Saturday, November 4, 1.972

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Page Five


THE LIBERATED WOMAN

Rent strikes and

s1

tenant

unions

TENANTS AND THE URBAN
HOUSING C R I S I S, edited by
Stephen Burghardt. The New
Press, pp. 241, $8.95 cloth, $3.95
paper.
By STEPHEN MARSTON
IT HAS BEEN four years since
Ann Arbor tenants decided to
stop griping about their high
rents and shoddy apartments and
start applying economic pressure
to do something about them. Dur-
ing 1969 a challenge was thrown
out to landlords when twelve
hundredAnn Arbor tenants went
on a rent strike, refusing to pay
r'ent until the landlords and
apartment managers agreed to
discuss. better conditions with
representatives of the newly
formed Tenants' Union. It was
certainly one of the largest rent
strikesin U.S. history and one
of the longest as well: many
apartments were on strike; for
over a year. I doubt that the
landlords will ever forget the
rent strike, evenrthough they
never did capitulate to the major
demands of the tenants.
. The publication of this book on
tenant movements by a leader
of the Ann ArborTenants' Union
is an opportunity for us to take
stock of the historic event which
generated it, before the memory
of the rent strike fades and the
last of the rent strikers have
left town to live in substandard
apartments elsewhere. In hind-
sight we 'can see that the rent
strike mdtivated a new breed of
social activists, oriented to issues
close at'hahd rather than to stale
political dogmas. The rent strike
was a highly organized venture
during its early days, instructing
movement people in the art of
democratic decision-making and
political goal attainment. In par-
ticular it taught movement peo-
ple to use the capitalists' own
proved w e a p o n: money. The
Tenants' Union learned how to
assure a minimum flow of money
into the union, maintain orderly
records of it, keep it for the
tenants, and keep it from the
landlords: several hundred thou-
sand dollars, in fact. The rent
strike pioneered in successful
grass-roots methods, with one
hundred tenants formed into
tight-knit dor-to-door organizing
teams, each with a steering com-
mittee' inember leading it. (We
have West Point to thank for this
structure-Peter Denton applied
in the rent strike what he learn-
ed there as a cadet!) That the
rent strike trained leaders who
stayed *with the movement is
exemplified by the present Mich-
igan state representative race:
Y bothS t e p h e n Burghardt and
Perry Bullard were steeled for
their later political activities in
the crucible of the rent strike.
And the rent strikers developed
ways of using the courts against
the landlords and blunting the
thrust of the courts against the
movement. That the struggle was
eventually lost attests to the fact
that a real struggle did indeed
take place; the rent strike was
not another leftist parade.
C T E P H E N BURGHARDT, a
former general coordinator of
the Tenants' Union, has compiled

an encyclopedia of militant ten-
ant activities and has put these
activities to the light of analysis.
Tenants and the Urban Housing
Crisis is an anthology of writ-
ings by authors as varied as lib-
eral lawyers and people who see
tenants' unions as little more
than employees of the landlords
(Moskovitz) to Ted Parrish writ-
ing from his jail cell about squat-
ins in Boston. The authors of
the chapters are almost all peo-
ple who have struggled in the
movement. The reader will find
no "disinterested experts," who
observe from the safe sidelines
of the battle. The book moves
from the 1890s when "the Ladies
Anti-Beef Association made rent
strikes an annual affair on New
York's Lower East Side," past
the recent strikes of Muskegon
Heights and Ann Arbor, and on
to strategy for the future. It
proceeds from case histories of
the movement to the economic.
environment of housing to tenant
organizations and tactics. And in
this journey it stops to ask cr-
tain central questions:

The central problem with rent
strikes is their inability to pay
off. All the elements of a funda-
mental struggle exist in the mod-
ern slum or even the student
ghetto, and it is this insight
which motivates the housing ac-
tivist. The squalor, the over-
crowding, the racism are all
there and even some energy to
combat them. And so tenants
may find in the rent strike a way
to relieve their misery. If the
tenants strike, however, they are
almost certain to lose. Among
all of the major rent strikes in
America, only the Muskegon
Heights strike has achieved not-
able success. The rent striker
risks much and is likely to re-
ceive little in return.
And the free-market environ-
ment may even slip in a low
blow. Landlords and managers
rent apartments for profits. If a
rent strike interferes with their
profits from housing they will
prefer to put their money to prof-
itable use elsewhere, reducing
the funds available for apart-
ments and necessarily reducing

