Engendering Democracy in an Age of Anxiety

• In Event: Difference, Solidarity, and Redistribution in Twenty-First Century America

Abstract

This paper situates the problem of gender solidarity in an analysis of the development of democracy and capitalism in the postwar America. I show that, even though the U.S. fell far short of the solidaristic policies of postwar European social democracies, New Deal social policies expanded in the decades after World War II. By the 1960s, federal action designed to temper capitalism and to lodge ideals of freedom within a system of social protection were gaining wide support. In this context, the emerging women’s movement embraced broadly solidaristic goals, including a universal right to child care. The paper documents the underlying tensions in the movement between those seeking freedom to function in a male-dominated society and those embracing social justice and wider social change. In the 1970s, I argue, gender solidarities evaporated in the context of newly dominant ideas about market freedom and individual responsibility. I show that racialized ideas about individual responsibility and belief in meritocracy undermined support for broad redistributive policies. As unprecedented opportunities opened for privileged women at the top of the educational and income ladders, well-off women embraced individual rights in place of gender solidarity across economic lines. Broad class and gender alliances dissolved into fragmented identity politics and women became “just another interest group.”

Author

• Alice Kessler-Harris, Columbia University