WEBVTT

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(gentle music)
(crowd chanting)

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- These are images

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from the Women\'s Liberation Movement

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of the 1960s and the 1970s.

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The Women\'s Liberation Movement
was created by feminists.

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I\'ve always considered myself a feminist,

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but as the years have passed,

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it\'s been getting harder to find people

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who described themselves as feminist.

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Why is that?

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There was an unspoken understanding

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that we had achieved everything,

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and we didn\'t need the
word feminist anymore.

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- Women before me had
already handled that.

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Maybe if I was in that time,

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maybe I would have been
stronger on women\'s rights.

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- I consider it a equalist.

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- I think the word has
become way overblown,

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and it becomes-

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- [Interviewer] That\'s what she\'s saying.

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- Yeah, and so, I don\'t want
to be identified with it.

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- I never really thought about it too much

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until one day in 2004,

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I watched \"Meet the Press\" on television.

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It was Tim Russert and four
men sitting around a table,

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describing how and if Roe
v. Wade could be overturned.

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That\'s the Supreme Court decision

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that legalized abortion in 1973.

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And I thought, where are the women?

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Why are there no women at this
table discussing Roe v. Wade,

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reproductive rights?

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So the next day I talked about it at work,

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and one woman leaned over and said,

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\"Are you a feminist?\"

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And I don\'t know why she whispered.

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And then I replied,
\"Yes, I am a feminist,\"

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and I don\'t know why I whispered.

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And then it dawned on me,

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the whispering of the word feminist

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has a lot to do with the fact

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that there were no women at that table.

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Because when we whisper the word feminist,

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we reject the great Women\'s
Liberation Movement.

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Rejecting it helps us to forget it.

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I tried to tell this woman

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that it was good to be called a feminist,

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but I couldn\'t think of
one story from that time

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to tell her.

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Why was that?

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So I began to research what life was like

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before the women\'s liberation movement.

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And I realized that all those feminists

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that made that revolution
happen were all around me,

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and I could just ask them.

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So I did.

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I traveled around the country

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and I talked to these feminists.

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♪ (indistinct) ♪

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I couldn\'t talk to all of them.

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That would be impossible.

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There were so many.

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But I could talk to some.

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And I could show people this history.

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I figured, once people saw this film,

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they would be proud to
call themselves a feminist.

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I thought it would easy, but it wasn\'t.

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The history of the women\'s
movement is more complex

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than I originally thought.

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So I can tell this story as well as I can.

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And I can pass these
stories down to people,

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including my own daughter.

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♪ As you run for the backstage door ♪

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♪ I guarantee ♪

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♪ No sympathy ♪

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♪ (indistinct) ♪

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And I will start with World War II,

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and what life was like

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before the Women\'s Liberation Movement.

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(gentle music)

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- World War II is a big advance
for United States women,

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because it creates jobs.

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It changed things forever.

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- [Narrator] Women who\'re used

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to make their own clothes

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are now teaching silk
and nylon parachutes.

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- Women had been in the paid labor force

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in fairly large numbers
during World War II,

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and had gotten a taste of
autonomy and independence

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and what they could accomplish.

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- [Narrator] Instead
of cutting out dresses,

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this woman stamps out the
patterns of airplane parts.

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- But were supposed to get
out of that paid labor force

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and make places for men
when they came home,

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and also become, in the
case of the suburbs,

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educated full-time consumers

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to take the place of the war engine.

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We had provided full childcare

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for all women who worked
in those war plants,

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24 hours a day

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with no cost to them.

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They had closed all the childcare centers

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as soon as the war was over.

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(upbeat music)

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(car engine revs)

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- [Narrator] There\'s a
whole new generation coming,

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soon to be young adults.

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- Employment for females in those years,

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was completely segregated.

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We called it occupational segregation.

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So if you were a woman looking for a job,

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and let\'s say you were a chemist,

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you would never find a chemist\'s job

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on the help wanted women.

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- When you married, you
took your husband\'s name,

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credit rating, legal
domicile, social identity.

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Marriage was legally designed
for a person and a half.

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- You know, women didn\'t
have the opportunity

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to get credit in their
own name until 1975.

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- Women were give no
information during pregnancy.

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And I can remember being pregnant

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and couldn\'t find anything to read.

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Nothing.

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- If a teacher became pregnant,

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they could only work until they show.

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Once they show that they were pregnant,

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this would shock the children.

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They were then laid off or fired.

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- I remember in my law school class,

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there were men that we
would have conversations

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and arguments about it
and said that, you know,

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\"You\'re taking places that could go to men

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who are gonna use his law degree.\"

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That was open conversation.

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I don\'t know many people

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who had the appropriate
feminist consciousness.

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I know one, Pauli Murray.

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And I met her at Yale Law School.

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She of course was old
enough to be my mother,

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and she\'d come back to
get a Doctorate of Law.

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And we used to listen to
Pauli and it was interesting.

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She was unmarried.

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Most of us wanted to be married.

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I can\'t say that the few of us,

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there were very few women in law school

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who listened to her believed,

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\"uh-huh, we should be like Pauli.\"

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So it really did take more than that.

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The notion of a feminist revolution,

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I don\'t think anybody can
honestly say was on their mind

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until women began to raise
their own consciousness.

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And who were responsible
for the feminist revolution?

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Not some feminists whose names you know,

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but they\'re bubbled up.

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This sense that could not...

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this urge that couldn\'t be resisted.

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- Now, why didn\'t I know these stories?

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Why weren\'t these stories
at the tip of my tongue

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when I was talking to that woman at work?

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These stories weren\'t passed down to me.

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I was learning them now.

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The seeds of the women\'s
liberation movement

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were planted long before women
thought a feminist revolution

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was on the way.

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Two early events happened.

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The presidential commission
on the status of women

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and a book called \"The Feminine Mystique\".

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(gentle music)

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- I think very few people know

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about the Commission
on the Status of Women,

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which truly ignited the women\'s movement.

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It wasn\'t intentional.

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John F. Kennedy won the
presidency by a very slim margin.

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And democratic women had
helped him tremendously.

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- Several women,
particularly Esther Peterson,

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who was in the federal
government at that point,

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she called upon president John F. Kennedy

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to create a commission to study

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what was happening to women
in the society at that time,

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in the post-war era.

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And in 1961, he did appoint a commission,

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and he invited Eleanor Roosevelt
to chair that commission.

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- A group of well healed women,

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well accomplished women in various states,

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who spent three to five years researching

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the status of women.

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- What they had done is
really reveal women\'s status

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in America, which was pretty low.

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- And while they were not
radical to start with,

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they have said to interviewers

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that they were radicalized
by their findings.

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- [John F. Kennedy] I think this is

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an extremely vital matter
with which we\'re dealing.

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This used to be an old story

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that a civilization could be judged

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on how it treated its elderly people.

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But I think it can also be judged

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on its opportunities for women.

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And like all reports,

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it will only be important if
we can do something about it.

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- Within a year that federal commission

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spawned state commissions
all over the United States.

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And by 1965,

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these state commissions would
have an annual gathering

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in Washington DC.

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And they would try to make
the government understand

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the issues that were paramount.

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Most of them had to do with working women.

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The fact is the federal
government really didn\'t respond.

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They took it as a joke,

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they thought it was silly.

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And never underestimate humiliation

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as the source of a major social movement.

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- Before I talked to Betty Friedan,

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I was told that she didn\'t like it

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if an interviewer hadn\'t
read \"The Feminine Mystique\".

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So I read it.

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And then when I showed
up for the interview,

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the first thing she said to me was,

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\"Did you read my book?\"

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And I assured her, I had,
and she told me her story.

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(upbeat music)

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- It basically talked about the fact

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that women who were at
home and didn\'t go to work

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were dissatisfied.

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And she pointed up the problems
of women who stayed home.

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Caused a tremendous
effect in this country.

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- After I was fired for being
pregnant with my second kid,

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I freelanced mostly for women\'s magazine.

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And I did the alumni questionnaire,

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15 years out of Smith College.

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This was the time when there was the,

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oh, what is wrong with American women?

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They\'ve had too much education.

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It keeps them from
adjusting to their role.

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Their role as housewives.

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So I was going to disprove this,

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that education did make women
question their role as women.

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But it began to seem more and more to me

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that it was not the education
that was the problem,

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it was the definition
of the role of women.

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- And she created this concept
of The Feminine Mystique.

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Nobody had ever thought
of calling it that before.

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- I thought, when I read her book,

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it seemed to me, this
scratched the surface.

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Women have to be more autonomous

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so that you have to go after the church,

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you have to go after
marriage and the family,

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you have to go after all
of these institutions.

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Sexual institutions to conventions,

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or else you weren\'t going
to really make a change.

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- She did not include
African-American women,

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she did not include working women.

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These were the people she
was most concerned with

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during her adult life.

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- I could not imagine any woman of color,

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particularly Black woman

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who had ever thought that she
was gonna just be a housewife.

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Because there was so much discrimination

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against Black people that
no family could survive

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if a Black woman did not
also work outside the home.

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- What she was doing was addressing women

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who wanted and could in
fact, if the doors were open,

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move into careers.

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- Betty Friedan books hit me,

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you know, the ordinary housewife,

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or whatever you want to call me.

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Well, maybe I was a young matron, okay.

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And it was like, I knew it
wasn\'t him, it wasn\'t me.

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It was society.

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And society just had to change.

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- And this is a period
of time, don\'t forget,

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that a lot of middle-class families

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were sending their daughters to college.

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And she gave it a name,
which as I\'ve said,

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is the great accomplishment
of the women\'s movement,

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naming the problem.

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- And show dry important it
is to write what you think,

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and to be brave enough
to take the brickbats

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to come back.

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- You know, the feminine mystique,

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which I proceeded to demolish.

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(laughs)

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Help demolish.

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- This is one of the things feminism does.

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It gives you a different perspective

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through which to see the world.

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I grew up with this perspective.

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So it stayed with me.

00:13:25.330 --> 00:13:27.890
Making a decision to step out of a role

00:13:27.890 --> 00:13:29.740
that you were expected to be in

00:13:29.740 --> 00:13:34.080
was a very difficult thing
to do in the early 1960s.

00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:37.050
The mystique that
surrounded these housewives

00:13:37.050 --> 00:13:39.160
locked them into a role,

00:13:39.160 --> 00:13:41.660
a role from which they could not move.

00:13:41.660 --> 00:13:43.833
It was kind of like a caste system.

00:13:48.959 --> 00:13:51.959
(melancholic music)

00:14:01.910 --> 00:14:05.050
- SNCC stands for Snick.

00:14:05.050 --> 00:14:05.883
And that stands

00:14:05.883 --> 00:14:08.540
for the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee.

00:14:08.540 --> 00:14:13.000
And this was the main
Southern student movement

00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:16.290
in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

00:14:16.290 --> 00:14:20.980
It was in many ways a
revolutionary organization,

00:14:20.980 --> 00:14:25.140
in the sense that it
was rejecting old mores

00:14:25.140 --> 00:14:27.480
of one kind or another.

00:14:27.480 --> 00:14:30.440
It had a different idea about leadership,

00:14:30.440 --> 00:14:34.110
which was more collective,
more democratic.

00:14:34.110 --> 00:14:39.110
So when unfortunately some
of the attitudes around women

00:14:39.880 --> 00:14:42.340
would creep into the organization,

00:14:42.340 --> 00:14:45.030
there was a little bit of a conflict.

00:14:45.030 --> 00:14:46.340
Because on the one hand,

00:14:46.340 --> 00:14:49.350
we\'re talking about new
ways of doing things,

00:14:49.350 --> 00:14:51.480
new leadership styles,

00:14:51.480 --> 00:14:53.240
getting rid of racism,

00:14:53.240 --> 00:14:55.970
not doing the things the same old way,

00:14:55.970 --> 00:14:59.153
and yet the attitudes
towards women were there.

00:15:02.250 --> 00:15:03.940
- I was a volunteer for Snick

00:15:03.940 --> 00:15:08.540
in the Mississippi Freedom
Summer Project in 1964.

