Two informative events took place during International Women’s Week.  The first, on March 3, was a talk given at Carleton University, Ottawa, by Dr. Jill Vickers of the Department of Canadian Studies.  She spoke to an audience of about eighty women and a sprinkling of men on the theme, “The Politicization of Gender and the New Right.”  Later in the week, Betty Friedan, Maude Barlow and Linda Silver Dranoff (three prominent feminists) were guests of Harry Brown on the TVOntario talk show, Speaking Out. To anyone concerned with the present contest in our society between traditional pro-life, pro-family forces and the opposing radical feminists, these events shed much light.

They showed how feminists believed that they had analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the pro-family movement and identified their real opponents.  Evident, too, was an unfinished agenda – goals and objectives that were yet to be achieved.  The discussions offered a window on the workings of the feminist mind and a clearer picture of where their leaders hoped to go, and what still has to be done.

Jill Vickers

At the outset, Dr. Vickers assured her audience of her socialist connections (simply assuming that the audience were of the same persuasion), and that she had been active politically in “the Party” and in feminist causes for many years.  Borne out once again – especially when tied to the participants of the Speaking Out show – is an impression that Canadian feminism is not a grass roots movement, but instigated and directed by an elite female cadre of bureaucratic, intellectual theorists and professionals.  Maude Barlow, formerly of Pierre Trudeau’s entourage, alluded to the role she now plays in “consciousness raising” (along with “sensitizing,” new terms for agitation) among young women.  Toronto lawyer Linda Silver Dranoff also fits this category.

What was the purpose of the Carleton talk?  Why this concentration on the New Right by Canadian feminists?  Along with American Fundamentalists, the so-called New Right is perceived to be the main obstacle to feminist aspirations.  So much so that Maude Barlow would oppose free trade with the United States for just that reason.  In short, the real opposition is seen to be to the south not in Canada.

The New Right

As distinct from the Old Right, seen as McCarthyite by Vickers, the New Right has two streams – one secular and the other religious, but with certain shared perspectives.  Common to both is a supposed Manichean view of society (of good versus evil); concern over pornography and a deterioration in traditional values; rejection of the burgeoning and overweening state (i.e. a rejection of contemporary liberalism) and a commitment to patriotism and a strong national defence.  According to Vickers, the New Right regards the notion of sexual equality as an evil, since God is seen as having created men and women for different functions.  Even more of an evil is abortion – a constitutional amendment to ban it is the considered remedy of the New Right.

Phyllis Schlafly, on whom Vickers expended considerable energy listing many of her pro-family activities, is regarded as the link between the Old and New Right.  She recognizes that the “patriarchal family” is in crisis and has acted accordingly.

Secular New Right

The secular New Right, Vickers claims, is made up of political scientists, thinkers, and traditional conservatives.  George Gilder, author of Sexual Suicide (1973), is extremely interesting to the feminists, being one of the New Right’s main gender theorists.  According to Vickers, Gilder agrees with most details of fifteen years of feminist analysis, but “just as Marx had inverted Hegel’s ideas,” so has Gilder turned feminism on its head by contending that it is the nature of the male, not the female, that is the main source of the problem.

Vickers points out that anyone familiar with feminist writings on peace and war would see that this is also their conclusion.  The New Right, however, believes that for a civilized society to survive, men have to be restrained in the male gender roles of husband, father and bread winner.  Male gender roles need the support of religion, the state and women.  In other words, discrimination in the work place is necessary.  In a welfare state, by contrast, “women got from the state what they would otherwise get from men,” and this, Gilder maintained, did not work, since the men would then dissipate their energies into useless pursuits.

To sum up, the New Right is credited with having a well developed gender theory: they agree with the feminists that gender is political (the subject of politics), that the state should be involved with gender, and both factions vigorously oppose pornography.  The New Right has successfully mobilized men and women politically, against the political activities of the feminist and left-liberal elements in the United States.  (Here one could pause to ask whether it is not ironic that it is the New Right that should be accused of “politicizing gender?”  This is, after all exactly what the left-liberal feminist movement in Canada and the United States has been doing, not only in the cause of women’s “rights” and freedoms, but also in the cause of socialism and other collective ideas.)

“Other Conservatives”

Ms. Vickers stressed that, nevertheless, the majority of Conservatives in the United States are not of the New Right.  The neo-conservatives, who are really neo-Liberals, saw the ails of society in terms of an excess of liberalism – feminism being a prime example.  They wished to return pre-gender liberalism, to a pre-feminist form.  Such conservatives/liberals, however, appear to pose no threat to the radical feminists, since their concerns are not of a moral nature.

