1: You know things feminists fought for. So while feminism wasn't 714 00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:58,000 Speaker 1: trendy in the nineteen eighties, to say the least, that 715 00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:01,399 Speaker 1: doesn't mean that feminists weren't doing an important work during 716 00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:05,720 Speaker 1: this time. In Bell Hooks published From Margin to Center, 717 00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:09,320 Speaker 1: which included a strong critique of the feminine mystique, saying 718 00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:12,160 Speaker 1: that it was solely concerned with the interests of upwardly 719 00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:16,360 Speaker 1: mobile white women. Hooks wrote this Free Dan's famous phrase, 720 00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:19,640 Speaker 1: the problem that has no name, often quoted to describe 721 00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:22,560 Speaker 1: the condition of women in the society, actually refers to 722 00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:25,680 Speaker 1: the plight of a select group of college educated, middle 723 00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:30,320 Speaker 1: and upper class married white women, housewives, wood with leisure, 724 00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:34,120 Speaker 1: with the home, with children, buying products when and more 725 00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:37,840 Speaker 1: out of life. Free Dance concludes her first chapter by stating, 726 00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:41,320 Speaker 1: but we can no longer ignore that voice within women 727 00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:45,239 Speaker 1: that says I want something more than my husband and 728 00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:50,960 Speaker 1: my children and my home. That more she defines as careers. 729 00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:53,640 Speaker 1: She did not discuss who would be called in to 730 00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:56,799 Speaker 1: take care of the children and maintain the home if 731 00:45:56,840 --> 00:45:59,560 Speaker 1: more women like herself were freed from their house labor 732 00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,840 Speaker 1: and given equal access with white men to the professions. 733 00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:05,719 Speaker 1: She did not ask of the needs of women without men, 734 00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:10,000 Speaker 1: without children, without alblems. She ignored the existence of all 735 00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:13,239 Speaker 1: non white women and poor white women. She did not 736 00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:16,319 Speaker 1: tell readers whether it was more fulfilling to be a maid, 737 00:46:16,680 --> 00:46:21,160 Speaker 1: a babysitter, a factory worker, a clerk, or prostitute than 738 00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:25,640 Speaker 1: to be a leisure class housewife. The closest Kathy's trips 739 00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:29,480 Speaker 1: come to addressing these concerns are through Charlene. Charlene is 740 00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:32,120 Speaker 1: Cathy's best friend at work and eventually her maid of honor, 741 00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:34,080 Speaker 1: and was a stand in for a woman who was 742 00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:37,440 Speaker 1: relegated to jobs that many feminists referred to as pink 743 00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:42,360 Speaker 1: collar secretarial jobs, grossly underpaid and undervalued in spite of 744 00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:45,440 Speaker 1: their importance to the workplace. Charlene has a story in 745 00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:48,200 Speaker 1: the late eighties about her status as the lowest paid 746 00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:52,040 Speaker 1: employee in the Product Testing Incorporated office. She advocates for 747 00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:55,960 Speaker 1: herself her lack of pay, respect, and career mobility every 748 00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:59,120 Speaker 1: secretaries week, and it's a running joke in the comic 749 00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:02,839 Speaker 1: that her circumtan dance never changes. Even Cathy dismisses her 750 00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:05,880 Speaker 1: concerns in a very upper management I pretend I do 751 00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:09,680 Speaker 1: not see it kind of way. Here's a strip. When 752 00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:12,520 Speaker 1: I started here at ten thousand dollars a year, they 753 00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:15,600 Speaker 1: got me a three thousand dollar typewriter to type on. 754 00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:18,479 