One step
THE NEW CHASTITY AND propose
OTHER ARGUMENTS AGAINST author;
W O M E N' S LIBERATION, by eralism
Midge Decter. Coward, McCann sists of
& Geoghegan, 181 pp, $5.95. of whi
of refc
By ADAM SIMMS Liberat
wifery,
ilIDGE DECTER'S The New marriag
Chastity is the first major reprod
attack on the Women's Libera- turn d
tion movement since it was re- first, a
vived almost a decade ago. As objecti
polemic, this work is important taken b
because of its author and her ond, a
arguments, insofar as they reflect author
a significant current of thought assessn
in contemporary American in- tempor
tellectual life. Ms. D
Ms. Decter's name is not one philoso
which commands immediate rec- she bel
ognition, but her credentials de- that va
mand attention and respect for posed.I
her views and vantage point. As and ra
a former executive editor of the au
Harper's Magazine and, present- molitio
ly, as the literary editor of dations
World Magazine and the wife of and al
Norman Podhoretz, editor of represe
Commentary, she is a bonda fide wishes
member of New York's literary as a p
elite.nThat elite is now engaged claimt
in one of its periodic bouts of of ay,
infighting, and as a result it thought
appears to be in the process of spectab
reorganizing itself into two op- The1
posing political-cultural camps. argum
One might be said to be the eration
party of "radical chic"; the for libe
other, for want of an equally feature
fetching phrase, a new wave of culture
neo-liberalism. It is for the lead- an esc
ership of this latter camp that pared t
Ms. Decter and her husband present
seem dto becontending through rary c
their editorships and writings, muchu
Keepingrup-to-date with the guer- ties in
rilla warfare of intellectual poli- as in
tics rivals Kremlinologyas an Rather
inexact science, but arcane or stricted
not, the New York crowd's ba- cial rl
tes are important because they have in
usually influence the terms of to them
debate on current controversies in dete
among the broad, educated read- individ
ing public that extends beyond especia
academia. lifestyl
The revival of neo-liberalism, riage p
of which The New Chastity is
representative, is largely a re-
action against the mood of "lib- JN, F
eration" which has dominated lems
much of the tone of cultural life porary
since the mid-sixties; e.g., the from t
blossoming of the "countercul- choice.
ture" and its new individualistic longer
ethic of "do your own thing." and limi
It is the reactive affinity of the did. Th
new neo-liberalism with "youth for wo
culture" that sets the intellectual sides i
atmosphere of Ms. Decter's work. which
The vantage point from which mine. 1
she viewsomen's Liberation is dissatis
that of "maturity," as opposed to lives t
that of "youth." Maturity, as Ms. mately
Decter defines it, is a sense of the id
resignation to the idea that noth- spiracy
ing comes easily, and that ex- oppress
cellence is attained only at the In Ms.
cost of striving and conflict; that woman
transcendence demands that we inferior

ed social change which its
and the ethic of neo-lib-
demand. The book con-
four main sections, each
ch is devoted to a topic
arm for which Women's
ion has agitated: house-
the sexual revolution,
ge as an institution, and
uction. Each section is in
ivided into three partsi
rather straight-forward,
ve statement of positions
by feminist advocates, sec-
counterstatement by the
which offers her own
nent of womankind's con-
ary condition; and third,
)ecter's response to the
phical postulates w h i c h
ieves underlie the reforms
rious advocates have pro-
But this sobriety of tone
tionality of format belie
thor's ultimate goal: de-
n of the intellectual foun-
of Women's Liberation
1 that it stands for and
ents. Ms. Decter simply
to put it beyond the pale
point of view which can
to deserve the allegiance
yone who wishes to be
I of as intellectually re-
ble or self-respecting.
burden of Ms. Decter's
ent is that Women's Lib-
embodies not a desire
ration from the repressive
s of American or western
but rather a demand for
ape from freedom. Com-
to other societies past and
, she argues, contempo-
ulture affords women a
wider ranger of possibili-
which to seek fulfillment
dividual human beings.
than being rigidly con-
and channeled into so-
lationships, women now
bore real choices available
n in areas that are crucial
rmining the shape of their
ual destinies as women-
lly, the availability of
es, sexual activity, mar-
artners, and family size.
ACT the central prob-
women face in contem-
society arise precisely
this new availability of
S o c i a l convention no
serves to define patterns
nits for activity as it once
e burden of responsibility
men's destinies now re-
n decisions and actions
they themselves deter-
Therefore, women who are
fied with the types of
they lead cannot legiti-
take refuge or comfort in
ea that a cultural con-
has molded them into
ed and degraded beings.
Decter's analysis, if a
believes her status to be
or dependent relative to

