DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Students for a Democratic Society, 1965-1972 | 1971-03-10 Daily Iowan Article: 'Garfield Recommends Suspension of SDS' Page 2

Transcribe
Translate

Students for a Democratic Society, 1965-1972

1971-03-10 Daily Iowan Article: 'Garfield Recommends Suspension of SDS' Page 2

The Rising of the Women - 'Goodbye to All That'
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article was written by Robin Morgan, a New Yorker feminist, one year ago, partially in celebration, partially in explanation, of the women's take-over of an underground newspaper, Rat. Widely reprinted in the Women's Press, it remains today one of the best statements for an autonomous women's movement.

What I want to write about are the friends, brothers, and lovers in the counterfeit male-dominated Left. The good guys who think they know what "Women's Lib," as they so chummily call it, is all about - and who then proceed to degrade and destroy women by almost everything they say and do: The token "pussy power" or "clit militancy" articles. The little jokes, the personal ads, the smile, the snarl. No more, brothers. No more well-meaning ignorance, no more co-optation, no more assuming that this thing we're all fighting for is the same: one revolution under man, with liberty and justice for all. No more. 
Let's run it on down. While males are most responsible for the destruction of human life and environment on the planet today. Yet who is controlling the supposed revolution to change all that? While males (yes, yes, even with their pasty fingers back in black and brown pies again). It just could make one a bite uneasy. It seems obvious that a legitimate revolution must be led by, made by those who have been most oppressed: black, brown and white women - with men relating to that best they can. A genuine Left doesn't consider anyone's suffering irrelevant or titillating; nor does it function as a microcosm of capitalist economy, with men competing for power and status at the top, and women doing all the work at the bottom (and functioning as objectified prizes or "coin" as well). Goodbye to all that.
Run it all way down.
Goodbye to the male-dominated peace movement, where sweet old Uncle Dave can say with impunity to a woman on the staff of "Liberation," "The trouble with you is you're an agressive woman."
Goodbye to the "straight" male-dominated Left: to PL who will allow that some [cut text] are women, but won't see [cut text] movie star (like, say, Cliff Robertson) who ditches the first wife and kids, good enough for the old days but awkard once you're Making It. Goodbye to his hypocritical double standard that reeks through all the tattered charm. 
Goodbye to lovely pro-Women's Liberation Paul Krassner, with all his astonished anger that women have lost their sense of humor "on this issue" and don't laugh anymore at little funnies that degrade and hurt them; farewell to the memory of his "Instant Pussy" aerosol can poster, to his column for Cavalier, to his dream of a Rape-in against legislator's wives, to his Scapegoats and Realist Nuns and cute anecdotes about the little daughter he sees as often as any proper divorced Scarsdale middle-aged (38) father; goodbye forever to the notion that he is my brother who, like Paul, buys a prostitute for the night as a birthday gift for a male friend, or who, like Paul, reels off the names in alphabetical order of people in the Women's Movement he has fucked, reels off names in the best lockerroom tradition - as proof that he's no sexist oppressor. 
Let it all hang out. Let it seem bitchy, catty, dykey, frustrated, crazy, Solaniseque, nutty, frigid, ridiculous, bitter, embarrassing, man-hating, libelous, pure, unfair, envious, intuitive, low-down, stupid, petty, liberating.  We are the women that men have warned us about.
And let's put one lie to rest for all time: the lie that men are oppressed, too. by sexism - the lie that there can be such a thing as "men's liberation groups." Oppression is something that [cut text] [...] ies with a new name, that would not dare define itself as MAN.
I once said, "I'm a revolutuinary, not just a woman," and knew my own lie even as I said the words. The pity of that statement's eagerness to be acceptable to those whose revolutionary zeal no one would question, i.e., any male supremist in the counterleft. but to becomea true revolutionary one must first become one of the oppressed (not [... cut text]
It hurts to try and change EACH DAY OF YOUR LIFE RIGHT NOW - not in talk, not in your head, and not only conveniently "out there" in the Third World (half of which are women) or the black and brown communities (half of which are women) but in your own home, kitchen, bed. Not getting away, no matter how else you are oppressed, from the primary oppression of being [... cut text]
fight beside and behind and beneath our brothers - to show 'em we're just as tough, just as revolushunerry, just as what-ever - image - they-want-us-as-once - they - wanted - us - to - be - feminine - and - keep - the - home - fires - burning. They will bestow titular leadership on our grateful shoulders. Whether it's being a token woman on the Movement Speakers Bureau Advisory Board, or being a Conspiracy groupir or [... cut text]

Saving...

