Chapter 9: Feminism and Class Power Summary and Analysis

When the feminist movement began, it received mass media attention, but the focus was on the relatively few privileged white women who began to have the same opportunities as privileged white men. Poor and working class women received virtually no attention. Betty Friedan wrote of the housewife, trapped in the home. But, in reality, the upper-class, educated white woman didn't work outside the home not because she couldn't but rather because she did not want to take on low-paying, menial jobs—the jobs that many low-class black and white women had been working at for years.

Lesbians of all classes and races were at the forefront of the feminist movement, leading the charge to end male domination. These same feminists were the first to discuss the issue of class which ultimately led...