tion, first brought into focus in
Betty Friedan's book The Fem-
inine Mystique. The core of Ms.
Friedan's feminst analysis was
based upon her diagnosis t h a t
symptoms of frustration exhibit-
ed by many housewives are the
result of a value structure that
channels women into. the unde-
manding, unchallenging role of a
consumption-oriented social or-
nament. While husbands are able
to use and sharpen their talents,
training, and creativity in their
chosen professions, wives a r e
limited to exercising their edu-
cations and imaginations in the
spiritually deadening and men-
tally blunting sphere of t h e
home, with its endless rounds
of housekeeping, watching af-

forward,

two steps

nomy. For Ms. Decte
married women who h
are indulging in a lu
choice. Whereas a care
man is his "only and
medium of self-determ
a working wife is "at
in the army of wage
and breadwinners." As
ried man succeeds or fai
job, so is he a success
ure in his own estimatiot
has no other means of
ing his identity. A mar
man, on the other han
cording to Ms. Dector -
ways fall back upon h
riage-identity if her car
side her home fails.
This may no doubt be
the woman of whom Ms

"The vantage point from which Ms. De
views Women's Liberation is that of 'matur
ity,' as opposed to that of 'youth.' Maturity,
as Ms. Decter defines it, is a sense of resigno
to the idea that nothing comes easily, and
that excellence is attained only at the cost of
striving and conflict; that transcendence de
inands that we meet our duties and overcon
our own imperfections before we can claim
legitimate right to demand that society corm
its institutional imperfections. To believe
otherwise is to be naive, and social protest b
upfn such naivety is not a sign of wisdom.
Rather, it is a demand to remain a child, a h
creature free from the burden of being
judged capable of reason, of the ability to f
one's obligations toward oneself and others

Can tenant agitation be the
first signs of full-blown radical
grass-roots movement?
Why are rent strikesso tough
to win? Even when they lose is
anything gained?
What is the role of legalism in
rent strikes? Do lawyers over-
shadow the political goals of a
tenants' union?
Are rent strikes in public hous-
ing essentially different from
rent strikes in private housing?
Which has the better chance of
success?
What is the role of the rent
strike in developing a lasting
tenants' union?
Burghardt takes the view that
rent strikes are not central to
developing tenant organizations,
that they may even weaken the
organization by deflecting its en-
ergies to subsidiary goals. I saw
that happen to the Ann Arbor
rent strike. Legal minutae re-
sulting from eviction suits take
up so much time and energy that
the members become overwork-
ed and bureaucratic, and the or-
ganization loses its direction and
eventually its will to survive.
Burghardt pursues a sensible
question: can a tenants' union
de-emphasize or even avoid a
rent strike and still attain its
goals?

either the quantity or quality of
housing. So a rent strike may be
defeated by the profit mechan-
ism, even if it succeeds (par-
ticularly if it succeds) in crush-
ing the landlords financially.
The Burghardt book is an ad-
mirable attempt to deal with a
tough topic in a useful way. It
certainly would have been use-
ful to have such a book at the
outset of our own battle. The
format is good and the necessary
information is all there. Perhaps
this book will help future rent
strikers learn from the successes
and failures of past efforts. We
can be sure that landlords will
not fail to study it for their own
purposes.
Today's writers . ..
Adam Simms is a graduate
student in the Department of
History.
Stephen Marston, a research
associate with the Labor Mar-
ket Information System Pro-
ject, was a member of the
steering committee of the rent
strike.

booksbooks

meet our duties and overcome
our own imperfections before we
can claim any legitimate right
to demand that society correct
its institutional imperfections. To
believe otherwise is to be naive,
and social protest based upon
such naivety is not a sign of
wisdom. Rather, it is a demand
to remain a child, a human crea-
ture free from the burden of be-
ing judged capable of reason, of
the ability to fulfill one's obliga-
tions toward oneself and others
-in short, a being incapable of
responsibly managing one's own
destiny.
HE NEW CHASTITY'S form,
if not its content, is meant to
be taken as a model of the
sober, rational consideration of

that of most men, it is because
somewhere in the course of her
life she exercised an option-a
choice of a husband or lover, of
doing housework instead of pur-
suing a career of having chil-
dren -and elected of her own
will to follow the course of action
which has now rendered her
position so odious in her own
estimation. To protest against
the results of one's own choices
is to protest against one's own
freedom, against the responsibili-
ties and consequences of free-
dom. For Ms. Decter, the sense
of women's powerlessness which
Women's Liberation calls upon,
and to which so many have re-
sponded w i t h sympathy, arises
not from women's lack of
choices, but from their paralysis
of will in the face of being called
upon to take charge of their own
destinies.

