The United Front of Women

Abstract

The following is the concluding chapter of The Rising of the Women (Monthly Review Press, October 1980), a detailed description and analysis of certain high points in the history of women's organizing in the United States between 1880 and 1917. The theoretical conclusions that follow are considerably more abstract and abbreviated than the rest of the book, which examines both united front organizations that crossed class and political lines (such as the Illinois Woman's Alliance and the Women's Trade Union League) and more purely working-class and radical groups (such as the IWW and the Socialist Party), from the point of view of their political line on the oppression of women, their ability to relate women's liberation to other fundamental issues, and their effectiveness in mobilizing women to fight on their own behalf. Meredith Tax, a writer and activist living in New York, has worked in the left and the women's liberation movement since the late 1960s, in such organizations as Bread and Roses (Boston), the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, CARASA (the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse, New York) and the Reproductive Rights National Network. —The EditorsThis article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.