Speaker 1: The yearly could only give me a two hundred dollar raise, 755 00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:21,920 Speaker 1: they bought a two hundred thousand dollar phone system for 756 00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:24,680 Speaker 1: me to operate. The year I got e three hundred 757 00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:28,319 Speaker 1: dollar raise, they bought an eleven thousand dollar copy or 758 00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:32,160 Speaker 1: a four thousand dollar fax machine, and a one million, 759 00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:35,839 Speaker 1: five hundred thousand dollar computer system for me to use. 760 00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:38,320 Speaker 1: Why do I get the feeling I'd be more valuable 761 00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:41,400 Speaker 1: to this company if I came with a plug. Kathy 762 00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:44,840 Speaker 1: guys White is again addressing a very real nineteen eighties 763 00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:47,759 Speaker 1: trend here. While those who wanted feminist to shut up 764 00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,440 Speaker 1: about workplace harassment and the pay gap cited figures indicating 765 00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:54,800 Speaker 1: that women's presence in the workplace had increased, they tended 766 00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:58,040 Speaker 1: to not get specific about where they were in the workplace. 767 00:47:58,200 --> 00:48:01,160 Speaker 1: And it's not surprising why, but eighteen eighty six, a 768 00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:04,319 Speaker 1: higher rate of working women were receiving poverty wages than 769 00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:07,880 Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three. In areas like the secretarial pool 770 00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:12,800 Speaker 1: were overwhelmed with women, and historically, gender segregation by profession 771 00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:16,800 Speaker 1: means that marginalized genders are making much less money for 772 00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,520 Speaker 1: equal work. Charlene remained the secretary throughout the comic and 773 00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:23,840 Speaker 1: is extremely good at her job, but never treated fairly, 774 00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:26,760 Speaker 1: and by the end of the Backlash eighties, Kathy's strips 775 00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:29,880 Speaker 1: were often focused around existing in the wreckage of the 776 00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:33,880 Speaker 1: feminist backlash and the dissonance that it created in women's lives. 777 00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,560 Speaker 1: Here's a strip with Kathy and Charlene from that hits 778 00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:42,200 Speaker 1: on this theme exactly. I'm going to read the captions. 779 00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:45,960 Speaker 1: While their friends got engaged, they got promoted. While their 780 00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,440 Speaker 1: friends took Lama's class and made dinner, they took meetings 781 00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:52,640 Speaker 1: and did lunch. Some call them the lost generation of women. 782 00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:56,400 Speaker 1: Others say their time has just now come after years 783 00:48:56,440 --> 00:49:00,080 Speaker 1: of devoting themselves to developing careers. The over thirties that 784 00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:04,640 Speaker 1: emerges this march like the first flowers of spring, brave, confident, 785 00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:08,799 Speaker 1: proud and ready for love. And then we see Charlene 786 00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:12,360 Speaker 1: and Cathy. Their outfits are a lot of They're holding 787 00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:14,920 Speaker 1: diet cookies. Cathy's wearing a shade shirt that says, I 788 00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:19,040 Speaker 1: heart lean cuisine. They're just decked out in eighties consumerism. 