Abstract

Women in the American Communist Party believed the rise of fascism in Europe was a direct threat to women’s rights. Hitler’s rise to power and what Communists read as a push to ‘nationalize’ German women’s maternity compelled Communist women to argue that fascism was a threat to women’s rights and perpetuated false ideals of ‘natural’ gender roles. Communist women dutifully followed the party’s anti-fascist line; however, they expanded it by arguing that gender inequality was on the rise in fascist nations and women’s rights had to move to the forefront of Popular Front struggles. Communists emphasized the rights of mothers and workers in an effort to better secure the rights of women. This article argues that party women rejected Nazi pronatalism, advanced women’s rights within the party’s ‘United Front’ and pushed their agenda within the American Communist Party.

Highlights

  • Hitler’s rise to power and what Communists read as a push to ‘nationalize’ German women’s maternity compelled Communist women to argue that fascism was a threat to women’s rights and perpetuated false ideals of ‘natural’ gender roles

  • Communist women dutifully followed the party’s anti-fascist line; they expanded it by arguing that gender inequality was on the rise in fascist nations and women’s rights had to move to the forefront of Popular Front struggles

  • This article argues that party women rejected Nazi pronatalism, advanced women’s rights within the party’s ‘United Front’ and pushed their agenda within the American Communist Party

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Summary

Introduction

Because Marxist doctrine challenged women’s supposed ‘traditional’ roles and instead saw gender as a construction that followed changes in modes of production, scores of American women were drawn to the American Communist Party (CPUSA) in the 1930s. Leading women in the CPUSA, including Margaret Cowl, head of the party’s Women’s Bureau, and Dorothy McConnell, began to vocalize these fears: they argued that fascism was a threat to women’s rights and that it perpetuated false ideals of ‘natural’ gender roles.

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