The World Split Open

by Ruth Rosen

  Alongside the feminist movement described in earlier chapters grew another kind of feminism, one that existed largely in the kingdom of images, shaped by the media and by the consumerist and therapeutic self-help movements that sprang up in the 1970s. The media produced two basic stereotypes of feminists. One was the hairy, man-hating dyke, dressed in overalls and stomping boots, an image mostly confined to college campuses and to the youthful women’s culture. The second and far more ubiquitous image was that of a selfish “superwoman”—who would come to stand for all women in the movement. For the vast majority of Americans who had not participated in the movement, here was the hateful woman who came to represent the feminist in the American imagination. A selfish and demonic individualist, the superwoman threatened the very fabric of American society. And, by 1980, she had become both a symbol and a scapegoat for other intractable problems and irreversible changes in American society.

  THE MEDIA BLITZ OF 1969–1970

  The sudden appearance of a new women’s movement took the American media by surprise. The new feminist movement made for great copy and the media soon responded with a mixture of glee, derision, and condescension. The resulting blitz of media attention spotlighted activists in ways that proved distinctly awkward and uncomfortable. It was a shock to go home, turn on your television set or read your morning newspaper and discover that everything you cared about was summed up in the image of a zany hysteric who sought, through flamboyance, what she was unable to achieve through physical attraction. Not surprisingly, many in the new movement soon grew wary of media attention. For feminists, the question was how to use the media without being used. And, as they were to discover, in the battle for popular culture, feminists didn’t have a chance.

  Few feminists could forget, for example, how the media had covered the 1970 Women’s Strike for Equality in New York City. Television news and newspapers used that march to sensationalize and discredit the women’s movement, which became a typical trope of the great media blitz of 1969–1970. Television news coverage, in particular, infuriated many feminist activists. At ABC, Howard K. Smith began his report on the 1970 August march in New York with this snide introduction: “Three things have been difficult to tame. The ocean, fools, and women. We may soon be able to tame the ocean, but fools and women will take a little longer.” Smith gave the last word to West Virginia senator Jennings Randolph, who described the women’s movement as “a small band of bra-less bubble heads.” At CBS, Eric Sevareid began his coverage with the condescending observation that “no husband ever won an argument with a wife, and the secret of a happy marriage is for the man to repeat those three little words, ‘I was wrong.’” He then proclaimed, “The plain truth is, most American men are startled by the idea that American women generally are oppressed, and they read with relief the Gallup poll that two-thirds of women don’t think they’re oppressed either.”2

  Much of the subsequent news coverage, especially on the network news shows, assumed the same patronizing and bemused tone of these early news reports. As media critic Susan Douglas has noted, this coverage was “typical of how the news media framed what was and continued to be, by almost any measure, one of the most consequential social movements of the twentieth century.”3

  Editors and producers began scrambling for ways to capture and cover this sudden revolt of women. In 1968, editors had seized upon the image of bra-burning to symbolize feminist rebellion. But since feminists had neither focused on—nor burned—their bras, no visuals existed to support this enduring myth. Instead, by 1969, editors chose, as their image of choice, photos of “women’s libbers” practicing karate. With arms and legs punched outward, these self-defense novices seemed threatening and militant. Conspicuously absent were pictures of women sitting in one another’s living rooms and kitchens, where the real revolution was going on. But editors had no access to these meetings and probably would have viewed them as insufficiently dramatic. The hidden injuries of sex remained just that—invisible. There were no photographs of aggressive men, rapists, or scenes of domestic violence. Nor were there pictures of men excluding women from conversation, demanding that dinner be served on time, or denying women promotions. These stories would finally make it on screen, in film, in made-for-TV movies, and on television talk shows only in the 1980s and afterward.

  In 1970, journalists and editors simply didn’t know how to write about women as political or social actors, as opposed to zealous transgressors or passive victims. Confused and perhaps threatened, editors quickly adopted the word “strident” to describe any angry spokeswoman. Unconvinced reporters placed quotation marks around “women’s oppression” and “male chauvinism” to indicate the questionable nature of feminists’ claims. Television newscasters routinely trivialized feminist grievances by cutting away to “ordinary women” in supermarkets who were sure to ridicule feminists as social or sexual misfits.

  The relationship between feminists and journalists became immensely complicated. Feminists sought to publicize the seriousness of their grievances, but were extremely fearful of creating permanent media spokeswomen. One strategy, which some feminists adopted, perhaps from Eleanor Roosevelt’s example, was to speak only with female reporters.4

  The media, for their part, regarded the movement as a provocative but passing fad, and happily sought to expand their audience with what was arguably the moment’s sexiest story, filled with attractive women (despite the fact that opponents always described them as ugly and man-hating) instigating all kinds of newsworthy events. The media also tried to identify the movement’s leaders and to distinguish “legitimate” activists from those they labeled “fringe” elements. Organizations such as WITCH, Redstockings, The Feminists, or Cell 16, which participated in zap action and guerrilla theater, therefore received a disproportionate amount of coverage. Ti-Grace Atkinson, who had denounced NOW and formed The Feminists, became a media star not only because of her tall, svelte Brahmin looks, but also because she predictably provided reporters with such provocative sound bites as “Marriage means rape” and “Love has to be destroyed.” Interviewed on Walter Cronkite’s CBS Evening News, she compared marriage to the institution of slavery: “People say, well, couldn’t we get rid of the bad things about marriage? Could you have gotten rid of the bad things about slavery and still have slavery?”5