789 00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:24,800 Speaker 1: The comic concludes the debutante class of By the beginning 790 00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:27,960 Speaker 1: of the nineties, George Bush Senior was president, the third 791 00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:30,839 Speaker 1: wave of feminism was on the horizon, and Kathy guys 792 00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:34,960 Speaker 1: White used Andrea's waspy helicopter parenting to poke some fun 793 00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:38,000 Speaker 1: at how many upper class white feminists had taken to 794 00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:41,160 Speaker 1: raising their kids. Most feel the third wave of feminism 795 00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:45,279 Speaker 1: began around when Anita Hill spoke to an all white 796 00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:49,560 Speaker 1: Supreme Court about being harassed by Judge Clarence Thomas. Guyswhite 797 00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:53,880 Speaker 1: was extremely interested in commenting on how sexual harassment affected 798 00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:57,560 Speaker 1: the workplace, interestingly, not how it affected the women in 799 00:49:57,600 --> 00:50:00,360 Speaker 1: the workplace, who are all well aware that the happened 800 00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:03,160 Speaker 1: all the time, but she focuses instead on the men's 801 00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:07,120 Speaker 1: reaction to realizing that there could be consequences for their behavior. 802 00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:10,640 Speaker 1: You might remember that Cathy had been sexually assaulted by 803 00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:14,000 Speaker 1: her boss, Mr. Pinkley in her own house in two 804 00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:16,440 Speaker 1: when he forced a kiss on her, she punched his 805 00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:20,240 Speaker 1: lights out, But the Mr. Pinkley character remained this lovable 806 00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:24,400 Speaker 1: misogynist boss in the workplace throughout the comic. And Mr 807 00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:28,640 Speaker 1: Pinkley and Cathy's other male co workers could not handle 808 00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:31,360 Speaker 1: the fall out of the Anita Hill hearing. Here's a 809 00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:36,480 Speaker 1: strip from as you know, this office has always prided 810 00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:40,560 Speaker 1: itself on its progressive attitude toward women. While most companies 811 00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:44,560 Speaker 1: rushed into discussions about sexual harassment right after the Thomas 812 00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:47,760 Speaker 1: Hill incident, I felt we all needed a few weeks 813 00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:52,560 Speaker 1: for personal reflection. By waiting until today, I believe I've 814 00:50:52,840 --> 00:50:57,160 Speaker 1: once again demonstrated my profound sensitivity to the feelings of 815 00:50:57,200 --> 00:51:01,600 Speaker 1: the women in our workplace. And according to my wall calendar, 816 00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:04,600 Speaker 1: the majority of you are now safely past your p 817 00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:10,480 Speaker 1: MS days. Jeez. Later in this storyline, Pinkley uses what 818 00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:13,560 Speaker 1: I am assuming his company money to bring the men 819 00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:17,000 Speaker 1: at the company on a retreat to quote unquote reclaim 820 00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:19,840 Speaker 1: their manhood. By the time it's over, the men have 821 00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:23,759 Speaker 1: learned nothing, but they have taken a free vacation with 822 00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:26,880 Speaker 1: company money. And that might sound ridiculous, but it's based 823 00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:30,040 Speaker 1: in the real life bizarro work of Robert Bly, a 824 00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:34,720 Speaker 1: poet who became the founder of the New Age Masculinist community. 825 00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:40,080 Speaker 1: I want to turn men into men again. He would 826 00:51:40,120 --> 00:51:43,400 Speaker 1: do this by having men pay him three hundred dollars. 827 00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:45,520 Speaker 1: The grift is strong, meet him in the middle of 828 00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:48,480 Speaker 1: nowhere in Minnesota, and would then encourage them to find 829 00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:52,920 Speaker 1: the deep masculine through wearing wild animal costumes and walking 830 00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:56,080 Speaker 1: around on all fours. This was a real thing after 831 00:51:56,160 --> 00:51:58,919 Speaker 1: the Anita Hill hearings. Most of what Kathy guys White 832 00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:03,160 Speaker 1: discusses about women issues are related to beauty standards, diet culture, 833 00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:07,000 Speaker 1: changing fashion trends, and the commodification of radical movements like 834 00:52:07,239 --> 00:52:10,400 Speaker 1: Riot Girls by Fast Fashion, but there are solid moments 835 00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:13,839 Speaker 1: of workplace commentary as well. In guy's White's view, much 836 00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:17,080 Speaker 1: of the financial gain that women, mostly white women, had 837 00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:20,560 Speaker 1: made in middle management was squandered trying to achieve an 838 00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:25,080 Speaker 1: unrealistic beauty standard that was pretty rigidly imposed in the workplace. 