Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century's End (44 page)

²⁸
Ti-Grace Atkinson quoted in Rosen,
The World Split Open
, p. 256.

²⁹
Lucinda Franks, “Dissention Among Feminists,”
New York Times
(August 29, 1975): 32.

³⁰
See Rosen,
The World Split Open
, p. 236; Brownmiller,
In Our Time
, pp. 237-238.

³¹
The Redstockings/Betty Friedan/Gloria Steinem fracas was the most prominent of several public splits within the movement at this time. These have been described in some detail in Susan Brownmiller,
In Our Time
; Ruth Rosen,
The World Split Open;
Alice Echols,
Daring to Be Bad;
Caroline Heilbrun
The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem
and others.

³²
See Enid Nemy, “13 NOW Leaders Form a Dissident Network,”
New York Times
, November 15, 1975, Pp., 1, 12, quote by Mary Jean Tully, President, NOW Legal Defense Education Fund, on p. 12; Joan Zyda, “Internal Struggle Jeopardizes NOW,”
Chicago Tribune
, November 20, 1975, sec. 3, p.:3; Beth Gillin Pombiero, “NOW Takes a Turn Toward All Women, Not Just Members,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, October 28, 1975, A:3.

³³
Barbara Ryan,
Feminism and the Women’s Movement: Dynamics of Change in Social Movement Ideology and Activism
(New York: Routledge, 1992), pp. 71-73; Toni Carabillo and Judith Meuli, “Chronology of ‘The Split,’” 1991, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.

³⁴
National Women’s Education Fund, “What is the N.W.E.F.?” n.d., Leaflet in Arvonne Fraser Papers, Box 1, Minnesota Historical Society.

³⁵
On the seventies economy, see Charles B. Reeder,
The Sobering Seventies: A Month-by-Month Analysis of Significant Developments in the U.S. Economy During the 1970s
(Wilmington, DE: Reeder, 1980), unemployment figures on pp. 131, 160, 172; and Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy,
The End of Prosperity: The American Economy in the 1970s
(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977).

³⁶
See, for example, “The Furor over ‘Reverse Discrimination,’”
Newsweek 90
(September 26, 1977): 52-55ff.

³⁷
On the number of Americans killed in Vietnam, see Stanley Karnow,
Vietnam: A History
(New York: Viking, 1983), pp. 9, 11.

³⁸
On the origins of NARAL, see Lawrence Lader,
Abortion II: Making the Revolution
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1973). See also Rosalind P. Petchesky,
Abortion and Woman’s Choice: The State, Sexuality, and Reproductive Freedom
(New York: Longman, 1984).

³⁹
On right-wing women, see Andrea Dworkin,
Right Wing Women
(New York: Perigee Books, 1983); Phyllis Schlafley,
The Power of the Positive Woman
(New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1977); Carol Virginia Pohli, “Church Closets and Back Doors: A Feminist View of Moral Majority Women,”
Feminist Studies
9 (Fall 1983): 529-558.

⁴⁰
See Jane Sherron Dehart and Donald Mathews,
Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA: A State and the Nation
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).

⁴¹
See Elaine Brown,
A Taste of Power: A Black. Woman’s Story
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1992).

⁴²
Flora Davis,
Moving the Mountain
, pp. 138-141, describes the Socialist Worker’s Party’s efforts to take over women’s centers and other feminist groups. International Socialists (IS) made a similar effort to take over the New American Movement, which provided substantial leadership in the socialist feminist movement. There were numerous other sectarian groups: October League (a descendant of the RYM II faction of SDS), which based its analysis of race as the “primary contradiction,” the Revolutionary Union, the Communist Labor Party, and others.

⁴³
Doug Rossinow has argued persuasively that the search for authenticity was a hallmark of the New Left. “From the new left’s viewpoint, revolutionary agency and authenticity were yoked together so that those who possessed one of these automatically possessed both.”
The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 164. Similarly, Doug McAdam finds the origins of “the personal is political” in the Mississippi Freedom Summers of 1964 and 1965, when hundreds of northern white students joined the civil rights movement in the Deep South. The summer projects were “suffused” with a “general emphasis on self-discovery and personal liberation.”
Freedom Summer
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 183.

⁴⁴
This begins, of course, with the Moynihan Report, authored by a white male sociologist. See also Ruth Feldstein,
Motherhood in Black and White: Race and Sex in American Liberalism, 1930-1965
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000); and Albert Murray, “White Norms, Black Deviation,” in Joyce Ladner, ed.,
The Death of White Sociology
(Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998), pp. 96-113.

⁴⁵
Quote from Toni Morrison, “What the Black Woman Thinks About Women’s Lib,”
New York Times Magazine
(August 22, 1971).

⁴⁶
Charlotte Bunch with Linda, Elinore, Marlene, Sharon, and Joan, “Herstory and Development of the D.C. Women’s Liberation Movement,” Washington, D.C: mimeograph in author’s possession, (ca. 1971), p. 2.

⁴⁷
Frances Beale, “Speaking up When Others Can’t,”
Crossroads
(March 1993): 4.

⁴⁸
Nathan Hare, “Will the Real Black Man Please Stand up?”
Black Scholar
, vol. 2, no. 10 (June 1971): 32-35, quotes on 32, 33.

⁴⁹
Kay Lindsey, “The Black Woman as a Woman,” in Toni Cade, ed.,
The Black Woman: An Anthology
(New York: New American Library, 1970), p. 85.

⁵⁰
See, for example, Mitsuye Yamada, “Asian Pacific American Women and Feminism,” in Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, eds.,
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
(New York: Kitchen Table Press, 1981), pp. 71-75.

