MB Civic

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 12:25 PM and filed under Articles, Civil Rights, Elections/Voting, History, Politics, Race, Women's Issues. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Skip to the end and leave a response. Trackbacks are closed.

2 Responses to “Barbara Ehrenreich: Hillary’s Real MLK Problem”

1. Ian Alterman said:

   Uh…not quite.

   Ehrenreich says, “Black civil rights weren’t won by suited men (or women) sitting at desks. They were won by a mass movement of millions who marched, sat in at lunch counters, endured jailings and took bullets and beatings for the right to vote and move freely about. Some were students and pastors; many were dirt-poor farmers and urban workers.”

   But as Gloria Steinem pointed out in her NYT Op-Ed, ALL of this would have been for nought if LBJ had chosen not to sign the Civil Rights Act – which, despite all the “common wisdom” to the contrary, he could very well have chosen not to do. In this regard, Hillary was completely correct, albeit her wording may have been something of a faux pas.

   Indeed, Ehrenreich undermines her point when she says, “Women’s rights…weren’t brokered by Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem over tea. As Steinem would be the first to acknowledge, the feminist movement of the ’70s took root around kitchen tables and coffee tables, ignited by hundreds of thousands of now-anonymous women who were sick of being called “honey” at work and excluded from “men’s” jobs. Media stars like Friedan and Steinem did a brilliant job of proselytizing, but it took an army of unsung heroines to stage the protests, organize the conferences, hand out the fliers and spread the word to their neighbors and co-workers.”

   Yet DESPITE all of this, unlike LBJ passing the CRA, no president was willing to pass the ERA. So although women’s rights certainly increased in general (as would black rights even had LBJ NOT signed the CRA), one of their primary goals (and some would argue their #1 goal) – the ERA – never became reality.

   Peace.

   Posted on 17-Jan-08 at 12:37 pm | Permalink
2. Mike Blaxill said:

   politicians are the last people to actually do anything, and only after years and years of foot dragging

   Posted on 23-Jan-08 at 2:28 pm | Permalink