00:15:08.540 --> 00:15:12.020
When about 1000 students from the north,

00:15:12.020 --> 00:15:14.260
most of them white, not all of them white,

00:15:14.260 --> 00:15:17.290
were organized by the Snick staff people

00:15:17.290 --> 00:15:21.280
who were out there in the
dangerous areas of Mississippi.

00:15:21.280 --> 00:15:23.850
Negroes, as people called themselves then,

00:15:23.850 --> 00:15:26.740
were being killed just
for registering to vote,

00:15:26.740 --> 00:15:29.210
and it was getting no media coverage.

00:15:29.210 --> 00:15:33.500
- When ordinary Americans saw
white young middle-class kids

00:15:33.500 --> 00:15:35.270
getting beaten up and taken to jail,

00:15:35.270 --> 00:15:37.100
it really upset them.

00:15:37.100 --> 00:15:40.320
It was a brilliant tactic
really, and strategy.

00:15:40.320 --> 00:15:42.980
- We were living and
working in black communities

00:15:42.980 --> 00:15:45.340
where the organizers,

00:15:45.340 --> 00:15:48.023
the backbone of the movement were women.

00:15:49.030 --> 00:15:52.760
And the issues about
which they were concerned

00:15:52.760 --> 00:15:55.770
often had to do with needs
of were very, very close

00:15:55.770 --> 00:15:56.970
to communities.

00:15:56.970 --> 00:16:01.400
There was a conviction
that the concerns of women

00:16:01.400 --> 00:16:04.463
belonged on the agenda of
a social justice movement

00:16:04.463 --> 00:16:07.063
that was already a broad agenda.

00:16:09.220 --> 00:16:10.570
Now, there had been conversations

00:16:10.570 --> 00:16:12.910
amongst a small group of women about,

00:16:12.910 --> 00:16:15.470
how do we begin raising this issue

00:16:15.470 --> 00:16:19.480
that the profound democracy
that existed within Snick

00:16:20.430 --> 00:16:22.580
and for which we were working,

00:16:22.580 --> 00:16:24.720
that that democratic vision

00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:27.893
should include the rights of women?

00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:33.190
And so we wrote a paper
which expressed the thinking

00:16:33.190 --> 00:16:34.480
of a lot of people,

00:16:34.480 --> 00:16:35.730
and we didn\'t put our names on it.

00:16:35.730 --> 00:16:39.670
We just floated it in with
all the 200 other papers.

00:16:39.670 --> 00:16:43.320
Casey and I were afraid
that we would be ridiculed

00:16:43.320 --> 00:16:46.090
if we put our names on that paper.

00:16:46.090 --> 00:16:49.760
A lot of our fellow Snick workers
were extremely responsive.

00:16:49.760 --> 00:16:53.740
Some thought it was a
diversion and a distraction.

00:16:53.740 --> 00:16:57.510
- 1965, Casey and I wrote another memo.

00:16:57.510 --> 00:16:59.710
And this time it had our names on it.

00:16:59.710 --> 00:17:02.410
This was a memo called \"Sex and Caste\".

00:17:02.410 --> 00:17:05.950
The illusion to a caste system is obvious.

00:17:05.950 --> 00:17:08.860
It\'s a strata and to which you\'re born

00:17:08.860 --> 00:17:11.640
and nothing that you do can change it.

00:17:11.640 --> 00:17:13.570
- It was red all over the country.

00:17:13.570 --> 00:17:15.670
I now look back and think, without email,

00:17:15.670 --> 00:17:16.930
how did this happen?

00:17:16.930 --> 00:17:19.390
How did we talk to each
other all over the country?

00:17:19.390 --> 00:17:20.590
But we did.

00:17:20.590 --> 00:17:24.250
And partly it\'s because
we knew each other somehow

00:17:24.250 --> 00:17:26.020
from national conventions,

00:17:26.020 --> 00:17:28.950
we also moved around a lot.

00:17:28.950 --> 00:17:31.200
And then there was just
a lot of organizers

00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:33.770
who went from city to city
and passed out pamphlets

00:17:33.770 --> 00:17:35.920
and pieces of paper
that were mimeographed.

00:17:37.780 --> 00:17:41.400
- I began to collect these
self-published pamphlets.

00:17:41.400 --> 00:17:44.640
I don\'t think we forgot the
ideas that were printed in them,

00:17:44.640 --> 00:17:47.880
but I do think we forgot
the women who created them.

00:17:47.880 --> 00:17:49.580
When we think about feminism,

00:17:49.580 --> 00:17:53.320
we usually think about the
national organization for women.

00:17:53.320 --> 00:17:56.540
But even that organization has its roots

00:17:56.540 --> 00:17:59.120
in something we know very little about,

00:17:59.120 --> 00:18:01.863
the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission.

00:18:02.915 --> 00:18:05.498
(upbeat music)

00:18:16.430 --> 00:18:18.060
- Suddenly in 1964,

00:18:18.060 --> 00:18:20.900
before there was an
organized women\'s movement,

00:18:20.900 --> 00:18:22.500
there was a law on the books

00:18:22.500 --> 00:18:25.550
that prohibited
discrimination in employment

00:18:25.550 --> 00:18:30.120
on the basis of nationality,
ethnicity, race,

00:18:30.120 --> 00:18:32.490
and religion, and gender.

00:18:32.490 --> 00:18:34.920
The legislation was called Title VII.

00:18:34.920 --> 00:18:38.130
It was one piece of a very
large Civil Rights Act

00:18:38.130 --> 00:18:40.770
that then President Johnson got through.

00:18:40.770 --> 00:18:43.890
- The law when it was originally
projected for Congress

00:18:43.890 --> 00:18:47.680
was what I would call a
traditional civil rights law.

00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:50.860
And that was that a bar
discrimination on the basis of race,

00:18:50.860 --> 00:18:54.380
creed, color, national origin or ancestry.

00:18:54.380 --> 00:18:56.370
There was no sex in it.

00:18:56.370 --> 00:18:59.390
Some people decided that
it might be a good point

00:18:59.390 --> 00:19:01.720
to include sex discrimination.

00:19:01.720 --> 00:19:03.240
And Martha Griffiths decided

00:19:03.240 --> 00:19:05.230
that there ought to be an amendment.

00:19:05.230 --> 00:19:06.920
So she talked to some people about it,

00:19:06.920 --> 00:19:08.360
and she did introduce this.

00:19:08.360 --> 00:19:11.560
And it was also introduced
by Howard Smith,

00:19:11.560 --> 00:19:13.650
Congressman from Virginia,

00:19:13.650 --> 00:19:15.470
who couldn\'t have cared less about women

00:19:15.470 --> 00:19:17.190
or about the civil rights movement.

00:19:17.190 --> 00:19:19.140
In fact, I think he wanted to see that law

00:19:19.140 --> 00:19:20.540
go down the drain.

00:19:20.540 --> 00:19:23.430
But he agreed to introduce the amendment.

00:19:23.430 --> 00:19:26.040
- Nobody was going to get up and say,

00:19:26.040 --> 00:19:29.440
take that out, we don\'t wanna
prohibit sex discrimination.

00:19:29.440 --> 00:19:32.980
Except, there were women
working against it.

00:19:32.980 --> 00:19:35.270
Esther Peterson, Mary Keysering,

00:19:35.270 --> 00:19:37.940
women who came out of the labor movement.

00:19:37.940 --> 00:19:41.240
They thought that sex
discrimination in employment

00:19:41.240 --> 00:19:44.130
should be handled by a separate statute.

00:19:44.130 --> 00:19:48.583
Pauli Murray worked on the
hill to keep that language in.

00:19:50.100 --> 00:19:51.820
- Most of the men thought it was a joke.

00:19:51.820 --> 00:19:54.680
They talked about Playboy
buddies being males,

00:19:54.680 --> 00:19:58.100
and that would not be exactly
what the United States wanted.

00:19:58.100 --> 00:19:59.710
But it got passed.

00:19:59.710 --> 00:20:02.220
And out of it came the creation

00:20:02.220 --> 00:20:05.020
of the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission.

00:20:05.020 --> 00:20:08.640
- But the EEOC which was
the enforcement agency

00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:11.370
thought that that was a silly addition

00:20:11.370 --> 00:20:13.160
they didn\'t have to pay any attention to.

00:20:13.160 --> 00:20:15.670
And so one of the first
fights of the women\'s movement

00:20:15.670 --> 00:20:19.810
was to get the EEOC to enforce
the law as it was written.

00:20:19.810 --> 00:20:22.400
- The EEOC altogether at that time

00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:26.710
consisted of about 100 permanent
and temporary employees.

00:20:26.710 --> 00:20:28.780
Most of them were there

00:20:28.780 --> 00:20:31.060
because they wanted to
fight discrimination

00:20:31.060 --> 00:20:32.800
against African-Americans.

00:20:32.800 --> 00:20:35.460
They were not interested by and large

00:20:35.460 --> 00:20:39.550
in doing anything about the
sex discrimination prohibition.

00:20:39.550 --> 00:20:41.570
Aileen Hernandez was for women\'s rights,

00:20:41.570 --> 00:20:43.770
Dick Graham was for women\'s rights.

00:20:43.770 --> 00:20:46.130
Sam Jackson was sympathetic

00:20:46.130 --> 00:20:48.782
because he thought about
black women whom he knew.

00:20:48.782 --> 00:20:52.240
But I wasn\'t on that level
that I could do anything.

00:20:52.240 --> 00:20:53.603
They were commissioners.

00:20:54.490 --> 00:20:59.490
- Aileen Hernandez and Sam
Jackson were kindred spirits

00:21:01.300 --> 00:21:05.740
and they were feisty and determined.

00:21:05.740 --> 00:21:10.410
- During the first year of
the commission\'s operations,

00:21:10.410 --> 00:21:15.410
37% of the complaints filed,
alleged sex discrimination.

00:21:15.710 --> 00:21:19.840
So my boss began to call me
a sex maniac, Charlie Duncan.

00:21:19.840 --> 00:21:21.440
Because whatever was going on,

00:21:21.440 --> 00:21:23.680
I would say, what about
sex discrimination?

00:21:23.680 --> 00:21:25.130
So he called me a sex maniac.

00:21:29.930 --> 00:21:32.670
- We have a lot of cases that
came in from stewardesses

00:21:32.670 --> 00:21:34.630
almost immediately.

00:21:34.630 --> 00:21:37.430
Airlines in those days have policies

00:21:37.430 --> 00:21:39.810
about the flight attendants.

00:21:39.810 --> 00:21:43.060
One of them was that
you could not be married

00:21:43.060 --> 00:21:45.020
and be a flight attendant.

00:21:45.020 --> 00:21:47.870
Another one was, you couldn\'t
be over a certain age

00:21:47.870 --> 00:21:49.905
and be a flight attendant.

00:21:49.905 --> 00:21:50.738
- Hello there.

00:21:50.738 --> 00:21:51.571
- 2D?

00:21:51.571 --> 00:21:52.404
- Yes, 2D.

00:21:52.404 --> 00:21:53.237
- I\'ll take your coat, okay?

00:21:53.237 --> 00:21:54.080
- You had to be beautiful,

00:21:54.080 --> 00:21:55.180
and you had to be skinny,

00:21:55.180 --> 00:21:57.690
and you had to have all of those
other things going for you.

00:21:57.690 --> 00:22:00.600
- The airlines decided that they would ask

00:22:00.600 --> 00:22:02.733
for an exemption to the law.

00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:07.720
So the EEOC said they would
take under consideration

00:22:07.720 --> 00:22:10.210
this issue of the flight attendant\'s job

00:22:10.210 --> 00:22:12.080
being a female only job.

00:22:12.080 --> 00:22:13.180
- [Narrator] Glamor job,

00:22:13.180 --> 00:22:15.730
Marianne has made dozens
of runs like this,

00:22:15.730 --> 00:22:17.220
served hundreds of hot meals.

