(00:00:00) The life of Susan B Anthony the first and the second provides an opportunity to provide a to give us a historical perspective really of the women's movement. And dr. Anthony. I wonder if you would would reflect a little bit about the cyclical nature of the women's movement. It's had its Peaks and valleys and you are a student of political science as well as a theologian and have lived through a good deal of History yourself of both being highly regarded and scorned perhaps (00:00:34) right having been a pariah for some time. Yes during the McCarthy (00:00:38) era but I think that you're right. There is a kind of a cycle except in the case of the woman's (00:00:46) movement, which was as you know, the (00:00:50) fight for suffrage was the longest non-violent (00:00:53) legislative Battle in History of the World. It was 72 years from (00:00:58) 1848. (00:01:00) 1920 and I think you would call it the longest because I don't know if you see (00:01:06) the fight for the enfranchisement of the black really only (00:01:13) began in America in the in the States from roughly about 1850 onward. I mean and they got it then at the end of the Civil War even though it wasn't translated into reality until the civil rights movement of the 1960s. But at least on paper it was given within 20 years whereas ours went on for 72 years. We that we (00:01:36) were put aside (00:01:37) in at the end of the Civil War when the when the women work so hard to make the Thirteenth Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment possible. And because they were told that it that women would be enfranchised black women along with black men white women along with black black men and black women and then they were car. Decide and said this is the Negroes our because if we give votes to you women, we will jeopardize even the votes for black men. You see (00:02:09) so ours is really ours has been a cycle a movement going up to a peak in 1920, which was I call that the actually the peak of unity amongst women because you had at that point in the last six years of the struggle for the for suffrage someday. I think (00:02:31) American women must have the equivalent of (00:02:33) this stunning (00:02:36) BBC shoulder to shoulder which described which showed in pictures and documentary the British struggle. Well, our (00:02:44) struggle was even (00:02:45) more exciting than more prolonged and had a lot more to it than just just the Pankhurst Shenanigans and militancy and all (00:02:54) that ours involved every approach from the legalistic approach. (00:03:00) The testing of the Fourteenth Amendment the women's right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment is involved on Susan's getting arrested with 15 Rochester Housewives (00:03:10) to the militancy of the last six years, which was led by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns who had learned their techniques of militant non-violence from their British sisters the tankers in (00:03:22) England who pushed them the amendment through their (00:03:26) who in turn had been inspired to militants by meeting on Susan on her last trip abroad when she was 84 years old and they felt so sad at that (00:03:35) time that this great woman. They wrote later Emeline wrote later now christabel wrote later that she felt so sad christabel Pankhurst wrote that this great woman would die without seeing her life work achieved. So they resolved on their (00:03:48) militants Alice Through the Alice Paul an American (00:03:51) Quaker fought with them (00:03:53) came back to America brought those techniques back. So in the last six years (00:03:58) From roughly of third nineteen thirteen to nineteen twenty actually seven years (00:04:04) the militants took over and really push (00:04:06) the amendment through the conservatives led by Carrie Chapman Catt and others who were doing Noble work after on Susan died, but who were far more conservative than on Susan (00:04:15) was we're doing it still state-by-state and they had sort of allowed the (00:04:19) national Amendment on Susan's amendment to (00:04:22) more or less laps, but not so with the militants they came in and they threw the (00:04:26) first picket line in the history of America around the White House (00:04:31) and they also produce the first (00:04:34) Hunger Strike in modern history, you know, you always think of the hunger strike as being something that Gandhi perfected and later on in the Civil Rights Movement you had it actually (00:04:44) was women (00:04:45) 268 women were arrested for staging their picket line around the White House. These were (00:04:51) United women from (00:04:53) sweatshops from the social register from Mainline Philadelphia from Some of the richest families in America and joining with the poorest of the poor joining with great women like Dorothy Day who still lives? She's the she's the Roman Catholic woman who has worked for the poor for about 40 years Catholic (00:05:10) Worker these women drop their (00:05:13) class and educational differences to make the final pitch and to push the amendment through and therefore therefore their work Woodrow Wilson had them thrown into jail because he got very sick of while he was waging the war for democracy abroad of seeing women at claiming democracy in his front yard so to speak (00:05:33) so I threw them in the worst (00:05:34) prison in America, which was Occoquan at that time was (00:05:37) a foul filthy work has made made famous years later because it was the (00:05:42) same one that Norman mailer and the priest peace demonstrators were thrown into but it was worse than (00:05:48) the women went on a hunger strike and we're forced fed forcibly fed. The scenes that were shown in that (00:05:54) British film shoulder to shoulder the documentaries about the Primitive methods of for speeding which ruined some of the women stomachs (00:06:02) permanently scars. They bore like Veterans of any War (00:06:06) very proudly but they some of them did have ruined just of tracks after that. I'm interviewed them years later, but (00:06:13) this great Unity finally (00:06:15) pushed the amendment through both houses and ratification was one breathlessly in August on August 26 1920 from that moment on however a terrible decline the decline and fall of the American woman's movement, which had reached this great Crescendo with its great marched down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan as I often say when I speak about it, and I've said in several books of mine the American woman's movement marched down Fifth Avenue that night of August 26 1920 into Oblivion and into it was into a temporary Oblivion because (00:06:51) waiting for them at Washington Square, we're not (00:06:56) cheering. Supporters so much but really invisibly waiting for them where (00:07:02) the very forces that had (00:07:03) kept them from getting the vote for 72 years (00:07:06) the forces that feared that (00:07:08) these women would use their vote to bring in a different kind of society in America. Not only a more equality tearing Society for women, but one in which child labor would be prohibited one in which there would be equal pay for equal work for women and and for blacks one in which war would be would be postponed because of a League of Nations one in which there would the profits would be taken out of War which afraid you don't even hear today. It's become so important when I grew up this was a very common phrase, you know take the profits out of were let's have world is (00:07:43) Armament. They were terrified the powers that be the power elite (00:07:48) were terrified in there counting houses that women were going to mean what they had said all these years that their vote would bring in a better world and (00:07:56) so through not through any (00:07:58) Conspiracy in a back room because that isn't the way things are done as a form of newswoman. I know this is not how things are of you don't have to have them all coming together and with cigar smoke and saying we're going to do this (00:08:08) but just quite informally the the elite decided that they were going to transfer the emphasis from women as voters and political activist to women as buyers. And so the image of the American woman in the 1920s instead of becoming the voter (00:08:25) despite the very nice work done by the League of Women Voters, but whether it made his first mistake when it was a non-partisan outfit because we live in a nation of Party politics, (00:08:35) but the very first thing they did was to transfer transform us from voters into (00:08:40) buyers and ever since then the American woman thinks of herself not as a voter but as a buyer and I was appalled this morning and listening to the news (00:08:50) to see I've just heard it very briefly. So I don't have the figures to hear that their work and the work of this kind of conspiracy me. Can on conspiracy has borne fruit in that our youngsters today? Most of them in polls taken do not even know who their senators are. They don't know the name of any other National official except the president. They don't even know the others. You see we have been so deep political eyes Dover the last (00:09:18) 58 years since suffrage not just women but since women are the (00:09:23) main teachers of the children, you see (00:09:26) the boys have (00:09:27) become so deep so politically castrated I call it that that we have gone into the cycle from 1920 to 1966 of an what I (00:09:37) call the nadir of the women's movement. We sank to a low in the 50s when everything in America, of course sank to the low as Lillian Hellman calls it scoundrel time where of course the McCarthy era which I personally suffered in myself so deeply for 15 years losing the vote that I'm Susan one and Sorts of things but the woman's movement is a whole along with all movements went into addict. It's its lowest bottom in the 50s. (00:10:06) There is a parallel with what's going on in the rest of society at those times. And what were the dominant ideas that were in such opposition to the women's movement. Well women the women's psyche or whatever that the women's movement represent us. It wasn't just the legalistic thing of getting a right to vote. There was a much deeper and (00:10:24) profound the economic see it. Of course. I really I really feel most of it goes back to economics. I think the (00:10:31) old historians Charles and Mary beard and others (00:10:36) who hit it when they when they said that in political life (00:10:39) that and as a political scientist (00:10:40) myself, I really feel that the the causes of the (00:10:44) decline in the woman's movement where (00:10:46) we're not spontaneous. The declined wasn't spontaneous. It was a contrived thing that ever since the Fright that the power elite. (00:10:58) During World War 1 this goes back to World War one when you had great revolutionary movements and a successful Revolution in (00:11:04) Russia, but aborted (00:11:06) Revolutions in Germany. You see that the left almost took over there and in many other countries and you had the (00:11:13) Palmer Raids in this country the sacko Vanzetti case, which I'm interested to see as being exhumed again. Now that President Lowell's of (00:11:21) Harvard's papers became available yesterday. They've now found some discrepancies in y to the 2 shoemakers were put to death and so forth you had this (00:11:31) terrible wave of antique anti-liberal anti left in the 20s the Palmer Raids beginning with our own attorney general here and (00:11:42) going through the newly formed FBI (00:11:45) the anti read it was called an anti (00:11:47) red movement. It was no more Andy read than the McCarthy era movement was it was aimed at the destruction (00:11:53) of the labor