FEMINIST ALLIANCES: DOROTHY PITTMAN-HUGHES AND GLORIA STEINHEM

FEMINISTS HAVE ALWAYS ROCKED

Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman-Hughes, 1972 and 2014

Both photos by Dan Wynn

Feeling Rebloggy

1) DOROTHY PITTMAN-HUGHES' HISTORY

"Wanna see my cry like a baby? Ask me who these women were.

Hughes’ father was beaten nearly to death by the KKK when she was a kid, and what does she do? Become an activist to try and stop that from happening to other people. She raised money to bail civil rights protesters out of jail. She helped women get out of abusive situations by providing shelter for them until they got on their feet. She founded an agency that helped women get to work without having to leave their children alone, because childcare in the 1970s? Not really a thing. In fact, a famous feminist line in the 70s was “every housewife is one man away from welfare.”

2) Battered Women's Shelters

Then  Hughes teamed up with Steinman to found the Women’s Action Alliance, which created the first battered women’s shelters in history. They attacked women’s rights issues through boots on the ground activism, problem solving, and communication. They stomped over barriers of race and class to meet women where they were: mostly mothers who wanted better for themselves and their children.

These are women are who I always wanted to be."

Author Unknown

 

3) Feminist Magazine 

Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman-Hughes were also co-founders of Ms. Magazine.

4) Establish Modern Daycare

Dorothy Pitman-Hughes, a working mother, also established three of the first daycare centers. 

[Pitman-Hughes founded the first one] in 1966 after she had trouble finding someone to care for her own children. She charged a flat $5 a week for a child, regardless of family income.

By 1970, when ''universal daycare'' was a major political issue, she was able to make up the bulk of her budget from Federal, state and city funds earmarked for day care and in short order, Ms. Pitman-Hughes said, she dispensed with the child-care fee entirely.

There was not really a national consensus that day care was desirable - there was frequent criticism that the ''mother's place'' was with her child until regular schooling began - but many politicians were convinced to support day-care funding with the idea that mothers on welfare would take jobs if freed from child care.

Oprah Winfrey honored Hughes as one of America’s "Great Moms".[2] (from wikipedia)

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/13/realestate/streetscapes-west-80th-street-day-care-center-bright-hope-for-children-giving.html