As Ilse never faltered in her feminist faith so Carole never faltered in her faith that humans must create beauty or spiritually die. Carole forced Ilse to reconsider what she had thought was a dead issue. She still didn’t think of art the way Carole did but she reconsidered it from a political standpoint. Could art be useful? Can it teach? Can it activate people?
Why am I afraid of beauty? All my life I’ve been told I was beautiful. It was as though I was an art object, admired, prized, handled, and, later, polished. Mother saw to that. Daddy was too busy making money to participate in my growing up although he did manage to tell me I looked pretty. He also managed to look at my report cards. I hate them both. They’re self-deceived, cowardly, and inflexible. They are the enemy. Really, my parents are the enemy. Even Mother. I can understand why she did everything she did but I can’t forgive her for it. Even if she had no choice then she has a choice now. My mother should be right here in the movement beside me instead of taking ups in Brookline. Maybe that’s why I fear beauty or art or whatever it is that Carole pursues. It might get me off course, drag me back into my proper past. I don’t want a past. I want to start new. I want to be reborn. Reborn. That’s why I’m having trouble talking to Carole about feminism. I’m changed. I’m not what I was or what I was raised to be. I’m not what any woman was raised to be. I’m a new world. I haven’t even got a language yet for what’s happened to me. None of us have. Perhaps we do need artists to develop that language. I never thought of it that way.
The phone rang. It was Alice Reardon reminding Ilse that tonight’s meeting was changed from her house to Harriet’s over on East Sixth Street.
Hurrying by Cooper Union, Ilse took a right under the scaffolding and ran smack into the local, neighborhood exhibitionist waving his prick like a pink handkerchief and breathing as though he needed an iron lung. Ilse slacked her pace, faced him directly, and said in the sweetest voice possible, “That looks like a penis only smaller.” She then crossed Third Avenue at a brisk pace arriving at Harriet’s apartment right on time.
Olive, glowering on the floor, spat, “Everybody’s here so let’s start. We’ve wasted enough time already.”
Ilse almost said she’d been on time but figured why bother.
Olive continued, “I’ve been approached by the Village Rag. They say they want to do a piece on us. Maybe one of us could even write it although those details would have to be worked out later. So I think we ought to talk about it.”
Alice replied, “What we ought to talk about is media policy. We’ve been so busy with projects and meetings about meetings that we don’t have a guideline for things like this.”
“What do we need a policy for? Why can’t we just decide about the Rag? If we start in on a policy we’ll be here all night and I don’t want to go out on the East Village streets late.” Sue pouted.
Suella Matson was one of Olive’s last remaining devotees. She had changed her name to Sue Betsychild and let the hair on her chin grow into a healthy stubble. Somehow that seemed contradictory to Ilse but she knew better than to bring it to Sue’s attention.
Olive’s other remaining troop member was Ann Rappaport who changed her name to Annie Amazon. Even in blazing weather, five foot one inch Annie wouldn’t be seen without her black leather jacket sparkling with silver studs. She backed up Sue’s statement with a gusty, “Yeah.” Ilse couldn’t imagine that Annie Amazon was afraid to walk the streets at night. Yeah what? she thought. Yeah she’s afraid to walk the streets or yeah we don’t need to get into a media policy?
“Trying to figure out a way to handle the establishment media might take longer than one meeting,” Ilse offered, “but we should do it. Otherwise we’re going to deal with the problem piecemeal and we’ll screw ourselves up. Today it’s the Village Rag, three months later it’ll be Esquire. We need some criteria to measure this by.”
Sue Betsychild growled, “They need an answer by this Thursday.
Ilse was bored and angry with the constant hassles. “They might not get their answer this Thursday. I think the direction of this group is more important than pleasing some editor at the Rag.”
Olive exploded. “Shut up, James. We don’t need you telling us what to do.”
Harriet tried to calm things down. “Don’t personalize an issue, Olive. We do need to develop some policy for the group where the press is concerned. If we don’t, we run the risk of making serious mistakes.”
“What kind of mistakes?” Annie baited her taking a deep drag out of a crooked little cigar.
Brenda Zellner inserted her level mind into the argument, “Look how the press misrepresented the Panthers to the public. And look how the press jerked off at the protests over the Miss America Pageant. The establishment media has never shown itself hospitable to political groups that could rock it’s own interests and we’re one of those groups.”
“Whadda ya mean, Panthers? And how are we shaking up the Rag? This is ridiculous. We could use coverage,” Olive fired back.
“Olive, why don’t you check out the Rag’s masthead? Check out its advertising? How many women do you see on the board or on the staff? H-m-m? The media is run by white, middle- to upper-middle-class men and they don’t want to hear from women’s liberation much less organized lesbians unless they can make some money out of us. Get serious. They’ll try to make us look like a bunch of crazies,” Brenda answered.
Alice whispered in Ilse’s ear. “Unfortunately we have a few crazies. Maybe we could give them Olive and they’d keep her as Exhibit A.”