ter children, and maintaining a
suitable refuge in which t h e
man of the house can relax and
revitalize himself for his return
to work.
Where Ms. Friedan detects a
cultural conspiracy that creates
a false consciousness among wo-
men and thwarts their develop-
ment as autonomous, willing be-
ings, Ms. Decter perceives rebel-
lion against freedom and ac-
countability. Precisely because
women are autonomous and will-
ing, they alone are responsible
for their condition as house-
wives. No invisible infernal ma-
chine has conspired to degrade'
women by making them house-
wives. Rather, women who are
housewives have chosen house-
wifery in preference to, for ex-
ample, executive or clerical or
manual positions in business and
industry - options possessed by
and available to women in no
other period of history. If a
modern housewife is frustrated
and disgusted with her lot, she
has none but herself to blame.
NOW, MS. Decter's emphasis
upon autonomy and choice is
refreshing and enlightening, up to
a point. After reading the pole-
mics of some of the more strid-
ent advocates of Women's Lib-
eration, one has the impression
that Ms. Decter has taken true
aim at ar glaring weakness ex-
hibited by the movement: a good
deal of the militant rhetoric is of-
times more reminiscent of the
romantic rebellion associated
with the tribulations of matura-
tion than with the sober, analyti-
cal discourse that is frequently
an attribute of- maturity. But in
striving to put forth the case of
"maturity," as it were, Ms.
Decter errs by overstating her
case. One of the hallmarks of
maturity is indeed the ability to
make reasoned decisions with a
willingness to abide with and
assume responsibility for the re-
sults. But it must also be real-
ized that the range of choice
available to even the most ma-
ture being is by far more limit-
ed than Ms. Decter would have
us believe.
This error is particularly jar-
ring in regard to her discussion
of women's positions in the eco-

speaks: those who "for
part . . . regard (a)
career as a welcome n
escaping from the hou
else to account for the
hundreds of thousands
ried women who are d
no very pressing econor
to enter the labor for
year (are) there to to
of a perfectly ordinary,
nature". The fact is,l
that according to curr
mates approximately o
to hal fof the women w
do so because their wz
vital to their families'
to the extent of either
bread on the table, or+
taining its lifestyle.C
imagine Ms. Decter
to the intrusion of data
thesis with the remark t
lifestyle is a matter of
women who work with
in view are exercising
But when faced with t
lems of how to pay off
gage and send children
college and set aside m
retirement or illness, a
decision to become a
wife is resolved into an
choice between mainte
possible status quo and
ridden, perhaps declini
pauperized future. An
mature, responsible, r
adults understand such
for what it is: no
choice at all.
rTHE EXTENT of on
range of choice in
vital decisions is a cri
stacle to accepting Ms.
related arguments co
job discrimination aga
men. Ms. Decter has
agreement with Wome
eration on the score tf
crimination exists and s
ended. But she veheme
agrees with the movem
tion that inequities are
suilt of "male suprema
titudes. "The real ' fun
the idea of male supre
not to explain women b
cuse them, in both sens
term - to offer an ex
their retreat from powe
grant them release fronr
sibility." Accordingly, b
ter believes that the r
tion to be answered whe
why there are so few
doctors, lawyers, engine
is "not why so few wo
accepted into the 'hard
sional schools but why
have settled for a differ
pay - why, to put it
so many women have
fit to compete as even
competitive of men ar
ably forced to do."
True; many people -
and men - would and d

