Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - (Page 102)

Self tells the whole story of American would prove more important than the ac- ports that would help the changing family tual breadwinning. adapt—such as the effort to secure a strong politics through the lens of the battles child care program that foundered in the about gender, sexuality, and family. It is not only the story of the women’s moveelf makes a powerful case for the larg- Nixon administration—which Self refers ment and the “homophile” organizations er importance of the LGBT and wom- to using Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between (which is what the movement we now know en’s movements, but he sometimes delves “negative” and “positive” rights. (A pithier as LGBT called itself in the 1950s and ’60s) so deeply into the internal politics of each— version of the distinction is the computer but also the evolving vision of manhood for example, the conflicts within 1970s les- scientist Richard Stallman’s phrase, “Free and a man’s role in society, which was test- bian activism between those who adopted as in speech, or free as in beer”—free beer, ed by Vietnam and the changing economy. “butch” and “femme” roles and the “freaky” unlike speech, comes at someone else’s ex“Breadwinner liberalism” is Self’s brilliant women who rejected that imitation of pense.) Each movement involved its own term for the New Deal/Great Society vi- heterosexual norms—that he loses some divisions, often those of race and class, besion of a just society—one in which a man of the connection to the central grounds of tween those who could afford to priorican provide support for a nonworking wife political argument, veering off into alleys tize negative rights and, for example, lowand children, but that is also infused with that involve a relatively small number of income unmarried women, who needed an idealized, tough-minded manhood, ex- people. But these movement stories, with more positive support to achieve equality. emplified by the men of the Kennedy fami- a rich set of characters—many of them lit- This structure works better as an analysis ly. Self points out that the clear-headed Cold tle known to the larger liberal world—are of feminism than of gay rights. Self argues in themselves fascinating that the negative rights within each movetales. Two recurring figures ment won out: in particular, the legendary what has survived in the new political gay activist Frank Kameny, environment are a handful of abstract who was fired from the U.S. rights: women’s market liberty, for inArmy Map Service and took stance, the constitutionality of abortion, his case to the Supreme and sexual privacy.... Meaningful rights Court in 1961, and Del Marvaried with income and resources. tin, a San Francisco lesbian activist of subtle strateWhile the rapid shift in attitudes about gic intelligence, emerge as figures who should occupy same-sex marriage, and its legal status, a much larger place in our is astonishing to all of us who have lived understanding of postwar through it, it is also entirely consistent with American politics. Kameny Self’s dichotomy between negative and pospassed away last year at the itive rights. Gay marriage became acceptage of eighty-six, and Mar- able as soon as people looked up and realtin, who married her part- ized that nothing was threatened, that it ner of fifty-six years in 2008, bore no real cost. And many liberals now reWar liberalism of Arthur Schlesinger’s book died later that year at eighty-seven. It is not gard these victories as almost too easy, comThe Vital Center, now widely admired and re- just their longevity and final triumphs that pared to the challenge of expanding ecovived in Peter Beinart’s book The Good Fight, Self calls on us to admire about Kameny and nomic opportunity, which has to come at a bore an unsubtle gendered vision—what Martin, but their savvy and mature engage- cost to someone, even if only the very rich. else to make of all that stuff in the book ment in managing the wildly disparate im- “Where are the leaders when the issues are jobs and social investment?” lamented Robpulses of early gay rights activism. about avoiding “neurosis” and embracing “a There is a bigger point to Self’s deep dive ert Kuttner of the American Prospect when new virility”? Breadwinner liberalism was unsustain- into the internal politics of the LGBT and Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York emable, though, for both social and econom- women’s rights movements, as well as his braced same-sex marriage. Does Self refute the now-conventionic reasons. Pete Hammil in 1969 identified analysis of the gender politics of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam-inflected al story that identity politics tore apart “the growing alienation and paranoia of the politics of manhood and the military, and the liberal coalition that existed from the working-class white man” as the political the sexual revolution. Rather than see- 1930s to the ’60s? Not quite, which is unphenomenon of the era, and that anxious backlash, driven both by race and a rap- ing identity politics as a single thing, dis- fortunate, because such a challenge would idly changing social order, foreshadowed tinct from economic issues, he shows that be useful and overdue. But he does add a the emergence of what Self calls “bread- each movement or dimension of family great deal of nuance to the old tale. First, winner conservatism,” in which restoring politics had, at its best, an agenda that in- he shows that the emergence of a politics of the structure of the “archetypal” family cluded both basic rights and economic sup- rights, around the nature of the family, was S “Breadwinner liberalism” is Robert O. Self ’s brilliant term for the New Deal/Great Society vision of a just society—one in which a man can provide support for a nonworking wife and children, but one that is also infused with an idealized, tough-minded manhood, exemplified by the men of the Kennedy family. 102 September/October 2012

Washington Monthly - September/October 2012

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