Progressive Feminisms

This chapter talks about how Progressive women faced a number of challenges as they headed out on the campaign trail in 1948. Not only did Women for Wallace activists have to contend with Cold War politics, including debates about the role of Communists in the Progressive Party (PP), they also had to negotiate the competing rationales members claimed for women's political engagement. The feminisms that took root in the PP were most often shaped by debates about the grounds on which Progressive women should demand their right to political participation. Divisions within the Congress of American Women and Women for Wallace organizations were determined by the degree to which members relied upon notions of “difference” between men and women to claim their rights.