To the Barricades—Again

It’s time to return to the ’60s and shake up the status quo

When I came of political age, activism meant picketing, boycotts, sit-ins and teach-ins. Protest meant burning draft cards, bras and effigies. People were lying down in the streets and staging in-your-face demonstrations at the Stock Exchange, the Miss America Pageant, the Pentagon, the headquarters of Nestlé, Dow Chemical, The New York Times—any institution that was turning a deaf ear to sexism, racism, workplace inequities or the Vietnam war. The idea was to raise consciousness about injustice and misguided policies. The goal: systemic change. The means: disrupt “the system,” discomfit “the power structure,” and make it impossible to do business as usual. To a large degree, it worked.

These days, people consider themselves activists if they sign an on-line petition and click “Send.” But I’m afraid that’s not good enough.

A study cited in The Washington Post last October found “strong evidence that much of the electronic mail that citizens assume is reaching Congress is ending up in an electronic trash can.” Phone your elected officials and you’re likely to get their voice mail or someone who doesn’t bother to ask your name and isn’t equipped to discuss the issue you’re calling about. I suspect some representatives are counting on the silence of their lambs...oops, constituents. They know that most of us are too overwhelmed, impotent, frustrated or polite to make a fuss.

Same for corporations. Valid complaint letters that once would have elicited an apology from management and a voucher to compensate for customer inconvenience now go unanswered or get a form reply expressing “regret” or denying responsibility. Try to reach someone by phone and you enter push button hell even if you “listen carefully to the following options.”

Many civic groups are similarly unresponsive. I’m thinking, in particular, of Jewish organizations to which you and I may belong or whose work we may support. I’ve had few fruitful encounters with Jewish officials who responded constructively when a sexist policy or practice was brought to their attention. Shifra Bronznick, president of Advancing Women Professionals in the Jewish Community, successfully petitioned a university that was putting together a seminar on “The American Jewish Future” to have women added to an all-male panel. However, the more typical reaction from the Jewish “power structure” when faulted on a matter of public concern is dismissive, defensive or hostile.

For instance, when Bronznick learned that a prestigious think tank, the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, had excluded women from the list of decision makers being convened to discuss the Jewish future, she complained to the Institute’s director, Avinoam Bar-Yosef, and its chair, Dennis Ross. Participants were chosen on the merits, they told her, implying that no women measured up.
“They’d said they wanted heads of organizations,” Bronznick recalls. “So why not invite Morlie Levin, executive director of Hadassah, which has 350,000 members, or Ruth Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service, or Maxyne Finkelstein, the CEO for the Jewish Agency in North America? Given how many accomplished women there are in every sector, I can’t believe these men could claim they can’t find talented women.”

Bronznick, a veteran noisemaker, raised the volume of her protest. She mobilized the 3,000 people in her network and circulated a piece on the subject by Deborah Lipstadt. As a result, more than a hundred major philanthropists, feminists and Jewish professionals sent protest letters to the Institute, and sociologists Steven M. Cohen and Shaul Kelner wrote a persuasive opinion article.

What happened as a result of this hoopla? Not much. The Institute scrambled to invite a few women to the conference but it has yet to respond to Bronznick’s five letters, or act on her suggestion that a committee be created to vet future panels for gender bias. Nevertheless, she says, “a lot of people are watching them now,” and one board member has asked that all future gatherings include one-third women on their roster.

I’ve always believed that nothing good happens until good people act, make noise and make trouble. That’s why I love the stealth actions that an anonymous group, Jewish Women Watching, periodically visits upon the Jewish community. In 2005, JWW issued a bogus press release about the Jewish Theological Seminary’s unveiling a plan for equal pay and gay ordination; it required JTS to do serious damage control. At Hanukkah in 2003, JWW members wearing masks and full-body costumes demonstrated in front of United Jewish Communities’ headquarters to publicize their “Greasy Latke Awards” to Jewish institutions that practice discrimination. In 2002, they sent out condoms imprinted, “Practice Safe Politics,” and asked “Why is the Jewish community in bed with Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed?”

Maybe it’s time once again for old-style activism—impolite, confrontational protests that shake up the status quo and make business as usual impossible.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin is at work on her tenth book, a novel entitled The Man in the Playground.