The Women’s Caucus of the NAM November 25-29 conference in Davenport met four times that weekend—always hurriedly and straining under the tensions and pressures which carried over from other conference sessions. Our actual decisions were few:

  1. There will be a women’s internal discussion bulletin in NAM,
  2. The policy of having at least 50% women on all national bodies is continued,
  3. Two of the women elected to the NIC will be responsible for seeing that the concerns of women are fully represented in every area of NAM.

There was also strong support for the idea of a NAM women’s conference in the early spring and several women agreed to work on this project.

Beyond these basic facts, we cannot discuss the women’s caucus without entering into the realm of our own experience and perspectives. We want to encourage other women who have different understandings of the dynamics of the caucus, or different analyses of what happened there to express those viewpoints also.

The women who met in Davenport were coming from many different places-geographically and politically. We were all concerned that many women weren’t there-our sisters from the women’s movement who have been skeptical of NAM’s ability (or willingness) to really deal with sexism, and the large numbers of working women (including women who work in the home) who’ve never been involved in the movement before. Disagreements emerged cautiously, not so much ‘n the form of clear discussions, as in the tiresome hassles over such things as the order of the agenda. We were limited by our inability to break out of the structures of the total conference, remaining locked in a single large group each time we met and surrendering easily to the prevailing emphasis on immediacy. It seems to us, however, that three distinct concerns emerged in these meetings:

  1. The need to begin to practically and theoretically integrate our understandings of feminism and socialism,
  2. The need to build NAM structurally as an organization actively struggling against sexism and racism in which every member can function is a non-alienating manner
  3. The need to broaden the base of NAM to include working people, particularly women and minority groups, through strong and viable programs.

The interaction of feminist and socialist politics cannot help but be productive if, as we believe, they are intrinsically linked. Many women in the caucus felt this to be true, but there was general agreement that few of us had worked out in any coherent form the dialectics of this relationship or its concrete meaning for our lives and work. This is not to say that we should be about constructing a narrow ideological focus. Rather, it is an attempt to speak to the necessity of acting out of a perspective which makes sense to us if we want to make sense to others.

Structurally, the conference itself suggested many of the difficulties which women will have to confront in NAM. The agenda allotted only 2 1/2 hours of a three day schedule for a ‘women’s caucus’, and our additional meetings were rushed and at awkward hours. The plenary sessions, at which all decisions were made, were largely dominated by men who function well in such an atmosphere—a situation oppressive to women and t? many men who cannot or will not adopt to those circumstances. In essence, it appeared we had learned little from the mistakes of the past. Many women seemed to be plagued by the fear of being divisive, which in reality served to divide women forcing us to function, once again, solely as individuals. It is becoming increasingly clear that women must continue the search for new forms of organization in which our potential can be better realized. Women’s caucuses meeting sporadically (or even regularly) within a group have not provided a solution. Our very presence in Davenport indicated that we do not find a separatist women’s movement a sufficient answer. However, we should not assume that our only other option is to work as individuals within the larger body. The directions of the women’s movement-collective work, non-elitist leadership, a personalization of politics-should not be lost in the interest of a vague and artificial ‘unity.’

The NAM programs are particularly crucial in attempting to broaden the base of the organization. Most women thought it essential that the needs of women be thoroughly integrated into every program area, if more women are to become involved. There was much skepticism, however, as to how seriously the program workshops had considered this problem and how definitively the adopted programs spoke to those needs. From the constant emphasis on “the working class” which pervaded the conference, there seemed to emerge a monolithic image of a white, male, forty year old, blue collar, heavy industrial worker. It was suggested in the women’s caucus that had the women in each program workshop been meeting together, they might have been better able to alter such attitudes. As it is we must begin now to insure that NAM programs will relate to all working people (including those unemployed or on welfare).

Very few women found these areas of concern to be in contradiction. Disagreements arose, rather, around order of importance in terms of where our energies should be going right now. We thought then, and continue to believe, that the three processes can (and should) go on simultaneously—that no single, area can be adequately developed except in the context of the other two. It is critical, though, that women begin thinking and writing on these subjects and that we share our questions and conclusions with each other.