The World Split Open (76 page)

8
. Karen Lindsey, “The Sexual Revolution Is No Joke for Women,” three-page essay,
Rainbow and Lightning Collection
, n.d., SL Women's Liberation Vertical Files; Fraser, 342;
Liberation News Service
, n.d., UWA.

9
. Author's interview with Sarah Stage, February 4, 1991, at UCLA. She used this term because she felt pressured by GIs to say “yes to men who say no.”

10
. Quotes are from Rivka Polatnick's “Diversity in Women's Liberation Ideology: How a Black and a White Group of the 1960s Viewed Motherhood,”
Signs
21 (Spring 1996): 679, and from Black Women's Liberation Group, Mount Vernon, New York,
Statement on Birth Control
, in Morgan,
Sisterhood
, 404. For a variety of views, see “Birth Control Pill and Black Children, a statement by the Black Unity Party,” Peekskill, N.Y.; “A Response” by black
sisters, and “Poor Black Women,” by Patricia Robinson, in the pamphlet
Poor Black Women
, published by New England Free Press, Boston, Massachusetts, circa 1968, MWA.

11
. See Rivka Polatnick, “Strategies for Women's Liberation: A Study of a Black and a White Group of the 1960s,” unpublished dissertation, Sociology Department, U.C. Berkeley, 1985. In this study, Rivka Polatnick compared a poor black group of women in Mount Vernon and New Rochelle, New York, with the New York Radical Women in New York City. Their concern to secure birth control was accompanied by a politics that favored an anticapitalist perspective. The New York Radical Women, in contrast, focused on sex roles and an independent women's movement. Frances Beale, “Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female,” in Morgan,
Sisterhood
, 392. Kennedy quoted in Reagan, 232; Chisholm's sentiments in her autobiography,
Unbought and Unbossed
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970).

12
. Robin Morgan, in
Going Too Far.

13
. Alix Kates Shulman,
Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen
(New York: Knopf, 1972), 20; Sara Davidson,
Loose Change
(New York: Doubleday, 1977), 86.

14
. Susan Lydon, “The Politics of Orgasm,” in Morgan,
Sisterhood
, 227–28; Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, Gloria Jacobs,
Re-Making Love.
The best single study of feminism and its relationship to psychoanalytic thought is by Mari Jo Buhle,
Feminism and Its Discontents
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). See her discussion of Sherfey on p. 224.

15
. An anonymous early activist in a New York women's liberation group, “Sex and Women's Liberation,” in Redstockings,
Feminist Revolution
(New York: Random House, 1975), 141.

16
. Anne Koedt, “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm,”
Notes from the First Year
(New York, 1968) and an expanded version in Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt, eds.,
Notes from the Second Year
(New York: Ace, 1970), 36–41, APA. Reprinted in the widely read anthology edited by Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine, Anita Rapone,
Radical Feminism
(New York: Quadrangle, 1973), 198–207. For other critiques of the sexual revolution, see Dana Densmore, “Independence from the Sexual Revolution,” reprinted in
Radical Feminism
, 107–18; Barbara Seaman, “The Liberated Orgasm,”
Ms.
, August 1972; and Anselma Dell'Olio, “The Sexual Revolution Wasn't Our War,”
Ms.
, Spring 1972, 104–09.

17
. Laura X, “Our Sexual Revolution,”
Velvet Glove
, circa 1969, 142.

18
. Robin Morgan, “Lesbianism and Feminism, Synonyms or Contradistinctions,”
The Second Wave
, 2:73 (1973), 14–23; Gayle Huelsman, “Open Letter to a Housewife,”
Dayton Women's Liberation News
, November 5, 1970, 2–3. The collective that wrote the second chapter of
Our Bodies, Ourselves
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973) similarly worried about women learning to view sex in competitive ways, that is, the search for more and stronger orgasms; Alix Kates Shulman, “Sex and Power: Sexual Bases of Radical Feminism,”
Signs
(1980): 592; Michaela Griffo, “Dear Sisters,”
Rat
(March 21, 1970): 19.

19
. Dana Densmore, “On Celibacy,” in Tanner,
Voices from Women's Liberation
, first published in the feminist journal
No More Fun and Games
, 1 (1969); Kate, “What Is There to Say About Celibacy?”
Kansas City Women's Liberation Newsletter
, 4:1 (1974), 10; Leila, “Voices,”
Country Women
(April 1975): 8–9. Celibacy was especially appealing when women needed a respite, felt confused after so much rapid change, and needed to sort things out. In short, for some women, celibacy represented a necessary cooling-off time, while they came to terms with their sexual orientation and sexual desires. Also see Dana Densmore, “Freedom from Sex,” reprinted in Koedt,
Radical Feminism
, 107–19.

