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Radical feminism
Used like new copy with minor shelf wear.
424 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
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254 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 7, 2015
The advantage of this book is that it essentially anthologizes the New York Radical Women's Notes from the First and Notes from the Second Year(s), which for many years were difficult to come by. As with all anthologies the content is mixed, and is sometimes predictably dated, but the writing is overall thoughtful and, from a "know your history" standpoint, arguably vital.
July 3, 2009
I picked this up with a lot of apprehension, but in the end I thought several of the essays were quite interesting, and very few were as frustrating as the internet radical feminists had conditioned me to believe they would be. However I'm not enough of a primary source buff to have made it through some of the more deeply context dependent movement material.
July 3, 2025
A FINE SELECTION OF ARTICLES (from 1973)
Editors Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine, and Anita Rapone wrote in the Preface to this 1973 anthology, “The contemporary feminist movement began in the late 1960s and has grown enormously in the six years of its existence both in the numbers of women who have participated in feminist activities and in the nature and scope of its analytical writings. In its most general formulation the goal of the radical feminist movement is the complete elimination of the sex role system. The articles in this collection, although each covers a specific aspect of sexism, all reflect this basic feminist [perspective]…
“The purpose in selecting and organizing this anthology was to present primary source material not so much about as from the radical feminist movement. Although such a collection of writings by definition constitutes a kind of overview of the growth of the movement, the articles are more a product than an explanation of that political process. Many of the articles included… previously appeared in the first three issues of ‘Notes,’ a yearly journal of writings from the feminist movement.”
Judith Hole and Ellen Levine wrote of ‘The First Feminists’: “a strong temperance movement had … emerged. Large numbers of women, including some suffragists, became actively involved in the temperance cause… one of the main reasons women became involved in pressing for laws restricting the sale and consumption of alcohol was that their legal status as married women offered them no protection against either physical abuse or abandonment by a drunken husband. It might be added that the reason separate women’s temperance organizations were formed was that women were not permitted to participate in the men’s groups… the growth of the women’s temperance movement solidified the liquor and brewing industries’ opposition to woman suffrage. As a result, suffrage leaders became convinced of the necessity of keeping the two issues separate.” (Pg. 12)
Susi Kaplow wrote, “Sure… they oppressed you… they continue to degrade and use you. But---why did you let it happen? Why do you continue to let it happen? All of a sudden you are up against the part you played in your own oppression. You were the indispensable accomplice to the crime. You internalized your own inferiority, the pressing necessity to be beautiful and seductive, the belief that men are more important than women, the conviction that marriage is the goal. Seeing this, you are violent against yourself … for getting YOURSELF stuck as a housewife or in a job you hate because ‘marriage is your career.’” (Pg. 39-40)
Anne Koedt interviewed [an anonymous] woman describing her love relationship with another woman. The woman recounted to her, “Although we did sleep together, it wasn’t sexual; just affectionate and very sensual. After that evening we started sleeping together sexually as well. I guess it was also a surprise to find that you weren’t struck down by God in a final shaft of lightning. That once you fight through that initial wall of undefined fears (built to protect those taboos), they wither rapidly, and leave you to operate freely in a new self-defined circle of what’s natural. You have a new sense of boldness, of daring, about yourself.” (Pg. 87)
Jo Freeman argues, “The Negro analogy has been challenged many times on the grounds that women do not suffer from the same overt segregation as blacks. This point is well-noted. But it is important to realize that blatant discrimination is just one mechanism of social control. There are many more subtle ones employed long before such coercion becomes necessary. It is only when these other methods fail to keep a minority group in its place that harsher means must be found.” (Pg. 138)
