True, his observation is just a "street"-level anecdotal observation. But like you say, it would be a mistake to draw too much from it.
>
>As for your friend's description of Union Summer and the preoccupations
of
>its participants -- I don't know how old you are,
26
but try to remember when
>you were 18-25 (the age of typical Union Summer participants). Can you
>honestly say there was not a day that went by when your hormones were
not
>raging, sending your libido messages intended for another part of your
>anatomy than your union consciousness.
Boy don't I know it. But her anecdotal observation was of the older workers to be organized, not among the Union Summer participants. The gist I got from her was that what was important in the mentioned anecdote was less a foregrounding of male libido on the workers part, than a backgrounding of union interest. But again, this is just a small-scale observation.
I'd be damned shocked if you put a
>bunch of 20-somethings together an no one tried to hit on others in the
>group
Yes, it would be most strange and dispiriting.
(although I confess to having met some REVOLUTIONARIES who were so
>doctrinaire that I would have a hard time imagining them doing anything
with
>their free time other than studying some obscure section of the
collected
>works of Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, etc.).
>
>CWA, SEIU and a number of other unions have very active gay/lesbian
caucuses
>(both formal and informal), and at least in the larger urban settings,
there
>is a conscious effort to promote gender preference tolerance. When you
move
>outside the urban centers, however, I suspect that in most unions, like
most
>other institutions, social tolerance becomes more restricted.
>
>In solidarity,
>Michael E.
>
Can you (or anyone else) recommend any books on gender & sexuality in the labor movement?
-Alec
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