00:22:17.220 --> 00:22:19.700
- Well, the help wanted
newspaper ads in those days

00:22:19.700 --> 00:22:20.690
were in columns.

00:22:20.690 --> 00:22:24.110
And they were help wanted
male, and help wanted female.

00:22:24.110 --> 00:22:25.680
Or let\'s say you\'re an accountant.

00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:27.050
You\'ve gone all the way through school

00:22:27.050 --> 00:22:28.470
and you are now a CPA.

00:22:28.470 --> 00:22:30.720
So you look for a CPA job.

00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:32.900
You look at the help
wanted female columns,

00:22:32.900 --> 00:22:34.360
there are no CPA jobs.

00:22:34.360 --> 00:22:35.770
There are a bookkeeper jobs.

00:22:35.770 --> 00:22:38.620
All the CPA jobs are in the male column.

00:22:38.620 --> 00:22:39.542
- [Interviewer] So what
if you were a woman

00:22:39.542 --> 00:22:40.810
and just went to the male column?

00:22:40.810 --> 00:22:42.360
- Well, then you would go to the column,

00:22:42.360 --> 00:22:44.560
but you also obviously
looked at it and said,

00:22:44.560 --> 00:22:46.650
well, it says it\'s a help wanted male,

00:22:46.650 --> 00:22:48.410
they\'re not gonna hire me.

00:22:48.410 --> 00:22:49.710
And that\'s usually what happened.

00:22:49.710 --> 00:22:52.410
Because when somebody went down and said,

00:22:52.410 --> 00:22:53.580
well, I saw your ad.

00:22:53.580 --> 00:22:55.930
And they said, oh, and
you saw our ad where?

00:22:55.930 --> 00:22:57.350
And it was in this paper.

00:22:57.350 --> 00:22:59.137
And it wasn\'t the help wanted male column.

00:22:59.137 --> 00:23:01.507
\"Well, we were looking
for men for this job.\"

00:23:04.490 --> 00:23:07.040
So the EEOC made a decision,

00:23:07.040 --> 00:23:10.520
that it would not be considered
a violation of the law

00:23:10.520 --> 00:23:12.270
against the newspaper

00:23:12.270 --> 00:23:15.070
to have help wanted
male and female columns.

00:23:15.070 --> 00:23:17.550
Dr. Pauli Murray, she said that\'s insane.

00:23:17.550 --> 00:23:18.800
What really needs to happen

00:23:18.800 --> 00:23:20.900
is that women need to
organize in some way,

00:23:20.900 --> 00:23:23.400
because if they don\'t
organize for their own rights,

00:23:23.400 --> 00:23:25.150
it just isn\'t gonna happen.

00:23:25.150 --> 00:23:26.100
- And I said, well,

00:23:27.240 --> 00:23:31.290
we have to have some
means of support on this

00:23:31.290 --> 00:23:36.290
because there is no great
groundswell of opinion

00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:39.933
in favor of equal rights for women.

00:23:41.010 --> 00:23:44.660
- Betty Friedan came to the EEOC.

00:23:44.660 --> 00:23:46.090
She said to me, what
are the problems here?

00:23:46.090 --> 00:23:46.923
What are the conflicts?

00:23:46.923 --> 00:23:47.980
What\'s wrong?

00:23:47.980 --> 00:23:50.453
And I took her in my office
and I started to cry.

00:23:51.410 --> 00:23:54.010
And I said what this country needs

00:23:54.010 --> 00:23:56.413
is an organization to fight for women.

00:23:58.130 --> 00:24:00.270
- The National Organization for Women

00:24:00.270 --> 00:24:02.873
was a bold step for women in the 1960s.

00:24:05.451 --> 00:24:08.034
(upbeat music)

00:24:20.340 --> 00:24:22.870
- Feminism was a bad word.

00:24:22.870 --> 00:24:27.870
The existing women\'s organizations
were kind of brainwashed.

00:24:27.980 --> 00:24:30.287
They had to say, I\'m not a feminist but.

00:24:33.285 --> 00:24:35.490
LW, League of Women Voters.

00:24:35.490 --> 00:24:40.490
- I went to the heads of the
three women\'s organizations.

00:24:41.830 --> 00:24:46.830
And they said, well, we
can take a stand on issues.

00:24:49.570 --> 00:24:51.550
- They weren\'t supposed to be political.

00:24:51.550 --> 00:24:55.820
- So Betty Friedan called
a meeting in her hotel room

00:24:55.820 --> 00:24:59.770
and said, I think we
need an NAACP for women.

00:24:59.770 --> 00:25:04.060
These commissions on the status
of women, not gonna do it.

00:25:04.060 --> 00:25:09.060
- And 28 women altogether
signed up for NOW.

00:25:09.060 --> 00:25:12.223
And each one gave $5 as I recall.

00:25:15.980 --> 00:25:17.730
- We had among senior on the board,

00:25:17.730 --> 00:25:19.710
we had several nuns on the board,

00:25:19.710 --> 00:25:23.640
we had a women from all
kinds of academic backgrounds

00:25:23.640 --> 00:25:24.500
on the board.

00:25:24.500 --> 00:25:27.930
We had created a statement of
purpose of NOW by that time,

00:25:27.930 --> 00:25:30.670
which was written mostly by Betty Friedan.

00:25:30.670 --> 00:25:32.380
But along with her,

00:25:32.380 --> 00:25:34.950
key parts of that were also
written by Pauli Murray,

00:25:34.950 --> 00:25:36.960
which connected the women\'s movement

00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:39.410
to the full movement for human rights.

00:25:39.410 --> 00:25:42.030
- And the time has long since come

00:25:42.030 --> 00:25:45.920
for us to confront the
condition that prevent women

00:25:45.920 --> 00:25:49.790
from really taking a fully
equal place in American society.

00:25:49.790 --> 00:25:51.880
- I never gave a lecture

00:25:51.880 --> 00:25:54.930
without leaving a NOW chapter behind.

00:25:54.930 --> 00:25:58.370
And I\'d say, call a press
conference, do this, do that.

00:25:58.370 --> 00:25:59.790
They\'d never call it.

00:25:59.790 --> 00:26:02.600
Didn\'t do a press conference,
much less call one.

00:26:02.600 --> 00:26:04.620
- So at one point,

00:26:04.620 --> 00:26:08.100
we began to meet in Mary
Eastwood\'s apartment,

00:26:08.100 --> 00:26:12.170
and I would tell them, now
this is not proper to do.

00:26:12.170 --> 00:26:15.350
And I usually do the legal
thing and the right thing,

00:26:15.350 --> 00:26:18.270
but in this instance
in my life, I did not.

00:26:18.270 --> 00:26:22.250
I would tell them what
was happening at the EEOC

00:26:22.250 --> 00:26:25.970
that I felt was egregious as
far as women were concerned.

00:26:25.970 --> 00:26:30.140
And we would draft a letter
on behalf of NOW to the EEOC.

00:26:31.110 --> 00:26:32.970
And we would say, why
aren\'t you doing this,

00:26:32.970 --> 00:26:35.720
why didn\'t you do that,
why aren\'t you doing this?

00:26:35.720 --> 00:26:38.690
And we would send that
letter to the commission.

00:26:38.690 --> 00:26:41.410
And nobody at the commission ever said,

00:26:41.410 --> 00:26:43.610
how do these people know what we\'re doing

00:26:43.610 --> 00:26:46.650
in our innermost commissioned meetings?

00:26:46.650 --> 00:26:47.483
Never came up.

00:26:48.820 --> 00:26:50.460
- [Narrator] The largest, best organized,

00:26:50.460 --> 00:26:52.200
best known group is NOW.

00:26:52.200 --> 00:26:54.680
Mostly business and professional women.

00:26:54.680 --> 00:26:57.830
NOW meetings look
interchangeable with the PTA.

00:26:57.830 --> 00:26:58.663
They aren\'t.

00:26:58.663 --> 00:27:01.630
They discuss how to liberate
a men\'s bar and grill,

00:27:01.630 --> 00:27:04.950
and ways in which to get Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act

00:27:04.950 --> 00:27:06.550
fully enforced.

00:27:06.550 --> 00:27:07.660
- So I said, I would be glad

00:27:07.660 --> 00:27:10.330
to be Pacific Coast vice president.

00:27:10.330 --> 00:27:12.630
Dick Graham was the east
coast vice president.

00:27:12.630 --> 00:27:15.570
So two members formerly on the EEOC

00:27:15.570 --> 00:27:18.500
were executive officers
of the founding of NOW

00:27:18.500 --> 00:27:19.840
at that stage of the game.

00:27:19.840 --> 00:27:23.220
- NOW really got the EEOC to
begin implementing the law

00:27:23.220 --> 00:27:25.760
because NOW filed lawsuits.

00:27:25.760 --> 00:27:27.710
NOW got publicity,

00:27:27.710 --> 00:27:31.580
NOW picketed the White House and the EEOC,

00:27:31.580 --> 00:27:34.733
and the EEOC began to enforce the law.

00:27:36.260 --> 00:27:38.130
- It was wonderful to meet other people

00:27:38.130 --> 00:27:39.830
who thought there was some problem

00:27:40.730 --> 00:27:42.130
about how women were treated.

00:27:42.130 --> 00:27:45.760
And all of those women, even to this day,

00:27:45.760 --> 00:27:48.970
there was something bedrock about them.

00:27:48.970 --> 00:27:51.900
They really are stoned feminist.

00:27:51.900 --> 00:27:53.670
- I was like a red flare.

00:27:53.670 --> 00:27:56.800
A red blanket for a bull.

00:27:56.800 --> 00:28:00.800
I would walk in and
everyone would go bananas.

00:28:00.800 --> 00:28:05.300
The guys thought we were
gonna overturn their lives,

00:28:05.300 --> 00:28:07.333
which in some ways we did.

00:28:08.230 --> 00:28:10.510
And many, many women,

00:28:10.510 --> 00:28:12.450
probably most women in those days

00:28:12.450 --> 00:28:15.439
thought we were really
something to stay away from.

00:28:15.439 --> 00:28:17.730
(crowd chanting)

00:28:17.730 --> 00:28:18.800
- Listen to your enemy

00:28:18.800 --> 00:28:22.010
because your enemy is going
to tell you what\'s important.

00:28:22.010 --> 00:28:25.160
Like when we would pick
it against segregation

00:28:25.160 --> 00:28:26.270
of help wanted ads.

00:28:26.270 --> 00:28:27.830
- I pay for like the New York Times,

00:28:27.830 --> 00:28:31.203
which carries the most of the
advertising for employment.

00:28:31.203 --> 00:28:34.940
That they will continue to be
able to pay half pay to women.

00:28:34.940 --> 00:28:38.380
And they would be able to that
way make a much higher profit

00:28:38.380 --> 00:28:42.113
at the expense of over
half the population.

00:28:43.130 --> 00:28:44.890
- People will come up and
say, you must be lesbian.

00:28:44.890 --> 00:28:46.618
And what?

00:28:46.618 --> 00:28:48.243
Where did that come from?

00:28:48.243 --> 00:28:49.076
What is that?

00:28:49.076 --> 00:28:50.130
Well, they\'re trying to tell you

00:28:50.130 --> 00:28:53.383
that that is what they\'re afraid of.

00:28:54.452 --> 00:28:57.035
(gentle music)

00:28:59.740 --> 00:29:01.320
- There were a lot of women

00:29:01.320 --> 00:29:04.200
involved in the early days of NOW

00:29:04.200 --> 00:29:06.820
who didn\'t agree on all of the issues.

00:29:06.820 --> 00:29:11.820
- NOW at that time was very
old-fashioned or formal.

00:29:12.940 --> 00:29:15.300
- There were other groups outside of NOW,

00:29:15.300 --> 00:29:18.430
radical women, lesbian groups.

00:29:18.430 --> 00:29:20.367
And so I put a panel together,

00:29:20.367 --> 00:29:22.890
\"Is lesbianism a feminist issue?\"

00:29:22.890 --> 00:29:24.430
We were mobbed.

