Death of a Dream The Failure of a Feminist Credit Union

by Christine Pattee Money is power, and, by the early seventies, the Women's Movement was ready to take some of that power. We were going to put our money to work for ourselves through feminist credit unions. The idea of gaining control over our own economic lives was so enticing that we never took time to explore the personal, political and practical ramifi¬ cations of that venture. Starting with Detroit in 1973, 18 feminist credit unions had received federal charters by the end of 1976. In November of that year the number was reduced by one when the Connecticut Feminist Federal Credit Union (CFFCU) closed. It had opened amidst great dreams of making money accessible to all women, but now those dreams have shattered. They lie in the dust along with broken friendships, unresolved racial conflicts and two-and- one-half years of the lives of women who tried and failed to make their feminist visions into reality. The specific event which precipitated liquidation was the appearance of a new, particularly strict federal auditor who found a high delinquency rate

(though not abnormally high compared to similár credit unions) and in effect ordered CFFCU to close up shop. There is some question as to whether that examiner actually had the authority to close the credit union, but, more important, CFFCU's internal problems were such that they might have been heading for liquidation anyway. Some of CCFCU's problems were unique to Connecticut, but others are endemic to alternative institutions. This article is an attempt to draw conclusions applicable to all our institutions from the unhappy experience of one of them. The women of CFFCU failed because they couldn't make hard-headed busi¬ ness decisions in the face of a poor woman's need for money. They failed because they...