11 thoughts on “Reading Questions for September 24”

1. I wanted to investigate whether there was a continuous tradition in terms of the treatment of females in “utopian” societies by comparing the communities of Oneida and The Farm based on this week’s readings. In Oneida, despite a desire to provide more opportunities for women, most were still assigned to work that was in line with their traditional gender roles, including housekeeping, childcare, education and cooking, which raises the question of whether a truly “utopian” society existed. Klee-Hartzell, in her “Mingling of the Sexes” piece, argues that despite the dominance of women in traditional occupations, there were opportunities to engage in work that was not a “mindless, self-absorbing profession.” (8, Klee-Hartzell) In fact, women were able to assist in textile manufacturing, gardening, printing of the “Circular” newspaper, bookkeeping and even farm labor, such as cow milking. However, women could not do anything they wanted, as they were excluded from participating in heavy farm work and many forms of industrial labor. In addition, despite the fact that, as Foster explained in “Love and Feminism,” women were able to participate in “daily religious-and-business meetings and actively helped shape communal policy,” (166, Foster) most men in the society remained of the opinion that females should be responsible for domestic work, as “women are so fond of such chores as to relieve us almost entirely.” (4, Klee-Hartzell) In fact, Noyes himself was of the belief that “men were superior to women,” (167, Foster) which meant that although women were given greater opportunities than they may have been able to achieve in larger society, prejudices still remained. Therefore, while Oneida may have been portrayed as a place that offered more freedoms for women, their stance on feminine labor was not “utopian,” in that it could not entirely overcome traditional gender roles and create a more equal lifestyle.

   Meanwhile, a few decades later in The Farm community, women played an important role in how society functioned, but their place in society was very specific to the same gender roles that kept Oneida from being a truly utopian existence in that regard. One of the most important roles for a woman on The Farm was that of the midwife, who held the cosmological and spiritual power to deliver children through a position that held “central importance at the heart of community life.” (4, Kern) While being a midwife offered women on The Farm power, and although it did take a more materialistic approach to the process of childbearing, it was still a role that traditionally was associated with women in society at large, and even in previous “utopian” communities like Oneida, where being a nurse was very common for women. In fact, aside from their midwifery, while some women worked outside their households on The Farm, “routine household labor took on significance as women’s spiritual obligation.” (16, Hodgdon) While women were able to negotiate, there was still a noticeable sexual division of labor on The Farm, which, like in Oneida, makes its goal of honoring the sacred power of women slightly less successful.

   My goal was to see if there was some sort of continuous tradition of treatment of females across utopias in different eras. In conclusion, both “utopian” societies made admirable efforts in attempting to integrate women more equally into their societies. In both instances, they did allow women to participate freely and significantly in many aspects of society, in roles that held great social importance. However, neither “utopian” society could truly escape the stereotypical gender ideals that have long pervaded society at large. As a result, there is a continuous tradition in terms of treatment of females, and while it did allow for some equality among genders, it is not an especially radical one compared to society at large.

2. Oneida and The Farm were two communes who used their exclusion from society to rearrange gender roles. Both of these communities acknowledged that life in typical American society at the time was not ideal for women and thus went about to change it. While sexual relations were an integral portion of how both leaders sought to reinvent society, they both had different methods for reaching the perfect relationships. These new sex roles though created ultimately different home lifes for the women who lived in the societies.

   In Oneida, Noyes offered “free love” as an alternative to typical monogamous relationships. While it released the women from the rule of one man, it ultimately subjected both men and women to the authority of Noyes, himself, as he was the one who controlled the marriages. Foster’s article points out that although this was a progressive form of life for the women, the ladies in the commune were still subject to influence of a man. These free marriages though allowed for the children to be raised in less by a nuclear family and more by the community as a whole. The communes philosophy allowed for the women to take less of a maternal role in their children as on or two women would see to the raising of a specific age group at a time (Klee). While this opened up the women to do work other then raising the children, Klee points out that most of the women still partook in traditional feminine jobs of cleaning, cooking, and doing light industrial labor.

   The Farm also believed that sexual relationships contributed greatly to the zen of the community as a whole. They thus placed a high value on both the pleasure of men and women during sex and the process of making love as it deals with two parts of a couple.(Kern) The females though only earned the “tantric lovemaking” if they cooked, cleaned, and cared for the children throughout the day so that the husband did not have to worry about those things at all. (Hodgdon) Thus the sexual liberation came at a price that kept them in very traditional roles of staying in and taking care of the children.

