Red Feminism: American Communism and the Making of Women's Liberation

Abstract

Kate Weigand's work is a generally successful attempt to restore the legacy of Communist party women to the history of the women's movement. For too long, Weigand argues, historians and activists of the women's movements of the late twentieth century have accepted Mary Inman's contention that the American Communist party had squelched women's voices and prohibited all but the most superficial discussion of women's issues. In contrast to this interpretation, Weigand contends that progressive women in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s “revolutionized” discussions of women's issues “by conceptualizing the dynamics of women's oppression and liberation within a framework that made race and class central.” The strength of Weigand's work is its analysis of how progressive women integrated Communist party efforts to combat racism and classism in their discussions of the woman question. Influenced by African American activists such as Claudia Jones, progressive women critiqued white privilege inside and outside progressive movements. Central to Weigand's overall thesis is her argument that this critique was picked up by and frequently discussed in the Communist press. This discussion of the interlinking of race, class, and gender, Weigand suggests, anticipated and formed a framework for those that later took place in the women's movements of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.