00:29:24.430 --> 00:29:28.390
We had about 300 people at that meeting,

00:29:28.390 --> 00:29:30.850
where normally we might have 50.

00:29:30.850 --> 00:29:35.490
But then I started to hear
that Betty Friedan was furious.

00:29:35.490 --> 00:29:38.400
So I thought, well, I can\'t take it back.

00:29:38.400 --> 00:29:39.920
And frankly, I wouldn\'t have.

00:29:39.920 --> 00:29:42.897
Because it was only fair,

00:29:42.897 --> 00:29:47.220
these women in the chapter
working their hearts out

00:29:47.220 --> 00:29:49.240
were hiding who they were.

00:29:49.240 --> 00:29:52.380
- Then they felt that lesbians were active

00:29:52.380 --> 00:29:55.523
in the women\'s movement and
should be recognized as such.

00:29:57.805 --> 00:30:00.388
(gentle music)

00:30:07.700 --> 00:30:12.700
- NOW got the bad press of
being a dyke\'s organization.

00:30:13.760 --> 00:30:17.630
And Betty Friedan who
was not herself a lesbian

00:30:17.630 --> 00:30:19.770
became very concerned about that.

00:30:19.770 --> 00:30:22.280
And she thought at that
point that the movement

00:30:22.280 --> 00:30:24.299
and that NOW and the
whole feminist movement

00:30:24.299 --> 00:30:25.660
would be ruined.

00:30:25.660 --> 00:30:28.170
- Lots of us thought it was
gonna be very, very difficult,

00:30:28.170 --> 00:30:31.490
because we were just being accepted

00:30:31.490 --> 00:30:33.910
as a feminist organization.

00:30:33.910 --> 00:30:38.430
And we didn\'t know if this
was going to change things.

00:30:38.430 --> 00:30:40.473
So Betty was not popular at all.

00:30:43.720 --> 00:30:46.250
- Betty Friedan decided that
we were gonna have a meeting

00:30:46.250 --> 00:30:50.063
and have a vote that the lesbians
will be expelled from now.

00:30:53.150 --> 00:30:56.680
And Kate Millett was at that group.

00:30:56.680 --> 00:31:00.030
And Kate Millett is a great genius.

00:31:00.030 --> 00:31:01.537
Kate Millett stood up and said,

00:31:01.537 --> 00:31:03.820
\"Fine, let\'s have a vote,

00:31:03.820 --> 00:31:06.330
but let\'s not have it by secret ballot.

00:31:06.330 --> 00:31:09.007
Let\'s have it by a show of hands.\"

00:31:11.300 --> 00:31:13.580
They couldn\'t do it, and so I didn\'t pass.

00:31:13.580 --> 00:31:16.193
And that to me was a
wonderful lesson then.

00:31:19.764 --> 00:31:21.860
- And it was a time of movement.

00:31:21.860 --> 00:31:25.380
A feeling we were fighting
for a better society

00:31:25.380 --> 00:31:26.790
on civil rights,

00:31:26.790 --> 00:31:28.440
on the war in Vietnam,

00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:30.550
about student rights on campus,

00:31:30.550 --> 00:31:32.293
about democracy itself.

00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:36.570
- Many women who were in
the civil rights movement

00:31:36.570 --> 00:31:39.403
were also in the anti-war movement.

00:31:40.810 --> 00:31:43.393
(gentle music)

00:31:51.420 --> 00:31:54.070
- Actually Liberation
Magazine took the lead

00:31:54.070 --> 00:31:56.500
in organizing a conference
between Americans

00:31:56.500 --> 00:31:58.090
for the peace movement

00:31:58.090 --> 00:32:00.700
and Vietnamese from North Vietnam

00:32:00.700 --> 00:32:03.370
and the National Liberation
Front, in South Vietnam.

00:32:03.370 --> 00:32:04.203
I was married at the time.

00:32:04.203 --> 00:32:08.060
And so it was either my husband
or myself who got to go.

00:32:08.060 --> 00:32:09.700
And we decided I should go.

00:32:09.700 --> 00:32:11.910
The conference was in Czechoslovakia.

00:32:11.910 --> 00:32:15.250
And we heard all kinds of
testimony from Vietnamese

00:32:15.250 --> 00:32:17.230
about what the American strategy was

00:32:17.230 --> 00:32:20.553
and what the bombing rates
were like in North Vietnam.

00:32:22.120 --> 00:32:24.880
I was invited to be in
an all women\'s group

00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:27.560
with women from North and South Vietnam

00:32:27.560 --> 00:32:31.400
who wanted to talk about
the special oppression

00:32:31.400 --> 00:32:34.023
and suffering that
women were experiencing.

00:32:37.520 --> 00:32:40.320
They talked with us
about women being raped

00:32:40.320 --> 00:32:45.320
and being parachuted into GI
camps to be used as prostitutes

00:32:45.460 --> 00:32:49.530
and horrible tortures
that women experienced.

00:32:49.530 --> 00:32:51.400
And one of the women there,

00:32:51.400 --> 00:32:53.650
I asked her to make a tape for me,

00:32:53.650 --> 00:32:55.483
a message to American women.

00:32:56.557 --> 00:32:58.340
- [Tran] My American sisters,

00:32:58.340 --> 00:33:02.270
you need courage and good
success in your fight

00:33:02.270 --> 00:33:05.880
for a better life and racial equality,

00:33:05.880 --> 00:33:08.753
and quick end to the Vietnam war.

00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:11.800
- And then following that conference,

00:33:11.800 --> 00:33:14.130
Tom was invited to put a group together

00:33:14.130 --> 00:33:15.330
to go to North Vietnam.

00:33:15.330 --> 00:33:18.543
Carol McEldowney and myself went.

00:33:19.410 --> 00:33:22.020
The only reason there were
women on this delegation

00:33:22.020 --> 00:33:25.140
is that the Vietnamese
insisted that there be women.

00:33:25.140 --> 00:33:28.540
Carol and I met separately
with the women\'s union there,

00:33:28.540 --> 00:33:30.030
and heard presentations

00:33:30.030 --> 00:33:31.740
about how they built their organization,

00:33:31.740 --> 00:33:33.950
how they built leadership amongst women.

00:33:33.950 --> 00:33:37.570
And they saw themselves
as organizers of women.

00:33:37.570 --> 00:33:38.800
That was their role.

00:33:38.800 --> 00:33:41.180
They felt they represented
half of the population

00:33:41.180 --> 00:33:43.690
and they needed to mobilize people.

00:33:43.690 --> 00:33:44.720
They wanted to talk about
what we were gonna do

00:33:44.720 --> 00:33:47.390
when we got back to the United States

00:33:47.390 --> 00:33:48.640
to help them end the war.

00:33:50.390 --> 00:33:51.650
I had never thought about us.

00:33:51.650 --> 00:33:54.660
I always thought of us as
sort of secondary in that.

00:33:54.660 --> 00:33:57.720
But it was clear if the
Vietnamese didn\'t insist on it,

00:33:57.720 --> 00:34:00.063
there wouldn\'t have been
any women on the trip.

00:34:01.150 --> 00:34:02.850
Came back to the United States

00:34:02.850 --> 00:34:06.090
with just this enormous
sense of responsibility.

00:34:06.090 --> 00:34:09.140
There was a women\'s group
that had started in Chicago.

00:34:09.140 --> 00:34:11.840
I met with them and shared
this experience I had.

00:34:11.840 --> 00:34:14.170
So we decided to use their example

00:34:14.170 --> 00:34:17.610
as a way to build an
independent women\'s movement

00:34:17.610 --> 00:34:19.230
in Chicago.

00:34:19.230 --> 00:34:21.833
And it was the beginning of the
Women\'s Liberation Movement.

00:34:22.886 --> 00:34:25.469
(gentle music)

00:34:28.630 --> 00:34:32.380
- People get confused
partly because of the nature

00:34:32.380 --> 00:34:33.250
of the society,

00:34:33.250 --> 00:34:34.290
and how it wants you to think

00:34:34.290 --> 00:34:35.660
that everything\'s done by individuals,

00:34:35.660 --> 00:34:37.090
and that everything can be patented.

00:34:37.090 --> 00:34:38.870
Everything\'s private property.

00:34:38.870 --> 00:34:42.110
So somebody developed this idea.

00:34:42.110 --> 00:34:43.200
No.

00:34:43.200 --> 00:34:45.112
Social movements, in fact,

00:34:45.112 --> 00:34:48.240
things happen because things
are happening all over,

00:34:48.240 --> 00:34:49.360
all kinds of people.

00:34:49.360 --> 00:34:51.523
Shifts are happening in people\'s brains.

00:34:52.649 --> 00:34:54.580
When I started organizing in New York,

00:34:54.580 --> 00:34:56.440
then I traveled, right?

00:34:56.440 --> 00:35:00.030
Other women, I mean, people
were already meeting in Chicago.

00:35:00.030 --> 00:35:02.600
The poor women in New
Rochelle and Mount Vernon

00:35:02.600 --> 00:35:03.840
already been meeting.

00:35:03.840 --> 00:35:05.790
People were meeting all over the place.

00:35:06.900 --> 00:35:10.020
- [Narrator] Here\'s a feminist
story, not well-known.

00:35:10.020 --> 00:35:13.920
Jeanette Rankin, the Republican
Congresswoman from Montana

00:35:13.920 --> 00:35:17.280
led an antiwar brigade in 1968.

00:35:18.645 --> 00:35:21.228
(upbeat music)

00:35:27.270 --> 00:35:29.010
- Jeanette Rankin brigade

00:35:29.010 --> 00:35:32.810
was organized to be a women\'s march

00:35:32.810 --> 00:35:34.270
against the war in Vietnam.

00:35:34.270 --> 00:35:36.460
A women\'s march for peace.

00:35:36.460 --> 00:35:40.350
It was not a march of
women for women\'s rights

00:35:40.350 --> 00:35:42.270
or for women\'s liberation.

00:35:42.270 --> 00:35:45.060
Those terms were tiny
little seeds out there

00:35:45.060 --> 00:35:46.250
that some of us knew about.

00:35:46.250 --> 00:35:49.640
They certainly weren\'t
public concept at that point.

00:35:49.640 --> 00:35:53.460
We considered these peace
women, women radicals.

00:35:53.460 --> 00:35:56.560
Because they were
playing on the stereotype

00:35:56.560 --> 00:36:00.660
of women as being more peaceful than men.

00:36:00.660 --> 00:36:02.980
And of course that women
should be more peaceful,

00:36:02.980 --> 00:36:06.040
they should never fight for
things they need to fight for.

00:36:06.040 --> 00:36:08.600
We felt this would be a good occasion

00:36:08.600 --> 00:36:12.120
to start raising the issues
of women\'s liberation.

00:36:12.120 --> 00:36:14.897
It was the first joint action
of New York Radical Women

00:36:14.897 --> 00:36:16.087
and Chicago Radical Women.

00:36:16.087 --> 00:36:18.840
And I was kind of chosen
by New York Radical Women,

00:36:18.840 --> 00:36:21.810
which represented the more feminist speech

00:36:21.810 --> 00:36:23.950
even than the Chicago Radical Women.

00:36:23.950 --> 00:36:25.280
I mean, there was a conflict.

00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:27.193
They didn\'t even like to
use the word feminism.

00:36:27.193 --> 00:36:29.930
They were into rehabilitating
the word feminism.

00:36:29.930 --> 00:36:34.210
We said, if we\'re gonna be
able as women to end the war,

00:36:34.210 --> 00:36:36.260
we\'re not gonna be able to do that

00:36:36.260 --> 00:36:40.130
from the powerless position
where now in a society.

00:36:40.130 --> 00:36:45.130
We staged a mock funeral
of traditional womanhood.

00:36:45.890 --> 00:36:47.430
- Now some of the older women thought,

00:36:47.430 --> 00:36:49.410
this is not such a great idea.

