Califia Women: Feminist Education against Sexism, Classism, and Racism by Clark A. Pomerleau (review)

One of the common debates concerning the history of feminism is how and why second-wave feminism (radical feminism involving a large participatory grassroots membership advocating consciousness raising, the creation of feminist spaces, and widespread social change) transformed into third-wave feminism (multicultural feminism promoting a feminine subculture rather than sweeping social changes, with leadership through largely bureaucratic organizations run by paid staff). Second-wave feminists have often been accused of having unrepresentative leadership of college-educated and middle-class white women, while ignoring (or at the very least, overlooking) the voices of women of color, lesbians, and working-class women.

In Califia Women, Clark A. Pomerleau uses a combination of oral history and interviews supported by archival research to examine the evolution of second-wave feminism into third-wave feminism nationally, and challenges the assertion that second-wave feminists were not debating these issues. He follows the developments and growing class- and gender-consciousness of the women of Califia Community in Southern California. Their internal struggles with many ideas and problems of radical feminism document the movement’s turn towards multiculturalism in the late 1980s. Pomerleau focuses on the Califia Community to demonstrate how “community education fit into feminist institution building” as an example of a grassroots feminist education, which he feels has been little explored previously (1). It is primarily a narrative of the Califia Community, rather than an in-depth discussion of theoretical feminism, though Pomerleau uses events in Califia to examine wider philosophical debates in feminism occurring nationally at the time.

Pomerleau’s selection of subjects is excellent; he draws in a mix of leadership of the Califia Community and nonleadership women who attended workshops and meetings over the community’s lifespan from 1975 to 1987. A total of thirty-one women were interviewed, with all interviews and transcripts deposited with the June L. Mazer Lesbian Collection in Los Angeles, California. He conducted these interviews informed by the methodology of Sherna Berger Gluck and Daphne Patai (among others) on feminist oral history methods—particularly in speaking to female subjects, especially those of different working and social classes (Sherna Berger Gluck and Daphne Patai, eds., Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History [New York: Routledge, 1991]). Thus, his interviews proceeded from creating a safe space in which to conduct interviews, given the very personal discussions involved, especially those that touched on gender issues, sexuality, or domestic abuse. It worked: the women of Califia opened up to Pomerleau on a number of issues and occasions they recalled from their experiences with the community.

Outside of the oral history portion of the work, Pomerleau does a thorough job delving into the complex cultural, social, and political situations in which the Califia Community grew, developed, and dissolved. Each chapter includes detailed discussions of feminist theory as background to various feminist debates of the period, with examples of how these ideas expressed themselves in the “summer conference camps” at the center of debate and education at the camp (x). In particular, Pomerleau focuses on the idea of consciousness-raising, or CR, as “foundational to feminist education” (5).

His book is divided into chapters based both on chronological and thematic discussions from the Califia conferences: the first on the situation of second-wave feminists after World War II up to the 1960s and 1970s; the second on the initial creation and challenges of the Califia Community; the third on sexuality, body shape, and lesbianism in terms of feminine identity; the fourth on feminist class consciousness and the effects of bringing together working class and middle class women in the group; the fifth on discussions of racism, inclusiveness, and multiculturalism; and finally, the last chapter on the dissolution of the community under a combination of right-wing attacks and the evolutionary shift towards third-wave feminism. Pomerleau does an excellent job of detailing national feminist discussions before relating them to specific moments in the Califia community. In doing...