20
. Cell 16's journal
No More Fun and Games
, 1968–1973, called for celibacy. Roxanne Dunbar, “Everything Is Necessary Is Realistic,”
Pandora's Box
, 1:4. (1971), 1–3; “Celibacy,”
Country Women
(June 1973): 22; Ti-Grace Atkinson, “Vaginal Orgasm as Mass Hysterical Survival Response,” written speech, unpaginated, April 5, 1968, UWA.

21
. Author's interview with Candace Falk, Berkeley, California, May 15, 1986; author's interview with Judith Coburn, Berkeley, California, March 10, 1985; author's interview with Rosalyn Baxandall, New York, December 4, 1985; Alice Echols's interview with Rosalyn Baxandall, 12; author's interview with Karin Durbin, New York, April 16, 1986.

22
. Author's interview with Betty Friedan, Los Angeles, California, April 4, 1986; author's interview with Lucinda Cisler, New York, April 13, 1986; author's interview with Pat Cody, Berkeley, California, July 29, 1986.

23
. Shulamith Firestone,
The Dialectics of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution
(New York: Bantam, 1970). See especially the first chapter, “The Dialectic of Sex,” and p. 238. Linda Grant, “Feminist Who Lit the Torch,”
Guardian
(July 30, 1998).

24
. Kate Millett,
Sexual Politics
(New York: Doubleday, 1970).

25
. Henry Miller,
Sexus
(New York: Grove Press, 1965), 384; quoted in Millett,
Sexual Politics
, 306.

26
. Germaine Greer,
The Female Eunuch
(New York: McGraw Hill, 1971), 121, 6.

27
. Greer, 322.

28
. Claudia Dreifus, “The Selling of a Feminist,” which first appeared in the
Nation
, and then in
Notes from the Third Year
, reprinted in Koedt,
Radical Feminism
, 358–60.

29
. Erica Jong,
Fear of Flying
(New York: Signet, 1973). All citations are from this edition.

30
. Jong, 80.

31
. Jong, 299.

32
. Jong, 302.

33
. Jong, 154, 24.

34
. Diana Newell, “Sex in the ‘70s: A Wrap-Up of the Decadent Decade,”
Playgirl
, December 1979; Shere Hite,
The Kite Report
(New York: Dell, 1976), 263; Deirdre English and Barbara Ehrenreich, “Sexual Liberation: The
Shortest Revolution,” in
The Women Say, The Men Say: Women's Liberation and Men's Consciousness
, Evelyn Shapiro and Barry Shapiro, eds. (New York: Delta, 1979), 120–27. This collection, which reprinted some of the most important documents of the movement, is difficult to find, but a very important anthology. APA.

35
. This is the title of Leslie Reagan's fine book on the century between when abortion was made illegal and when it was again legalized.

36
. The difference between reform and repeal is discussed in Sheryl Burt Ruzek,
The Women's Health Movement
(New York: Praeger, 1978), 19.

37
. Author's interview with Lucinda Cisler, New York, April 13, 1986. The origins of the Webster decision can be found in Cynthia Gorney,
Articles of Faith
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998).

38
. Ellen Frankfort,
Vaginal Politics
(New York: Quadrangle, 1972), 36.

39
. For an excellent narrative and analysis of the struggle in Seattle against abortion, see Barbara Winslow, “The Struggle for Abortion Reform in Washington State, 1967–1970,” paper given to author in 1993; author's interview with Irene Peslikis, New York, April 11, 1987; Carolyn Heilbrun,
The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem
(New York: Dial Press, 1995).

40
. A good source for the complicated search for the right “Jane Doe” can be found in Marian Faux,
Roe v. Wade: The Untold Story of the Landmark Supreme Court Decision That Made Abortion Legal
(New York: New American Library, 1988).

41
. Suzanne Stagenborg, “Can Feminist Organizations Be Effective?” in
Feminist Organizations: Harvest of the New Women's Movement
, Myra Ferree and Patricia Yancey Martin, eds. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 354.

42
. Robin Morgan, “Women Disrupt the Miss America Pageant,” in Morgan,
Going Too Far
(New York: Vintage, 1978), 62.

