Grunwick Strike (1976-1978)
The Grunwick strike in London involved predominantly Asian women workers at Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories, led by Jayaben Desai. They went on strike demanding better working conditions, fair p…
The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism (Audre Lorde, 1981)
In this piece from Audre Lorde, a renowned intersectional feminist/activist, she offers the use of anger as a unifying force for women across the lines of race. White women struggled to understand the…
Panther Sisters (Black Panther Party, 1969)
This is part of an interview where a group of women in the Black Panther Party discuss how the struggle for women’s rights intersected with their experiences in the Party. Many of them recall how they…
Women’s Liberation Aims to Free Men Too (Gloria Steinem, 1970)
There is a common misconception that the struggle for women’s rights is solely beneficial for women. This narrative is oftentimes pushed by institutions and key actors that know if the everyday man is…
Barbarous Rituals: 84 Ways To Feminize Humans (1972)
This anonymous collection of statements cuts straight to the core of gender as a social construct and the ways in which women are brought up to act/think in a specific manner. Through these descriptio…
There Was A Young Woman Who Swallowed a Lie (Meredith Tax, 1972)
This series of cartoons produced by the Women’s Liberation Movement holds a deeper meaning and purpose of consciousness raising. It illustrates the standards that women were forced to adhere to and ho…
Abortion Protest (Redstockings, 1969)
This collection of documents illustrates an abortion protest held by the Redstockings group, a feminist organization. Their two main goals were to first, disrupt the mainstream legislative principles…
Protest the Infirmary! (Gainesville Women’s Liberation, 1997)
This protest leaflet is from the Gainesville Women’s Liberation movement and is part of a wider effort at the University of Florida to increase women’s sexual autonomy through disrupting the mainstrea…
The Sixties Speak to the Eighties (Redstockings, 1983)
The Redstockings are a radical feminist group that emerged partly out of the Women’s Liberation Movement. In this speech, Kathie Sarachild, a prominent activist and leader within the Redstockings, ref…
FLARE UP! Niger Delta Women Take on Oil Companies – (2002)
This article, written by an American journalist under a pseudonym, details the actions taken by indigenous intertribal women of Nigeria against US oil companies ChevronTexaco and Shell. These oil comp…
“I incite this meeting to rebellion…” (1912)
This document was a speech given by Emmeline Pankhurst on October 17, 1912 at Royal Albert Hall in London. Pankhurst was an active militant suffragist and a founder of the Women’s Social and Political…
The Manukan Declaration (2004)
The Manukan Declaration was signed by seventeen different organizations across North America, South America, Asia, and Africa that make up the Indigenous Women’s Biodiversity Network in 2004. Generall…
Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex (2001)
This document was written by Incite!, a group of radical feminists who work to end violence against all women, in 2001. This document makes a connection between state, interpersonal, and domestic viol…
Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female (1971)
This document was written by Frances M. Beal in 1971. “Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female” links the anti-capitalist struggle, women’s liberation, and black liberation.
The Enemy Within (1970)
This document was written by Susan Brownmiller in 1970. She discusses the ways in which women have internalized sexism and patriarchal expectations – for themselves and for other women. She explores t…
Females and Welfare (undated)
This essay identifies poor women who serve as heads of their families as the ideal engine for the Women’s Radical Movement: as author Betsy Warrior notes, poor women have both the knowledge of the opp…
The Women’s Rights Movement in the US: A New View (1968)
In this article, author Shulamith Firestone looks to analyze the perception of the Women’s Rights Movement in the United States by tracing its development across generations. Mainly, she wants to answ…
Feminism Old Wave and New Wave (1971)
This article explores the similarities and differences between the Old and New Waves of the Feminist Movement, from the sources and origins of each movement, to the ways that they have been perceived…
What is Socialist Feminism? (1970)
By coining the term “socialist feminism,” members of the group aimed to encompass the way that capitalist realities negatively impacted women–rather than aiming to demolish the family structures that…
Tyranny of Structurelessness (1970)
This essay by Jo Freeman represents an evolution of the Radical Feminist Movement, as thinkers such as Freeman moved away from a rigid idea about the intrinsic and necessary natures of the movement, a…
Poor White Women (1970)
In this 1970 essay, author Roxanne Dunbar includes an intersectional analysis of the oppression of women, focusing on both gendered and class-based issues. Drawing on her own experience growing up in…
Covert Sex Discrimination Against Women as Medical Patients (1972)
In this speech originally given to the American Psychological Association, activist Carol Downer described her analysis of the medical field in the United States, and the way that male dominance withi…
The Vagina on Trial (1971)