⁵¹
See, for example, Consuelo Nieto, “The Chicana and the Women’s Rights Movement,”
Civil Rights Digest
, special issue on “Sexism and Racism: Feminist Perspectives” vol. 6, no. 3 (Spring 1974): 36-42.

⁵²
Paula Giddings,
When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America
(New York: William Morrow, 1984), pp. 193-195.

⁵³
Quoted in Miriam Lynnell Harris, “From Kennedy to Combahee: Black Feminist Activism from 1960 to 1980,” unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, American Studies, University of Minnesota, 1997, p, 102.

⁵⁴
Ibid
., p. 104.

⁵⁵
Ibid.

⁵⁶
Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, eds.,
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
, Ist ed. (Watertown, MA: Persephone Press, 1981), 2nd ed. (New York: Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, 1983); Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith,
All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies
(Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press, 1981); Bell Hooks,
Feminist Theory from Margin to Center
(Boston, MA: South End Press, 1984).

⁵⁷
See Alice Echols,
Daring to Be Bad
, for a detailed history of radical feminism. Of the four radical feminist groups she describes in some detail, three (New York Radical Women, Redstockings, and the Feminists) were in New York and one, Cell 16, was in Boston. Several key position papers, however, were written by women outside the Northeast: Beverly Jones and Judith Brown, “Towards a Female Liberation Movement (Gainesville, FL, 1968, reprinted in Leslie Tanner, ed.,
Voices from Women’s Liberation
), and Barbara Burris, “The Fourth World Manifesto” (Detroit, MI, 1971; reprinted in Anne Koedt, ed.,
Radical Feminism
, pp. 322-357). For ideological positions of New York groups see the “manifestos” printed in Anne Koedt and Shulamith Firestone, eds.,
Notes from the Second Year
.

⁵⁸
Quoted in Popkin,
Bread and Roses
, p. 102.

⁵⁹
Popkin,
Bread and Roses
, chapter 3 passim, quotes on p. 63.

⁶⁰
Barbara Ryan makes a similar point regarding the primacy of identity in
Feminism and the Women’s Movement: Dynamics of Change in Social Movement Ideology and Activism
(New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 63.

⁶¹
Author’s interview with Ellen Cassidy.

⁶²
Rita Mae Brown quoted in Charlotte Bunch, “Forum: Learning from Lesbian Separatism,”
Ms.
, vol. 5 no. 5 (November 1976): 61.

⁶³
Sidney Abbott and Barbara Love,
Sappho Was a Right-on Woman: A Liberated View of Lesbianism
(New York: Stein & Day, 1978), pp. 136-137.

⁶⁴
Jo Freeman, “The Tyranny of Structurelessness,” in Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine, and Anita Rapone, eds.,
Radical Feminism
(New York: Quadrangle, 1973), pp. 285-299. The article was first published in 1970.

⁶⁵
Alice Echols offers numerous examples from New York, where these struggles began very early and set a pattern of strident discord. See
Daring to Be Bad
, pp. 88-89, 99-100, 191-192, 204-210.

⁶⁶
Amy Kesselman with Heather Booth, Vivian Rothstein, and Naomi Weisstein, “Our Gang of Four: Friendship and Women’s Liberation,” in Rachel Blau DuPlessis
and Ann Snitow, eds.,
The Feminist Memoir Project: Voices from Women’s Liberation
(New York: Three Rivers Press, 1998), p. 47; Evans,
Personal Politics
, p. 223.

⁶⁷
Weisstein, “Days of Celebration and Resistance: The Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band,” in Rachel Blau DuPlessis and Ann Snitow, eds.,
The Feminist Memoir Project: Voices from Women’s Liberation
(New York: Three Rivers Press, 1998), p. 359.

⁶⁸
Quoted in Amy Kesselman with Heather Booth, Vivian Rothstein, and Naomi Weisstein, “Our Gang of Four,” in DuPlessis and Snitow, eds.,
The Feminist Memoir Project
, p. 51.

⁶⁹
Elinor Langer, “Confessing,”
Ms.
, vol. 3, no. 6 (December 1974): 69-71, 108, quote on 70.

⁷⁰
Quoted in Anita Shreve,
Women Together, Women Alone
, p. 58.

⁷¹
The women’s movement established patterns that affected other progressive movements as well. Similar conflicts can be found in efforts around racial justice, peace, and the environment, all of which had overlapping memberships with the women’s movement and were deeply influenced by its visionary language and organizing methods.

⁷²
Examples of declension articles: Victoria Geng, “Requiem for the Women’s Movement,
Harper’s
, vol. 253 (November 1976): 49-68; Naomi Weisstein and Heather Booth, “Will the Women’s Movement Survive?”
Lesbian Tide
(Fall 1976): 28-33; Carmen Kerr, “The Corruption of Feminism,”
Issues in Radical Therapy
III, 4 (Fall 1976): 3-8; Charlotte Bunch, “Beyond Either/Or: Feminist Options,”
Quest: A Feminist Quarterly
, IV, 1 (Summer 1977): 88-96.

Chapter 5

¹
Anita Buzick II, Killeen, Texas, Letter to
Ms.
(June 1975), reprinted in
Ms.
, XII, 1 (December 2001/January 2002): 95.

²
Byllye Y. Avery, “Breathing Life into Ourselves: The Evolution of the National Black Women’s Health Project,” in Evelyn C. White ed.
The Black Women’s Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves
(Seattle: Seal Press, 1990), pp. 4-5.

³
Regarding women’s health networks in the 1970s, see Sheryl Burt Ruzek,
The Women’s Health Movement: Feminist Alternatives to Medical Control
(New York: Praeger, 1978).

⁴
Author’s interview with Carol Bonasarro, Washington, D.C., December 16, 1997; author’s interview with Sharon Vaughan, May 1, 1998.