00:36:49.410 --> 00:36:51.830
These women are burying
traditional womanhood,

00:36:51.830 --> 00:36:54.690
which has given us the right to in fact

00:36:54.690 --> 00:36:56.000
protest against the war.

00:36:56.000 --> 00:36:57.710
Some of the younger women argued,

00:36:57.710 --> 00:37:01.030
we\'re not protesting against
the war as women anymore.

00:37:01.030 --> 00:37:02.670
We\'re protesting against the war

00:37:02.670 --> 00:37:03.880
because we have the right to

00:37:03.880 --> 00:37:06.630
as citizens of the United States.

00:37:06.630 --> 00:37:10.000
Actually going home on planes and trains,

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:11.880
everybody talked about that.

00:37:11.880 --> 00:37:13.660
They talked about the differences,

00:37:13.660 --> 00:37:16.220
they talked about the
positives, the negatives,

00:37:16.220 --> 00:37:17.053
and what it did

00:37:17.053 --> 00:37:20.190
is it in many ways helped
bring together the generations

00:37:20.190 --> 00:37:23.690
because the differences had
been in fact illustrated

00:37:23.690 --> 00:37:25.683
at that Jeanette Rankin brigade.

00:37:30.410 --> 00:37:31.243
- At this point,

00:37:31.243 --> 00:37:35.150
feminism was clearly moving
beyond the economic issues

00:37:35.150 --> 00:37:38.370
that the National Organization
for Women was tackling.

00:37:38.370 --> 00:37:42.190
Young feminists were using
words like patriarchy

00:37:42.190 --> 00:37:44.770
and male chauvinism.

00:37:44.770 --> 00:37:48.480
These feminists wanted
to reshape the system

00:37:48.480 --> 00:37:50.510
to include women equally.

00:37:50.510 --> 00:37:52.730
This is why feminism is threatening.

00:37:52.730 --> 00:37:55.730
Because if you\'re benefiting
from the society, as it is,

00:37:55.730 --> 00:37:56.713
why change it?

00:37:58.163 --> 00:38:00.746
(upbeat music)

00:38:07.870 --> 00:38:11.300
(crowd chanting)

00:38:11.300 --> 00:38:12.197
- The Betty Friedans

00:38:12.197 --> 00:38:13.270
and the people dealing

00:38:13.270 --> 00:38:14.510
with the status (indistinct) commission

00:38:14.510 --> 00:38:16.410
in the EEOC are older.

00:38:16.410 --> 00:38:17.750
They\'re in their fifties.

00:38:17.750 --> 00:38:20.457
The Peace woman brings
in all these students.

00:38:20.457 --> 00:38:22.360
And that brings in the women\'s liberation.

00:38:22.360 --> 00:38:24.940
- The men were being, as
I said about my husband,

00:38:24.940 --> 00:38:26.730
in a life and death situation.

00:38:26.730 --> 00:38:29.080
They had to make a decision
if they got drafted.

00:38:29.080 --> 00:38:31.670
If they went into war,
they could be killed.

00:38:31.670 --> 00:38:33.550
Otherwise there was a good
chance they were going to jail.

00:38:33.550 --> 00:38:36.510
- Friends from the Boston
Draft Resistance Group,

00:38:36.510 --> 00:38:38.080
they\'re here to help us

00:38:38.080 --> 00:38:41.330
and give us aid in the
legal ramifications-

00:38:41.330 --> 00:38:45.430
- Women, simply by that material reality,

00:38:45.430 --> 00:38:48.430
were always going to be second
class citizens in that group.

00:38:49.360 --> 00:38:53.600
- Who in the movement wanted
to go and work constantly

00:38:53.600 --> 00:38:54.860
in an anti-war movement

00:38:54.860 --> 00:38:57.830
where men treated them like little dolls

00:38:57.830 --> 00:39:00.120
or cute sex partners.

00:39:00.120 --> 00:39:02.627
- There was the drug revolution
with the both the good

00:39:02.627 --> 00:39:03.640
and the bad.

00:39:03.640 --> 00:39:06.060
The good in that it freed things up,

00:39:06.060 --> 00:39:10.650
not so good for women who were
often lured into situations

00:39:10.650 --> 00:39:12.960
like Altimond or Woodstock,

00:39:12.960 --> 00:39:14.700
and without being told,

00:39:14.700 --> 00:39:17.057
were given LSD and then gang raped.

00:39:17.057 --> 00:39:18.940
There was a dark underside

00:39:18.940 --> 00:39:21.750
to the happy hippie
flower child revolution.

00:39:21.750 --> 00:39:25.490
But the one consistent
throughout all of this was,

00:39:25.490 --> 00:39:27.370
guys controlled it,

00:39:27.370 --> 00:39:29.130
there were a few token women.

00:39:29.130 --> 00:39:31.510
The general treatment of all women,

00:39:31.510 --> 00:39:34.300
you were either attached to a man,

00:39:34.300 --> 00:39:35.550
you were the appendage of,

00:39:35.550 --> 00:39:37.430
or you just weren\'t very important.

00:39:37.430 --> 00:39:39.953
You weren\'t very important
even if you were an appendage.

00:39:43.941 --> 00:39:46.330
(crowd screaming)

00:39:46.330 --> 00:39:47.260
- The civil rights movement

00:39:47.260 --> 00:39:48.507
had stirred up the whole society.

00:39:48.507 --> 00:39:51.560
The student movement had
given a lot of other women

00:39:51.560 --> 00:39:55.050
political leadership on the campuses.

00:39:55.050 --> 00:39:56.780
So there was a lot of turmoil.

00:39:56.780 --> 00:39:58.930
And of course, you know, in France,

00:39:58.930 --> 00:40:02.090
students were trying to
take over the government.

00:40:02.090 --> 00:40:06.563
It just felt like the whole
world was being transformed.

00:40:07.487 --> 00:40:10.560
(crowd screaming)

00:40:10.560 --> 00:40:13.010
When I was a student at the university,

00:40:13.010 --> 00:40:15.760
a friend of mine was raped at knife point

00:40:15.760 --> 00:40:18.003
in her bed, in off-campus housing.

00:40:19.110 --> 00:40:22.060
And she went to student health service

00:40:22.060 --> 00:40:24.683
for a gynecological exam,
and we went with her.

00:40:26.430 --> 00:40:29.283
And first, she was given a
lecture on her promiscuity.

00:40:30.620 --> 00:40:33.300
And then she was also
told that student health

00:40:33.300 --> 00:40:35.793
didn\'t cover gynecological exams.

00:40:36.750 --> 00:40:38.360
I mean, that\'s part of what life was like

00:40:38.360 --> 00:40:39.680
before there was women\'s movement.

00:40:39.680 --> 00:40:42.130
Now, because there had been
a civil rights movement,

00:40:42.130 --> 00:40:45.550
we sat with her, and
people called it a sit in.

00:40:45.550 --> 00:40:47.700
- There began to be these little burps.

00:40:47.700 --> 00:40:48.542
The mud pools go

00:40:48.542 --> 00:40:50.400
(mimics mud burping)

00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:53.270
women in SDS formed a caucus.

00:40:53.270 --> 00:40:55.620
And they were pelted at an SDS convention

00:40:55.620 --> 00:40:58.693
with tomatoes and then
raw eggs and then rocks.

00:40:59.700 --> 00:41:02.830
The rage that women in the new left felt

00:41:02.830 --> 00:41:04.740
whether they were political women like me,

00:41:04.740 --> 00:41:07.470
because we were tired of making coffee

00:41:07.470 --> 00:41:08.950
and not making policy.

00:41:08.950 --> 00:41:11.730
We were tired of coming
home from demonstrations

00:41:11.730 --> 00:41:15.617
and having the guy we were with say,

00:41:15.617 --> 00:41:17.270
\"Well man,\"

00:41:17.270 --> 00:41:18.103
generic.

00:41:18.103 --> 00:41:19.277
Man. We were all, man.

00:41:19.277 --> 00:41:20.500
\"That was heavy,\"

00:41:20.500 --> 00:41:22.810
and lying down and
getting stoned on the sofa

00:41:22.810 --> 00:41:25.140
while we then went into the
kitchen and made dinner.

00:41:25.140 --> 00:41:27.080
Wiping the same tear gas from our eyes

00:41:27.080 --> 00:41:29.060
that he was wiping from his.

00:41:29.060 --> 00:41:32.610
And the bitterness came
from the disillusionment

00:41:32.610 --> 00:41:35.910
that thought we were
all marching arm-in-arm

00:41:35.910 --> 00:41:38.870
to the brave new revolutionary future,

00:41:38.870 --> 00:41:42.920
and finding that it was a
male revolutionary future

00:41:42.920 --> 00:41:44.260
and we weren\'t included.

00:41:44.260 --> 00:41:47.160
- Gradually, those women got so alienated

00:41:47.160 --> 00:41:48.920
from the anti-war movement,

00:41:48.920 --> 00:41:52.670
they began to form small
consciousness raising groups.

00:41:52.670 --> 00:41:55.143
In which they began to talk about,

00:41:55.980 --> 00:41:57.310
what\'s wrong with me?

00:41:57.310 --> 00:41:59.930
Where is it written in the Bible

00:41:59.930 --> 00:42:01.860
that I have to clean the toilet?

00:42:01.860 --> 00:42:03.700
Is that the 11th commandment?

00:42:03.700 --> 00:42:05.930
Or, why is it that I have
to take care of the baby

00:42:05.930 --> 00:42:08.473
and stay home while he
goes out to save the world?

00:42:14.010 --> 00:42:16.330
- Now this is perhaps
the most powerful part

00:42:16.330 --> 00:42:17.910
of the women\'s movement.

00:42:17.910 --> 00:42:21.170
And it\'s also the quietest.

00:42:21.170 --> 00:42:23.780
I didn\'t come to this conclusion quickly.

00:42:23.780 --> 00:42:26.023
It took me a long time to see it.

00:42:26.880 --> 00:42:30.160
It\'s really important to
talk with other women,

00:42:30.160 --> 00:42:33.443
but more importantly, listening to them.

00:42:34.747 --> 00:42:37.330
(gentle music)

00:42:45.190 --> 00:42:46.220
- Nothing wrong with the apartment.

00:42:46.220 --> 00:42:47.900
We can\'t find a place for you.

00:42:47.900 --> 00:42:51.780
- Consciousness raising was a method

00:42:51.780 --> 00:42:55.293
of finding out the truth
about women\'s lives.

00:42:56.450 --> 00:42:59.430
- Consciousness raising ideas really began

00:42:59.430 --> 00:43:00.870
in New York Radical Women.

00:43:00.870 --> 00:43:03.140
Although I will say that\'s another concept

00:43:03.140 --> 00:43:05.030
that came from the civil rights movement.

00:43:05.030 --> 00:43:07.580
Because those of us who were
in the civil rights movement

00:43:07.580 --> 00:43:09.890
saw how powerful it was

00:43:09.890 --> 00:43:13.640
when the Snick organizers
would go into churches,

00:43:13.640 --> 00:43:14.650
and they would stand up

00:43:14.650 --> 00:43:17.530
and they would talk
about their experiences.

00:43:17.530 --> 00:43:19.670
Would evoke other people to stand up

00:43:19.670 --> 00:43:22.730
and it would arouse
people\'s anger and courage.

00:43:22.730 --> 00:43:26.860
- We developed a set of,
you could call them rules,

00:43:26.860 --> 00:43:28.990
so that everybody got to speak.

00:43:28.990 --> 00:43:31.330
Nobody was allowed to interrupt.

00:43:31.330 --> 00:43:33.940
Nobody was allowed to
challenge the testimony

00:43:33.940 --> 00:43:35.280
of anybody else.

00:43:35.280 --> 00:43:37.210
Non-hierarchical of course.

00:43:37.210 --> 00:43:38.640
No leaders.

00:43:38.640 --> 00:43:40.870
- Oh, they were really wonderful.

00:43:40.870 --> 00:43:45.810
Just the coming together women
to talk was just so powerful.