Kathleen Barry’s essay unpacks both the physical consequences that a woman faces when she endures rape, and the psychological effects that are the result of every woman’s knowledge of the threat of ra…
The BITCH Manifesto (1972)
In this Manifesto by Jo Freeman, the author reclaims the title of “bitch” in a way that establishes the term as a description of a woman who does not conform to traditional social roles designated for…
Why I Want a Wife (1971)
This piece of feminist satire by Judy Syfers is not purely comical; rather, it serves to prompt a wife’s male counterpart to consider the value that his wife brings to him, in the sense that she is a…
The Politics of Housework (1970)
Written by Pat Mainardi in 1970, this essay is an analysis of the conversations that commonly arise between women and men, as women try to illuminate the political nature of their social statuses. Spe…
The Jeannette Rankin Brigade: Woman Power? (1968)
As a critique of the feminist movement’s protest against the Southeast Asian war, Shulamith Firestone wrote this essay, which articulated that a gathering of women should be used to create more produc…
Funeral Oration for the Burial of Traditional Womanhood (1968)
During a protest against the war in Southeast Asia, radical feminists staged a mock funeral for the end of traditional womanhood in the United States, which they deemed forced women to accept an unsat…
The Grand Coolie Damn (1969)
Marge Piercy was an American novelist and activist who wrote this 1969 expose in order to expose the inherent sexism of the American left at the time. Following the chronological order of events and t…
A Kind of Memo (1965)
Widely regarded as one of the first documents of the emerging feminist movement, this essay by Casey Haden and Mary King reflects the experiences that they had as volunteers in the Students Non-Violen…
The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm (1968)
In this essay, author and activist Anne Koedt questions the way that conventional sex appeals to and is constructed for women–more accurately, she criticizes the fact that “normal” conceptions of sex…
The Laugh of the Medusa (1975)
In her 1975 feminist critique, French author Helen Cixous offers women an ultimatum which demands that they either interpret and utilize the bodily expressions that society has accepted for them and r…
Women and Revolution Issue 1 (1971)
Initially a newspaper started by the Sparticist League of the San Francisco Bay Area, this first issue of Women and Revolution is meant to serve as a manifesto for women’s liberation. The Sparticists…
The Black Unicorn – Audre Lorde (1978)
Audre Lorde was a feminist activist who wrote poetry to confront issues of racism, sexism, capitalism, and heterosexism. Her work expresses raw emotion that reflects the experiences that she had in he…
Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant (2002)
“Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant” is the autobiography of radical feminist Andrea Dworkin. Though Dworkin also wrote short stories and novels, she was best known for her non-fi…
The Struggle of Palestinian Women (1975)
“The Struggle of Palestinian Women” was a 1975 study published by the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) research center. It explains the emotional and physical struggle and resistnace of Pales…
Angela Davis on Mainstream Feminism/ Bourgeoise Feminism (2017)
In this lecture, Angela Davis addresses her career-long struggle to identify as a feminist, given the current state of the feminist movement. Breaking through the glass ceiling, as Davis notes, is gro…
See Red Women’s Workshop (1972)
In 1972, See Red Women’s Workshop was founded as a feminist organization committed to combatting sexist images of women in the media by replacing them with more empowering alternatives. Feminist activ…
Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement (2006)
Anuradha Ghandy was a founding member of the Indian Communist Party, and strongly contributed to and drafted policy regarding the caste system in India, and the intersection between feminism and Marxi…
Miss America Protest Songs
The 1968 protest against the Miss America Pageant utilized many disruption tactics, the most well-known of which was a “Freedom Trash Can” used for burning items that the protestors deemed as oppressi…
Slavery Exists! Miss America is a Slave to:
In 1968, 200 feminist activists protested at the Miss America Pageant, symbolically trashing items that enabled domination of women, such as bras, hairspray, makeup, girdles, corsets, and more. The pr…
Lesbians in Revolt (1972)
In 1972, author Charlotte Bunch articulated lesbianism was a political choice that fundamentally threatened male supremacy by challenging the idea that men were crucial to the existence of women. In h…
The Feminization of Earth First! (1992)
In this document, Judi Bari describes her experiences as a woman in Earth First!. It explores the relationship between feminism and eco-radicalism – eco-feminism.
Interview with Alzada Clark – Organizing Black Women Workers (1989)
Alzada Clark organized workers – specifically Black women – in the South, established unions, and participated in the Black Power movement at large. In this interview, she discusses her experiences.
“Characteristics of the Early Factory Girls” (1898)
In this document, Harriet Hanson Robinson describes women working in factories in the 1830s in Lowell, Massachusetts – from her experience working in a factory starting at 10 years old. The Lowell Fac…
Women, Power, and Revolution (1998)
This document by Kathleen Neal Cleaver explores the role of women and gender in the Black Panther Party and Black Power Movement.
