Long Pro-Choice

I've recently been re-reading some old socialist cartoons from the nineteen-teens. They show that socialists have always fought for feminist causes such as bodily autonomy. Of course, I already knew that. 

For example, this Robert Minor cartoon was published in the socialist New York Call on September 11, 1915. You cannot miss the cartoon's all-caps title, but do not overlook the caption at the bottom which frames the issue in terms of rights. She is being ordered, not exhorted. She is not being urged to make a particular decision - the message is that she has no choice. Misery is depicted all around her ankles, not just in the form of the small coffin but the crutches and her children's skull-like heads. It's a powerful piece. 

Great socialist cartoonist Art Young took a similar, yet different take in a issue of The Masses from December of that same year. Both cartoons show a pointing man and have the word "Breed" in their title capped off with a dictatorial exclamation point. (Here the title and the caption are one.) But Young shows a defiant presumably childless woman determined to avoid the previous woman's fate. We see rising agency which makes this cartoon slightly more optimistic despite its ominous heavily-inked clouds.

Art Young also took an intersectional approach showing the interconnectedness of three different issues - war, capitalism, and women's rights. The reason she is ordered to breed is to produce both cannon fodder and factory fodder for some future war - eighteen years hence. This is not your standard, garden variety anti-war cartoon. The Grim Reaper and Mars the God of War are absent. Instead, the feminist issue is literally in the foreground, whereas the other issues are pushed into the background. The word "WAR" is easy to miss despite being centered next to the capitalist's finger. Of course, the ongoing war was already on everyone's minds. This was an attempt to connect it to an issue that probably wasn't already apparent for most male readers. Young is encouraging the reader to look with new eyes and see a bigger picture.

Both cartoonists were men, but they were clearly trying to raise male awareness of issues that impact women. Women are the protagonists in both cartoons - overtly heroically in the second.

This is only slightly surprising since the feminism of left women is more widely known. Birth control advocate Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) was a socialist. Anarchist Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was another early champion of birth control. Indeed, she mentored Sanger. The first woman to run for President, suffragette Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927) was a Christian Socialist. Etc. Indeed, International Women's Day was a socialist holiday before centrists stole it and made it about glass ceilings and CEOs. (Hint: Most things with "International" in their name have socialist origins.) As I wrote before, free child care is a fairly defining feature of Scandinavian style socialism. So it is good to see more accessible historical examples of male socialists supporting women's issues too.

And few things are more accessible than a cartoon.


EDIT - 12/30/18:

I originally wanted to pull my punches on centrists somewhat in this post, but I have to point something out. There is a reason why leftists are better than centrists on social issues: The centrist temperament is inherently allergic to controversy and taking possibly unpopular, principled stands. This would not be such a problem if they did not assume such a conservative electorate, but it is a centrist article of faith that this is a conservative country and we must message and govern accordingly. It does not seem to occur to them that leading is part of governing - that they should do something to mold public opinion.

Case in point - reproductive rights. Centrists don't like defending abortion. It's an emotional issue. And so centrists counsel playing it down, compromising it away, or abandoning it entirely. As I wrote before, concern trolling on abortion by centrists in both parties is nothing new.

The left does not have this perceptual handicap. This leaves us freer to experiment - and support each other through coalition-building. And this is organic because outsiders often ally with each other.

Nor, for that matter, do conservatives have that particular handicap. Most of their issues are unpopular, but they win elections anyway because their base shows up. That's what happens when you do not hold your signature issues at arm's length. Republicans do not win because this is a conservative country. They win because voter turn out is abysmal so energizing your base is essential.

And you can apply that to virtually any issue. As I wrote before on race, during the New Deal era, "[I]f you supported a federal anti-lynching bill you were probably black, red, or both." Socialists and communists were heavily involved in the Civil Rights Movement. This is why so many of its leaders - like Martin Luther King, Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, etc. - were also socialists. LBGT rights were another area timorous centrists held at arm's length. On gay marriage, Bernie Sanders was well ahead of both Hillary Clinton and the country. (Indeed, Clinton was behind Dick Cheney.) Her flip flops were a byproduct of her centrist mindset. There are no such things as a play-it-safe trailblazers.