   It is interesting to note that both the Farm and Oneida felt that women’s roles in societies were not equal to men and that they needed to have more power even though their was a hundred year difference in the two communities. I also think it is interesting to note that though they both had radical views for sex, the women still participated in traditionally female job roles. The difference in parenting and sexual partners did not alleviate the women from the burdens of cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children.

3. Stephen Gaskin and John Humphrey Noyes are both passionate visionaries that persuaded their followers into helping them bring their ideas into action. Both leaders however, struggled with implementing their extremely appealing ideologies that disregarded sex in labor divisions. After both colonies experienced rapid population growth, ideology gave way to pragmatism and soon, there were an overwhelming amount of mouths to feed, clothes to wash, and children to take care of; society’s expectations deem the women responsible to fulfill those roles and these two communes were no different.

   The struggle to keep the colony running efficiently while it experienced rapid growth, exposed the colonists’ pre-existing mindsets towards female roles that were influenced by society before entering the colony. In neither colony, did statutes exist, dividing labor responsibilities according to sex. Both sexes headed in the direction of their assumed labor roles focused on achieving spiritual growth that will benefit their partners and the community.

   Author, Tim Hodgdon introduced this phenomenon very simply by telling a narrative of Patricia Mitchell and her family’s first few days at The Farm. Upon settling into their new lives on The Farm, they quickly realized that the spiritually cognizant community had a distinctive division in labor. This division was created from the colonists’ strive to achieve yang productive labor and yin, the religious value of nurturing. Woman pursued household duties and taking care of children, which accounted for over 50% of the population on The Farm, because it was seen by the community as following “the juice”, which was believed to promote hard working husbands that attend to the emotional and spiritual needs of their wives.

   Stephen Gaskin redirected his colonists’ focus away from the fact that men dominated panels, industries, and field labor by bringing their attention to themselves and how they affect the fluidity of the community through their work.
   Hartzell was very persuasive in her article as well, addressing Noyes’ failure to eliminate the pre-existing assumptions of woman’s labor. The sexes never had the opportunity of “mingling” during labor; as the commune became prosperous, the labor became more sex specific. Hartzell lists the industries outside of traditional woman’s work to shed light on how many opportunities existed for them to infiltrate the male dominated industries, but were unable to break the barriers that pre-existed in society before Oneida was formed. From her in depth examination of woman’s roles in Oneida, Hartzell concluded that the only “mingling of the sexes” would occur after work in interactions at dinner, social events, and private sexual encounters.
   Both authors are very persuasive in their arguments that Noyes and Gaskin failed to implement any changes in the labor divisions that carried over from society into the communes.

4. The reality of Oneida and the Farm fell short of feminist ideals (especially those of today), but the very fact that they had ideals beyond traditional gender roles and stereotypes was radical innovation. Especially in the era of the Oneida community, feminist ideas were few and far between. Implementing these ideas would have been even more radical. But why was it that, even in this radical society, the gender roles could not be shifted too drastically, even though many other things were changed dramatically?

   The two article we read on Oneida were split on the lines of reality and theory. Marlyn Klee-Hartzell’s article “Mingling the Sexes” took a very quantitative approach to the issue by compartmentalizing the labor and even presenting number data on working hours. Foster’s article is much more optimistic in that it focuses on stated intention. However, the logic of his arguments does not always stand sound: Thomas argues that one of the reasons Noyes eliminated marriage was because “men acted as though they owned their wives,” thus a degradation for women (Foster 172). The fact that Noyes completely eliminated marriage suggests that he did not consider equal marriages possible. A critic might argue that his decision to get rid of marriage had two elements: the problem of men as “owning” women and the issue of exclusivity,which was frowned upon as undermining the community as a whole. Perhaps the latter, then, was the reason Noyes did away with marriages. If so, however, then feminine empowerment had little to do with his decision to turn to free love. This example, along with the labor provisions for women, indicates that Noyes’s intentions were not as distant from the reality created as we might like to believe. Perhaps the fact that his dreams were not lofty explains why gender roles in Oneida remained relatively consistent with society as a whole.

