Description: Drawing on substantial new research, Red Feminism traces the development of a distinctive Communist strain of American feminism from its troubled beginnings in the 1930s, through its rapid growth in the Congress of American Women during the early years of the Cold War, to its culmination in Communist Party circles of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Kate Weigand identifies the Communist and progressive women who developed a sophisticated critique of women's oppression and devised a class- and race-conscious program for women's liberation. Their efforts expanded the Party's theoretical analysis of women's oppression, led to the removal of sexist images from Party publications, and prompted a variety of new classes, publications, and activities aimed at promoting women's liberation inside and outside of Communist Party settings.

Weigand argues persuasively that, despite the devastating effects of anti-Communism and Stalinism on the progressive left of the 1950s, Communist feminists such as Susan B. Anthony II, Betty Millard, and Eleanor Flexner managed to sustain many important elements of their work into the 1960s, when a new generation took up their cause and built an effective movement for women's liberation. Long before the Civil Rights revolution, the Communist analysis of race and class differences among women supported the struggles of African American women and other women of color. Red Feminism provides a more complex view of the history of the modern women's movement, showing how key Communist activists came to understand gender, sexism, and race as central components of culture, economics, and politics in American society.

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