00:43:45.810 --> 00:43:47.360
I always say I was real fortunate

00:43:47.360 --> 00:43:49.740
because I got to sit
among my white sisters

00:43:49.740 --> 00:43:51.090
and do consciousness raising

00:43:51.090 --> 00:43:53.400
as well as the black sisters.

00:43:53.400 --> 00:43:58.400
You got to see what life
was like among other people.

00:43:59.890 --> 00:44:02.860
You got to look into other women\'s lives.

00:44:02.860 --> 00:44:06.450
- Nonunionism, you\'re the
first person who\'s fired.

00:44:06.450 --> 00:44:08.830
- Really specific topics.

00:44:08.830 --> 00:44:10.830
You know, like maybe at one meeting,

00:44:10.830 --> 00:44:13.130
we talked about our mothers
and our relationship

00:44:13.130 --> 00:44:14.230
with our mothers.

00:44:14.230 --> 00:44:16.550
Another meeting we talk about our fathers.

00:44:16.550 --> 00:44:17.920
- If the topic was a good one,

00:44:17.920 --> 00:44:20.650
it would go on for six, eight, 10 weeks

00:44:20.650 --> 00:44:23.210
on a single topic, week after week.

00:44:23.210 --> 00:44:26.560
- To some man and to his children.

00:44:26.560 --> 00:44:29.050
And that I had to do the
cooking and the cleaning

00:44:29.050 --> 00:44:30.030
and taking care of the house.

00:44:30.030 --> 00:44:32.810
- One of those topics
was sex, you can imagine.

00:44:32.810 --> 00:44:37.060
Women were not allowed to talk
about sex among themselves

00:44:37.060 --> 00:44:38.700
before the women\'s movement.

00:44:38.700 --> 00:44:40.330
It was a taboo subject.

00:44:40.330 --> 00:44:41.570
Abortion was taboo.

00:44:41.570 --> 00:44:43.350
Nobody ever talked about that.

00:44:43.350 --> 00:44:46.480
If you talked about your
husband, you were being disloyal.

00:44:46.480 --> 00:44:47.440
That was taboo.

00:44:47.440 --> 00:44:49.890
You weren\'t allowed to
take it out of the family.

00:44:50.750 --> 00:44:55.560
And so we were trying to
break all of those taboos

00:44:55.560 --> 00:45:00.560
and try to get some new knowledge.

00:45:01.970 --> 00:45:04.730
- Personal issues you were suffering alone

00:45:04.730 --> 00:45:06.720
and in isolation and in privacy

00:45:06.720 --> 00:45:08.400
that you thought were your fault.

00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:09.700
That you weren\'t smart enough,

00:45:09.700 --> 00:45:10.533
you weren\'t good enough,

00:45:10.533 --> 00:45:11.510
you weren\'t pretty enough.

00:45:11.510 --> 00:45:13.640
And that\'s why, fill in the blank,

00:45:13.640 --> 00:45:14.940
something wasn\'t working.

00:45:14.940 --> 00:45:16.600
That\'s why the relationship didn\'t work,

00:45:16.600 --> 00:45:18.480
or you didn\'t advance on the job.

00:45:18.480 --> 00:45:21.300
- In fact, it was shared by other women.

00:45:21.300 --> 00:45:24.180
And so shared, it was a social problem.

00:45:24.180 --> 00:45:28.190
And as a social problem, also
needed a social solution.

00:45:28.190 --> 00:45:32.160
- A group of us having a
consciousness raising group in 1966

00:45:32.160 --> 00:45:33.860
at Cornell University,

00:45:33.860 --> 00:45:36.090
discovered, 11 of us,

00:45:36.090 --> 00:45:41.090
that 11 of us had loved
mathematics as teens.

00:45:41.620 --> 00:45:44.510
And that not one of us
had pursued mathematics

00:45:44.510 --> 00:45:46.210
as college students.

00:45:46.210 --> 00:45:48.440
In another era, we would have said,

00:45:48.440 --> 00:45:51.300
well, I guess we just
didn\'t like it well enough.

00:45:51.300 --> 00:45:54.010
Or, I guess we weren\'t good enough.

00:45:54.010 --> 00:45:55.820
But with the consciousness raising,

00:45:55.820 --> 00:45:57.730
skills that we were developing,

00:45:57.730 --> 00:46:00.700
we began to realize that
something was going on here

00:46:00.700 --> 00:46:02.050
that was outside of us,

00:46:02.050 --> 00:46:03.890
that we were internalizing some notion

00:46:03.890 --> 00:46:05.660
that women can\'t do mathematics.

00:46:05.660 --> 00:46:08.160
And then you go to the
next political question.

00:46:08.160 --> 00:46:10.810
Which is, okay, somebody\'s persuading us

00:46:10.810 --> 00:46:13.110
that women don\'t do mathematics,

00:46:13.110 --> 00:46:17.050
who wins in such a
circumstance and who loses?

00:46:17.050 --> 00:46:21.420
- You can\'t see consciousness
raising as a destination.

00:46:21.420 --> 00:46:25.370
It really is a part of
a very powerful journey

00:46:25.370 --> 00:46:29.140
that really lasts as long as you live.

00:46:29.140 --> 00:46:31.490
And we should have looked at them

00:46:31.490 --> 00:46:36.230
as keeping groups together
as long as people live

00:46:36.230 --> 00:46:37.290
and can come together.

00:46:37.290 --> 00:46:40.370
Or have it so that you
could go to any city

00:46:40.370 --> 00:46:44.987
and join an ongoing group, et
cetera, et cetera, you know?

00:46:44.987 --> 00:46:49.200
We would have a powerful force of women.

00:46:49.200 --> 00:46:52.340
And we wouldn\'t have all this disconnect

00:46:52.340 --> 00:46:55.760
between what happened
and what really happened.

00:46:55.760 --> 00:46:57.380
Because people wouldn\'t know it,

00:46:57.380 --> 00:47:01.490
it would be more, it would be ingrained,

00:47:01.490 --> 00:47:05.220
it would be within the
fabric of their lives

00:47:05.220 --> 00:47:06.773
and of their consciousness.

00:47:09.840 --> 00:47:13.670
- I talked with Francis
Beal and Betita Martinez

00:47:13.670 --> 00:47:18.080
about class, race and
the women\'s movement.

00:47:18.080 --> 00:47:18.980
- Throughout the eighties,

00:47:18.980 --> 00:47:22.250
there was a lot of stuff
on race and gender.

00:47:22.250 --> 00:47:24.150
And when I would talk
to a lot of white women,

00:47:24.150 --> 00:47:24.983
they would just say,

00:47:24.983 --> 00:47:26.670
oh, well, there was a lot of racism there.

00:47:26.670 --> 00:47:29.100
And then as I started to read

00:47:29.100 --> 00:47:33.310
and I realized how many
African-American women

00:47:33.310 --> 00:47:36.640
and women of color were involved
in the women\'s movement,

00:47:36.640 --> 00:47:41.180
I was stunned that I didn\'t
know this information.

00:47:41.180 --> 00:47:42.300
And it amazed me.

00:47:42.300 --> 00:47:45.010
- Well, that\'s a product
of the racism even.

00:47:45.010 --> 00:47:46.700
You know, so that they were able...

00:47:46.700 --> 00:47:50.120
Those people who are opposed
to the advancement of women

00:47:50.120 --> 00:47:53.480
or to women\'s liberation
or the equality of women

00:47:55.535 --> 00:48:00.535
used race relations which
are very bad in this country

00:48:01.540 --> 00:48:04.840
as a way of separating and dividing women.

00:48:04.840 --> 00:48:07.460
Now, the reason why some
of this was very successful

00:48:07.460 --> 00:48:09.320
is cause racism actually did exist

00:48:09.320 --> 00:48:12.160
and does exist and continues to exist

00:48:12.160 --> 00:48:13.540
in the women\'s movement.

00:48:13.540 --> 00:48:18.540
And part of that gets
articulated by in particularly,

00:48:18.930 --> 00:48:20.440
I think by white women

00:48:20.440 --> 00:48:24.900
who assume that their issues

00:48:26.110 --> 00:48:31.110
and the way they see their
issues of gender oppression

00:48:31.780 --> 00:48:33.470
and liberation

00:48:33.470 --> 00:48:37.468
is the way all women
see it or should see it.

00:48:37.468 --> 00:48:40.051
(upbeat music)

00:48:43.149 --> 00:48:44.390
- [Caucasian Lady] You
don\'t understand exactly

00:48:44.390 --> 00:48:45.920
how I have to help you though.

00:48:45.920 --> 00:48:49.350
- Well look honey, just
between you and me,

00:48:49.350 --> 00:48:50.837
I\'m black.

00:48:50.837 --> 00:48:53.344
(crowd laughs)

00:48:53.344 --> 00:48:56.090
So that means double trouble.

00:48:56.090 --> 00:48:59.150
- Yeah, class and race
operating as negative forces

00:48:59.150 --> 00:49:00.770
within the women\'s liberation movement.

00:49:00.770 --> 00:49:03.760
- [Interviewer] Are the two entwined?

00:49:03.760 --> 00:49:06.070
- Are they really entwined? Of course.

00:49:06.070 --> 00:49:07.800
But they weren\'t discussed that way.

00:49:07.800 --> 00:49:10.020
- [Interviewer] Why are they entwined?

00:49:10.020 --> 00:49:12.019
- Why are they entwined, my God?

00:49:12.019 --> 00:49:12.852
Okay.

00:49:14.270 --> 00:49:17.850
Well, clearly, both are forces

00:49:17.850 --> 00:49:20.740
that denigrate huge populations.

00:49:20.740 --> 00:49:22.690
You can\'t just be a woman of color

00:49:22.690 --> 00:49:24.780
and just be a woman or just be of color.

00:49:24.780 --> 00:49:26.253
You\'re both things together.

00:49:27.620 --> 00:49:29.560
- The Snick black women\'s
liberation committee

00:49:29.560 --> 00:49:33.410
was founded coming out of a Snick meeting.

00:49:33.410 --> 00:49:37.440
We did a presentation and some
of the aspects of that paper

00:49:37.440 --> 00:49:41.900
had to do with the forced
sterilization of black women,

00:49:41.900 --> 00:49:43.300
particularly in the south.

00:49:43.300 --> 00:49:46.010
The right to abortion,

00:49:46.010 --> 00:49:47.460
which there was a lot of debate.

00:49:47.460 --> 00:49:50.447
And the role of women
should be an equal one.

00:49:50.447 --> 00:49:52.540
And many people said, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:49:52.540 --> 00:49:56.870
But this is a divisive thing,
we shouldn\'t be doing this,

00:49:56.870 --> 00:50:00.030
the most important thing is
the anti-racist struggle.

00:50:00.030 --> 00:50:03.263
Now you have to remember,
this is already 1968,

00:50:04.310 --> 00:50:05.780
by this time.

00:50:05.780 --> 00:50:09.950
And the Civil Rights Act of 1964,

00:50:09.950 --> 00:50:14.950
the Voting Rights Act of
1965 had already passed.

00:50:15.140 --> 00:50:16.700
What was emerging now,

00:50:16.700 --> 00:50:19.150
were other types of struggles.

00:50:19.150 --> 00:50:22.220
Economic issues, the war in Vietnam,

00:50:22.220 --> 00:50:25.350
there were debates about
whether class or race

00:50:25.350 --> 00:50:26.620
was the most important,

00:50:26.620 --> 00:50:28.660
or whether it was an amalgam.

00:50:28.660 --> 00:50:31.380
We added gender oppression to it,

00:50:31.380 --> 00:50:34.363
and therefore we got triple oppression.

00:50:35.420 --> 00:50:36.850
Race, class, and gender.

00:50:36.850 --> 00:50:39.050
That was the first articulation,

00:50:39.050 --> 00:50:43.600
was through the Snick black
women\'s liberation committee.

00:50:43.600 --> 00:50:46.320
- Another issue very
threatening to people,

00:50:46.320 --> 00:50:49.540
women\'s reproductive capacities.