  Some editors or producers decided to send female journalists to report on the new women’s liberation movement, hoping they would be received with less hostility. Many of these women, already experienced journalists, didn’t assume that they needed their consciousnesses raised, but were thrilled to get such an interesting assignment. Often obliged to participate in the groups they wrote about, some of them discovered that they were not as emancipated as they had imagined. The conversion of so many women journalists to feminism is one reason that the early media blitz of 1969–1970, particularly in newspapers and magazines, resulted in as much accurate and sympathetic reportage as it did.6

  As it happened, female journalists often recognized in feminists’ grievances problems they had run up against in their own professional lives. Consider what happened when Newsweek decided to run a cover story (“Women in Revolt”) on the women’s movement in 1970. The editors decided that their own reporter was insufficiently objective. So they hired Helen Dudar, a freelance writer who was also the wife of one of the editors, to produce a piece more to their liking. They patronizingly described her as “a topflight journalist who is also a woman.”

  Helen Dudar admitted that she had spent “years rejecting feminists without bothering to look too closely at their charges.” When assigned the story, she acknowledged her distinct ambivalence toward feminism. In the published story, she dutifully described all the different trends and groups in the movement. But then she ended her report with this remarkable personal disclosure:

  Superiority is precisely what I had felt and enjoyed, and it was going to be hard to give it up. That was an important discovery. One of the rare and real rewar
ds of reporting is learning about yourself. Grateful though I am for the education, it hasn’t done much for the mental stress. Women’s lib questions everything; and while intellectually I approve of that, emotionally I am unstrung by a lot of it. Never mind. The ambivalence is gone; the distance is gone. What is left is a sense of pride and kinship with all those women who have been asking all the hard questions. I thank them and so, I think, will a lot of other women.7

  When Marlene Sanders, a veteran news journalist, reported on the women’s movement for a special CBS television documentary, she, too, treated the movement sympathetically. Sanders, who had already covered student riots and the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy, had done her homework. She knew how easy it would have been to elicit bizarre and threatening statements from the usual suspects in New York City. Instead, she interviewed women’s groups at Duke University, and in North Carolina. In the lively documentary that CBS eventually broadcast, Sanders revealed in passing that most of the new women’s liberationists she interviewed were married and had children. Instead of expressing the bemusement of so many male journalists, she provided in-depth coverage of women’s desires, needs, and issues. She ended her televised report with these prescient words:

  The Women’s Liberation Movement will not disappear after the singing, marching and shouting have died down. Man himself may not be the enemy, but his practices are under attack, whether they are motivated by prejudice, profit or habit. This is a search for equality of opportunity, not the wish to be just like men. It is the desire for more options, for choice, for shattering of stereotypes, for women to choose more freely the kinds of lives they want to live, and if we choose to work, to be paid in full. The status quo is being challenged by the Women’s Liberation Movement. Today it’s still a man’s world. And just look at it. Move over, gentlemen. Maybe you can use some help. This is Marlene Sanders.8

  Viewers wrote appreciative letters to Sanders, some asking how they could join “the cause.” A typical note came from a grateful woman from Muncie, Indiana: “I must say, as a fairly young mother, busy housewife and soon to be working woman, I’m in dire need of some kind of liberation. Your help would be greatly appreciated and thanks again for an enlightening program.”9

  Wary as they were of the media, women’s liberationists nevertheless sought widespread media attention by planning well-publicized demonstrations. Consider the dramatic sit-in staged in May 1970 at Ladies’ Home Journal, one of the most popular general women’s magazines, whose slogan “Never underestimate the power of a woman” suddenly took on new meaning. Nearly two hundred women, including some employees, sat in at the office of the LHJ to protest a “women’s magazine” whose advertisements routinely exploited women. They also demanded a day care center for the children of employees. A group of radical feminists also insisted that LHJ include a special section on the women’s liberation movement. In an open letter to other feminists, the activists explained, “We seek to raise questions, analyze the condition of womankind, and to search for new answers.”10

  To the feminists’ surprise, Ladies’ Home Journal responded quickly. By August 1970, the magazine published a special eight-page insert titled “The Power of a Woman” on “the New Feminism,” written by “the women’s liberation movement.” To their readership, the editors explained the sudden appearance of this insert:

  We had been following this movement with great interest, of course. But it wasn’t until 200 of these new feminists marched into the Journal’s office and stayed for 11 hours that we were literally confronted with the intensity and reality of this brand of women’s rights thinking.