839 00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:27,400 Speaker 1: Here's a strip from the late nineties to that effect, 840 00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:30,520 Speaker 1: from a collection called I Am Woman, Hear Me Snore. 841 00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:34,200 Speaker 1: In it, Kathy is attempting to write off these expenses 842 00:52:34,239 --> 00:52:38,000 Speaker 1: on her taxes any deductions this year for the extra 843 00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:41,080 Speaker 1: expenses women incur trying to dress appropriately for the twenty 844 00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:44,360 Speaker 1: different images were supposed to maintain any write offs for 845 00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:48,000 Speaker 1: the unpaid time women suspend, creating relationships, without which there'd 846 00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:51,439 Speaker 1: be no family values, because there'd be no families, any 847 00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:54,440 Speaker 1: allowances whatsoever. For the fact that our nation would screech 848 00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:57,359 Speaker 1: to a halt of it weren't for the underpaid, overworked 849 00:52:57,400 --> 00:53:01,719 Speaker 1: women cheerfully waiting through the mark. Forget Uncle Sam, what 850 00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:05,520 Speaker 1: this country needs is an aunt Samantha. Kathy would remain 851 00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:08,239 Speaker 1: in print for the remainder of the third wave of feminism, 852 00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:11,120 Speaker 1: which ended around two thousand ten, when the comic did 853 00:53:11,320 --> 00:53:13,319 Speaker 1: and she does comment on a fair amount of things 854 00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:17,520 Speaker 1: going on. Third wave feminism was more inclusive, while still 855 00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:20,279 Speaker 1: having a strong tendency to center white women. There were 856 00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:23,239 Speaker 1: many critiques from women of color and trans women in particular. 857 00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:26,880 Speaker 1: As gate keeping and the feminist movement continued, the riot 858 00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:29,360 Speaker 1: girl movement took off in the nineties, with bands like 859 00:53:29,400 --> 00:53:32,799 Speaker 1: Bikini Kill, Free Kitten, and Bratt Mobile using both their 860 00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:36,160 Speaker 1: music and their determination to remain d I y to 861 00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:42,000 Speaker 1: release politicized material and communicate their ideas even further using zines. 862 00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:46,560 Speaker 1: The Riot Girl Zine created in Washington, d C. Were 863 00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:50,160 Speaker 1: made and distributed by punk girls, for whom MS magazine 864 00:53:50,200 --> 00:53:53,600 Speaker 1: had long become stale. For Kathleen Hannah, the front woman 865 00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:57,120 Speaker 1: of Bikini Kill had become activated as a feminist after reading, 866 00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:01,000 Speaker 1: oddly enough, the feminine Mystique, and she became a major 867 00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:04,839 Speaker 1: advocate for including sex workers in the feminist movement as well, 868 00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:08,399 Speaker 1: which gatekeepers of the Second Wave had not been enthusiastic 869 00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:12,279 Speaker 1: about in the least. With this progressive surge also came 870 00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:16,680 Speaker 1: the intense commercialism of feminist ideals in the nineties. This 871 00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:20,920 Speaker 1: meant spice girls, gil Power, Disney princesses of the nineties 872 00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:25,680 Speaker 1: having discernible personality is sure, but also existing in very 873 00:54:25,800 --> 00:54:31,080 Speaker 1: rigid societal roles in heterosexual relationships still you aren't you 874 00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:36,719 Speaker 1: distress and a damsel? And in distress I can handle this. 875 00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:41,520 Speaker 1: These moves were often viewed as cynical, with male executives 876 00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:45,280 Speaker 1: still the primary people and beneficiaries of choices like these. 