Riot Grrrl Manifesto (1991)
The Riot Grrrl movement began in Washington State in the 1990s. It sought to address sexism and other forms of oppression in the punk music industry and throughout society at large. This document is…
A Fundamental Necessity of the Revolution (1973)
This document is from the opening speech – given by Samora Machel – of the First Conference of Mozambican Women. In this speech, Machel answers the question “why women’s liberation?” She explores the…
Black Women’s Manifesto (1970)
Throwing Like A Girl by Iris Marion Young (1980)
This feminist essay by Iris Marion Young draws on works from Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to look at differences in feminine and masculine movement and how that movement is embodied an…
bell hooks – Feminism is for Everybody (2000)
bell hooks is a feminist, professor, and activist. In 2000, she published “Feminism is for Everybody”. Key to her politics and feminist philosophy is that the overarching “enemy”/structure to dismantl…
On Freedom For Women
This publication by Robin Morgan captures the sentiment of the Women’s Liberation Movement following the Miss America Pageant Protest. Like many others attest to as well, Morg
…
The Woman Identified Woman
The Radicalesbians identified lesbianism as the result of a woman acting on natural impulses to deviate from society and instead pursue a more liberated form of existence. Lesbianism is the product of…
The Furies- Lesbian/Feminist Monthly (1972)
In this first volume of the monthly publication by the Furies, the group introduces themselves and and their ideology, which is based on reforming the avenues taken by women in their liberation so tha…
A Critique of the Miss America Pageant (1968)
The Miss America Pageant Protest marked a turning point for the Women’s Liberation Movement, because the media coverage of the event itself exposed the American public to the existence of the movement…
Voice of the Women’s Liberation Movement (1969)
As the Women’s Liberation Movement widened its scope and began to see involvement in all corners of the country, it became increasingly more important to maintain a certain degree of connectedness bet…
People Don’t Get Radicalized Fighting Other People’s Battles (Redstockings, 1968)
This magazine was published by the Redstockings, a radical feminist group, as part of their Action Series. The series of writings in it contain intersectional analysis of the New Left Movement, and th…
Gender and the Political: Deconstructing the Female Terrorist
Author Amanda Third makes an account of the way that the religious right in the United States draws connections between the feminist movement, and terrorist attacks that occur on U.S. soil. Important…
A Woman’s Guide to Stanford (1986)
The Women’s Guide to Stanford Collective was an organization of women at Stanford University who would yearly publish handbooks of what were essentially survival guides to being a woman at the univers…
The Theory of Sexual Politics (1969)
Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics discusses the ways in which the patriarchy infiltrates everyday experiences of women, including sexual relations. This chapter – chapter two – is titled the Theory of Se…
The Radical Women Manifesto – Platform (2001)
The Radical Women Manifesto: Socialist Feminist Theory, Program and Organizational Structure is the manifesto of the Radical Women (RW). RW is an intersectional, multi-issue based organization rooted…
The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House (1984)
In 1984, In 1985, feminist, civil rights activist, and librarian Audre Lorde published “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”. The essay argued for the dismantling of the current…
S.C.U.M Manifesto (1967)
Often noted as one of the most radical texts of the women’s liberation movement, the SCUM Manifesto created space for imagining new and innovative solutions for the oppression of women.
The Working Woman – CPUSA – The Woman Today (1937)
In the mid-1930s, as the Communist Party in the United States attempted to navigate a complex process of self-definition, the inclusion of women in politics reflected the Party’s negotiations with reg…
I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities (1985)
In 1985, feminist, civil rights activist, and librarian Audre Lorde published “I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities”. The essay was centered around organizing black women in the…
A Terrorist Call for “Building a Red Army” (1970)
Between 1970 and 1998, the Anti-Fascist, Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Imperialism, Communist leftist militia The Red Army Faction was labeled as a terrorist organization in first West Germany, and then unifi…
The Political Invention of the Feminist Strike – L. Cavallero & V. Gago (2021)
Luci Cavallero and Verónica Gago discuss the March 8th feminist strike in Argentina in both global and historical context. They argue that the strike disrupts multiple domains of patriarchal society…
Man Made Language (1980)
Written in 1980, this introduction to Dale Spender’s Man Made Language explores the patriarchy and its presence in language. Spender discusses how language has been a means for constructing and sust…
The Redstockings Manifesto (1970)
Founded in 1969 in New York City, The Redstockings, short for Redstockings of the Women’s Liberation Movement, published their manifesto in 1970. The radical feminist group mobilized women primarily t…
The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework: A Working-Class Perspective (1981)
In 1981, Angela Davis Published “Women, Race, and Class”. The book analyzes the women’s liberation movement through the lens and intersection of racism and classism. Chapter 13, “The Approaching Obsol…
Sabotage – I.W.W. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1911)
In which the rebel girl describes various forms of sabotage including limiting the over-supply of workers through contraception.
Lets Spit on Hegel – Carla Lonzi (1970)
Carla Lonzi, leading member of the Italian feminist collective Rivolta Femminile, 1970 pamphlet against patriarchal thought, history, and time. In this text Lonzi attacks Hegel (and Marx’s) notions of…