00:50:49.540 --> 00:50:51.570
Why is that?

00:50:51.570 --> 00:50:54.340
It\'s like a corner we\'re
expected to run to,

00:50:54.340 --> 00:50:56.340
and then we\'re expected to be happy

00:50:56.340 --> 00:50:58.123
with whatever is given to us.

00:51:03.359 --> 00:51:06.442
(indistinct chatter)

00:51:14.310 --> 00:51:16.500
- We\'d already started
with consciousness raising,

00:51:16.500 --> 00:51:20.310
and we\'d learned the power
even among ourselves to hear,

00:51:20.310 --> 00:51:22.560
my God, you also had an abortion?

00:51:22.560 --> 00:51:25.530
Some women had had babies and
given them up for adoption

00:51:25.530 --> 00:51:27.740
and had never talked about it before.

00:51:27.740 --> 00:51:29.160
So we learned in those,

00:51:29.160 --> 00:51:32.340
how powerful it might be to
talk about this publicly.

00:51:32.340 --> 00:51:34.240
Well, there was this hearing,

00:51:34.240 --> 00:51:37.150
whether or not to reform
the abortion laws.

00:51:37.150 --> 00:51:40.620
- They were holding an abortion
hearing in New York City.

00:51:40.620 --> 00:51:44.313
Nine men, and one woman who was a nun.

00:51:45.560 --> 00:51:47.840
- We knew we were for repealing the laws.

00:51:47.840 --> 00:51:50.290
We shouldn\'t be like begging
if you\'ve been raped,

00:51:50.290 --> 00:51:51.690
you could have an abortion.

00:51:51.690 --> 00:51:53.800
- And Kathy and the Redstockings,

00:51:53.800 --> 00:51:56.920
they put out the call,
let\'s go and break it up.

00:51:56.920 --> 00:52:00.470
So first we sat in and we
listened to them a while.

00:52:00.470 --> 00:52:02.827
And then Kathy got up and said,

00:52:02.827 --> 00:52:07.460
\"What right do you, nine
men and one woman, a nun,

00:52:07.460 --> 00:52:09.630
have to decide whether it\'s okay

00:52:09.630 --> 00:52:11.280
for a woman to have an abortion?\"

00:52:13.880 --> 00:52:15.580
So they put us out.

00:52:15.580 --> 00:52:18.110
And of course we demonstrated outside.

00:52:18.110 --> 00:52:19.680
It made the news.

00:52:19.680 --> 00:52:21.800
- Redstockings did a few actions

00:52:21.800 --> 00:52:25.530
to challenge some of the taboos and stigma

00:52:25.530 --> 00:52:27.617
about abortion too, by speaking out.

00:52:29.318 --> 00:52:30.151
- [Redstocking Member] It was all right

00:52:30.151 --> 00:52:31.660
to be sleeping with somebody,

00:52:31.660 --> 00:52:33.100
that\'s fine,

00:52:33.100 --> 00:52:35.083
but when you get pregnant,

00:52:36.174 --> 00:52:38.750
then there\'s something wrong with you.

00:52:38.750 --> 00:52:39.830
- You\'re probably wondering

00:52:39.830 --> 00:52:42.260
why you haven\'t seen Gloria Steinem yet.

00:52:42.260 --> 00:52:45.880
Well, she doesn\'t even enter
the picture until this point

00:52:45.880 --> 00:52:46.823
in the history.

00:52:49.040 --> 00:52:51.770
- It really took listening,

00:52:51.770 --> 00:52:54.580
my listening to the first women

00:52:54.580 --> 00:52:58.050
who were coming out of the movements

00:52:58.050 --> 00:52:59.200
that were most important to us.

00:52:59.200 --> 00:53:02.790
The civil rights movement and
the anti-Vietnam war movement.

00:53:02.790 --> 00:53:07.597
And saying, look, if even
in these very admirable,

00:53:08.810 --> 00:53:11.260
wonderful, important movements,

00:53:11.260 --> 00:53:13.810
women are still not treated equally,

00:53:13.810 --> 00:53:15.200
something\'s really wrong.

00:53:15.200 --> 00:53:19.030
We need an autonomous women\'s movement.

00:53:19.030 --> 00:53:23.320
And it was that, plus in my case,

00:53:23.320 --> 00:53:24.850
going to an abortion hearing.

00:53:24.850 --> 00:53:26.480
And really made the difference to me.

00:53:26.480 --> 00:53:30.283
Because I had had an
abortion and not told anyone.

00:53:31.340 --> 00:53:33.500
So when I listened to women

00:53:33.500 --> 00:53:38.500
talking about having had a
then criminalized abortion,

00:53:38.910 --> 00:53:40.420
I thought, why?

00:53:40.420 --> 00:53:41.820
Why is it illegal?

00:53:41.820 --> 00:53:46.820
And that began to unravel everything.

00:53:47.040 --> 00:53:51.240
- Suddenly, Gloria Steinem
appeared on the scene as a leader

00:53:51.240 --> 00:53:53.743
who hadn\'t come from any of the groups.

00:53:54.630 --> 00:53:56.070
- She was a reporter.

00:53:56.070 --> 00:53:58.870
She immediately got all the attention

00:53:58.870 --> 00:54:02.430
and was able to start a
magazine in the movement\'s name.

00:54:02.430 --> 00:54:04.010
Because she could raise the money,

00:54:04.010 --> 00:54:06.763
because she had friends in high places.

00:54:08.950 --> 00:54:11.100
- She was coming in on the popularity

00:54:11.100 --> 00:54:15.400
that had already been created
by our access to the media.

00:54:15.400 --> 00:54:17.410
And we were like popularizing it

00:54:17.410 --> 00:54:20.290
even though we were only grassroots women,

00:54:20.290 --> 00:54:21.830
that we had been able to get access.

00:54:21.830 --> 00:54:24.080
Of course we wouldn\'t have gotten access

00:54:24.080 --> 00:54:26.350
if the civil rights
movement hadn\'t happened

00:54:26.350 --> 00:54:29.290
and if people hadn\'t
died to get media access

00:54:29.290 --> 00:54:30.123
to this kind of thing.

00:54:30.123 --> 00:54:32.850
I mean, media access is
this really tricky thing.

00:54:32.850 --> 00:54:35.870
You have to usually fight
for it, then you get it,

00:54:35.870 --> 00:54:37.150
then it gets taken away,

00:54:37.150 --> 00:54:38.853
then you somehow get it back.

00:54:40.300 --> 00:54:44.657
- But I think she has earned
her stripes (laughs) very much.

00:54:47.610 --> 00:54:48.830
- Even though feminists

00:54:48.830 --> 00:54:51.290
were dealing with very serious issues.

00:54:51.290 --> 00:54:54.153
They used their sense of humor a lot.

00:54:55.520 --> 00:54:57.515
(gentle music)

00:54:57.515 --> 00:55:00.098
(static radio)

00:55:05.930 --> 00:55:07.800
- We\'ve got a lot of the same enemies.

00:55:07.800 --> 00:55:09.390
But only time is gonna tell

00:55:09.390 --> 00:55:11.670
whether we\'ll work together or not.

00:55:11.670 --> 00:55:13.690
Look, they\'ll try and buy you off,

00:55:13.690 --> 00:55:15.880
they\'ll tell you you\'re better than us.

00:55:15.880 --> 00:55:16.970
You\'ll figure it out.

00:55:16.970 --> 00:55:19.350
If you\'re as dumb as they treat you,

00:55:19.350 --> 00:55:21.779
you wouldn\'t remember how to breathe.

00:55:21.779 --> 00:55:23.326
I\'ve got a meeting to go to.

00:55:23.326 --> 00:55:24.493
See you later.

00:55:25.640 --> 00:55:28.210
- Guerrilla theater was
a real contribution,

00:55:28.210 --> 00:55:31.520
I think of the younger women
who entered the movement

00:55:31.520 --> 00:55:35.617
through student rights
movement and Snick and SDS

00:55:35.617 --> 00:55:36.450
and all those.

00:55:36.450 --> 00:55:37.650
- In the women\'s liberation,

00:55:37.650 --> 00:55:39.653
it\'s all tended to be much younger.

00:55:40.630 --> 00:55:44.130
Which I think helped
rehabilitate feminism.

00:55:44.130 --> 00:55:46.500
Because there was this
image in people\'s minds

00:55:46.500 --> 00:55:49.210
of the little old lady with tennis shoes

00:55:49.210 --> 00:55:53.100
as the only feminists
who were still around.

00:55:53.100 --> 00:55:55.990
And now had a little of that image

00:55:55.990 --> 00:55:58.730
because they were older women.

00:55:58.730 --> 00:56:00.950
We were gonna be the
radical feminist there,

00:56:00.950 --> 00:56:04.317
and we were all young,
which surprised people.

00:56:04.317 --> 00:56:06.240
- I think I was an activism junkie.

00:56:06.240 --> 00:56:08.870
I had come from the civil rights
movement and the new left.

00:56:08.870 --> 00:56:11.960
And I still had that
sort of leftist yippee.

00:56:11.960 --> 00:56:12.940
Let\'s do something about it.

00:56:12.940 --> 00:56:15.140
Let\'s just not sit and talk.

00:56:15.140 --> 00:56:17.960
Which was kind of I think a
reflection of the male politics

00:56:17.960 --> 00:56:18.793
of the time.

00:56:18.793 --> 00:56:20.320
They said we were just
women sitting, talking,

00:56:20.320 --> 00:56:22.170
and wanted a little male approval.

00:56:22.170 --> 00:56:24.290
And we formed this little activist group.

00:56:24.290 --> 00:56:26.090
And I came up with WITCH.

00:56:26.090 --> 00:56:27.270
And the acronym was,

00:56:27.270 --> 00:56:31.243
Women\'s International
Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell.

00:56:32.110 --> 00:56:35.093
- Ma\'am what is your
organization, WITCH here?

00:56:36.060 --> 00:56:37.290
- The initials WITCH stand for

00:56:37.290 --> 00:56:40.650
the Women International
Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell,

00:56:40.650 --> 00:56:43.831
is the striking arm of the
Women\'s Liberation Movement.

00:56:43.831 --> 00:56:45.553
- Now, what are you seeking to liberate?

00:56:46.420 --> 00:56:48.640
- I didn\'t hear the question, I\'m sorry.

00:56:48.640 --> 00:56:50.769
- What are you seeking to liberate?

00:56:50.769 --> 00:56:52.620
- We\'re trying to liberate women

00:56:52.620 --> 00:56:53.956
from the kinds of stereotypes

00:56:53.956 --> 00:56:56.710
that they\'ve put in by the society.

00:56:56.710 --> 00:56:59.530
- We demonstrated in front
of the stock exchange.

00:56:59.530 --> 00:57:02.940
And meanwhile came by at
four o\'clock in the morning

00:57:02.940 --> 00:57:04.400
and poured Krazy Glue in the locks

00:57:04.400 --> 00:57:06.700
and then came back at 9:00 AM,

00:57:06.700 --> 00:57:08.910
and cast spells and hexes.

00:57:08.910 --> 00:57:10.330
And of course the doors,

00:57:10.330 --> 00:57:12.350
which at that point had real locks,

00:57:12.350 --> 00:57:13.960
and were these huge brass doors,

00:57:13.960 --> 00:57:15.350
wouldn\'t open because...

00:57:15.350 --> 00:57:18.563
So it looked as if the hex
worked, made lots of headlines.

00:57:19.766 --> 00:57:21.330
At that point, the media
was already saying,

00:57:21.330 --> 00:57:23.040
feminists have no sense of humor.

00:57:23.040 --> 00:57:23.873
They loved us.

00:57:23.873 --> 00:57:26.320
And we were able to
get our message across.

00:57:26.320 --> 00:57:27.440
Well, it took off so much

00:57:27.440 --> 00:57:29.300
that there began to be
little witch covenants

00:57:29.300 --> 00:57:30.960
that sprang up all around the country,

00:57:30.960 --> 00:57:32.760
completely unconnected to us.

