Book Review:
Chronicling the women’s movement in Canada
A Review of:
*“TEN THOUSAND ROSES:*
THE MAKING OF A FEMINIST REVOLUTION”
By Judy Rebick
Paperback: 256 pages
Published 2005, $24.00 CDN
Available from RABBLE.CA/books
Reviewed by Sandra Sarner
Judy Rebick’s Ten Thousand Roses is a welcome major contribution to a chronicling of the second wave women’s movement in Canada of the 1970s and 1980s. The story is told through the voices of dozens of women who played key roles in the fight for women’s liberation and women’s rights.
Through first hand accounts, we learn of protests, meetings, lobbying and debates. The voices of organizers help us relive the struggles, set-backs and victories as women organized for reproductive rights, for child care, against violence, against racism and war, for equal pay, job equity and union recognition.
The story of the Canadian women’s movement is also the story of battles for recognition within the movement itself. Lesbians, women of colour, immigrant, native and disabled women had to challenge middle-class white women before their issues were taken up and seriously fought for. As a result, feminists have often been in the forefront of struggles around issues of racism, ableism and sexuality.
Rebick’s book is extremely valuable but, as a history of the Canadian women’s movement, it is also disappointing on a number of fronts.
There is very little attempt to provide context or analysis for the stories told.
Why is it called second wave feminism? Nowhere does Rebick explain that the first wave of feminism in North America grew out of the early civil rights movement and women’s struggle for the vote. Nowhere is it explained that, just as first wave feminism coincided with massive worldwide struggles for workers’ rights and socialism in the early part of the 20th century, so the second wave developed as part of the general radicalization of the 60s and 70s. Some of this is implied - but not clearly drawn out.
This is one reason why Ten Thousand Roses will be most useful and appreciated by those who have some familiarity with the period and the struggles that Rebick is chronicling. But for those who did not live through this period, or who were not touched by the movement itself-especially for young women today-too much is left unaddressed.
Another example. Rebick tries to give a balance of space to women in the three main political branches of second wave feminism-liberal feminists, radical feminists and socialist feminists. But, although some sense can be gained from the stories themselves, no description is provided of the different analyses behind each perspective and their implications for the movement and the particular struggles addressed.
Different analyses lead to different strategies. Different strategies lead to different methods of organizing, different results and sometimes to gains for middle class women but not for poor and working class women. Because the book makes very little attempt at analysis, the full implications of debates within the movement can be difficult to sort out. Nor are the reasons always clear behind the successes in some areas and the set-backs or stalls in others.
More analysis could also have situated the women’s movement more clearly within the general radicalization of the period. Fortunately, some of this is provided in the introductions to the sections. But the relationship is rarely drawn out within the stories of the -struggles themselves.
In fact, as a socialist feminist, it is surprising that Rebick has not given us more about some of the important mass mobilizations and grass-roots initiatives that were an integral part of the movement.
So, for example, we do not hear about the Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ strike of the mid-70s that won the first maternity leave benefits for working women.
Nor do we get any details of the Fleck strike of the later 70s when mass mobilizations of women’s organizations along with solidarity actions from rank-and-file autoworkers won a victory for women working in the autoparts industry. In early morning mobilizations, thousands of women movement and trade unionist activists, many bussed in from afar, linked arms to close down Fleck until the employer was forced to negotiate. A couple of first-hand accounts would have given readers a flavour of the optimism about grass-roots power and potential for a better world that infused the women’s movement-and all the radical movements-especially in the 1970s and early 1980s.
We do get the important story of how key women activists pulled together a broad-based coalition to organize the first wildly successful International Women’s Day (IWD) march in Toronto in 1978. But we don’t hear the incredible story of the Inco miners’ wives who led the march. This group of women went through remarkable personal and political transformations as a result of the support work they did during the 9-month-long strike by Sudbury miners in United Steelworkers Local 6500.
Politically inexperienced housewives became militant feminists in the course of their work building support for the strike. They went from raising money locally and hosting pot-luck suppers in the early weeks to taking over picketing in the face of injunctions against the strikers and travelling across the country, speaking publicly and building solidarity as the strike dragged on. In the end, the strike ended in a victory for the Steelworkers, with no small credit due to the women.
Despite these criticism, Ten Thousand Roses is a valuable resource. Rebick has done a good job of including voices from across the country and across a wide range of issues. By dividing the book by decade and devoting individual chapters to particular issues, the book is a handy reference. And although it leaves many questions unanswered-perhaps most importantly, the question of how feminists today can continue the struggle-it celebrates the many victories of a generation of women activists and documents the rich tapestry of second wave feminism in Canada.
SIDEBAR:
MAIN BRANCHES OF FEMINISM: A THUMBNAIL SKETCH
LIBERAL FEMINISTS: Those who work for change within the existing system. Liberal feminists are fighting for equality with men under capitalism - for better representation of women in parliament, for more women in key leadership roles in society, for equal pay, equal access to jobs, equality under the law, etc. Liberal feminists tend to concentrate on legal and parliamentary change and generally favour lobbying over mobilization. Their struggle is for women’s rights.
RADICAL FEMINISTS: Those who see the main division in society as that between women and men and the main problem as being the patriarchal system which gives men power over women. Radical feminists tend to favour women-only mobilizing as they see men as the enemy. Many radical feminists were active in the anti-pornography movement and in issues around violence against women. Most radical feminists envisioned their struggle as one for full liberation for women.
SOCIALIST FEMINISTS: Those who are fighting for a revolutionary transformation of society and who see the problem as some combination of patriarchy or male power and capitalism. Socialist feminists favour grass-roots organizing, mass mobilization and the building of solidarity between feminists and other oppressed and exploited sectors of society, including organized workers. The ultimate goal of socialist feminists goes beyond women’s rights to women’s liberation, and ultimately, human liberation.
Sandra Sarner is an editorial associate of New Socialist magazine.