   At the Farm, women’s roles seem to have been based of the charisms of the two sexes: “knightly yang and sacred yin,” with yang standing for manly creative energies and yin standing for womanly fertility (Hodgdon 4). Since the Farm focused on bringing out the yin in women and the yang in men, the assignment of tasks according to gender roles had an attempt at logic that Oneida lacked (even if today we would not call the logic feminist). The Farm’s emphasis on the yin was not to oppress the women but to glorify their sacred fertility and respect their motherhood (including through midwifery). Oneida, on the other hand, seems to have had a less specific idea of women’s roles in the community. Although the Farm did not go much beyond traditional gender roles, they did perform the traditional in an untraditional manner.

   So why did these radicals fails to implement lofty feminist ideals? The answer lies in society as a whole; as we have discussed in previous classes, the elements of society that the communes do not question or cannot overcome are the ones most deeply ingrained. Therefore, although some aspects of Oneida and the Farm suggest progress, the failed implementation perhaps indicates that gender roles were the element least likely (but most desperately) in need of change.

5. In analyzing the features of Utopian communities, formation is a key aspect; it can be structured around a collective group of idealists (as in the case of Drop City) or it can even be based upon the ideals and visions of a single solitary leader (as we saw in this Ruskin colonies) and expanded upon from there. In the case of the Oneida Community the presence of a key leader and figurehead was incredibly impactful. To a large extent Noyes built the community upon his own ideas and established himself as an essential part of the community’s daily life. It is this involvement which leads me to question to what extent was the Oneida community built around a cult of personality featuring John Humphrey Noyes?

   Like many figures in history, Noyes is viewed very differently by different researchers. Foster points to the fact that “much of the literature on Oneida has seen Noyes as a seriously disturbed individual (Foster 166)” but then goes on to describe as a figure who struggled with complex social issues who attempted to push his ideas to their limits while always being aware of the human element that it was based upon (Foster 182-183). Whatever the discussion on Noyes’ personal character it is clear even to his supporters that Noyes “followers unquestioningly acknowledged his paternalistic, God-like authority (Foster 175).” The vast agreement upon such fact leads us to examine why exactly Noyes was viewed and treated this way. Foster seems to espouse the idea that his followers did so based upon a true belief that the followers earnestly believed in his wisdom and leadership. Such analysis would paint the picture that Noyes was a leader thrust into the role by the eagerness of his followers.

   However, as historians we must examine both sides of an issue to gain a holistic understanding, and by acknowledging the presence of another side we can see that Noyes can also be viewed in an entirely different light. Klee-Hartzell’s descriptions seems to generate a different understanding of the man. In discussing the different fields of work at Oneida Klee-Hartzell points to the ‘Ideological administration’ (which essentially ran the community) and points out that “John Humphrey Noyes dominated this department with the help of a few men and women … whom he personally selected to assist him.” Klee-Hartzell is not hesitant to discuss the extent of Noyes’ power, she makes it quite clear that “Noyes always insisted that his divine inspiration sanctioned his authoritarian rule.” The view described here is clearly more of one that showcases an absolute rule that people had to abide by (even if they disagreed with Noyes) in order to remain part of the community.

   Now that we possess a basic understanding of the two interpretations presented in our readings, it is my own belief that Noyes exhibited more traits of a leader who had to be followed as opposed to a leader which people yearned to follow. This is not to deny any of the evidence that backs up how much tremendous popularity Noyes enjoyed among his followers (we listened early in our classes to a man who yearned to be able to hear Noyes criticize him again) but rather it is to say that Noyes built up such a cult of personality that he was able to hand select the leaders (who he felt were the most loyal to him) who managed alongside and beneath himself. In examining the works of the authors whose works we examined, I side conclusively with Kart-Hartzell in how Noyes seemed to more closely represent authoritarianism more than Foster’s fatherly leader description.

6. As historians, we need to factor in the conditions of the society and greater society then, and sometimes, let go of the predispositions we hold today to avoid making judgments. That being said, we cannot really say one community was truly feminist and one wasn’t. In both Oneida and The Farm, the women exercised unheard of liberties in the general population. Both Noyes and Gaskin are quoted in some places to want more equality between the genders. Nonetheless, sometimes their own words express an inherently sexist mindset, but only from the modern perspective. As historians, I believe we can say these communes were progressive towards more quality. Although they did not break the gender barriers, they were very close to the epitome of a harmonic, working, and efficient “feminist” society.

