On 12/17/20, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 12/16/20, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Radical WomenBack in the 70's - 90's I worked in Rainier Valley at the Department
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Women
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Radical Women (RW) is a socialist feminist[1] grassroots activist
organization. It has branches in Seattle, Washington and Melbourne,
Australia.
Contents
1 History
2 Purpose and ideology
3 See also
4 Notes
5 External links
History
Radical Women emerged in Seattle, Washington from a "Free University"
class on Women and Society conducted by Gloria Martin,[2] a lifelong
communist and civil rights champion.[3] As a result of the class, Martin
teamed up with Clara Fraser[4] and Melba Windoffer (initiators of the
Freedom Socialist Party) and Susan Stern (a prominent figure in the
local Students for a Democratic Society) to launch Radical Women in
1967.[3]
In Socialist Feminism: The First Decade, 1966-76[5] Martin writes that
the new group was formed to "demonstrate that women could act
politically, learn and teach theory, administer an organization, develop
indigenous leadership, and focus movement and community attention on the
sorely neglected matter of women's rights—and that women could do this
on their own."
Many Radical Women members worked in the nontraditional trades. At
Seattle's public power company, Seattle City Light, Clara Fraser crafted
and implemented the country's first plan to train women as utility
electricians. She was fired for her politics. She fought a seven-year
legal case that ultimately won her reinstatement at City Light.[6]
Radical Women participated heavily in the anti-Vietnam War mobilization,
and has opposed subsequent military interventions initiated by Western
countries.
Members worked with African-American women from anti-poverty programs to
initiate the abortion rights movement in Washington State with a
historic march on the capitol in 1969.[7]
In the early 1970s, RW helped organize a strike and a union of low-paid
employees (mostly female) at the University of Washington.
After working closely with the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP), Radical
Women and the party formally affiliated in 1973 on the basis of a shared
socialist feminist program. Some of its early members, such as Lynda
Schraufnagel, were employed by the FSP's newspaper, The Freedom
Socialist, and also wrote for it.[8][9]
Purpose and ideology
The Radical Women Manifesto: Socialist Feminist Theory, Program and
Organizational Structure[10] defines Radical Women's purpose and
ideology as follows:
Radical Women is dedicated to exposing, resisting, and eliminating the
inequities of women's existence. To accomplish this task of insuring
survival for an entire sex, we must simultaneously address ourselves to
the social and material source of sexism: the capitalist form of
production and distribution of products, characterized by intrinsic
class, race, sex, and caste oppression. When we work for the
revolutionary transformation of capitalism into a socialist society, we
work for a world in which all people may enjoy the right of full
humanity and freedom from poverty, war, racism, sexism, homophobia,
anti-Semitism, and repression.
Radical Women takes a multi-racial, multi-issue, working class and
anticapitalist approach to women's liberation. It advocates for free
abortion on demand, an end to forced sterilization of women of color,
and for affordable, quality, 24-hour childcare. Early efforts include
the Action Childcare Coalition, the Feminist Coordinating Council (an
umbrella organization made up of the whole spectrum of women's groups in
Seattle), and the Coalition for Protective Legislation (a labor and
feminist effort to extend female-designated workplace safeguards to men
after passage of the Washington State Equal Rights Amendment).
Radical Women has played a leading role in
lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender liberation struggles.[11] Members have
helped build militant lesbian/gay rights organizations and have been
involved in many coalitions devoted to preventing forced AIDS testing,
opposing ballot-box attacks on gay rights, lobbying for state gay rights
bills, and more. In the 1980s Radical Women leader Merle Woo, a college
lecturer, writer and Asian American lesbian spokesperson, won a case
against the University of California at Berkeley, which had fired her,
charging discrimination on race, sex, sexuality, and political
ideology.[12]
See also
History of feminism
Marxist feminism
Socialist feminism
Notes
A bibliography of Socialist Feminism on Kristin Switala's Feminist
Theory Website, Center for Digital Discourse and Culture at Virginia
Tech. includes the work of RW's Gloria Martin and Clara Fraser. Accessed
online 8 April 2007.
