Elizabeth Bentley and cold war representation: Some masks not dropped
During the 1930s and 1940s Soviet intelligence operated spy rings within the United States. America Communist Elizabeth Bentley managed these networks until she defected to the FBI in 1945. Bentley's story of Communists in government ‐ the first of the Cold War — caused a public scandal. Some commentators, offended by Bentley's failure to fulfil traditional gender prescriptions, ridiculed her and shed doubts upon her story, which received less serious consideration than Whittaker Chambers’ similar tale. This article explores these criticisms, Bentley's attempts to counter them with her own public performances of traditional feminity, and, implicitly, gender's role in American Cold War politics.
The Red Menace, the Feminine Mystique, and the Ohio Un-American Activities Commission: Gender and Anti-Communism in Ohio, 1951-1954
The United States in the 1950s, in the minds of many people, is characterized primarily by two historical phenomena: McCarthyism and the resurgence of the idea that women's prindpal role was that of wife and mother. Much historical research on the period of the 1950s has been devoted to one or the other of these topics, and it seems clear that both were, in fad, central to that decade.1 But despite the fad that both historical events are essential for an understanding of the 1950s, only one scholar has examined the effects of the Cold War on American women, and none has analyzed the influence of the prescribed ideal for 1950s fernininity on anti-Communist investigations.2 This research begins to explore that question through a case study of the testimony and treatment of the radical (and formerly radical) women and men who were caUed before the Ohio UnAmerican Activities Commission (OUÃ• C) from 1951-1954 in an attempt to determine how 1950s prescriptions for women's behavior affeded both the attitudes of the Commission and those of the people who testified before it. In the United States the years immediately foUowing World War II were generaUy marked by increasing social and poUtical conservatism. One important asped of this conservatism was the revival of a traditional ideal of fernininity and domestidty for women after nearly two decades of relative flexibiUty in conventional gender roles.3 "The Ferninine Mystique," as this ideal for American women was caUed by Betty Friedan in her 1963 book of the same title, encompassed a range of stringent prescriptions for women's roles and expectations for their behavior.4 Women's ambitions were supposed to be totaUy fulfiUed through their domestic activities, ". . . kissing their husbands goodbye in front of the picture window, depositing their stationwagonsful [sic] of chÃ1⁄4dren at school, and srniling as they ran the new electric waxer over the spotless kitchen floor."5 Women were expeded to be passive, emotional, and incapable of making major decisions; they were not supposed to be concerned with issues outside the home, poUtical or otherwise. According to Friedan," their only fight was to get and keep their husbands. They had no thought for the unf erninine problems of the world outside the home; they wanted the men to make the major dedsions."6 In short, the ferninine mystique prescribed
Survival in the Doldrums: The American Women's Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s.
This is the first book to explore the persistence of the American women's rights movement in a period generally considered devoid of feminist activism, and to show the ways in which the more radical movement of the 1960s was influenced by the successes and failures of the 1950s activities. Focusing on women who saw themselves as heirs of the suffrage movement and who were, in many cases, actual participants in that original campaign, the authors have conducted extensive interviews and searched through rare letters and memoirs to reclaim the lost history of this period of American feminism. They reveal that such pioneers as Alice Paul, Florence Kitchelt, and Alma Lutz were not subverted or overwhelmed by the 'feminine mystique' of the 1950s, but rather maintained their commitment by building a supportive community of mostly white, middle- and upper-class, like-minded women. Sociologists; those interested in women's studies.