   Klee-Hartzell breaks up the work within the Oneida community, showing us that the majority of kitchen duties, childcare, education, textiles went to women. Whichever men were in these systems, they were in positions of authority and supervision. This work hierarchy seems reflective of sentiments held today: that men tend to be in dominant positions and this needs to be changed. How can Noyes possibly say his community is “mingling the sexes?” Even his Circular of 8 central board consists of himself, and “handpicked” members, predominantly male. However, through a historians eyes, we see that during this time period, the New England textile mills were usually run by young women (Klee-Hartzell). Therefore, it could be a given that sewing and textiles was women’s work or that they are better at it. Both men and women are guilty of placing women in this mindset, some women volunteering to do these jobs. To us, the prevalence of women within these domestic jobs could seem sexist, but to them, these decisions could have been made on a pragmatic stance. Within the Circular of 8, although many were men, the board also consisted of Noyes’s close female members. Perhaps the hierarchy within Oneida isn’t really gendered, but comes back to the founder, Noyes. Klee-Hartzell does say that, in essence, Noyes did “mingle the sexes” because by having these efficient work stratifications, the work was done, leaving more leisure-time during the work day for mingling, and perhaps that can be said to be progressive in its time. However, a major thorn in this assertion is that within a job type, women were subjected to more menial, less skilled tasks, whereas, men supervised on most occasions.

   In the modern sense, The Farm can be seen as more gender equal, giving midwives an elevated status and privileges. Some may say this is already engenderment, but this arose because of the emphasis placed on childcare. We need to view The Farm from their standpoint: the balance of yin yang energies. With that as the basis, The Farm was quite progressive, calling and treating both women and men as “helmsmen.” The Farm’s being a refuge for single mothers and taking in children was also liberating for women outside the community, and perhaps a step towards more female rights, lessening the emphasis on motherhood, should one make the decision from the start.

7. In Klee-Hartzell’s article, she made a strong case that the idea of “communal labor” at Oneida in the case of equality between the male and female populations was an ideal that was never fully realized, as women still typically performed jobs associated with their gender and held very few positions of power. Those women in any position of power were only there because they had some connection (usually romantic) to John Humphrey Noyes. These facts make me believe that Oneida was not as equal as they seemed to pride themselves on being and actually was as restrictive as the outside world. Work, although ostensibly divided somewhat equally, was given out in gender-normative ways, with the women taking care of the household chores, children, and related tasks, and the men handling machinery and hard labor. The specificity of this article, choosing to focus only on the working conditions, made it easy to see that there was no real equality, at least in this area, at Oneida.

   Furthermore, Foster’s article only furthered this notion for me. Although it would seem that women had more control of their own pregnancies and were allowed to wear Bloomer outfits that were less restricting than dresses, among other changes, these were mandated by Noyes. In fact, the introduction of the Bloomers caused an issue with the women who would rather wear dresses, and the only reason that Noyes had introduced the Bloomers were to turn these women into “what she ought to be, a female man” (Foster, 168). This gives the implication that Noyes did not accept women as themselves, but wanted to mold them into men who could procreate, but still were expected to do lesser labors. Foster argued that Noyes actually was a radical thinker, and in some ways, he might have been, but these ideas did not transfer well into actions and women were still under the control of men.

   Although I believe that Noyes might have had noble intentions for women at Oneida, the truth is that they had no more equality to men there than they might have had in the outside world. The supervisory roles were dominated by men, and when they were held by a woman, it was a woman that had a close relationship (typically a romantic one) with Noyes. These women still performed the sorts of labor that they were expected to in the outside world and only went out of this comfort zone when there was an extreme need for labor. I felt that Klee-Hartzell had better evidence for her case, actually using statements from women working at Oneida, documents that confirmed the lack of women in leadership positions, and statements from people after it ended, while Foster, when using sources from the community, focused on Noyes’s own statements in Circular. Furthermore, Klee-Hartzell was more convincing with her argument.