877 00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:49,279 Speaker 1: Watered Down feminist values often became more of a marketable 878 00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:54,520 Speaker 1: tagline than an actual consideration in moving things forward. This 879 00:54:54,800 --> 00:54:59,319 Speaker 1: still happens now. So while an attempt, I don't think 880 00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:02,800 Speaker 1: that gil how A feminism really accomplished that much, because 881 00:55:02,840 --> 00:55:06,400 Speaker 1: as it was happening, a slew of nineties tabloid stars 882 00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:08,960 Speaker 1: were dragged through the mud by the emerging twenty four 883 00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:11,320 Speaker 1: hour news cycle in a way that many are starting 884 00:55:11,400 --> 00:55:14,400 Speaker 1: to scrutinize today. I think you're Anita Hills, think you're 885 00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:18,120 Speaker 1: Tanya Harding's your Monica Lewinsky's your Amy Fisher's your Janet 886 00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:21,440 Speaker 1: Jackson's shout out to the year wrong About podcast You 887 00:55:21,520 --> 00:55:25,000 Speaker 1: probably listen already. Women of the second and third waves 888 00:55:25,040 --> 00:55:29,000 Speaker 1: of feminism were also very often at odds. Many Second 889 00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:32,480 Speaker 1: waivers felt that third wave feminists, who were the first 890 00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:35,440 Speaker 1: generation to grow up with the benefits that the movement 891 00:55:35,440 --> 00:55:39,160 Speaker 1: had made, did not appreciate the work and sacrifice that 892 00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,040 Speaker 1: the women of the sixties and seventies had made, and 893 00:55:42,280 --> 00:55:45,280 Speaker 1: third wave feminists wanted to move in a new direction, 894 00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:49,240 Speaker 1: rejecting the extent of gate keeping and lack of inclusivity 895 00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:52,839 Speaker 1: of liberal white feminist figureheads from the second wave. Writer 896 00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:56,839 Speaker 1: Rebecca Walker explains this conflict from a unique standpoint. Her 897 00:55:56,880 --> 00:55:59,800 Speaker 1: mother is author Alice Walker, who wrote The Color Purple, 898 00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:04,080 Speaker 1: and her godmother is Gloria Steinham. Walker says this there 899 00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:07,160 Speaker 1: is a definite gap among feminists who consider themselves to 900 00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:09,719 Speaker 1: be second wave and those who would label themselves as 901 00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:13,759 Speaker 1: third wave. Although the age criteria for second wave feminists 902 00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:17,560 Speaker 1: and third wave feminists as Murky. Younger feminists definitely have 903 00:56:17,719 --> 00:56:22,360 Speaker 1: a hard time proving themselves worthy as feminist scholars and activists. 904 00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:26,040 Speaker 1: And you know who else commented on this rift year 905 00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:30,240 Speaker 1: girl Kathy. Kathy's interactions with younger women is very interesting 906 00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:32,840 Speaker 1: to me, in part because they're pulled from a semi 907 00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:36,920 Speaker 1: autobiographical place. Kathy guys by It's daughter was growing up 908 00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:39,719 Speaker 1: in the third wave of feminism, and the Kathy character's 909 00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:42,920 Speaker 1: interaction with third wave women are very telling. Here's a 910 00:56:42,920 --> 00:56:46,760 Speaker 1: strip from where the Kathy character talks with a female 911 00:56:46,800 --> 00:56:52,280 Speaker 1: friend of her ten years younger Hattie boyfriend Alex. Of course, 912 00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:54,400 Speaker 1: it's women my age who really paved the way for 913 00:56:54,440 --> 00:56:57,200 Speaker 1: women your age, Shawnah, it must be incredible for you 914 00:56:57,239 --> 00:57:00,520 Speaker 1: to face a world with so many options, no kidding. 