Information, Perspectives, and Challenges
I attended the Middle-Class Women’s Workshop1 last weekend, and my mind is still buzzing with the information, perspectives, and challenges.
Diane2 talked about how as middle-class females we have had to compromise our integrity. She insisted that we be fully honest with ourselves about the compromises we have made to have a middle-class life or to earn middle-class wages. It is not our fault that we have compromised—everyone is compromised under this system—but we cannot move forward until we allow ourselves to see and admit the truth.
She spoke frequently about individualism—how it’s the price we pay to be, or remain, in the middle class. She talked about how individualism makes it hard for us to have people in close, or even notice when they are. It makes us settle for individual gains or comfort instead of holding out for collective gains in collective struggles.
Diane insisted that working to eliminate classism and working to eliminate sexism and male domination can’t be separated. The oppression of females was set up as a prop to support classism, and the two oppressions have remained intimately intertwined ever since. I have spent much of my time in RC doing middle-class liberation work—learning, leading, organizing—all completely disconnected from women’s liberation work. I am unwilling for this divide to continue, and I don’t have much of an idea about how to do things differently. I will continue discharging and thinking to sort this out.
Greensboro, North Carolina, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail
discussion list for leaders of women
1 A workshop held in Baltimore, Maryland USA, in February 2015
2 Diane Balser, the International Liberation Reference Person for Women and the leader of the workshop