Article Title

Stranger in our Midst: The Working Class Woman

Authors

Yvonne van der Klip Stam, Indiana University School of Law

Publication Citation

2 (1) IUSTITIA 104 (1974)

Abstract

Although some of the concrete goals of women's liberation such as adequate available day care for children are important to women of both the blue collar and middle classes, the philosophy expressed by the movement is not calculated to attract the working class woman. Two incomes may be increasingly necessary to the middle class family, and an increasing number of middle class women are now supporting their children alone, but the movement speaks of freeing women fiom child care to pursue a career, an idea which does not speak to a blue collar woman concerned with getting a job to make ends meet. Thus the need may in many senses by the same, yet the rhetoric divides where the common interest should unite.

Thus unless and until both groups realize the degree to which their interests coincide and the rhetoric loses some of its very strong class bias, it is unlikely that the women of the blue collar working class will be a substantial part of the women's movement and it will continue to be largely middle class in its orientation and outlook.

Recommended Citation

Stam, Yvonne van der Klip (1974) "Stranger in our Midst: The Working Class Woman," IUSTITIA: Vol. 2: No. 1, Article 18.
Available at: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/iustitia/vol2/iss1/18