August 26, 1970 Women’s March for Equality, Fifth Avenue, NYC,
on the 50th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. Photo: Diana Davies
More than 20,000 people, mostly women, marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City on August 26, 1970, for the largest gathering ever seen at that time to demand reproductive rights, repeal of anti-abortion laws, creation of child-care centers, and equal opportunity for women in jobs and education. It was called the "Woman's Strike for Equality," and there were similar events taking place across the nation. The march in New York City was scheduled for 5 PM so that working women could attend. It has been spoken of as the seminal event of what is referred to as the "second wave" of feminism.
History was made that day, but too few of these "her-stories" have been passed on to a new generation of women and men who are facing a wave of repressive right-wing legislation aimed at rolling back our hard-won gains. Each year that I teach in an introduction to women's studies class, I am stunned at how little students know about what is, to me, recent history.
Most high school curricula give the women's movement short shrift, and pay even less attention to discussions of feminism. That needs to change, and change it will if we take our daughters and sons and nieces and nephews and grandchildren to the movies this holiday season (and beyond) to see the documentary film, She's Beautiful When She's Angry, which has just opened in New York and Los Angeles and should soon be available in a theater near you. My students are telling their younger brothers and sisters to demand this history be taught. And the first step is to realize it exists.
Follow below the fold for more.
About the film:
SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women’s movement from 1966 to 1971. SHE’S BEAUTIFUL takes us from the founding of NOW, with ladies in hats and gloves, to the emergence of more radical factions of women’s liberation; from intellectuals like Kate Millett to the street theatrics of W.I.T.C.H. (Women’s International Conspiracy from Hell!). Artfully combining dramatizations, performance and archival imagery, the film recounts the stories of women who fought for their own equality, and in the process created a world-wide revolution.
SHE’S BEAUTIFUL does not try to romanticize the early movement, but dramatizes it in its exhilarating, quarrelsome, sometimes heart-wrenching glory. The film does not shy away from the controversies over race, sexual preference and leadership that arose in the women’s movement. SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY captures the spirit of the time --- thrilling, scandalous, and often hilarious.
That story still resonates today for women who are facing new challenges around reproductive rights and sexual violence, as the film shows present-day activists creating their generation's own version of feminism. SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY is a film about activists, made to inspire women and men to work for feminism and human rights.
Melissa-Harris Perry said, during her interview with the film's Director, Mary Dore, that she took her daughter to see the film.
Film maps trajectory of feminist movement:
Mary Dore, Director of "She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry" talks about how the film takes viewers through the evolution of the struggle for gender equality, reproductive rights, equal pay for women and freedom from sexual violence.
The combination of interviews with women who were part of the different strands of the movement, archival footage and photos makes the history come alive for those viewers who weren't even born in the '70s—and brings back many memories for those of us who were there.
The Women:
Alta
Chude Pamela Allen
Judith Arcana
Nona Willis Aronowitz
Fran Beal
Heather Booth
Rita Mae Brown
Susan Brownmiller
Linda Burnham
Jacqui Ceballos
Mary Jean Collins
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Muriel Fox
Jo Freeman
Carol Giardina
Susan Griffin
Karla Jay
Kate Millett
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Denise Oliver-Velez
OBOS (Our Bodies, Ourselves Collective)
Trina Robbins
Ruth Rosen
Vivian Rothstein
Marlene Sanders
Alix Kates Shulman
Ellen Shumsky
Marilyn Webb
Virginia Whitehill
Ellen Willis
Alice Wolfson
Amy Kesselman,
professor emeritus, Women's Studies at SUNY New Paltz, and co-author of a seminal women's studies textbook,
Women: Images & Realities, though now retired, comes back each semester to lecture our very large class on the second wave, which she was a part of. She does an interesting exercise with the students at the beginning of the lecture. Most of them are first-year students, or taking their first women's studies class. It's a large class, with over 100 students, who are predominately female.
She tells them to stand up (and keep standing):
- ...if you or anyone you know ever had a legal abortion.
(about a third of the students stand)
- ...if you or anyone you know ever used a rape hotline or battered women's shelter
(a few more rise)
- ...if you or anyone you know has ever worked in a job which was traditionally considered to be 'a man's job'
(by this time two-thirds of the group is standing)
- ...if you have ever played a team sport
(almost everyone is now on their feet)
- ...if you have ever taken a women's studies course
(the four or five still seated stand up)
With the entire group is standing, she asks them,"What do these things, and you all have in common?"
Rarely are any of the students able to connect the dots. She tells them to be seated, and explains that all of the above are a result of the second wave women's movement. During the course of the lecture, it becomes very clear that our young women and men have no real concept of our very recent history, or of the gains we made—through struggle—and how they have benefited.
During that same class, I'm fond of remarking, "We're not dead and buried," yet few students—if any—can name specific women feminists, who were part of that second wave. Not even the "big" names, like Gloria Steinem, who most readers of this piece would assume everyone knows. I draw blank stares when I ask them to name black, Latina, Asian-American, and Native American women who were organizing during that time. They all know Malcolm X. None know the name of the activist woman in whose arms he died—Yuri Kochiyama. They all know about rapper Tupac Shakur, but none know of his mother, Black Panther Party member Afeni Shakur. A few have heard of SNCC, but they didn't know about Fran Beal. Even though Barbara Smith, co-founder of the Cohambe River Collective, has been an elected official in our nearby state capitol of Albany, and is a key founder of black women's feminist theory—they've never heard of her.
So many women with beauty of spirit and courage lifted their voices to fight and make changes for those women and men who have come after them. Their stories must be told. The battle clearly has not been won, and as the opening sequence in the film makes clear, we not only have to push forward, but also to fight the cabal of opposition fueled by the misogynists of media like Rush Limbaugh, right-wing elected officials, lawmakers, and zealots.
The history that has been buried can no longer be entombed. It must be taught so that we cannot only stand on the shoulders of those who dedicated their lives to making a better, and different world for all of us—but so this generation will carry that vision forward.
Though the analogy of "waves" of feminism may be flawed, since it negates the fact that there was ongoing work even at a time that no mass movement was in evidence, I still use the term and point out that waves also have an undertow and a rip-tide. We know who inhabits that undertow—from the Robert's Court Five on down to someone who might be a member of your family.
We need more films like this one, but given the long struggle that Mary Dore undertook just to get this financed and to obtain the historical footage and interviews, they won't happen unless we can demonstrate with our feet, by going out, buying a ticket and taking seats at the screenings. Give yourself or someone you love the gift of our history for the holidays.
Get angry. Get active.
Go see the film and take your partners, sons, daughters, nieces, and nephews.
Go. See. Learn. Embrace.
If the film isn't being shown in your area, find out why not.
I want to close with a thank you to Mary Dore, who dared, and to all my sisters and brothers in struggle.
It continues.