915 00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:03,279 Speaker 1: Now we women can use our college degrees to be 916 00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:06,879 Speaker 1: underpaid in one hundred different professions. Now we can work 917 00:57:06,880 --> 00:57:09,520 Speaker 1: and spend all the money on daycare, or not work 918 00:57:09,560 --> 00:57:12,719 Speaker 1: and be homeless. Now women can demand more for ourselves 919 00:57:12,719 --> 00:57:15,600 Speaker 1: and go bankrupt immediately, or charge it all and be 920 00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:20,120 Speaker 1: slowly strangled by eighteen interest. Alex says, how's it going 921 00:57:20,160 --> 00:57:23,680 Speaker 1: in there? Kathy, I've just been soaked by the fountain 922 00:57:23,720 --> 00:57:28,200 Speaker 1: of you. Another issue Cathy addressed was the anxiety around 923 00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:32,560 Speaker 1: fertility and age, yet another issue that was frequently misrepresented 924 00:57:32,600 --> 00:57:36,160 Speaker 1: in the media in order to viewed cynically discourage people 925 00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:38,880 Speaker 1: with uteruses for remaining in the workplace for too long 926 00:57:39,120 --> 00:57:42,000 Speaker 1: or aiming their goals too high for fear of the 927 00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:46,320 Speaker 1: almighty biological clock. Even in the comics Last Days After 928 00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:49,400 Speaker 1: Kathy gets married in two thousand five, another comment on 929 00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:52,560 Speaker 1: boomer women who delayed marriage and children to help develop 930 00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:56,800 Speaker 1: their careers and themselves, Kathy guys White explored the frustrations 931 00:57:56,840 --> 00:58:00,080 Speaker 1: and pressures that came with aging. Long after Andrea and 932 00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:03,000 Speaker 1: her children have disappeared from the comic, after Charlene has 933 00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:06,480 Speaker 1: gotten married and had two children, Kathy continues to pursue 934 00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:09,760 Speaker 1: the idea of being an optimized woman, and it's just 935 00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:13,800 Speaker 1: as impossible as it ever was. Third wave feminism sought 936 00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:17,480 Speaker 1: to address a lot issues like rape and domestic violence, 937 00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:21,440 Speaker 1: the fight to preserve reproductive rights. When conservative after conservative 938 00:58:21,520 --> 00:58:24,680 Speaker 1: tried to remove them and included race, class, and trans 939 00:58:24,800 --> 00:58:27,800 Speaker 1: rights in a more meaningful way in their platform, they 940 00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:31,600 Speaker 1: ultimately lacked a clear goal. I would argue that one 941 00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:34,520 Speaker 1: of the greatest accomplishments of third wave feminism was moving 942 00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:39,760 Speaker 1: organizational efforts across mediums. In the nineties, Riot Girls pioneered zines, 943 00:58:39,960 --> 00:58:42,800 Speaker 1: and by the two dozen tens the movement had been 944 00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:46,400 Speaker 1: brought online. Many say fourth wave feminism is what's happening 945 00:58:46,480 --> 00:58:49,080 Speaker 1: right now. I kind of reject the whole wave thing anyhow, 946 00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:54,080 Speaker 1: but it's a clean way to organize a podcast. Here's 947 00:58:54,120 --> 00:58:59,160 Speaker 1: my question. Why have feminists not embraced or even engaged 948 00:58:59,240 --> 00:59:02,760 Speaker 1: with Kathy at any point? It's very possible that there's 949 00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:05,960 Speaker 1: just a million bigger fish to fry, but different areas 950 00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:08,760 Speaker 1: of different movements have found the time and energy to 951 00:59:08,880 --> 00:59:12,520 Speaker 1: rally around other fictional women of different movements. Think you're 952 00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:16,160 Speaker 1: Mary Tyler, Moore's your Joe March is your Lisa Simpson's. 953 00:59:16,600 --> 00:59:19,360 Speaker 1: Come on, Stacy, have waited my whole life to hear 954 00:59:19,440 --> 00:59:23,280 Speaker 1: you speak. Don't you have anything relevant to say? Don't 955 00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:28,760 Speaker 1: ask me, I'm just a girl. In on Hating Kathy 956 00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:33,320 Speaker 1: essay in the Comics journal writer Juliette Cohn takes a guess, 957 00:59:33,320 --> 00:59:36,400 Speaker 1: but one of the feminists, why is there no defense 958 00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:40,400 Speaker 1: from them? How has Kathy managed to fail them so utterly. 