movement and destruction of the liberal (00:11:56) movement the (00:11:58) The parallels of the 1920s the (00:12:00) early 1920s when when the liberal movements were wiped out let such as the unity of the American woman movement with the left where the splits came in the Divide divisiveness of tearing sister apart from (00:12:12) Sister (00:12:14) all because they did not want the labor movement really and the poor to unite that I mean, this has always been the great great (00:12:21) fear. So many parallels between the decline in the 20s. Then you go into the 30s, which of course women then along with their men folks were so flattened out economically (00:12:35) that very often women were able to get jobs because they did earn less. They the tradition was they would earn less so they were able to do sometimes get a job as made or something like that when the man the PHD man couldn't get a job as teacher (00:12:49) but then coming up to the (00:12:51) 50s which I want to parallel (00:12:52) with the 20s where the biggest Nader and (00:12:55) this is by this time. I was grown up and active. (00:12:58) And had already published two books on the status of women in the 40s, which were totally ignored because no one could care less about feminism (00:13:06) in the 40s. They cared about women in the 40s because then in World War Two Women became the desirable ones the sought-after ones everybody wanted women to come into the factories because the men had to go off and kill (00:13:19) each other and it was all right to see women and work clothes and Riveter and I'm proud (00:13:25) of myself. I went to work myself in the Washington Navy Yard becoming a grinder, you know, grinding steel tools and that kind of thing but came the end of (00:13:34) the war and I was I was doing the study then it Bryn Mawr on the post-war World women in the postwar (00:13:39) world. We were sent home in droves. We were now told and the people that financed the study. This is an example that the the women's magazine that financed the study. I did it bring (00:13:50) more of that. I was co-worker on (00:13:52) to to show what the status of women in the postwar world would be wouldn't even publish our findings because Showed that women were in the labor market to (00:14:00) stay in larger numbers (00:14:01) because their whole magazine policy at that time was to drive women back to the home because the policy of the power elite at that stage was to (00:14:10) drive them back home. So they wouldn't have all these unemployed veterans you see (00:14:13) so so the late 40s we (00:14:16) have the period of the on American Activities Committee working together with the big wheels of the economic World saying that we don't want women because they must go home and have babies. So you have this bumper crop of (00:14:28) post-war women back dutifully having all the babies they can you (00:14:32) see in marrying and and being the good little woman back home. And in the in the early 50s, then you have McCarthyism Joe McCarthyism coming together (00:14:40) with still the (00:14:42) man in the gray flannel suit and the (00:14:44) woman back in the kitchen and then all of a sudden so you have a real bottom. I consider 1950 and this is one of the tragedies of today's shows that they're glamorizing these horrible (00:14:56) days of the 50s when Executed a mother and her husband and that kind of thing and when they had all the lying and the cheating of that not a psychopath feel McCarthy, but a tool of the again of the power elite the that saw the kept this kind of war against women and against the poor and against labor going of (00:15:14) course McCarthy wouldn't be listening to if there wasn't a receptive ear for (00:15:19) the ears hadn't been already hadn't already been well lubricated by the propaganda of the so-called (00:15:25) proper magazines and media but etcetera, but I never blame the media and any of this I think this is a trap that the Americans are alt being a former media person myself. I will always rise to the defense of the (00:15:36) media. We the I (00:15:38) say we because I was once media and I write so I still am (00:15:44) but in that sense, but I think that it's such a trap to fall into to blame the (00:15:48) media as spiral Agra Spiro Agnew used to (00:15:51) because it's not the media the media the media by and large even though we have quote. Quote of repressed reflects the (00:16:01) opinions of the people who control the media and it's very difficult except in the case of public broadcasting and you know a certain minority group of broadcasters and television people to do it. So (00:16:13) I've gotten away from your original question. I'd like to get back to it. But as I say after the nadir of the 50s where the woman's movement sank to an old-time all-time low at the same time, you had three leading (00:16:24) movements in America and wiped (00:16:25) out completely by the combination of the McCarthy (00:16:30) and the on American activities committees. (00:16:32) You had the political eyes (00:16:34) labor movement of the 1940s, which many many listeners are too young to remember that in those days in the late 40s and the middle to the late 40s who had a very active labor movement (00:16:44) that really had a hand in shaping legislation and elections. Now, this was knocked out completely by the provocateurs within (00:16:53) the labor movement who divided who called read and read Did anybody who really had a liberal position and these leaders were held before the on American activities committees and the McCarthy committee later. (00:17:06) You're okay. You had your (00:17:09) absolute left your communist. Your social workers Socialist Workers Party is those were made illegal practically you see and communist sent to jail. You had the rosenbergs executed as an (00:17:20) example. Then you had more important for the