CLASS, RACE, AND GENDER MARCH 29,2008, University of Southern Illinois, screening "Fast Food Women" and keynote talk by Anne Lewis about the intersections of class, race, and gender. First Feminist Film Festival. Sponsored by the University Professionals of Illinois, AFT. Following screening of "Fast Food Women." How many of you worked at a fast food restaurant at some point? Who works at fast food restaurants in your local area? What has changed since 1994? Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) $5.85 minimum wage $3.72 credit for tipped income $2.13 minimum wage for tipped employees if they make more than $30 monthly Illinois is a little higher -- $3.00 an hour cash based on a $7.50 minimum wage. On the other hand, they reduce the monthly amount to $20 and allow the employer to let your tips pay 60% of the hourly wage. Kentucky is exactly what the FLSA calls for. And I have a dim memory of $2.12 nearly 15 years ago. Fast food employees are the largest group of low-paid workers in the U.S. today. Why should we, as feminists, be involved in this issue? In 1994, when the film came out, 2/3rds of the workers in fast food restaurants were women and 23% non-white. Certainly we can say that this is a feminist film. But how about the people in the film - the women who tell us about their lives, who, like Pam, offer solutions? Are they feminists? I think it's absolutely vital that we include their lives, validate their experience, and see our movement's success as tied to the efforts of women all around the world to find justice. I wanted to talk more generally about feminism. This is of course coming from my personal perspective and work -- more than an academic understanding. One of the great heroes for Appalachian women is Mother Jones. Favorite quotes - "Don't mourn, organize" or "Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living;" my favorite, "God almighty made women and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies." Mother Jones. Basic biography -- Lives through the death of her 4 children and husband Memphis in a yellow fever epidemic. Then lost all her possessions in the Chicago fire of 1871. At that point commits herself to the social struggle. In 1890 becomes a labor organizer in West Virginia. The great organizer of miner's wives -- repeated in the story of Salt of the Earth and in Harlan County U.S.A. Show clip of Lois Scott pulling pistol out of bra. Back to Mother Jones. Helped found the Social Democratic Party, IWW, socialist. Great deal of criticism and confusion about her opposition to women's suffrage. "The plutocrats have organized their women. They keep them busy with suffrage and prohibition and charity." So was Mother Jones a feminist? I think most of would answer yes because our definition is one who is part of a movement for the social, political, and economic equality of women. Could there be a more important way to fight for the equality of coalfield women than to organize them? Look at Lois Scott - should she have been plotting a collective bra burning? Where would she have put her pistol? Now I have to admit that I think Mother Jones was wrong; that of course women needed to fight for the right to vote. But her point needs to be considered, particularly in light of the positions of first wave feminists. I'll come back to that but first I want to show a set of clips from a more recent documentary that followed 4 women in a West Virginia shelter over a 5 year period, and also looked at the movement. I think while many in the women's movement would say that because domestic violence cuts across the lines of race and class, we don't need to think about these things. So what I wanted to show first is an extreme example of the intersection of domestic violence with class. Here the prosecuting attorney explains why he doesn't go after abusers and in particular Cathy Feliciano who was shot and has since died from that shooting. The second clip is a group of girls in the shelter talking about their feelings about future male partners. The final clip is a look at where the movement is now with some of its founding mothers. I want to talk more directly about how one feminist in particular seriously considered and acted on those intersections of race, class, and gender. Please know that I am including the oppression of lesbians, gay, bi, and transgendered people in the fault line of gender. A little more history. Anna Shaw, president of the NAWSA "White women have no enemy in the world who does more to defeat us than colored men." NAWSA denied membership to black women and recruited white women in the south on the basis of maintaining white supremacy. This kind of attitude can also be heard in Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and also in their attitudes towards immigrants, working class people, patriotism and so on. So I think it's tremendously important we not repeat this history and that we fully consider all three - race, class, and gender. And I do mean of us, including those of us who are by definition or birth - white, or upper class, or male. I remember a school principal in east Tennessee who believed he was especially enlightened when he excused all the African American students from classes on Dr. King's birthday but none of the white students. That brings me to Anne Braden. I'm partnering with Mimi Pickering on a film about her. Most of you probably haven't heard of her. She was one of the great warriors against white supremacy and a feminist. In 1972 she wrote a pamphlet titled "A Letter to White Southern Women." "I am aware that my appeal to you comes at a time when the women's movement is struggling to make our society deal with the crime of rape. My position is not at odds with this struggle; it is simply another dimension. For the fact is that rape has traditionally been considered a crime in the South - if the woman was white and the accused black. But it has not been seen as a crime - and is not now - if the woman is black. We who are white will overcome our oppression as women only when we reject once and for all the privileges conferred on us by our white skin." In 1977 she wrote a second and even stronger letter, appealing to white feminists to confront the racist use of the rape charge against black men. This strong call was based on her direct experience. We know that the charge of rape of white women was used to justify about 2/3rds of the 10,000 or so lynchings of black men after the civil war. There was a movement of white Southern women in the thirties against lynching. They said first of all they could protect themselves and second, that they were sick and tired of being used as an excuse to kill black men. Anne identified with that tradition and when they were getting ready to electrocute Willie McGee in Mississippi on a false rape charge, she was part of a delegation and perhaps the only southerner. They didn't succeed; she was branded a race traitor and jailed for the first of many times. But throughout her life she was a real voice for a feminist vision that was inclusive, anti-racist, anti-war, and socialist. I think we do have a shared vision of the world we'd like to live in - and each of us could add an element that would unite us. There is a history of women's struggle that we have inherited and will pass on. I strongly believe that we can build a third wave of feminism that transforms society - but only if we can find ways to address the class and race divisions of the earlier movement. Some key elements would be the leadership of women of color, of third world women, full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bi, and transgendered people and of male allies, a hard look at the impact of the global economy on women, a concentration on human rights including reproductive rights and workers' rights, emphasis on the grassroots and communities. And in our personal lives involvement in the social life of our communities; a diminishing of this horrible fear that women feel for their personal safety; and true equality and freedom of voice, creative expression, pay and benefits, and intellectual life which is sadly lacking in our colleges and universities.
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