8. Klee-Hartzell bluntly spells out the problem she seeks to explain: despite John Humphrey Noyes’s “clai[m] that his holy community would ‘mingle the sexes’ in work assignments . . . most women in the Oneida Community were assigned traditional female work roles.” There was a disconnect between Noyes’s rhetoric and the lived reality at Oneida. Women mostly performed the work at Oneida that they would have been expected to do in any Victorian home; they cleaned, sewed, nursed, and cooked. Exceptions tended to prove the rule. A man rinsed the dishes, but Klee-Hartzell suggests it was because Oneida used a fancy dish-washing mechanism, invented by one of the men. Two different women edited the Oneida newspaper for a brief time, but they were both romantically tied to Noyes, and one of them complained (as she was being replaced by a male editor) that women were expected to “retir[e] from the field of argument to attend babies and make pancakes.”

   Foster’s essay has a tone of exasperation. All the haters out there (I’m paraphrasing) proclaiming “Sexism! Hypocrisy!” are missing the point, Foster argues. They fail to take into account what Noyes actually said he was doing. For starters, sexual egalitarianism was never a first principle for Oneida. It was instead a logical corollary to Oneidans’ equality before God (and, to an extent, before Noyes himself). Noyes identified conflict between the sexes as a great social ill, but the solution was not so much to upend gender roles as it was to dissolve monogamy’s hold on people’s emotional loyalties. Sexual inequality, especially within the husband-wife relationship, prevented people from participating within a godly community. To label Noyes a feminist or misogynist is therefore to miss the point.

   Klee-Hartzell and Foster sort of talk past each other, in part because they are relying on different kinds of sources. Foster is examining Noyes’s ideas of how Oneida should work, while Klee-Hartzell analyzes the Oneida newspaper for how gender and labor actually functioned at Oneida. There is a gap here between the mind of Noyes and the community of Oneida, a gap that could be bridged by bringing these sources together. For instance, after demonstrating the gendered nature of labor at Oneida, Klee-Hartzell concedes that once they were done working for the day, male and female Oneidans read, played, and in general mingled together to an extent unusual in Victorian America. It would be interesting to see what role, if any, heterosocial leisure had in Noyes’s ideology.

9. These readings cover diverse perspectives on the communes Oneida and The Farm. Each piece ultimately finds that, despite the common intention to improve or restore female status and the consequential freedoms offered to women in the communes, traditional perspectives held true and largely confined women to their historic roles of rearing children and managing housework. Although there were structures in place in each commune to give women power, at the very least over their own bodies and decision-making capabilities, such projects were restrained, and women tended to be bound by expectations for their sex, and as a result were based in the house, responsible for child care.

   The two Oneida readings offered very different positions on how Oneida attempted to change relations between men and women and reshape the community. Klee-Hartzell argues Noyes did a poor job of prioritizing equal labor opportunities, although that was supposedly his aim. Foster was less critical of Noyes, pointing out that Oneida offered women some key freedoms such as choosing how to dress, participate, and work however they saw fit. As interesting as Noyes’ perspective and intentions are, I was particularly intrigued by the way women viewed their own roles and independence. Anecdotes, particularly Harriet Worden’s complaint at being replaced as editor, would suggest that women were well aware of the prejudice against them in the commune and what power they had to protest. From her commentary, it seems clear that, despite how men might question her judgment, at least some women realized their own intellectual power and reason, and recognized that they were being undervalued and confined by social norms. Regardless of the ideal community they could try to create, and the supposedly progressive men they surrounded themselves with, female “fate” would be require them to “attend babies and make pancakes.” While Noyes might have seen Oneida as shifting women’s social roles to create a fairer or more equal system, it is clear that, even by 19th century norms, at least some women believed Oneida fell short of freeing them from traditional expectations.

   To understand how women viewed themselves at the Farm, we must first understand the Farm’s priority with regards to gender relations. The Farm considered women from the context of how, through their yin energy, they balanced the masculine yang. While the Farm’s effort was to respect women and their ability to reproduce, it still boxed women into traditional roles based on gender. From a few comments, particularly those to Patricia Mitchell at the beginning of the chapter, we can see that women seemed content with this system, and the benefits the sexual division of labor offered them (such as more breaks). However, since the Farm’s goal in this regard was not exact equality, but rather creating a sexual balance, such a structure makes sense.

