SISTERHOOD UNDER SIEGE

...But the battle cannot be waged alone...

...Such feminist celebrities as Jane Fonda also legitimize corporate feminism-through exercise salons, self-help books, and fashion lines...

...The bleached, coopted version of the feminist mission is increasingly passing for the real thing in the business world—and even in some segments of the women's movement...

...The will to succeed is presented as the ticket to power, though in reality, it is the system itself that locks women out...

...Entitled "Women Mean Business," the conference included panels on entrepreneurship, conflict resolution, and wardrobe planning...

...Since about half of the magazine's readers earn less than $25,000, this type of article may actually undermine self-confidence instead of stirring ambition...

...The issue is who is going to make it and who isn't...

...This was my battle and mine alone...

...Solidarity lies at the heart of feminism...

...At this stage, most of us are trail-blazers—the first woman executive in a company, the first female in an occupation," Scheele said...

...The current campaign introduces a new variation on an old theme: If women buy designer clothes and play along, they can "go places" in a man's world...

...magazine...

...If equality and dignity are to be attained, feminists must not leave poor and working-class women behind...

...Upstairs, colorful clowns entertain long lines of women waiting to buy $100 "dress-for-success" designer scarves...

...Last September, Macy's and Working Woman magazine co-sponsored a "special event" to unlock the secrets of success for women...

...Seeing powerful, compassionate, competent women reduces the fear of female power among both men and women, and sets free the ambitions of children, both boys and girls...

...Some businesses make hefty donations to professional women's associations, helping advance the notion that equality is a matter of individual effort...

...And the people who are going to make it are going to be like those already on top...

...true liberation demands confrontation, not integration, with corporations that exploit women...

...The modest book shop offers self-help guides designed to bring storybook success to any ambitious woman...

...General Mills, American Express, and Dayton-Hudson, among others, sustain and direct such organizations as Catalyst, the largest women's group to promote the full participation of women in business...

...remains steeped in the rhetoric of sisterly solidarity, and its articles continue to highlight organizing around such issues as abortion rights and the Equal Rights Amendment...

...all women will then be free to succeed...

...Unlike Working Woman, Ms...

...Image (or tokenism, as it used to be called) has emerged as the driving force of this brand of feminism...

...A similar though more complex theme weaves through the pages of an explicitly feminist publication: Ms...

...hosted a party for astronaut Sally Ride at the headquarters of Equitable Life Assurance, even though women workers were then trying to negotiate a contract with Equitable and had initiated a public boycott of the company...

...In 1983, it employed more than fifteen million workers, three-quarters of them women...

...Penney's is 77 per cent female, just three women serve among the corporation's top sixty-one officers...

...When anchorwoman Christine Craft won her sex discrimination lawsuit against Metromedia, she told one reporter, "I am not a feminist...

...Successful women easily forget that collective struggle made their own achievements possible...

...And though the affair promised to take "a complete look at the business of being a woman," there was scarcely a word about discrimination or harassment, sisterhood or equality...

...Fonda may use union labor to make her clothing, as some of her defenders have noted, and she may also donate money to progressive causes, but her appeal is to self-image and self-promotion, not to political solidarity...

...The difference in working at a union rather than a nonunion Macy's is a decent standard of living and a measure of dignity...

...Articles shifted from features on family budgeting to discussions of money-market accounts, from pay equity to how to be an executive woman...

...Last year, Ms...

...For the women at Penney's, the company's presence on the Catalyst board of directors has meant nothing...

...Segments of the women's movement, intentionally or unwittingly, are feeding the corporate fiction that feminism is really another word for "making it...

...Still, the magazine focuses less on the lives of ordinary women and more on successful individuals who break barriers and pave the way for others...

...Corporations have long used media smokescreens to protect male-dominated power structures...

...the prosaic facts of their working lives conflict with the media myths about them...

...men head the company's five major divisions...