Lucinda Cisler says of the abortion debate, “All the talk about ‘quickening,’ ‘viability,’ and so on, is based on old religious myths… or tied to ever-shifting technology (who knows how soon before a three-day-old fertilized egg may be considered ‘viable’ because heroic mechanical devices allow it to survive and grow outside the woman’s uterus?). To listen to judges and legislators play with this ghostly arithmetic of months and weeks is to hear the music by which angels used to dance on the head of a pin.” (Pg. 159)
Bonnie Kreps summarizes, “The Women’s Liberation Movement is a generic term covering a large spectrum of positions… the movement can be divided into three areas: (1) The largely economically oriented (usually Marxist) segment which sees liberation for women as part of a socialist revolution; (2) liberal groups like the National Organization for Women [NOW]. This segment is analogous to the NAACP in the black struggle; it is working for some kind of integration of women into the main fabric of society; and (3) radical feminism, which chooses to concentrate exclusively on the oppression of women AS WOMEN, (and not as workers, students, etc.). This segment therefore concentrates its analysis on institutions like love, marriage, sex, masculinity and feminism…[It] would not be particularly concerned with ‘equal rights,’ ‘equal pay for equal work’ and other major concerns of the NOW segment.” (Pg. 238-239)
Anne Koedt states, “I think that the first thing to do is to define radical feminism: To me, it means the advocacy of the total elimination of sex roles. A radical feminist, then, is one who believes in this and works politically to that end. Basic to the position of radical feminism is the concept that biology is not destiny, and that male and female roles are learned---indeed that they are male political constructs that serve to ensure power and superior status for men.” (Pg. 248)
She continues, “Sex roles and male supremacy will not go away simply by women becoming lesbians… a statement like ‘feminism is the theory; lesbianism is the practice’ is erroneous. For not only is the sex of a woman’s lover insufficient information to infer radical feminism, but there is also the false implication that to have no men in your personal life means you are therefore living the life of fighting for radical feminist change.” (Pg. 250-251)
Pamela Allen explains, “We have had to face realistically the inability of many of us to think conceptually. This inability comes from being encouraged to stay in the private sphere and to relate to people on personal levels even when working. We are training ourselves to get out from under our subjective responses and to look at our reality in new ways.” (Pg. 277)
Barbara Burris notes, “National cultures vary greatly according to the degree of the suppression of the female culture. The veil and seclusion of women and their almost total segregation in Arab culture make for difference between them and, for example, a Swedish woman. A Swedish woman may not be able to tolerate the suppressed life of Arab women but she also, if she is sensitive, may not be able to tolerate her suppression as a female in Sweden. Crossing national boundaries often awakens a woman’s understanding of her position in society. We cannot, like James Baldwin, even temporarily escape from our caste role [in] Paris or another country. It is everywhere; there is no escape.” (Pg. 341)
This is an excellent collection of articles (but bear in mind that it is more than 50 years old), that will be of great interest to anyone studying feminism and the women’s movement.
Editors Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine, and Anita Rapone wrote in the Preface to this 1973 anthology, “The contemporary feminist movement began in the late 1960s and has grown enormously in the six years of its existence both in the numbers of women who have participated in feminist activities and in the nature and scope of its analytical writings. In its most general formulation the goal of the radical feminist movement is the complete elimination of the sex role system. The articles in this collection, although each covers a specific aspect of sexism, all reflect this basic feminist [perspective]…
“The purpose in selecting and organizing this anthology was to present primary source material not so much about as from the radical feminist movement. Although such a collection of writings by definition constitutes a kind of overview of the growth of the movement, the articles are more a product than an explanation of that political process. Many of the articles included… previously appeared in the first three issues of ‘Notes,’ a yearly journal of writings from the feminist movement.”
