The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: the Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi by Les Leopold

Author:Les Leopold
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9781603580717
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Published: 2005-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

XI

Tony was still struggling over his broken marriage—and so was his estranged wife, Rose. Tony thought of himself as liberated, and especially after his separation, he veered toward libertine. The lefty gloss on sexual liberation was that marriage was bourgeois and patriarchal, subjugated women, and repressed healthy desire. But to Rose, Tony was simply a lying, cheating womanizer who broke up the family and left her to manage three girls on her own.

So which was it—progressive lover or incorrigible scoundrel? Was Mazzocchi a womanizer feasting on newly liberated ’60s women or a decent, caring, politically progressive, liberated male? Some in the emerging women’s movement weren’t so sure there was a difference. Many radicalized women felt used and discarded by movement men. They resented being relegated to menial support chores as their men gave speeches and took all the leadership roles. They felt unfulfilled sexually by men who didn’t even notice. As a result, many would have agreed that Mazzocchi’s libertine ideology was nothing but a smokescreen for plain old philandering.

As one sympathetic observer put it, “Anyone who knew Mazzocchi was aware of his relationships. I am inclined to view them less ideologically and more related to his very intense and mobile life style. He was human and not necessarily a model of human perfection, or a paragon of virtue.” 56

And yet he was not a typical male chauvinist—that’s why women liked him. As Tony put it, “I didn’t treat women like crap.”

He didn’t need to flirt overtly. When he walked into a room, he spoke to men and women in much the same way. Many women, maybe even most women, found him interesting. In fact, he was particularly attractive to “liberated” female activists—young women in science, medicine, journalism, and politics who formed the backbone of the new women’s movement. Part of this charm was his bright, engaging, and positive attitude. Part was the power he wielded.

Men were drawn, too. As one local OCAW union president put it, “One thing I really respected about him was not only that he was really intelligent and that he believed in the cause, but also that he could deal both with really tough, hard, nasty men as well as being incredibly kindhearted and sensitive toward his friends, especially women.” 57

Mazzocchi inherited from his gay uncle Lester a strong dose of the CP’s egalitarian culture, which considered chauvinism a movement sin. And from the streets of Bensonhurst, he learned that sex was wonderful and should be relished as often as possible, just like breathing fresh air or eating Junior’s cheesecake in Brooklyn.

Of course Mazzocchi had enough street smarts to know that he held a minority position better kept to himself. Nevertheless, he acted out his liberation theology on the sly as if the revolution already had arrived. In the late 1960s, it was easy to pretend that it had. The student movement, the women’s movement, the antiwar movement, and the war itself blasted a gaping hole through the fortress of monogamy. Experimental lifestyles abounded—communes, collectives,

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