  The insert included critiques of work, sex, love, marriage, poetry, and long lists of women’s groups across the country. It profiled causes like the Equal Rights Amendment and even described meetings held between the delegations of American socialist-feminists and North Vietnamese women.11

  Curious about their readers’ responses to their bold move, LHJ took a readers’ survey, the results of which they published in November 1970. Asked their opinions about the women’s movement, 46 percent of readers described themselves as “con,” 34 percent as “pro,” and 20 percent expressed mixed feelings, cheering women’s support of equal pay for equal work, but expressing distaste for “stridency.”12 But the most important vote was the one held by magazine readers. Circulation rose dramatically. Other women’s magazines quickly followed LHJ’s example. McCall’s, for example, produced an insert called “Right Now,” a digest of feminist causes and news.

  In less than a year, the media realized that the women’s movement was not only an exciting story, but a profitable one as well. Feminists gained also, attracting more national attention than they had ever expected. Monitoring the media became one of the movement’s consuming passions. Throughout the decade, various chapters of NOW and other local groups put tremendous pressure on magazines, television stations, and newspapers to stop portraying women in stereotypical ways.13

  Still, the stubborn images of the “bra burner” as well as “the women’s libber” left many women feeling that they wanted to distance themselves from such a movement. The media also legitimated some “players,” like the lovely Gloria Steinem, while demonizing other activists, like the openly bisexual Kate Millett. They largely discredited the anger of young feminists toward marriage, motherhood, the commercial exploitation of women’s bodies, and the inequalities that the sexual revolution had brought with it, even as they promoted women’s demands for equal pay for equal work, for legal abortion, and for child care facilities.14

  News of the movement also spread because of several media-generated spectacles. On September 20, 1973, Billie Jean King, a twenty-nine-year-old feminist tennis star who had campaigned for equal prize money for women athletes, beat Bobby Riggs, a fifty-nine-year-old former tennis champion, in what was hyped as the “Battle of the Sexes.” A wave of pregame publicity sparked widespread national interest. Riggs entered in a ricksha drawn by his famed “bosoms,” the two women who brought him onto the court. Billie Jean King arrived on an Egyptian litter carried by a troupe of bare-chested musclemen. They even exchanged gifts. Riggs gave King a huge Sugar Daddy. She gave him a live baby pig. King won.15

  Among the many events that publicized feminist ideas was Norman Mailer’s publication of “Prisoner of Sex,” a fifty-five-thousand-word article published in Harper’s magazine in 1971. Having been crowned Chief Male Chauvinist by Kate Millett and others, Mailer now responded with a robust, even self-mocking, tongue-lashing polemic that spread feminists’ ideas to an even greater audience. Some feminists were more interested in demonizing Mailer than in reading “Prisoner of Sex,” which actually revealed personal ambivalence and vulnerability, as well as fear and anxiety.

  Describing himself as the Prisoner of Sex, Mailer poked, jabbed, ridiculed, and essentially used the subject of women’s liberation as an opportunity to explore his own need for women, his contempt for political cant, and his horror of the technological fix. Still smarting from Kate Millett’s attack on his novels’ negative images of women, he now fought back, describing Millett’s writing style as “suggestive of a night-school lawyer who sips Metrecal to keep his figure,* and thereby is so full of isolated proteins, factory vitamins, reconstituted cyclamates, and artificial flavors that one has to pore over the passages like a business contract.” Mailer’s notorious 1973 debate with Australian feminist Germaine Greer, author of The Female Eunuch, created yet another explosion of media hype, and helped vault the debate about sex and sexism to the top of the cultural agenda.16

  By the end of 1971, few literate Americans could ignore the emergence of the women’s movement. Time, Newsweek, the Atlantic Monthly, Saturday Review, Look, Life, the New York Times Magazine, had all run cover stories on the new movement. Television, moreover, had begun broadcasting a long list of documentaries on the new female rebellion. In the process, the media turned the phrase “women’s lib”—as they so chummily dubbed it—into a household
phrase.17

  THE “FIRST WOMAN” STORY

  Pressured by feminists, a wave of newspapers began to replace their “women’s pages” with newly redesigned sections called View, Style, Lifestyle, or, in the case of the New York Times, “the family, food, fashions and furnishings” section. By shrinking the number of inches allotted to the former “club-wedding-parties format,” editors created more room for feature stories, particularly about women entering male professions and occupations.18 Such stories also appeared in special issues of news magazines. The March 1972 issue of Time magazine, for instance, profiled an airport attendant, a radio disk jockey, a computer engineer, a telephone installer, a stockbroker, and an auto mechanic, all of whom were identified as the “first woman” to be employed in these occupations.

  A MOVING BODY

  After Congress passed Title IX in 1972, all schools receiving federal funds had to provide equal resources for women’s sports. These were the first girls to play in Little League. (Hoboken, New Jersey) Photo by Bettye Lane

  In the aftermath of Title IX, girls and women began training for and winning Olympic medals. In 1999, the U. S. women’s soccer team mesmerized the nation when they captured the World Cup. (Relay Hand Off, Hayward, California, 1973) Photo by Cathy Cade

  Billie Jean King was indefatigable in her successful campaign to transform women’s tennis into a highly paid and popular sport by creating a separate women’s tennis tour. (Wimbledon, 1975) Corbis