   From these readings it is possible to see that general perspectives abided by social norms and expectations of women. I think one of the key questions now is, what did women think of their roles? Did they believe they should have different roles because of their gender? It seems that Harriet from Oneida didn’t, but what of the others. Was living in these communes fulfilling and satisfactory for them, or was it simply the best option they had?

10. Often when we look at historical examples of gender equality or inequality we tend to focus on women; where they worked, what they were paid etc. However, when it came to examining the Oneida community and The Farm, I was interested in how the ‘gender equality’ both communes supported affected men and the work they did. Is there a tradition of men’s work being altered in attempts to achieve gender equality?

    Oneida, considered by some a “vanguard of sexual liberation and women’s rights” (Foster – p. 165) was perhaps not as liberating as previously thought. The dress code was intended to make a woman “what she ought to be, a female man” (Foster – 168). There was an expectation, therefore, that women were intended to become equal through their adoption of male traits, and male labor. The male became the base – perhaps the ultimate goal – and therefore there was little attempt to alter their work. When it came to the distribution of the work-load between men and women, Marilyn Klee-Hartzell demonstrates that traditional gender roles tended to dominate the Oneida community’s work sphere. Occasionally women were able to enter into the male sphere – there were 25 ‘business women’, however very rarely did men enter into the female spheres, and if they did so it would be in a supervisory role. “The housekeeping corps… was entirely female” (Klee-Hartzell). Some specific domestic work, for example when it came to rinsing the dishes, did fall into the male sphere. However, this was primarily due to the need to operate a “catch and foot-treadle” (Kell-Hartzell)which may have been seen as too onerous for women.

    Around a century after the Oneida community came into being, The Farm once again tried to redefine gender-norms. Rather than attempt to make females into a ‘female man’ as Oneida had attempted, the Farm appears to have regarded the role women play as equally – if not more – important than that of the man; especially when it came to motherhood. “The midwife network constituted a female community that embodied community spiritual ideals“(Kern). This was a field in which men were entirely excluded from. Tim Hodgdon argues that The Farm “created a tantric sexual division of labor… consistent with their desire to honor the sacred power of women’s reproductive yin and to tame men’s “hyper–John Wayne” tendencies”
    (Hodgdon – 5). Men’s attitudes to work may have been challenged, yet the traditional male role within the workplace was not. Some new members of the community “found it puzzling that spiritually attuned, socially conscious hippies divided the work this way” (Hodgdon – 3) implying that this was not how many would have thought of a gender-neutral division of labor.

    Oneida and The Farm both existed in different centuries and therefore contexts, however both did attempt to redefine gender-norms. From the readings, it appears that while they went about this in very different ways – Oneida choosing to make the women masculinised and The Farm valuing women’s work as sacred – neither achieved gender-neutral working roles. Specifically, neither made a significant impact in the role of men in the workplace. Perhaps this is due to historians focusing on women’s roles in assessing gender neutrality – however, there appears to be a tradition of allowing some women into the male sphere, but not allowing men into the female one.

11. The four readings for today presented interesting perspectives on gender relations in the two communities, Oneida, and the Farm. The two readings on the Oneida community illustrate very different types of historical analyses.

    Both readings on the Oneida community examined the role of women within the community, as well as the founding philosophies, such as Noyes’ goal to “mingle the sexes” while also emphasizing an inherent inferiority of women to men. The first article, “Free Love and Feminism,” by Lawrence Foster, is careful to work around a bias of ideology, not compare the 1800’s Oneida community to values present in the late 20th century. For instance, when discussing the division of labor and women’s supposed “liberty” to work in any field, he comments: “Does such “liberation” primarily involve freeing women to choose whatever they really want to do, including, in some cases, assume domestic roles?” (Foster 182). His analysis is careful to avoid bias, but the author also fails to reach a conclusion, only opening the topic for further research.

    On the other hand, the article titled, “Mingling the Sexes,” by Marlyn Klee-Hartzell, the author attempts to break down labor in each individual field, emphasizing the absence of women in “industry” and “heavy work and sales,” eventually completely rejecting any claim by the community of sexual equality, calling it a “true vision of a patriarchal utopian society” (Klee-Hartzell). Klee-Hartzell achieves this firm conclusion after an analysis that does not as carefully consider the contemporary situation of gender relations as does Foster’s.