The Other Women’s Movement, Essay Example

By just knowing her, Dorothy Sue Cobble is a professor of history, women’s gender studies and labor studies. Apart from that she also holds a Ph.D. in History of America that she attained from Stanford University. She has written many books with the book in discussion The Other Women’s Movement being one of them. The book is a publication of Princeton University Press and it gives a historical scrutiny of the feminism relationship with working class women in the U.S in the year 1930 and 1980. We can simply say the book achieved this goal.

The feminists in America have always fought for women to be given their own rights and also for the women to be treated well as men have always been treated. They also want the same respect that men are given in the society. They have continuously demanded social rights and demanded the masculine status to be scrapped off[1].  Dorothy Cobble in her book take us back top the fight the feminists started a long time ago and the achievements they achieved that time including convincing the employers at that time to respect the employee rights for women. This fight started from the factory workers and their unions and was later on absorbed by the so called pink collared that included the telephone operators, secretaries and receptionists. Surprising enough, the same grievances they had at that time is the same as what women are still trying to solve until now; problems like trying to balance their family life and work also how to deal with economic segregation the women experience. The struggle begun from the 1930 and Dorothy in her book makes us understand the influence these women though existed a long time ago have to today’s women’s struggle for recognition.

The book Other Women’s Movement is a well researched, sophisticated and with fine distinction in its augmentation. Dorothy in her book does not touch on women struggle in the simple perspective that people will take it; she also brings the aspect of race and class as much as women politics are concerned[2]. In her book Dorothy tells how the feminist in the earlier generation went about their fight for recognition and special attention. She points out their strategy of allying with working class women at that time and black men as at that time the black women were the spear of the feminist movements. A good strategy it was working with the black race because at that time they were also oppressed by discrimination and thus was ready to help knowing what discrimination was[3]. The women at that time were not only focused on gender different but fought the fight of wanting good working conditions for everyone; this made their fight successful. It is a wake call for feminists now.

In this book of hers, Dorothy talks of the factory workers who demanded not only for equal treatment but more than that; they wanted special treatment. Dorothy here portrays very ambitious women who despite the fact that they are looked down upon, want to achieve something even higher. They argue that the gender differences are there and that equality wasn’t enough as women had special responsibilities of taking care of their families and have to bear babies and other responsibilities. The women Dorothy narrates in this book The Other Women’s Movement ended up being granted their wishes of being treated equally as men and getting time to take care of their families. The women should not be overlooked as the efforts are the ones that lead for today employment practices being used. The book does well in making a connection between the current feminist efforts and struggle to its roots of just simple women in a union in a factory somewhere in 1930s.

In the current generation, girls grow up knowing that they do anything they want when they grow up but we all forget the people that made this happen. Dorothy reminds us of these women that are very important in the post-World War II America. So if we listen to her closely, she is telling the modern time feminist that they are fighting an already fought fight as the working regulation being used now were done a long time ago. She is giving the wake up call to alter the motives of their fight.  Cobble defends these women for critics who claimed that they were not feminists because they concentrated mainly in laws that harmonized their payments, hours spent working and the environment at which they worked. She notes that this women advocated for some laws governing workers to be scrapped as the discriminated women. She goes and argues that these women are feminists as they fought for some practices such as mandatory overtime being scrapped as women needed to take care of their families[4]. She emphasizes that these women were feminists its only that they were not selfish in their pursue for acquiring gender equality as they included other parties in the struggle.

Cobble in her book wishes bolster feminism that exists at the moment by requesting the labor activists to take a note of the way females of a different nature are increasingly being hired for white-collar and service jobs. She argues feminists now should not only concentrate on female is but also look into issue of race and class as they handle gender issues. Cobble feels that if there is a class conscious feminist they will handle issues of poor income allocation, jobs of poor quality and not well organized family policies as gender issues to be effective she argues that modern time feminists should be concerned a wide range of work place problems than only equality.

The women Cobble speaks only fought for mere wage earning women at that time then spreading later on making it successful. Cobble goes ahead and tells us of another generation of feminists in which she categorizes herself that includes the working-class women, college educated labor researchers and leaders that basically still draws their reference to the earlier generation women movement[5]. Even though later does her work through conferences and lobbying for their goals to be achieved they need to follow the example set earlier in the 1930s. Cobble insists that for the fight to be successful, it’s important for modern feminists to shift their goals of only gender equality in work places and work with activists to change working conditions in working places. This will help them achieve their gender equality goals indirectly.

References

Dorothy Sue Cobble (2003). The other women’s movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modder America. Princeton university press

Bonnie Anderson (2001). Joyous Greetings: The first international movement.  Oxford university press

[1] Bonnie Anderson (2001). Joyous Greetings: The first international movement.  Oxford university press

[2] Bonnie Anderson (2001). Joyous Greetings: The first international movement.  Oxford university press

[3] Dorothy Sue Cobble (2003). The other women’s movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modder America. Princeton university press

[4] Dorothy Sue Cobble (2003). The other women’s movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modder America. Princeton university press

[5] Bonnie Anderson (2001). Joyous Greetings: The first international movement.  Oxford university press