backward
r, most a differential in pay rather than
old jobs engage in competition. But ra-
.xury of tional choice in a situation such
er for a as the one Ms. Decter describ-
ultimate es - in which a considerably
ination," large outlay of years and cash
volunteer is required for a prefossional
-earners education - is based in no small
a mar- degree upon the possibility of
ils at his later employment so as to jus-
or fail- tify the prior expenditure. Where
n, for he is the incentive for women to
anchor- compete for places in profes-
ried wo- sional schools when their chanc-
d - ac- es for employment after gradua-
- can al- tion are restricted? The agita-
er mar- tion for increased hiring of wo-
eer out- men professors at this university
has been underway for several
true for years, but still the only tenured
. Decter female faculty member in this
reviewer's own department dur-
ing the past four years - and
r for as long as many of the ten-
ured male faculty members can
remember - is the occupant of
cter a chair endowed specifically to
be held by a woman. Granted
-that money is tight and the uni-
versity has frozen future hiring,
a and so perhaps there should
exist even less incentive f r
atiofl women now to compete. But how
does one explain this or any
other university's record in this
regard during the sixties, a boom
decade if ever there was one
for Academe, a decade in which
many of Ms. Decter's women
settled for a "differential"?
te Where was the incentive at that
time to make a real, rational
any choice to compete, a time when
even lip-service to a cormit-
ect ment to admit and hire women
was practically nonexistent?
wsed
F MS. DECTER'S conception
of "choice" is both overly broad
and too shallow, then her work-
umni.(n ing definition of "Women's Lib-
eration" must be judged as be-
ing both too narrow and too
loose. Judging from the refer-
ulf ill ences which Ms. Decter cites
during the course of her argu-
ment, she has launched the ma-
jor portion of her attack against
publicists who are among t h e
- movement's shrillest, most mili-
tant advocates. Betty Friedan,
the most Simone de Beauvoir, and Ger-
the ost maine Greer are among the
daytme more widely recognized authors
se. How cited, but their ideas and state-
fact that ments receive proportionately
far- thless attention than do a whole
riven by covey of less popularly acclaim-
nic need ed writers, such as (choosing at
c ecd random from footnotes) Pat
ace each Mainardi, Leah Fritz, Barbara
kroutine Balogun, and Nancy Chodorow.
however, n effect, Ms. Decter has ex-
ent esti- pended most of her efforts on
ene third rebutting the ideas and outlook
ne work of a minor eddy of Women's
aho wrk Liberation and has ended by
ages are misrepresenting it as a social
support, tidal wave. That which Ms. Dec-
put ing ter has chosen to analyze she
one can has analyzed well, but she has
re can done justice to neither her ar-
rpl yng gument nor to the situations
upon her which have given rise to the
choice movement.
this end Her fatal error is that she has
choice. taken a blanket sobriquet-"Wo-
he prob- men's Liberation" - which in-
a mort- corporates what are really two
through wings of the movement, analyz-
oney for ed one of its wings, and then
woman's presented her resulting critique
working as an indictment of the whole.
effective Ms. Decter's b o g e y is not
aining a really Women's Liberation, but
a debt- rather radical feminism, a posi-
ng a n d tion whose chief characteristic
d most is to analyze any and all aspects
easoning of society from the sole vant-
a choice age point of how women, and
practical women aldne, are effected. It is
her belief that programs for so-
cial change which emerge from

so restricted a framework seek,
ae's real in effect, to androgynize t h e
making human race by attempting to
itical ob- minimize and eradicate the bio-
Decter's logically defined distinctions be-
ncerning tween male and female, between
tinst wTo- homosexual and heterosexual.
no dis- What Ms. Decter fears is t h a t
n's Lib- beneficial social institutions, con-
hat d s- structed over centuries at the
hould be behest of high aspirations and at
ntly dis- the cost of a high price in hu-
ent's no- man strife, will be lightly, has-
the re- tily, carelessly traded away in
cist" at- search of absurd goals. Consid-
iction of ering some of the complaints
macy is and proposals that she cites, Ms.
ut to ex- Decter and we all may have
es of the considerable justification for
.cuse for such fears should the militants
r and to have their way.
n respon- But lost in most of her analy-
Ms. Dec- sis and counterpolemic, except
eal ques- for a few passing references, is
n asking' any substantive discussion of the
women institutionally tenable issues rai-
ers, etc., sed by the overwhelming re-
men are mainder of the movement's ad-
' profes- vocates and supporters, parti-
so many cularly job discrimination and
ential in day-care. These are the concerns
bluntly, that have earned the allegiance
not seen of most of those who subscribe to
the least what is popularly called "Wo-
men's Liberation," not the mili-
- women tant feminism which draws t h e
o choose fire of Ms. Decter's cannonades.

,/

Shades

of

Nuremburg

One of Ms. Decter's most
p o i n t e d illustrations, a n d
one which serves also as t h e
framework for her most sustain-
ed attacks against a leading fig-
ure of the women's movement,
is her section on "shitwork". It
deals with the complaints
against the housewife's condi-
/T


FUTURE TEACHERS

I do not make decisions, The
party tells me what to do. The
party. The party, THE PARTY.


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