...At times, this narrow approach comes into sharp, embarrassing focus...

...At five New York stores, for instance, those in male-dominated nonselling positions receive guaranteed raises until the maximum wage is reached after two years...

...In the basement of New York City's famous department store, chefs teach "superwomen" how to whip up one-hour gourmet meals...

...According to the position papers of Catalyst, once women are integrated into corporate structures, the men who dominate those offices will feel more comfortable with assertive females...

...A trip to Macy's should mean attendance on the picket line, not at a seminar for up-and-comers...

...Meanwhile, corporations plow millions of dollars into slick advertisements that laud on-the-go executive women...

...On the cover of its September 1984 issue, the magazine ran the penetrating story, "The Mindset of Success: Having It All on $80,000 to $300,000 a Year...

...Though the work force at J.C...

...By cultivating powerful but deceptive ideals of equal opportunity, business leaders hope to conceal their predominantly male hierarchies and let the steam out of calls for collective women's action...

...The October 1984 issue of Ms., for instance, included pieces about Geraldine Ferraro (written by founding editor Gloria Steinem) and Joan Rivers, two women who have broken into the male worlds of politics and entertainment...

...Steinem's position echoes that of Catalyst, the corporate-oriented women's organization...

...But in female-dominated sales jobs, workers must pass annual merit reviews to attain top pay...

...When Working Woman began publishing in 1977, it addressed all working women—factory workers as well as professionals...

...Macy's, despite the lavish promotional efforts it aims at the successful woman, has only five women among fifty-six top officials...

...After nearing the brink of bankruptcy, however, the magazine changed directions...

...Central to this view is the assumption that equality derives not from the collective struggles of women against discriminatory institutions but from the ability of a few to accommodate themselves to those institutions...

...But the decision-makers are mostly men...

...Call it pragmatic or call it crass, but such advice finds sympathetic ears...

...They aren't wild and they don't wear rings through their noses...

...Their divergent politics are of no concern: Each is a star to be emulated...

...Such discrepancies reveal far more about corporate concerns for women than do business donations, conferences, and advertisements...

...We successfully avoided any wage concessions," says Walter Johnson, president of United Food and Commercial Workers' Local 1100...

...In industry after industry, women see the same disparity...

...Hero" award on Equitable Chairman Coy Eklund...

...Richard Moore and Elizabeth Marsis wrote "What's a Woman's Work Worth...

...Unfortunately, few Macy's stores are unionized, and the company has established sexually discriminatory wage scales even in some organized shops...

...The struggles of average women, in whose name successful women are supposedly breaking barriers, have become incidental to barrier-breaking itself...

...The historic idea of equality through sisterhood is under siege...

...Today's female executives are conservative...

...Behind the glitter and hype for professional women, real wages for retail workers have declined since 1966, and the giant department stores are eager to roll back wages even further...

...last year, the Spiegel company staged seminars similar to Macy's effort in a half-dozen cities...

...to Jane Fonda and her self-help books, individual achievement and stardom are beginning to consume much of the feminist agenda...

...While Macy's and Working Woman stood arm in arm at the "Women Mean Business" seminar, Macy's had just settled a forty-five-day strike in San Francisco, where it had attempted to reduce employee medical benefits, institute a two-tier wage system, and gut the union's grievance machinery...

...It's nice to think of more caring female managers, but those who care will never get to the top...

...for the December 1983 issue of The Progressive...

...From Working Woman and Ms...

...In the opening session, Kate Rand Lloyd, editor-at-large of Working Woman, Kay Wight, a vice president of CBS Sports, and Adele Scheele, an author and career strategist, set the tone: Corporations have opened their doors to those women ambitious enough to squeeze through them...

...A short-term necessity," wrote Steinem, "is the integration of women into public life...

...Consider the retail industry...

...The magazine also conferred its "Ms...

...Corporate feminism is alive and well, nurtured by enterprises that want to whitewash their sexism or simply make a buck...