00:57:32.760 --> 00:57:34.270
They use the acronym differently.

00:57:34.270 --> 00:57:38.010
There was a group of women
who did a wild cat strike

00:57:38.010 --> 00:57:39.230
at the telephone company.

00:57:39.230 --> 00:57:41.510
And their group was called WITCH.

00:57:41.510 --> 00:57:45.167
Women Incensed at Telephone
Company Harassment.

00:57:45.167 --> 00:57:48.167
(keyboard clicking)

00:57:55.890 --> 00:57:58.340
- [News Reporter] Witches
materialize at demonstrations.

00:57:58.340 --> 00:58:00.190
They performed guerilla theater.

00:58:00.190 --> 00:58:01.923
They emerged just to harass.

00:58:08.770 --> 00:58:11.353
(upbeat music)

00:58:16.610 --> 00:58:17.920
- New York Radical Women

00:58:17.920 --> 00:58:21.490
decided to make an action

00:58:21.490 --> 00:58:24.160
to protest the Miss America Pageant,

00:58:24.160 --> 00:58:29.160
to protest women being
judged by beauty exclusively.

00:58:29.500 --> 00:58:30.770
- [Narrator] Girls from each of the states

00:58:30.770 --> 00:58:32.620
parade before a capacity crowd

00:58:32.620 --> 00:58:34.780
at the Atlantic City auditorium.

00:58:34.780 --> 00:58:37.997
- And we all climbed into the
buses and we sang all the way,

00:58:37.997 --> 00:58:42.103
and we got to Atlantic City,
we started demonstrating.

00:58:45.963 --> 00:58:49.930
- Number one piece of
prime American property.

00:58:49.930 --> 00:58:51.748
She sings in the kitchen,

00:58:51.748 --> 00:58:52.581
hands at-

00:58:52.581 --> 00:58:57.070
- It was such a nexus of sexism obviously,

00:58:57.070 --> 00:58:58.810
objectification, racism.

00:58:58.810 --> 00:59:02.050
At that point there had never
been a black Miss America.

00:59:02.050 --> 00:59:04.250
It was commercialism obviously

00:59:04.250 --> 00:59:06.640
because she showed products.

00:59:06.640 --> 00:59:07.720
And it was militarism,

00:59:07.720 --> 00:59:09.780
cause miss America always is sent

00:59:09.780 --> 00:59:11.363
to wherever the troops are.

00:59:12.810 --> 00:59:15.457
- Then they were yelling at us, the men.

00:59:15.457 --> 00:59:18.550
\"Oh, none of you could be miss
beauty queen, you\'re ugly.\"

00:59:18.550 --> 00:59:20.540
And there were really some
beautiful women there.

00:59:20.540 --> 00:59:22.130
So, come on.

00:59:22.130 --> 00:59:25.000
- Four or five women went in ladies drag,

00:59:25.000 --> 00:59:27.140
in other words, little
skirts and little gloves,

00:59:27.140 --> 00:59:28.160
and we brought them tickets

00:59:28.160 --> 00:59:29.510
and they went inside to the pageant

00:59:29.510 --> 00:59:31.590
which you have to understand was live.

00:59:31.590 --> 00:59:32.540
- [Announcer] Ms. West Virginia

00:59:32.540 --> 00:59:34.640
is rounding those last curves to-

00:59:34.640 --> 00:59:35.850
- They were in the balcony

00:59:35.850 --> 00:59:39.270
and they had secreted
under their coats, panels.

00:59:39.270 --> 00:59:42.340
- Which said nothing but,
\"women\'s liberation\".

00:59:42.340 --> 00:59:45.370
- They unfurled the
banner over the balcony.

00:59:45.370 --> 00:59:46.870
And of course all the cameras.

00:59:49.780 --> 00:59:51.410
And then they went to commercial.

00:59:51.410 --> 00:59:53.980
And the women were
arrested and cut it off.

00:59:53.980 --> 00:59:58.230
- We couldn\'t get a permit to
have a fire on the boardwalk.

00:59:58.230 --> 01:00:00.870
So instead we had a freedom trashcan.

01:00:00.870 --> 01:00:04.670
We never did burn bras, but
our attention was to burn bras,

01:00:04.670 --> 01:00:05.770
to tell you the truth.

01:00:13.250 --> 01:00:17.670
- Before 1970, the ideas that
Betty Friedan talked about

01:00:17.670 --> 01:00:18.880
in \"The Feminine Mystique\"

01:00:18.880 --> 01:00:22.890
and the ideas we talked
about in women\'s liberation,

01:00:22.890 --> 01:00:26.403
we knew we could hit a
chord and get a response.

01:00:27.530 --> 01:00:30.070
But there wasn\'t a national explosion.

01:00:30.070 --> 01:00:32.510
And the breadth of the movement was clear

01:00:33.600 --> 01:00:35.350
once the women\'s strike was called.

01:00:36.888 --> 01:00:39.471
(upbeat music)

01:00:43.280 --> 01:00:45.350
- And Betty Friedan was telling everybody

01:00:45.350 --> 01:00:47.140
50,000 were gonna march.

01:00:47.140 --> 01:00:48.963
How were we gonna make it happen?

01:00:59.080 --> 01:01:00.562
- So if we\'re gonna make a statement,

01:01:00.562 --> 01:01:02.433
let\'s make a big one.

01:01:03.610 --> 01:01:06.100
Let\'s take over the Statue of Liberty.

01:01:06.100 --> 01:01:09.010
- And they measured the wind factor

01:01:09.010 --> 01:01:11.340
at the top of the statue.

01:01:11.340 --> 01:01:13.350
Then they went into someone\'s loft

01:01:13.350 --> 01:01:16.800
and they made two 40 foot banners.

01:01:16.800 --> 01:01:18.537
The one at the bottom was going to say,

01:01:18.537 --> 01:01:21.390
\"March on August the 26th.\"

01:01:21.390 --> 01:01:23.767
And the one of the top was going to say,

01:01:23.767 --> 01:01:26.350
\"Women of the world unite.\"

01:01:26.350 --> 01:01:30.230
- I said, how are we gonna
get this over on the boat?

01:01:30.230 --> 01:01:33.070
And they said, well, we\'re
gonna cut it in pieces

01:01:34.060 --> 01:01:36.040
and put grommets on it.

01:01:36.040 --> 01:01:38.010
And then we\'re going to wrap each piece

01:01:38.010 --> 01:01:42.920
around a woman\'s body and put
a maternity blouse on her.

01:01:42.920 --> 01:01:44.510
- So sure enough, when we got there,

01:01:44.510 --> 01:01:46.750
they took the guys on
the side, the guards,

01:01:46.750 --> 01:01:49.720
and they were talking,
we ran up the stairs.

01:01:49.720 --> 01:01:52.230
While the women down stairs were preparing

01:01:52.230 --> 01:01:55.440
to do the demonstration,
when the signs went up.

01:01:55.440 --> 01:01:57.930
We barely got in because
the guards caught on

01:01:57.930 --> 01:01:59.530
and they started chasing us.

01:01:59.530 --> 01:02:01.910
And we were slamming the
door trying to keep them

01:02:01.910 --> 01:02:03.683
while we put the sign out.

01:02:05.360 --> 01:02:07.560
And then the mayor called.

01:02:07.560 --> 01:02:08.740
It was Mayor Lindsay.

01:02:08.740 --> 01:02:11.427
And he said, \"Let the women alone.\"

01:02:12.310 --> 01:02:14.157
That picture of the Statue of Liberty,

01:02:14.157 --> 01:02:17.833
\"Women of the world unite\"
went around the world.

01:02:27.270 --> 01:02:30.223
- You know, you think
back on these events,

01:02:31.110 --> 01:02:34.623
they have worldwide importance.

01:02:36.190 --> 01:02:39.540
- We know from our own time

01:02:42.380 --> 01:02:43.430
what women have done.

01:02:46.660 --> 01:02:50.550
- But for every known
woman leader like myself,

01:02:50.550 --> 01:02:55.550
there are thousands of
others over the years

01:02:57.830 --> 01:02:58.903
that are not known.

01:02:59.910 --> 01:03:03.090
And future generations of scholars

01:03:03.090 --> 01:03:04.893
will have to unbury that history.

01:03:06.470 --> 01:03:08.190
- Did we forget these stories

01:03:08.190 --> 01:03:10.950
or did we think they were unimportant?

01:03:10.950 --> 01:03:13.470
I talked to so many feminists.

01:03:13.470 --> 01:03:15.573
There are more stories to tell.

01:03:17.440 --> 01:03:19.090
Now that I know these stories,

01:03:19.090 --> 01:03:24.030
I can pass them down to people,
including my own daughter.

01:03:24.030 --> 01:03:26.980
And she won\'t have to
whisper the word feminist

01:03:26.980 --> 01:03:29.650
because she\'ll know it.

01:03:29.650 --> 01:03:32.000
It will be ingrained.

01:03:32.000 --> 01:03:34.483
It will be in her consciousness.

01:03:37.441 --> 01:03:40.024
(upbeat music)

01:03:50.607 --> 01:03:53.790
♪ Well there\'s a new element
around the neighborhood ♪

01:03:53.790 --> 01:03:57.267
♪ And the old ones don\'t approve ♪

01:03:57.267 --> 01:04:00.579
♪ And so the words being
sent to them is understood ♪

01:04:00.579 --> 01:04:03.501
♪ That the other ones got to move ♪

01:04:03.501 --> 01:04:06.851
♪ They got to keep their influential man ♪

01:04:06.851 --> 01:04:10.307
♪ They\'re not allowed in
this distractive plan ♪

01:04:10.307 --> 01:04:13.228
♪ It isn\'t whether you can play the plan ♪

01:04:13.228 --> 01:04:15.242
♪ Believe me ♪

01:04:15.242 --> 01:04:20.242
♪ It\'s whether you shined your shoes ♪

01:04:23.344 --> 01:04:24.997
♪ Yet I was home alone ♪

01:04:24.997 --> 01:04:29.997
♪ When they told me about
your arrival on the two ♪

01:04:30.139 --> 01:04:31.713
♪ And I was glad to know ♪

01:04:31.713 --> 01:04:36.578
♪ That the rumors about
your survival were true ♪

01:04:36.578 --> 01:04:40.139
♪ And now they calling you a super star ♪

01:04:40.139 --> 01:04:43.360
♪ You\'re on the end no
matter where they are ♪

01:04:43.360 --> 01:04:46.267
♪ It isn\'t whether you can play guitar ♪

01:04:46.267 --> 01:04:48.186
♪ Believe me ♪

01:04:48.186 --> 01:04:52.269
♪ It\'s whether you make the news ♪

01:05:24.250 --> 01:05:27.316
♪ I knew a (indistinct) ♪

01:05:27.316 --> 01:05:31.095
♪ Why I was turning for the worst ♪

01:05:31.095 --> 01:05:34.349
♪ You put me under such a
spell you blew my mind out ♪

01:05:34.349 --> 01:05:36.218
♪ And I\'m burning ♪

01:05:36.218 --> 01:05:37.173
♪ Call the nurse ♪

01:05:37.173 --> 01:05:40.668
♪ Cause I believe I\'m gonna fade away ♪

01:05:40.668 --> 01:05:44.223
♪ They will be coming for me any day ♪

01:05:44.223 --> 01:05:47.158
♪ There\'s nothing more
that I could do or say ♪

01:05:47.158 --> 01:05:49.099
♪ Believe me ♪

01:05:49.099 --> 01:05:53.478
♪ I certainly got the moods ♪

01:05:53.478 --> 01:05:55.978
♪ Oh yes I do ♪

01:06:04.245 --> 01:06:07.466
♪ I got the fever ♪

01:06:07.466 --> 01:06:11.849
♪ Sure got the fever ♪

01:06:11.849 --> 01:06:14.901
♪ Got fever ♪

01:06:14.901 --> 01:06:18.411
♪ Got fever ♪

01:06:18.411 --> 01:06:20.744
♪ Got fever ♪