The Rising of the Women - 'Goodbye to All That' EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article was written by Robin Morgan, a New Yorker feminist, one year ago, partially in celebration, partially in explanation, of the women's take-over of an underground newspaper, Rat. Widely reprinted in the Women's Press, it remains today one of the best statements for an autonomous women's movement. What I want to write about are the friends, brothers, and lovers in the counterfeit male-dominated Left. The good guys who think they know what "Women's Lib," as they so chummily call it, is all about - and who then proceed to degrade and destroy women by almost everything they say and do: The token "pussy power" or "clit militancy" articles. The little jokes, the personal ads, the smile, the snarl. No more, brothers. No more well-meaning ignorance, no more co-optation, no more assuming that this thing we're all fighting for is the same: one revolution under man, with liberty and justice for all. No more. Let's run it on down. While males are most responsible for the destruction of human life and environment on the planet today. Yet who is controlling the supposed revolution to change all that? While males (yes, yes, even with their pasty fingers back in black and brown pies again). It just could make one a bite uneasy. It seems obvious that a legitimate revolution must be led by, made by those who have been most oppressed: black, brown and white women - with men relating to that best they can. A genuine Left doesn't consider anyone's suffering irrelevant or titillating; nor does it function as a microcosm of capitalist economy, with men competing for power and status at the top, and women doing all the work at the bottom (and functioning as objectified prizes or "coin" as well). Goodbye to all that. Run it all way down. Goodbye to the male-dominated peace movement, where sweet old Uncle Dave can say with impunity to a woman on the staff of "Liberation," "The trouble with you is you're an agressive woman." Goodbye to the "straight" male-dominated Left: to PL who will allow that some [cut text] are women, but won't see [cut text] movie star (like, say, Cliff Robertson) who ditches the first wife and kids, good enough for the old days but awkard once you're Making It. Goodbye to his hypocritical double standard that reeks through all the tattered charm. Goodbye to lovely pro-Women's Liberation Paul Krassner, with all his astonished anger that women have lost their sense of humor "on this issue" and don't laugh anymore at little funnies that degrade and hurt them; farewell to the memory of his "Instant Pussy" aerosol can poster, to his column for Cavalier, to his dream of a Rape-in against legislator's wives, to his Scapegoats and Realist Nuns and cute anecdotes about the little daughter he sees as often as any proper divorced Scarsdale middle-aged (38) father; goodbye forever to the notion that he is my brother who, like Paul, buys a prostitute for the night as a birthday gift for a male friend, or who, like Paul, reels off the names in alphabetical order of people in the Women's Movement he has fucked, reels off names in the best lockerroom tradition - as proof that he's no sexist oppressor. Let it all hang out. Let it seem bitchy, catty, dykey, frustrated, crazy, Solaniseque, nutty, frigid, ridiculous, bitter, embarrassing, man-hating, libelous, pure, unfair, envious, intuitive, low-down, stupid, petty, liberating. We are the women that men have warned us about. And let's put one lie to rest for all time: the lie that men are oppressed, too. by sexism - the lie that there can be such a thing as "men's liberation groups." Oppression is something that [cut text] [...] ies with a new name, that would not dare define itself as MAN. I once said, "I'm a revolutuinary, not just a woman," and knew my own lie even as I said the words. The pity of that statement's eagerness to be acceptable to those whose revolutionary zeal no one would question, i.e., any male supremist in the counterleft. but to becomea true revolutionary one must first become one of the oppressed (not [... cut text] It hurts to try and change EACH DAY OF YOUR LIFE RIGHT NOW - not in talk, not in your head, and not only conveniently "out there" in the Third World (half of which are women) or the black and brown communities (half of which are women) but in your own home, kitchen, bed. Not getting away, no matter how else you are oppressed, from the primary oppression of being [... cut text] fight beside and behind and beneath our brothers - to show 'em we're just as tough, just as revolushunerry, just as what-ever - image - they-want-us-as-once - they - wanted - us - to - be - feminine - and - keep - the - home - fires - burning. They will bestow titular leadership on our grateful shoulders. Whether it's being a token woman on the Movement Speakers Bureau Advisory Board, or being a Conspiracy groupir or [... cut text]