43
. Both movement organizers and the FBI estimated that two hundred women picketed the pageant. “FBI Probed Women's Lib for LBJ White House,”
Arizona Republic
, September 15, 1991; Charlotte Curtis, “Miss America Is Picketed by 100 Women,”
New York Times
, September 9, 1968. For other accounts, see Lindsey Van Gelder, “The Truth about Bra-Burners,”
Ms.
, September/October 1992, 89, and Echols,
Daring to Be Bad
, 95.

44
. “The Great No-Bra Controversy Rages On,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, August 21, 1969, n.p., UWA.

45
. Carol Hanisch, “What Can Be Learned: A Critique of the Miss America Protest,” in Tanner,
Voices from the Women's Liberation Movement
, 132–34.

46
. Author's interview with Robin Morgan.

47
. This song is from Susan Adelman and Miriam Boxer, “Up Against the Wall, Miss America.” Newsreel footage compiled from the 1968 demonstration quoted in Samantha Barbas, “Miss America: The Making of a National Ideal,” unpublished research paper, U.C. Berkeley, 1997.

48
. “Plastic Sex Melts,” in
San Francisco Express Times
, clipping, circa 1970, UWA.

49
. Pamphlet, circa 1970, n.d., UWA.

50
. Peg Strobel's interview with Naomi Weisstein, p. 54 of transcript.

51
. In practice, this occurred long before feminist books began addressing fat as a “feminist issue.” See Kim Chemin,
The Obsession
(New York: Harper and Row, 1981), and Marcia Millman,
Such a Pretty Face
(New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1980). Interview with Herman S. Rosen, March 21, 1979, New York City.

52
. This important insight was repeated to me by women I interviewed in New York, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Dayton, Minneapolis, Bloomington, and Berkeley, California, who asked me to not make any attributions. The woman in Berkeley told me that she never could understand the fuss over being a sexual object. She
wanted
to be a sexual object.

53
. This quote is from a woman who was an activist in the antiwar movement who wishes to preserve her anonymity. Several women who became leaders in the Free Speech Movement at U.C. Berkeley in 1964 described similar feelings at the thirtieth reunion of the FSM, Berkeley, California. Interviews by author at reunion in 1994.

54
. Frances Beale, “Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female,” in Morgan,
Sisterhood
, 1969, 382–96. Francis Beale was the New York coordinator of SNCC's Black Women's Liberation Committee; Black Women's Liberation Group, Mount Vernon, New York,
Statement on Birth Control
, in Morgan,
Sisterhood
, 404. This statement is written as a letter to “Brothers” in the movement.

55
. Julia Penelope Stanley, “My Life As a Lesbian,” in
The Coming Out Stories
, Julia Penelope Stanley and Susan J. Wolfe, eds. (Watertown, Mass.; Persephone Press, 1980), 195.

56
. Merill, “Letter,”
Coming Out
, 136.

57
. Elana, “Confessions of Country Dyke,”
Coming Out
, 156.

58
. Miriam Keiff, “Coming In or Will the Real Lesbian Please Stand Up?”
Coming Out
, 207.

59
. Del Martin, “If That's All There Is,” n.d., UWA.

60
. Author's interview with Susan Griffin.

61
. Author's interviews with Cisler and Baxandall, respectively April 13, 1987, and December 1983.

62
. Martha Shelley, “Notes of a Radical Lesbian,” in Morgan,
Sisterhood
, 343–48. Sandra Bem developed a new psychological test that examined a personality for androgynous health, rather than adjustment to artificial expectations of masculinity or femininity. Carolyn Heilbrun's widely read book,
Toward a Recognition of Androgyny
(New York: Knopf, 1973), provoked much discussion, especially since so many lesbians viewed bisexuality and androgyny as still rooted to male characteristics.

63
. For a good discussion of the political limits and contradictions of the “woman-identified woman” see Shane Phelan,
Identity Politics: Lesbianism and the Limits of Community
, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989). Also see Charlotte Bunch, “Learning from Lesbian Separatism,” in
Passionate Politics
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), 185. In
Passionate Politics
,
Bunch includes a number of essays that first justify and then explain what she learned from being a separatist. See the section titled “Lesbian Feminism” in
Passionate Politics
, 159–215; Beverly Jones and Judith Brown, “Analyses of the Movement,” Tanner, 406–408; Gay Women's Liberation, Berkeley, “What It Means to Be a Lesbian,” December 1969, APA, reprinted in
Lesbians Speak Out;
Gay Women's Liberation, “Lesbians As Women,” November 1969, in
Lesbians Speak Out.