Ilse had to stifle a guffaw. Alice was her closest friend in their political circles. Attractive in a quiet way, the movement saved Alice from becoming a parson’s wife but she brought the same steely patience of a missionary to the group. Alice had no illusions that organizing was glamorous. At twenty-five she realized that work is its own reward and no one ever has a handle on the future. All you can do is keep your shoulder to the wheel.
“If we had a write-up we’d get more members,” Annie bitched.
“We don’t need new members,” Ilse said.
“Oh sure, if new people come in then you can’t control the group,” Olive accused.
“Fuck off, Olive. Numbers aren’t important right now. It’s more important for us to have some clarity, some understanding among ourselves first. Then if we want to build a large organization we can. If we open the doors now it will destroy all that we’ve done so far.”
“That’s unsisterly,” Sue hurled at her.
Even Alice was getting fed up. “Bullshit. We’re not a social group. We do need to decide where we’re going before we take in new people.”
“I think we’re getting off the subject. The subject is a media policy,” Harriet stated.
“Then I say we ought to take advantage of the contradictions and use the Rag to our own advantage,” Olive pressed, furious.
“You have no control over what gets in that paper. They can let you edit the article, then put back in whatever they want, and give you a song and dance afterwards. Christ, how can you trust these people? How can anyone trust the press?” Brenda expounded.
“They exposed Watergate,” Ann said.
“Watergate isn’t the women’s movement or lesbians. Watergate is still in their realm of experience. It offends their convenient morality but it’s safe inside their frame of reference. We are completely beyond their ability to understand us. We’re new women. New people. They’re blind to us. We’d be fools to allow ourselves to be used by these people for copy. Do you think they care about our analysis? Hell no. We’d make fantastic copy for them. The article would say how sexually desirable or undesirable we are. Whether we looked like men. Who is sleeping with whom. Do we like men? Do we hate men? That’s what they want to know. They’re unable to hear the questions we’re asking.” Ilse waxed hot.
Harriet supported her. “Right on. If we do ever use the establishment media then it’s got to be on our terms. That’s why we need a media policy. Right
now exposure is too dangerous and could hurt us. We’re still too unformed. If we were a reformist group trying to pass legislation or awareness of oppression then the press would have its uses immediately. But we’re not. We’re revolutionaries. Or radicals. I don’t know. None of those words seem to apply. They’re old-fashioned …”
“We know what you mean,” Brenda encouraged.
“Well, I mean our purpose isn’t to put a band-aid on a gaping wound. Our answer is economic—it isn’t just abortion or no discrimination against lesbians. We have more to us than that and we need to tie those ideas together and to develop a thorough program. The press is irrelevant to us now.”
“America lives by the media! How will we ever reach the masses?” Olive bordered on the hysterical now.
“I don’t think there are any masses.” Alice spoke firmly. “There are millions of individuals but no masses. I refuse to categorize people. That’s what male supremacy teaches us, to fit people into nifty little categories that destroy them. There are no masses and we degrade ourselves and the people we want to reach by going through a press, a medium, that conceives of them as a mass.”
“You’re quibbling. Coverage is coverage. How are people going to know about us and what we stand for if we don’t use tv and stuff like that?” Sue at this point was more perplexed than angry.
“By our work.” Alice went on. “By our own network of communication. Do you think people trust television? It shows them a body count in one minute followed by a Geritol commercial in the next minute.”
“Shit. People are stupid They’ll believe what’s on tv.” Olive ridiculed her.
Ilse rose to her feet. The months of enduring Olive had taken their toll. Her temper flew out the window. “People are stupid. If you think people are stupid then why are you in this group? Why do you even bother with the movement? What makes you so much better than anyone else? And who is going to listen to you or any of us if we look down on the people we’re trying to talk to? Nixon operated on the premise that people are stupid. Do you want to operate that way? You have no respect for anyone because you don’t respect yourself. Why don’t you take your hang-ups and just get the hell out of here!”
Olive charged over to Ilse and took a swing at her. Annie and Sue trailed right behind her. Alice, Harriet, and Brenda formed a wall between them and Ilse.
“Sit down, sit down and cool off, goddammit,” Harriet yelled.
Olive collapsed in a lump and began her famous crying routine. Annie mothered her and the chains on her jacket and pants almost rattled out Olive’s sobs. The other women, not ready for such a sulphurous reaction, sat in stunned silence.
Alice finally spoke. “I think the needs of this group and your needs aren’t the same, Olive. I can’t speak for anyone else but as far as I’m concerned I can’t work with you.”
It hadn’t dawned on Olive that she might be thrown out. If she felt sorrowful she covered it in another outburst. “Elitist snobs. You all suck up to Ilse. You talk about ideology. S’all crap. We’re supposed to love each other.”
“No,” Ilse stepped in. “We’re supposed to pull our weight. It’s unrealistic to expect we’ll all love each other. The most we can ask for is to respect each other and to work for a common goal. If we’re going to love each other it’ll come out of working side by side not because somebody put it down on paper.”
“Well, I’m going to go to the Rag and give them a real article. And anyone who wants to can get away from these pigs and join me.”
Sue Betsychild and Annie Amazon followed her out the door. Annie snuck a look back to see if anyone was coming but no one budged. They heard Annie’s chains jingling all the way to the front door.