959 00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:44,360 Speaker 1: She is, as they state, not a role model, and 960 00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:47,160 Speaker 1: though the need for female role models is real, so 961 00:59:47,240 --> 00:59:50,440 Speaker 1: too is the use of this argument towards patriarchal aims. 962 00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:54,600 Speaker 1: But beyond this, there is a certain reproach in the 963 00:59:54,640 --> 00:59:59,160 Speaker 1: tones of Cathy's female critics of frustration. Why couldn't you 964 00:59:59,200 --> 01:00:02,680 Speaker 1: do better? How could you fail so visibly? It is 965 01:00:02,720 --> 01:00:06,240 Speaker 1: an anger at her imperfection that reveals an implicit understanding 966 01:00:06,280 --> 01:00:10,240 Speaker 1: that Kathy's circumstances are not fair, that her stumbling weighs 967 01:00:10,280 --> 01:00:13,240 Speaker 1: more than a man's. It is a criticism born from 968 01:00:13,360 --> 01:00:17,600 Speaker 1: fear of censure. What might Cathy's weakness bring upon us? 969 01:00:18,000 --> 01:00:22,040 Speaker 1: Calm continues later in the same essay, womanhood is mundane, 970 01:00:22,200 --> 01:00:25,160 Speaker 1: is what it comes down to, and Kathy operates squarely 971 01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:31,400 Speaker 1: within what we understand womanhood to be. Women's work is diapers, typing, cooking, 972 01:00:31,520 --> 01:00:35,520 Speaker 1: and data entry. Kathy dwarfed by stacks of anonymous paperwork, 973 01:00:35,640 --> 01:00:42,320 Speaker 1: celebrated for her diligence but never innovation. Woman's play is frivolous, superficial, distracting, 974 01:00:42,440 --> 01:00:46,680 Speaker 1: and materialistic. Kathy enjoying a chick flick, acute stiletto, and 975 01:00:46,800 --> 01:00:49,920 Speaker 1: evening in with a friend and some ice cream. Women's 976 01:00:49,920 --> 01:00:53,160 Speaker 1: sorrow is only poetic if it can become a symbol 977 01:00:53,200 --> 01:00:56,800 Speaker 1: that means something to a man. Cathy cries most regularly 978 01:00:56,920 --> 01:01:01,120 Speaker 1: over her inability to become that symbol. Of frustrations at work, 979 01:01:01,240 --> 01:01:04,680 Speaker 1: including an episode of sexual harassment from her boss, could 980 01:01:04,680 --> 01:01:07,520 Speaker 1: never be considered powerful in the manner of the man 981 01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:10,040 Speaker 1: in the gray flannel suit or death of a salesman. 982 01:01:10,560 --> 01:01:13,920 Speaker 1: Her play is goofy, and the strip itself is, of 983 01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:17,800 Speaker 1: course an artifact of women's play. Her sorrow is to 984 01:01:17,880 --> 01:01:21,240 Speaker 1: be mocked. No one remarks, going on a decade since 985 01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:24,400 Speaker 1: the strips end, about the expressiveness of Guys White's line. 986 01:01:24,960 --> 01:01:28,280 Speaker 1: No one discusses the artfulness of the interplay between Cathy, 987 01:01:28,640 --> 01:01:31,960 Speaker 1: largely ambivalent to feminism with a capital F, and her 988 01:01:32,040 --> 01:01:36,080 Speaker 1: more openly political friend Andrea. The consciousness of this choice, 989 01:01:36,240 --> 01:01:39,480 Speaker 1: as Guys White once remarked, embodying the position of women. 990 01:01:39,600 --> 01:01:42,720 Speaker 1: Quote launched into adulthood with a foot in both worlds, 991 01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:46,080 Speaker 1: and quote will not be lauded. I really like watching 992 01:01:46,160 --> 01:01:49,680 Speaker 1: characters funk up and adjust and grow over time, even 993 01:01:49,720 --> 01:01:51,960 Speaker 1: if they don't grow as quickly as people would like. 994 01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:57,520 Speaker 1: And again, Kathy is commenting pretty much exclusively on feminism's 995 01:01:57,680 --> 01:02:01,200 Speaker 1: traditional beneficiaries. That's important to note, and I think it 996 01:02:01,280 --> 01:02:03,960 Speaker 1: made her work a kind of safe choice to feature 997 01:02:04,040 --> 01:02:07,240 Speaker 1: in the funny pages at first. The absence of black, brown, 998 01:02:07,400 --> 01:02:10,880 Speaker 1: queer Asian Native women from the pages of the newspapers 999 01:02:10,920 --> 01:02:14,240 Speaker 1: during this era is absolutely a failure, and I believe 1000 01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:18,200 Speaker 1: primarily an editorial and systemic one. So no, Kathy is 1001 01:02:18,240 --> 01:02:21,560 Speaker 1: not an ambassador of perfect feminism and certainly does not 1002 01:02:21,720 --> 01:02:24,919 Speaker 1: speak for all women, and she never claimed to by Guys. 1003 01:02:24,920 --> 01:02:27,680 Speaker 1: By its own admission, the Kathy character was created as 1004 01:02:27,720 --> 01:02:31,000 Speaker 1: comfort food for those who felt slower to apply the 1005 01:02:31,040 --> 01:02:34,600 Speaker 1: tenets of feminism to their daily lives, who were making 1006 01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:37,919 Speaker 1: an active effort to unlearned behaviors and instincts they've grown 1007 01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:41,160 Speaker 1: up with but maybe weren't quite there yet. If anything, 1008 01:02:41,200 --> 01:02:43,960 Speaker 1: I think the Kathy character reflects some of the gains 1009 01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:47,720 Speaker 1: made by American feminists between the seventies and the two thousand's, 1010 01:02:47,840 --> 01:02:51,000 Speaker 1: as well as the frustrating stop and start nature of 1011 01:02:51,080 --> 01:02:55,200 Speaker 1: progress and the exclusionary measures taken. When ending the comic 1012 01:02:55,280 --> 01:02:58,800 Speaker 1: in two thousand ten, Kathy guys White said this, I 1013 01:02:58,840 --> 01:03:01,760 Speaker 1: am not stopping the strip because I think anything has 1014 01:03:01,760 --> 