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343 16 The Contradictory Effects of Work and Family on Political Activism Rebecca E.Klatch While feminist scholarship in the past 25 years established the intrinsic connection between family and work, little attention has been paid to how work and family intersect with the political world. Other than the literature which focuses on the family as an institution of political socialization of children, few studies focus on how women’s and men’s commitment to work and/or family affects political commitment or, on the other hand, how commitment to politics affects one’s work or family commitments. This essay analyzes these issues, examining the interrelationship between work, family, and political activism. I use the term work here to refer to paid labor outside of the home, i.e., jobs or careers. Based on a study of 1960s activists of the left and right, I find contradictory effects of commitments to family and work on sustained commitment to politics over the life course. Method and Sample In a comparative study of left- and right-wing activists of the 1960s I conducted life histories with 74 activists from two youth groups of the 1960s: Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the leading organization of the New Left, and Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), the most prominent organization of youth on the right. Both SDS and YAF were founded in 1960. While SDS was more well-known and visible during the 1960s, YAF was the leading student group on the right and served an important role as a training ground for a whole generation of conservative leaders, many of whom hold positions of political prominence today (Andrew, 1997; Klatch, 1999). In comparing left and right I was interested in the interorganizational similarities and differences as well as the intraorganizational differences within YAF and SDS. For example, within YAF there were crucial differences between traditionalists , those who adhere to a religious and social conservatism, and libertarians, those who believe in the free market and individual liberty. Such differences proved critical to YAF’s history (Klatch, 1994; Klatch, 1999). These ideological differences also provided an opening for the eventual convergence of libertarians in YAF and countercultural elements within SDS. One of the surprising findings of this study was the parallels and convergence between libertarians and leftists during the late 1960s as well as the commonalities shared by libertarians and leftists in their adult lives.© 2000 by Human Sciences Press, Inc. Reprinted from Qualitative Sociology Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 505-519. 344 Rebecca E.Klatch The sample of former SDS and YAF activists was selected based on the following criterion: All those chosen were committed activists who had been active for at least two years in SDS and/or YAF, with most involved for many more years.1 I also wanted to compare women and men; the final sample of activists contains 34 female activists , equally divided between SDS and YAF, and 40 male activists, 19 from SDS and 21 from YAF. Although a serious attempt was made to diversify the sample racially, because both organizations primarily were comprised of white activists, all activists interviewed are white except for three black activists in SDS and one in YAF. Activists were also chosen to get a mix of both leaders and rank-and-file activists. In SDS the sample contains 24 rank-and-file members and 12 who were part of national leadership and/or were at the Port Huron conference, 6 of whom were women (50%); the YAF sample consists of 23 rank-and-file members and 15 members who held national office and/or were at the founding Sharon conference of YAF, 2 of whom were women (13%). However, among the rank-and-file activists, some in the sample were leaders of local chapters. I also chose people who were active in a range of locations across the country. In addition, the sample was chosen to reflect the ideological differences within each group. YAF activists include 25 traditionalists and 13 members who defined themselves as libertarian, reflecting the approximate proportion of traditionalists and libertarians in the organization. The SDS sample includes five Progressive Labor members or sympathizers, five Weathermen members or sympathizers, and two RYMII (Revolutionary Youth Movement Two) members or sympathizers; the majority of SDS activists were either unaffiliated with any factions during the 1969 splits (12 activists) or were uninvolved in SDS politics by 1969 (12 activists).2 In addition to life histories, this study is also based on participant-observation...

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