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Book Review
| Mary Margaret Fonow, Union Women: Forging Feminism in the United Steelworkers of America, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2003. pp. x + 250. US $19.95 paper.
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| Mary Margaret Fonow traces the emergence of the feminist unionist within the United Steelworkers of America. From its early beginnings, with the influx of women during World War II, through to the present era of global industry, Fonow describes how women have slowly but surely created a collective identity around issues of importance to them, and in doing so, changed their workplaces and unions. |
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Forging Feminism begins with a short history of the entry of women into the steel industry during the labour shortages of World War II, and then moves quickly to 1974 when a consent decree was issued to a number of employers in the steel industry. This required affirmative action programmes for all groups suffering institutionalised discrimination. It is fascinating to understand the social pressure for women to remain apparently feminine and how this impacted on the type of jobs offered women. Indeed the struggle for women was to break free from the jobs they were deemed 'suited to' into the more lucrative and challenging jobs that, until 1974, only white men were offered. Further, women sought the assistance of the Steelworkers in pursuit of these feminist goals. |
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By the end of the book you realise that what appears as an almost strategy-free campaign by women within the steel industry is, in reality, the ultimate opportunism by women who saw what needed to change and used every available avenue to advance their interests. I found the interplay of strategies using bureaucratic advances in equity law, grass-roots activism, union grievance procedures and individual case law particularly interesting. It was a multi-layered, mutli-geographical approach that gradually grew a gender-consciousness amongst women unionists that has continued to bear fruit. |
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Fonow advances the idea that Canadian women have been more successful than their American counterparts in institutionalising women's issues into the workplace. Indeed, the Canadian women appear to have created space in the public debate around the rights of women more effectively. They have successfully ensured that issues of both a public and private nature (eg domestic violence) are more entrenched in the consciousness of the labour movement and women themselves. Now they are taking on the problems of globalisation for women and networking globally with other women to find solutions. Fonow compares not only the experiences of Canadian and American women but black and white women, and women from different geographical regions. This provides interesting insights into how, as opportunities arose, some groups of women were better placed to take advantage of them and make gains for others. In the end, Fonow asserts that 'time and place do matter' in ensuring that the goals these women set for themselves were met (p. 192). |
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If I have any criticisms it is that Fonow did not explore the issues around how these union women perceived themselves and the labels they chose for themselves. Fonow reports that many of the women activists within the Steelworkers balked at labelling themselves as feminists. Why this occurred, despite their clear feminist agendas, would surely be instructive for activists trying to mobilise people. Are concepts of human rights, equality and justice more effective organising tools than collective identity? And how does this impact solidarity? |
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I also feel there is a lack of analysis around the women who were either in elected positions or employed within the Steelworkers. We are told that one of the more spectacular outcomes from the highly praised 'Women In Steel' leadership course was that graduates more frequently put themselves forward for elected positions within the union. But we are not told how they found the electoral process, how they faired in the positions and the nature of resistance by elected male officers of the union. |
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Fonow's book could certainly provide some lessons for the Australian union movement. Many Australian unions have wound down their women's committees and conferences and no longer provide opportunities for women to meet, discuss their lives and become inspired to activism or even change within their union. Given the challenges that globalisation now presents for national labour movements, perhaps it is time to think again through the full range of opportunities to mobilise people, in particular women, across a range of collective identities and a range of issues. If nothing else, Fonow's account of Women of Steel demonstrates just how wide an array of strategies any social movement advocating positive change needs in order to achieve its ends. |
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| Central Coast |
KRISTYN CROSSFIELD | |
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