“What decayed ego structures those people must have, like rotting persimmons.” Brenda shook her head.
“That’s poetic, Brendie.” Alice put her arm around her.
“This had to happen sometime. If we’re going to talk about this group and its direction we ought to examine why we let this drag on so long. That may not be our first priority of discussion but why are women such setups for emotions? Damn.” Harriet sat back down again shaking her head.
“Because we’re the peacemakers, the ones responsible for soothing ruffled feathers,” Brenda said.
“Partly, but I also think it’s because we’re unsure of ourselves.” The women stared at Ilse. “We’re trying to pull an ideology together; we’ve got a lot of it but we’re shaky in parts. We haven’t been in political struggle that long. We’re not taken seriously so that doesn’t help one bit. And look at us. Look how young we are—we’re still getting our own lives together. It’s pretty easy for someone to run us around, you know, especially with tears. Christ, if there’s one thing women respond to it’s tears.”
“Ilse, you wouldn’t by any chance be saying we should be unemotional, pseudo-rational, shut off emotions the way men do, would you?” Harriet questioned her in an even tone.
“I don’t know, Harriet. Remember when we first formed this group and people talked about getting in touch with their emotions? We thought if we could reach some emotional core that revolution would magically follow. I’m not saying we should shut off feelings or anything like that but more and more I’m favoring hard intellectual labor. We’ve had enough time organizing to sit down and figure out what went right and what went wrong. I know somewhere I’m beginning to doubt emotion. I mean we’ve all been raised in a system hostile to our needs, a system that thinks of us as functions not persons. How can we fully trust our responses, you know? For all we know compassion could be a conditioned response and one that continues to keep us oppressed by putting other people’s troubles ahead of our own. Isn’t that what good women always do, sacrifice? We could be making a virtue out of oppression.”
“This still isn’t media policy but it’s fascinating,” Brenda responded.
Alice followed, “I have the same questions, Ilse, questions that would have seemed dangerous to me even three months ago. But one thing still seems dangerous to me and that’s withdrawing to do hard intellectual labor. I can’t see how that won’t just isolate us from others. We have to keep organizing and try to draw our conclusions at the same time.”
“Yes and no,” Ilse said. “We could have dances for the gay community for the next five years and I don’t think we’d learn anything more by it. We’ve exhausted it as a learning process. Other people who haven’t been around the movement as long as we have could take it over and learn from it the same way we did. I mean there’s got to be some organized chain of experience. Here we’ve learned something. Now if we sit down and write it out that’s fine. Women in Wisconsin can read and learn. Women in New York could also learn by performing that function we’ve begun and then move on when they’ve learned by doing. It’s incredible how we haven’t been able to transmit our knowledge—and one of the reasons is that we don’t have large organizations to provide shared ways for people to learn. A position paper isn’t enough. It’s time to recognize that some of us know more by virtue of years in the movement and some by virtue of special skills.”
“I hate the way that sounds.” Brenda grinned. “But I know it’s true. We always put the niceties of theory before the realities of practice. Time to get our feet back on the ground.”
“I’m not sure we can make decisions yet. Do we have enough evidence?” Judy Avery—who’d been silent all evening—piped up.
Ilse turned to her. “All decisions are made on insufficient evidence.”
“Yeah, but do we have the right to make decisions for other people?” Alice wanted to know.
“Alice, what other people? It’s a question of responsibility. Parents have to make decisions for their children. You can’t let an infant wander around. You make decisions when the child is fed, cleaned, exercised. That’s responsibility—and hopefully you teach the child to be responsible for herself. Well, little girls who are now one year old will be affected by whether we make decisions or whether we default.
And what about adults? Look at all the women who flood women’s centers trying to find a way out of the maze. You know what we used to do with them? We’d throw them right in with us, in the thick of whatever program we were working on or whatever political battle we were fighting. What a fucked-up thing to do. That’s like dumping someone who doesn’t know how to swim in a river with a fast current. No wonder the attrition rate was so high. We’ve got to take responsibility for people who come to us. Where are they coming from? What do they want? Do they even know what they want? Can we help them? Can they help us? We have to develop an organization that various people can participate in according to their various needs, skills, desires, you know? We can’t level everyone. And under the guise of sisterhood that’s what we’ve been doing. Really, listen to me. We’ve acted on the assumption that everyone has to be a fulltime political person, an organizer, a theoretician. That’s fucked. We’ve done to women what men have done to us. We’ve taken their identities away by expecting them all to perform the same functions.”
“Give me time to sort this out, it’s been an exhausting meeting. I want to go on with this when we’re fresh. Now that the obstruction is off the road we can all search for the answers with more trust.” Harriet sighed.
“Wait, before we break up for the night I want to read off three criteria I picked out of a pamphlet I read the other night. You might want to write them down and we can get to them at the next meeting or one by one,” Alice called out. “This is to measure a program or an activity. Okay? Number one: Does it meet material and/or emotional needs? Number two: Does it bring women together? Teach us how to win? Number three: Does it weaken the current power structure? That’s it.”
Catching the bus on East Ninth Street, Alice and Ilse rode over to Hudson Street together.
In Her Day Page 10