Judith Hole and Ellen Levine wrote of ‘The First Feminists’: “a strong temperance movement had … emerged. Large numbers of women, including some suffragists, became actively involved in the temperance cause… one of the main reasons women became involved in pressing for laws restricting the sale and consumption of alcohol was that their legal status as married women offered them no protection against either physical abuse or abandonment by a drunken husband. It might be added that the reason separate women’s temperance organizations were formed was that women were not permitted to participate in the men’s groups… the growth of the women’s temperance movement solidified the liquor and brewing industries’ opposition to woman suffrage. As a result, suffrage leaders became convinced of the necessity of keeping the two issues separate.” (Pg. 12)
Susi Kaplow wrote, “Sure… they oppressed you… they continue to degrade and use you. But---why did you let it happen? Why do you continue to let it happen? All of a sudden you are up against the part you played in your own oppression. You were the indispensable accomplice to the crime. You internalized your own inferiority, the pressing necessity to be beautiful and seductive, the belief that men are more important than women, the conviction that marriage is the goal. Seeing this, you are violent against yourself … for getting YOURSELF stuck as a housewife or in a job you hate because ‘marriage is your career.’” (Pg. 39-40)
Anne Koedt interviewed [an anonymous] woman describing her love relationship with another woman. The woman recounted to her, “Although we did sleep together, it wasn’t sexual; just affectionate and very sensual. After that evening we started sleeping together sexually as well. I guess it was also a surprise to find that you weren’t struck down by God in a final shaft of lightning. That once you fight through that initial wall of undefined fears (built to protect those taboos), they wither rapidly, and leave you to operate freely in a new self-defined circle of what’s natural. You have a new sense of boldness, of daring, about yourself.” (Pg. 87)
Jo Freeman argues, “The Negro analogy has been challenged many times on the grounds that women do not suffer from the same overt segregation as blacks. This point is well-noted. But it is important to realize that blatant discrimination is just one mechanism of social control. There are many more subtle ones employed long before such coercion becomes necessary. It is only when these other methods fail to keep a minority group in its place that harsher means must be found.” (Pg. 138)
Lucinda Cisler says of the abortion debate, “All the talk about ‘quickening,’ ‘viability,’ and so on, is based on old religious myths… or tied to ever-shifting technology (who knows how soon before a three-day-old fertilized egg may be considered ‘viable’ because heroic mechanical devices allow it to survive and grow outside the woman’s uterus?). To listen to judges and legislators play with this ghostly arithmetic of months and weeks is to hear the music by which angels used to dance on the head of a pin.” (Pg. 159)
Bonnie Kreps summarizes, “The Women’s Liberation Movement is a generic term covering a large spectrum of positions… the movement can be divided into three areas: (1) The largely economically oriented (usually Marxist) segment which sees liberation for women as part of a socialist revolution; (2) liberal groups like the National Organization for Women [NOW]. This segment is analogous to the NAACP in the black struggle; it is working for some kind of integration of women into the main fabric of society; and (3) radical feminism, which chooses to concentrate exclusively on the oppression of women AS WOMEN, (and not as workers, students, etc.). This segment therefore concentrates its analysis on institutions like love, marriage, sex, masculinity and feminism…[It] would not be particularly concerned with ‘equal rights,’ ‘equal pay for equal work’ and other major concerns of the NOW segment.” (Pg. 238-239)
Anne Koedt states, “I think that the first thing to do is to define radical feminism: To me, it means the advocacy of the total elimination of sex roles. A radical feminist, then, is one who believes in this and works politically to that end. Basic to the position of radical feminism is the concept that biology is not destiny, and that male and female roles are learned---indeed that they are male political constructs that serve to ensure power and superior status for men.” (Pg. 248)
She continues, “Sex roles and male supremacy will not go away simply by women becoming lesbians… a statement like ‘feminism is the theory; lesbianism is the practice’ is erroneous. For not only is the sex of a woman’s lover insufficient information to infer radical feminism, but there is also the false implication that to have no men in your personal life means you are therefore living the life of fighting for radical feminist change.” (Pg. 250-251)
Pamela Allen explains, “We have had to face realistically the inability of many of us to think conceptually. This inability comes from being encouraged to stay in the private sphere and to relate to people on personal levels even when working. We are training ourselves to get out from under our subjective responses and to look at our reality in new ways.” (Pg. 277)
Barbara Burris notes, “National cultures vary greatly according to the degree of the suppression of the female culture. The veil and seclusion of women and their almost total segregation in Arab culture make for difference between them and, for example, a Swedish woman. A Swedish woman may not be able to tolerate the suppressed life of Arab women but she also, if she is sensitive, may not be able to tolerate her suppression as a female in Sweden. Crossing national boundaries often awakens a woman’s understanding of her position in society. We cannot, like James Baldwin, even temporarily escape from our caste role [in] Paris or another country. It is everywhere; there is no escape.” (Pg. 341)
This is an excellent collection of articles (but bear in mind that it is more than 50 years old), that will be of great interest to anyone studying feminism and the women’s movement.
Want to read
September 27, 2024rn I'm not in my "feminist essay reading" mood. I liked what I did read but with every anthology, there's good and there's bad. if you want an easy introduction to second wave feminism, look no further!
Read
January 6, 2023okunması zor bir kitaptı benim için çünkü deneme falan tarzıydı ama aynı zamanda radikal feminizmin temelini anladım gibi oldu. bence bunu bir anda okumayın her akşam bir chapter gibi okuyun
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