Gloria Martin, 1916-1995: Feminist Pioneer and Unabashed Lifelong
Socialist (obituary notice put out by RW and Freedom Socialist Party,
reproduced on the Progressive News & Views List archive). Accessed
online 8 April 2007.
Murphy, Raymond (2017-09-21). "Radical Women Celebrate A Half Century
of Hell-Raising". The Seattle Star. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
Clara Fraser, 1923-1998: American rebel and architect of socialist
feminism Archived 1998-05-24 at the Wayback Machine, Socialism.com.
Accessed online 8 April 2007.
Gloria Martin, Socialist Feminism: The First Decade, 1966-76, Red
Letter Press. ISBN 0-932323-00-6. [1]
Nicole Grant, "Challenging Sexism at City Light" University of
Washington, Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project
See Cassandra Tate, Marilyn Ward recalls the campaign to reform
Washington's abortion law, HistoryLink essay #2675, HistoryLink.org, for
an oppositional view of the protest.
"In this issue" (PDF). The Freedom Socialist. 4 (3): 2. Fall 1978.
Retrieved 26 November 2020.
Schraufnagel, Lynda (Fall 1979). "Abortion rights imperilled". Freedom
Socialist Newspaper. 5 (3). Retrieved 25 November 2020.
Radical Women (2001), "Preamble", in Radical Women (ed.). The Radical
Women manifesto: socialist feminist theory, program and organizational
structure. Seattle, Washington: Red Letter Press. pp. 17–18. ISBN
9780932323118.
Don Poulson, "Seattle's Gay History: Jamma Phi (1959 -1963): Seattle's
first Gay Organization", Seattle Gay News,; and Gary Atkins, Gay
Seattle, (University of Washington Press, 2003).
Ridinger, Robert B. (2004). Speaking for Our Lives: Historic Speeches
and Rhetoric for Gay and Lesbian Rights. Binghamton, New York:
Harrington Park Press. pp. 436–438. ISBN 9781560231752.
External links
Official site
Freedom Socialist Party, affiliates
University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections - Vietnam War Era
Ephemera This collection contains leaflets and newspapers that were
distributed on the University of Washington campus during the decades of
the 1960s and 1970s. Includes ephemera from Radical Women and the
Freedom Socialist Party.
Radical Women Publications
A Report from the U.S. 2008 Radical Women Conference submitted to the
International Museum of Women.
Archives
Melba Windoffer Papers. 1933-1990. 7.42 cubic feet (8 boxes). At the
Labor Archives of Washington, University of Washington Libraries Special
Collections. Contains records from Windoffer's service with Radical
Women.
Authority control Edit this at Wikidata
LCCN: n87891038VIAF: 152542370WorldCat Identities: lccn-n87891038
Categories: Feminist organisations in AustraliaFeminist organizations in
the United StatesTrotskyist organisations in AustraliaTrotskyist
organizations in the United StatesFar-left politics in AustraliaFar-left
politics in the United StatesSocialist feminist organizationsWomen's
wings of political partiesWomen's political advocacy groups in the
United StatesOrganizations established in 1967
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--
Carl Sagan “Why do we put up with it? Do we like to be criticized? No,
no scientist enjoys it. Every scientist feels a proprietary affection
for his or her ideas and findings. Even so, you don’t reply to critics,
Wait a minute; this is a really good idea; I’m very fond of it; it’s
done you no harm; please leave it alone. Instead, the hard but just rule
is that if the ideas don’t work, you must throw them away.” ― Carl
Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
of Services for the Blind. The Radical Women's office was a few
blocks South of the Agency, and I would walk there and meet my elder
sister for lunch. Virginia was not a charter member, but she joined
early on and was...well, she was quite Radical. In all of my many
visits to their Center, I only met one other man.
Carl Jarvis