women's movement even was that you had the liberal committees, the the the groups like The League of Women Shoppers the group that I (00:17:31) founded in the 1940s called the Congress of American women which (00:17:35) sought childcare facilities which sought equal pay for equal pay for equal work. I was put on the Attorney General subversive (00:17:43) list because I founded This Woman's organization. You see (00:17:46) the League of Women Shoppers (00:17:47) was wiped out my group was wiped (00:17:49) out these liberal groups the Co-operative movement, which was a great movement in the 30s, which (00:17:54) you know, where were people who were being robbed where they bought got Together and formed consumer cooperatives or medical cooperatives where they could get, you know decent medicine maintenance programs medical maintenance programs, (00:18:07) like all this was wiped out as red Cooperative book shops were wiped out in anybody was a member of a Cooperative all this so the women's movement went down that way then comes the rattling of the (00:18:17) chains again in 1960 and (00:18:20) just as in the Justice in the 19th century, the the plight of the black led to the the (00:18:29) spawning and the birth of the woman's movement. So it led to the rebirth of the women's movement in the 60s (00:18:36) because the young women and the sisters (00:18:38) and Catholic nuns everybody who went down to Selma and to Philadelphia, Mississippi and took part in that great movement for the blacks (00:18:47) the women began to resent that they were just there to make coffee. You (00:18:50) see just as the women in the 19th century had resented the fact that they were not able to speak (00:18:55) out for the blacks (00:18:56) because women weren't allowed to You can (00:18:58) public so out of that came this restlessness and rattling of chains, whether (00:19:03) it was among the sisters in the convent who were among the first revived feminists of the 1960s because I was with them at Notre Dame. I know that I mean I was with the cream of the crop and they were certainly rattling their chains out of that Came Betty for Dan's classic in 1963. The Feminine Mystique out of that 1966 came the formation of the present movement with the consciousness-raising groups out of that came. Now the founding of the National Organization for Women (00:19:30) First is sort of a middle class (00:19:31) movement, but then later it developed into what Houston showed we have today. (00:19:36) Where do you see the opposition to the ER? (00:19:38) I see it coming from the age-old enemies not just (00:19:42) of women but of the (00:19:43) poor I see the mask. I see the face of the clan the back of that mask of the clan back of that sheet hiding beneath that she is the same old power elite the same old the clan. The the right-wing birth sites (00:20:00) of my own church, the right-wing fundamentalist the Mormons the great opposition say of a philosophically all these people (00:20:07) simply spell to me one phrase extreme (00:20:10) right extreme, (00:20:12) right and if women and men would just keep in their (00:20:15) heads and let their heads be taken away from but would keep in mind that the (00:20:21) real opposition is not (00:20:23) the clan or the Birch sites or the fundamentalist or the Mormons or (00:20:27) philosophically. It is the same power elite that is always wanted to (00:20:31) grab complete control of the wealth of the country and (00:20:36) it wants to keep women as The Perennial cheap supply of labor that they can send into the (00:20:42) factory say in Wartime. But yank back and keep it home, you know when when pieces here and keep a (00:20:48) depressed level of wages because you see in the world today. There are few colonies that the power (00:20:56) elite can draw on. And exploit the blacks have become much more independent, even though black unemployment unemployment is so horrendous, especially among teenagers, (00:21:07) but women Remain the last cheap (00:21:10) labor Supply and this is why era is still difficult to (00:21:14) achieve but aren't there there also some some many women in who are Housewives who are fearing this kind of change their they're not connected to a power elite (00:21:24) there, but the housewives but there but there simply as Tolstoy said in some of his great SI essays. They're simply stupid by stupefied by the propaganda they get if you you know, we're the Masters in this country at propaganda are advertising agencies taught Hitler make it simple. Say it off and make it burn if you here long enough that Tiara is going to mean homosexual (00:21:47) marriages and uniform unisex toilets, which we have on all the aircraft and jr. Oh no many how you're going to (00:21:54) these poor darling women. Do you know if they're This Malarkey all the time. They're going to believe it. I don't blame them at all. I (00:22:02) see them very often at hearings and that kind of thing and in my own church, they'll come up and say why dr. Anthony you're a theologian and you love the Bible etcetera and I say well honey just read your Bible and just see what Jesus stood for and you know and see what your own (00:22:16) what the beautiful (00:22:17) people in your own church, you're doing including Bishops and and Priests and sisters who are for the era and and in the (00:22:25) fundamentalist churches. I have many (00:22:28) friends in there because of the charismatic movement and I say go back to what Jesus did and said about women, you know and how he stood for women and how he how he transcended the old rabbinical law about women, you know, and this kind of thing it's simply out of (00:22:42) ignorance and they're being used they've let their heads be (00:22:45) taken away from them. That's all and we must give them back to them. (00:22:50) Thank you very much. Susan B Anthony the second. I'm Bill see Marie.