01:03:05,040 Speaker 1: been resolved. When I see my daughter and her generation, 1015 01:03:05,520 --> 01:03:07,840 Speaker 1: I see that a lot of the games between men 1016 01:03:07,840 --> 01:03:11,640 Speaker 1: and women fixation on fashion. I'll die if my hair 1017 01:03:11,680 --> 01:03:14,080 Speaker 1: doesn't look right. And I really thought we could have 1018 01:03:14,160 --> 01:03:17,320 Speaker 1: lost that in the last thirty years, but I guess 1019 01:03:17,320 --> 01:03:20,920 Speaker 1: we haven't. She continues a bit later. I feel like 1020 01:03:21,080 --> 01:03:23,800 Speaker 1: a lot of the time my strip made sort of 1021 01:03:23,840 --> 01:03:27,640 Speaker 1: political comments about the state of women, their expectations, the 1022 01:03:27,720 --> 01:03:31,360 Speaker 1: state of women in the office, being harassed, being held back, 1023 01:03:31,760 --> 01:03:35,200 Speaker 1: being utterly confused by the mixed messages we get from 1024 01:03:35,240 --> 01:03:38,800 Speaker 1: everything from what size to be, how to feel about ourselves, 1025 01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:42,600 Speaker 1: how to look to me. That's all sort of political. 1026 01:03:42,840 --> 01:03:45,560 Speaker 1: A lot of what I wrote about was the woman's 1027 01:03:45,600 --> 01:03:47,880 Speaker 1: place in the world and the pressure were under to 1028 01:03:48,040 --> 01:03:51,400 Speaker 1: be a certain way, to think certain things, to have 1029 01:03:51,800 --> 01:03:57,520 Speaker 1: or not have certain opportunities. And that's where Kathy and 1030 01:03:57,680 --> 01:04:01,240 Speaker 1: American feminism stands. Her work does not represent the experience 1031 01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:04,640 Speaker 1: of all American women, because American women are not a monolith. 1032 01:04:04,840 --> 01:04:06,960 Speaker 1: There are a lot of perspectives that we don't see 1033 01:04:06,960 --> 01:04:09,200 Speaker 1: in her work. What we do see is how an 1034 01:04:09,240 --> 01:04:13,160 Speaker 1: average woman received the gains and stepped back around feminism. 1035 01:04:13,280 --> 01:04:15,800 Speaker 1: Whether you agree with her takes or not. I'm going 1036 01:04:15,840 --> 01:04:18,960 Speaker 1: to close this episode with some words from Roxanne Gay 1037 01:04:19,120 --> 01:04:24,680 Speaker 1: and her essay collection Bad Feminist. Gay says this, feminisms 1038 01:04:24,680 --> 01:04:28,280 Speaker 1: failings do not mean we should eschew feminism entirely. People 1039 01:04:28,280 --> 01:04:30,720 Speaker 1: do terrible things all the time, but we don't regularly 1040 01:04:30,800 --> 01:04:34,520 Speaker 1: disown our humanity. We disavow the terrible things. We should 1041 01:04:34,560 --> 01:04:38,040 Speaker 1: disavow the failures of feminism without disavowing its many successes 1042 01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:41,600 Speaker 1: and how far we have come. American feminism has been 1043 01:04:41,640 --> 01:04:45,840 Speaker 1: fractured and flawed as hell from the jump, and understanding 1044 01:04:45,880 --> 01:04:49,200 Speaker 1: that history feels important in order to move forward, though 1045 01:04:49,240 --> 01:04:51,840 Speaker 1: a small one. I think Cathy Strips are a part 1046 01:04:51,840 --> 01:04:53,840 Speaker 1: of that, and as the only woman in the Funny 1047 01:04:53,840 --> 01:04:58,000 Speaker 1: Pages at the beginning of her career, those contributions are significant. 1048 01:04:58,280 --> 01:05:03,120 Speaker 1: And speaking of those fun pages, what was going on there? 1049 01:05:03,760 --> 01:05:06,600 Speaker 1: Next week we take a look at the women who 1050 01:05:06,640 --> 01:05:09,400 Speaker 1: came before Kathy in this medium, at the men she 1051 01:05:09,480 --> 01:05:12,320 Speaker 1: was sharing the pages of, and how newspaper comics grew 1052 01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:15,560 Speaker 1: and changed during her thirty four year tenure. There will 1053 01:05:15,600 --> 01:05:19,360 Speaker 1: be boondocks, there will be Dilbert's, and with deepest regrets, 1054 01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:23,520 Speaker 1: there might be even a family circus. Next week, on 1055 01:05:24,040 --> 01:05:28,080 Speaker 1: ac Cast. Ac Cast is an I Heart radio production. 1056 01:05:28,280 --> 01:05:32,200 Speaker 1: It is written, researched, and hosted by me Jamie Loftus, 1057 01:05:32,240 --> 01:05:35,880 Speaker 1: Sophie Lichtaman is the World's Greatest producer, Isaac Taylor is 1058 01:05:35,880 --> 01:05:39,360 Speaker 1: the world's greatest editor. Zoe Blade writes the world's greatest music, 1059 01:05:39,480 --> 01:05:43,520 Speaker 1: and Brandon Dickard wrote the world greatest theme song for 1060 01:05:43,560 --> 01:05:46,280 Speaker 1: this show. In today's episode, you heard the vocal talent 1061 01:05:46,400 --> 01:05:51,440 Speaker 1: of Jackie, Michelle Johnson as Kathy, Melissa Lozada Oliva as Andrea, 1062 01:05:51,720 --> 01:05:56,160 Speaker 1: Maggie Mayfish as Charlene, Miles Gray as Mr. Pinkley, and Irving, 1063 01:05:56,440 --> 01:06:00,760 Speaker 1: with additional performances by the wonderful Joel Smith, Sure, Lonnie Unis, 1064 01:06:01,200 --> 01:06:06,760 Speaker 1: Caitlin Dernte, Julia Claire, and Isaac Taylor. Oh Boy, see 1065 01:06:06,800 --> 01:06:12,120 Speaker 1: you next week. M M M