Vickers stressed that it was very important to feminists to understand the New Right woman.  She appears as a dupe, a puppet of males (especially of television preachers) and above all, subject to false consciousness. The New Right woman is said to read the Bible as a ‘way of knowing’ – at least those of a Fundamentalist label do.

The Canadian Scene

Returning to the Canadian scene, Vickers at once pointed to REAL Women (who were copying Schlafly), as well as to pro-life supporters and a small moral majority faction as being of the New Right.  Earlier, the audience had been regaled with one other example of the New Right, namely 100 Huntley Street – “Do you ever turn off your TV set so you don’t have to watch it?  Nevertheless, Ms. Vickers did not see REAL Women and other pro-life forces in Canada as a threat!  They were far less successful than their American counterparts, due to the fact that there were a number of “moderating forces” in Canadian society which assured an unreceptive environment.

Moderating Forces

Not only was our tradition of conservatism unlike the American but Canadian attitude were far more favourable to the role of the state (Vickers suggested we read Barbara Amiel to find out just how statist the Progressive Conservatives were).

In the realm of religion and politics, the links in Canada were rather different too.  In the United States, there was strong legal separation of church and state (“only less respectable religions would overstep the boundaries”) whereas in Canada, we have had the likes of Tommy Douglas and Stanley Knowles, and last, but certainly not least, the Canadian Bishops.  “After all,” she said, “in Canada, God is not always on the side of the right.”  (A revealing observation, in that it amounted to a belief that links between religion and politics were unacceptable at the right end of the political spectrum, but fully welcome when, as was often the case in Canada, they were forged on the Left.  Anyone interested in the historical evidence for this should read Harry Antonides’ Stones for Bread, published by Paideia Press, 1986.)

Equally notable, from the feminist perspective, was the radically different nature of Canada’s welfare state (most benefits universally available), which was impossible to dismantle without political backlash.  The fact that most Canadian politicians had a pro-feminist bias was also helpful.

In sum, Vickers maintained that New Right rhetoric had not surfaced in Canada to any notable extent; “fights” in the governing Conservative Party were not welfare reform and, generally, there was in fact an attempt to prevent “gender gap politics” here.  Indeed, the well known sociologist, Seymore Martin Lipset, thought Canada puzzling since he found none of the “refreshing trends visible in the south.”  Vickers concluded that all these elements marked Canada as a country with “reasonable civility.”  Feminist voices were at least heard if not heeded; she saw no credible threats to feminism.

TVOntario

The other enlightening event of International Women’s Week was a discussion among three feminists and host Harry Brown of TVOntario’s Speaking Out programme.  There too, some of the main themes of the Vickers thesis were reinforced.

Canada was seen as extraordinarily receptive to feminism, compared with the United States.  Here, day care was not regarded as a threat.  Politicians were “receptive” and governments were listening.  And now, with the Charter of Rights, Canadian women enjoyed the equivalent of ERA without even a struggle!  Undoubtedly, lobbyists had been very successful (“they get what they want and money flows freely”).  All three women agreed that the tools needed to further advance the feminist cause were partially in place, namely, affirmative action, equal pay for work of equal value, and again the refrain, governments were listening.  Betty Friedan did agree with Barlow and Dranoff that the feminist forces in Canada had achieved far more than their counterparts in the United States.

In spite of the vaunted successes of feminism, however, if became quite clear – emphasized by Vickers too – that “women neglect the politics of the state at their peril.”  It was not simply a question of securing economic benefits for women but of changing the political process itself.  The present democratic political structure did not accommodate feminism, so they claimed, and thus politics and the theory of democracy had to be changed.  Women were entreated to become more politically active, to create their own political mass, taking over riding associations and even political parties.  Vickers assured the audience that this was not, in fact, very difficult to do.

Conclusions

I would offer the following as some of the main assumptions underlying current feminist thought:

  • Canadian conditions are not an obstacle to feminist aspirations.  On the contrary, Canada is particularly receptive and the tools are in place for completing the agenda.
  • Canadian pro-family forces do not pose a credible threat to feminist objectives.
  • The main threat lies in the United States, particularly with the New Right.
  • A new round of consciousness-raising is necessary.
  • And, finally, despite all the successes, feminists must still embark on a fundamental political transformation of society.

With regard to the latter observation, Kate Millett has said, “We are speaking of a cultural revolution, which, while it must necessarily involve the political and economic reorganization traditionally implied by the term revolution, must go far beyond this as well … to actually change the quality of life …. To transform personality.”

Kathleen Fyfe lives in Ottawa.