New book on U.S. women's movement is strong on facts, but weak on conclusions

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WE WANT TO DISCUSS THE GENDER GAP!!

A Lesser Life: The Myth of Women's Liberation by Sylvia Ann Hewlett. William Morrow and Company, 1986, 461 pp., $17.95.

In "A Lesser Life," author Sylvia Ann Hewlett presents us with an exhaustive up-to-date analysis of the economic problems of women in the United States.

The book is full of grim statistics. For example, the wage gap between women and men in America has not shifted in 50 years; women earn $.64 to a man's dollar. The majority (57 percent) of female-headed households live in poverty. The United BOOK REVIEW States is the only industrialized country that has no statutory maternity leave.

The book contrasts the United States with four Western European countries (Britain, France, Italy, and Sweden) and their economic policies concerning women.

In Sweden, a woman is entitled to ninemonths maternity leave, while taking home 90 percent of her pay. In addition, seniority rights on the job are protected. A pregnant woman in Italy is entitled to five-months paid leave with 80 percènt of her pay ensured. A woman is also allowed an additional six-months leave at 30 percent of her pay, if needed.

Goals of feminist movement In France, a woman is entitled to a threemonth paid leave with additional maternity benefits, such as access to public child-care facilities. Overall, these countries provide important support services for single women and for women raising children with partners.

Hewlett believes that the comparative In celebration of International Women's lack of economic benefits for women in the United States is due in part to the nature of the goals of the American feminist movement. "The overwhelming preoc -cupation of the American women's movement has been on equal rights and reproductive freedom, while the central focus of most European feminists has been on the material conditions of life," the author states.

Hewlett points out rights and benefits were won by European women as part of the broader social struggle led by a trade-union movement bolstered by its strong roots in the socialist movement. This same struggle led to the founding of mass working-class parties.

In the case of Sweden, the author points out, "Women's interests were bound up with those of larger organizations seeking general univeral suffrage, such as the Social Democratic Party, formed in 1889 to /OMEN OF THE VOD represent the industrial working class, and the Liberal Party, established in 1902 to represent the lower middle classes and urban intellectuals."

An incorrect conclusion The facts are true. But Hewlett incorrectly applies the European experience to politics in this country. She uses these facts to attack the women's movement here for what she sees as an insufficient commitment to the Democratic Party.

In the United States, politics are monopolized by the twin parties of capitalism, which have never represented anyone but the ruling rich. There is no labor party here.

The Democratic and Republican parties cannot be compared with the Social Democratic parties of Europe which, despite their reformist and often reactionary leaderships, are based on the trade-union In this country, social change has always been won in the streets. No Republican or Democratic politician ever gave us the right to vote or the right to control our reproductive rights without a fight. In fact, all the gains of the past are constantly being undermined by both parties.

It was under Jimmy Carter that funding of abortion for poor women was taken away. This important fact is ignored by Hewlett, who criticizes NOW for not endorsing Carter "until the last moment in the 1980 election" and thus failing "to mobilize against Reagan."

Throughout the book, Hewlett places the onus on the women's movement and the trade unions for their failure to improve the material conditions of working women. But the blame here is misplaced. The onus lies squarely on the capitalist economic system—not on the victims of that system.

Unfortunately, the top leadership of the women's movement—as well as the tradeunion movementhas tied itself to one of the parties of the capitalist class. This misguided strategy will not bring about the democratic reforms needed for working people in this country.

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