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Eleanor Roosevelt's evolution as a feminist forms an interesting parallel to the development of
the woman's movement in the twentieth century. ER died the year before Betty Freidan's The
Feminine Mystique discussed "the problem that has no name." By reviewing how both ER and
other leaders supported women's inclusion in American society as full political and economic
partners in the years before 1963, teachers and students can appreciate the various forms and
strategies supporters of women's rights used before the modern feminist movement captured
America's attention.
Like most women who became leaders of the women's movement,
ER became aware of the barriers women faced while working
with other women on other social justice issues. Although
she did work in a settlement house and joined the National
Consumers League before she married, ER's great
introduction to the women's network occurred in the immediate
post World
War I period when she worked with the International
Congress of Working Women and the Women's
International League of Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
to address the causes of poverty and war. ER, who only supported
woman suffrage after FDR endorsed it and who had never worked
in a suffrage campaign, joined the League of Women Voters
in 1920, the Woman's
Trade Union League in 1922, and the Women's Division
of the New York Democratic Party in 1923. The friendships
she made from the International Congress (Rose
Schneiderman), WILPF (Carrie Chapman Catt), the League
(Esther
Lape and Elizabeth
Read), and the Women's Division (Molly
Dewson, Marion
Dickerman and Nancy
Cook) shaped not only ER's understanding of feminism,
but had a huge impact on how ER lived her life. As she recalled
in her autobiography, being "drawn together through the work
. . . is . . . one of the most satisfying ways of making and
keeping friends."
ER's commitment to women's full recognition by and participation
in American politics and business was intense and she worked
with women's groups around the nation to build their political
base. In 1924, the Democratic National Committee asked ER
to chair its platform committee on women's issues. ER agreed
and solicited recommendations for "all women's organizations
in the country" on what the platform should state. Although
the male committee refused to adopt any of the women's recommendations
and forced ER to sit outside the room while it deliberated,
ER and other women leaders forced the convention to let women
appoint women delegates and alternates. She took their rebuke
to heart, recalling that she saw "for the first time where
the women stood when it came to a national convention. I shortly
discovered that they were of little importance. They stood
outside the door of all important meetings and waited." Determined
to be heard, ER redoubled her efforts. By 1928, she not only
organized one of the most successful get- out-the-vote campaigns
in state history but had also called for women political bosses.
"Women must learn to play the game as men do," she wrote for
Redbook magazine. By 1936, ER and Molly Dewson's
organizing and internal lobbying produced 219 women delegates
and 302 women alternates.
In her first year as First Lady, ER worked hard to keep women
involved in establishing and evaluating the New Deal. As Susan
Ware proved, ER assembled a list of women qualified for executive
level appointments, urged the Roosevelt administration to
hire them, and, when their suggestions did not get a fair
hearing, did not hesitate to take their ideas to FDR.
She decided to hold press conferences (covered by women reporters
only) to keep information before women voters and to urge
that women speak their minds on politics, policy, and their
individual hopes and dreams. ER believed this so strongly
that she titled the first book she published while First Lady
It's Up To The Women. When she left the White House,
she continued to press Truman
and Kennedy to appoint more women and to address women's issues
with more concern and diligence.
ER's support of working women almost surpassed her commitment
to women's participation as voters, party leaders, and department
heads. From the time that she returned from Allenswood
in 1903 and began volunteering at the Rivington
Street settlement, ER worked to oppose child labor, to
limit the number of hours an employer could force a woman
to work, and to remedy the unsafe and exploitative conditions
of many women-dominated workplaces. After working with women
labor activists, she supported women's full inclusion in unions,
the living wage, birth control, and the right to strike and
bargain collectively. When some Americans blamed working women
for displacing male "breadwinners" during the depression,
ER defended women workers at her press conferences, in articles
and speeches, and on the radio. Aware that the New Deal did
not reach as many unemployed women as it did men, she worked
with other women within the administration to create the She-She-She
camps and to make sure that women were included in the
National Youth Administration
and Federal
Arts programs. When the nation retooled for war,
she championed women's employment in the defense industries,
urged them to volunteer for civil defense assignments, encouraged
women to enter the military, and defended those women in military
service who wanted to do more than type, file, and clean.
When women defense workers asked for help looking after their
children while they worked, ER lent her very active support
to legislation establishing on-site day care for defense workers.
Her insistence that President Kennedy appoint more women to
his administration led JFK to create the first Presidential
Commission on the Status of Women and appoint ER as its chair.
After she left the White House in 1945, ER continued to promote
women's equality. Using a variety of different venues–the
United Nations, the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the
National
Council of Negro Women, Americans
for Democratic Action, her "My Day" column,
and various labor organizations–ER argued that women
must "become more conscious of themselves as women and of
their ability to function as a group. At the same time they
must try to wipe from men's consciousness the need to consider
them as a group or as women in their everyday activities,
especially as workers in industry or the professions." ER
believed women had special qualities that made them peacemakers,
conferees and mothers, but she also believed these qualities
made them fine politicians, reformers, advocates and professionals.
Historians often debate whether or not ER should be called
a feminist. Those who say she was not a feminist base their
argument on ER's opposition to the National Woman's Party
and the Equal Rights Amendment. (1)
They, like Lois Scharf, argue that because ER did not "view
social problems through the unique lens of gender, discover
and define the discriminatory features of society, examine
the underlying causes for female inferiority, and concentrate
on their alleviation," that the answer to this question is
"a qualified no." (2) Others,
like Allida Black and Blanche Cook, disagree. They say her
firm belief in women's equality and her forty-year campaign
to advance women politically, economically, and socially is
proof of ER's commitment to gender equality. While they agree
that ER opposed the Equal Rights Amendment throughout the
twenties, thirties, and forties, they point to ER dropping
her opposition in the late fifties. To them, ER is a feminist
because their definition of feminism is broader than supporting
the ERA and dedication to gender-based analysis.
Ask your students.
Then ask them to interpret this admission by ER: "I became more of a feminist than I ever
imagined."
Notes:
- ER, like so many of the women
labor leaders with whom she had worked, opposed the Equal
Rights Amendment. She and they thought it would undercut
the legislative gains they had devoted their lives to achieving.
- Lois Scharf, "ER and Feminism" in Without Precedent: The Life and Career of Eleanor
Roosevelt edited by Marjorie Lightman and Joan Hoff-Wilson (Indianapolis: University of
Indiana Press, 1984), 233.
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