by Ruth Rosen
Rape. The most powerful and first critique of rape from a feminist activist came from Susan Griffin, “Rape: The All-American Crime,” Ramparts 10:3 (1971): 26–35. Other early critiques are Barbara Mehrhof and Pamela Kearon, “Rape: An Act of Terror,” reprinted in Koedt, Radical Feminism, 228–33; Women Against Rape, Stop Rape (Detroit, 1971); “Anatomy of a Rape” and “Disarm Rapists,” in It Ain’t Me, Babe (July 23 and August 6, 1970). In 1975, Susan Brownmiller’s influential book Against Our Will appeared. Other important material on rape includes Dorothy L. Barnes, Rape, A Bibliography 1965–1975 (New York: Winston Publishers, 1977); New York Radical Feminists, Rape: The First Sourcebook for Women, Noreen Connell and Casandra Wilson, eds. (New York: Plume, 1974); and Nancy Mathews, Confronting Rape: The Feminist Anti-Rape Movement and the State (London: Routledge, 1994); Kathleen Barry, “The Vagina on Trial: The Institution and Psychology of Rape,” in Women Against Rape, Stop Rape (Detroit, 1971).
Date and marital rape. Some of the works that helped publicize rape include Diana Russell’s pioneering book, The Politics of Rape: The Victim’s Perspective (New York: Stein and Day, 1975); Robin Warshaw, I Never Called It Rape (New York: Harper and Row, 1988); and Peggy Sanday, A Woman Scorned (New York: Doubleday, 1996). An important film that made its way around women’s centers and women’s studies programs was the film Rape Culture (Margaret Lazarus and Renner Wunderlich, Cambridge Documentary Films, 1975). For further information, see Leslie Francis, ed., Date Rape: Feminism, Philosophy, and the Law (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996); and Sally K. Ward, Acquaintance and Date Rape: An Annotated Bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994).
Incest. Sandra Butler, Conspiracy of Silence: The Trauma of Incest (New York: Bantam, 1979); Florence Rush, The Best Kept Secret: Sexual Abuse of Children (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980); and Judith Herman, Father-Daughter Incest (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), are three important books that exposed the widespread fact of child abuse and incest.
Battered women. For historical overviews of domestic violence, see Elizabeth Pleck, Domestic Tyranny: The Making of American Social Policy Against Family Violence from Colonial Times to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). Del Martin, Battered Wives (San Francisco: Glide Publications, 1976), was the book that put the subject on the social service agenda. Suzanne Steinmetz and Murray Straus, eds., Violence in the American Family (New York: Dodd Mead, 1974); Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (New York: Basic Books, 1992) and Isabel Marcus, “Reframing ‘Domestic Violence’: Terrorism in the House,” in M. Fineman and B. Mykitiuk, eds., The Public Nature of Private Violence: The Discovery of Domestic Abuse (New York: Routledge, 1994), all offer valuable ways of understanding domestic violence. William Ryan, Blaming the Victim (New York: Pantheon, 1971), also contributed to the debate over battering and the battered-woman’s syndrome. Susan Schecter’s description of how battered women were treated before the women’s movement can be found in her Women and Male Violence: The Visions and Struggle of the Battered Women’s Movement (Boston: South End Press, 1982), which also offers a good overview of the movement. An innovative rehabilitative approach is described in Domestic Abuse Intervention Project, “Research Report” (Duluth, 1981), mimeographed; Anne Galey, Court Mandated Counseling for Men Who Batter (Tacoma: American Lake VA Medical Center, 1979); Mark Schulman, A Survey of Spousal Violence Against Women in Kentucky (U.S. Department of Justice: Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Study No. 792701, July 1979). Other well-known studies of wife beating included Betsy Warrior, Wife-beating (Somerville, Mass.: New England Free Press, 1976); Lenore Walker, The Battered Woman (New York: Harper & Row, 1979); Terry Davison, Conjugal Crime: Understanding and Changing the Battered Wife Pattern (New York: Hawthorn, 1978); Frederique Delacoste and Felice Newman, eds., Fight Back! Feminist Resistance to Male Violence (Minneapolis: Cleis Press, 1981); R. Emerson Dbbash and Russell Dobash, Violence Against Wives: A Case Against the Patriarchy (New York: The Free Press, 1979); and Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “Do Women Make Men Violent?” Ms., November 1974.
Sexual Harassment. See Catharine MacKinnon, Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979). MacKinnon’s brilliant conceptualization of sexual harassment as discrimination provided the legal means by which the government could find such behavior illegal as well as how women could file grievances. For other work on sexual harassment, see Mark Gebicke, DOD Service Academies: Further Efforts Needed to Eradicate Sexual Harassment (Washington, D.C.: National Security and International Affairs, 1993); Terry Pattinson, Sexual Harassment (London: Future, 1991); Michael Rubenstein, The Dignity of Women at Work: A Report on the Problem of Sexual Harassment in the Member States of the European Communities (Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities, 1988); G. La Marche, ed., Speech and Equality: Do We Really Have to Choose? (New York: New York University Press, 1996); Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, Ninety-seventh Congress, 1st sess., Sex Discrimination in the Workplace (Washington, D.C., 1981).
Prostitution. For historical overviews, see Ruth Rosen, The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982); Barbara Hobson, Uneasy Virtue: The Politics of Prostitution and the American Reform Tradition (New York: Basic Books, 1987). The best analysis of contemporary prostitution is from Gail Pheterson, The Prostitution Prism (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press, 1996). Kate Millett, The Prostitution Papers (New York: Avon, 1971), offers an unparalled account of a conference held for prostitutes and feminists. Kathy Barry, Female Sexual Slavery (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1979), offered strong documentation on the sale of women for prostitution.
Pornography. The debates over pornography produced a huge literature. For critique of the damage done by pornography, see Robin Morgan, “Theory and Practice: Pornography and Rape,” Going Too Far, 163–70; Laura Lederer, ed., Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography (New York: William Morrow, 1980); Andrea Dworkin, Pornography and Civil Rights: A New Day for Women’s Equality; Andrea Dworkin and Catharine A. MacKinnon, Organizing Against Pornography (Minneapolis, 1988); Catharine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); Catharine MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), and Only Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993); and Susan Griffin, Pornography and Silence (New York: Harper & Row, 1981). For criticisms of the antipornography movement, see Ann Snitow, “Retrenchment Versus Transformation: The Politics of the Anti-Pornography Movement,” in Varda Burstyn, ed., Women Against Censorship (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1985).
Sex debates of the 1980s. Utlimately, the debates over pornography turned on whether sex represented more of a danger than a pleasure. See Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Tompson, eds., Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983), which sought “to integrate sexuality into the project of human liberation.” Another collection that similarly tracked this debate was Carole Vance, ed., Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984). Other valuable works that joined the debate over what was the “right kind of sex” were Morgan, “Politics of Sado-Masochism,” in Going Too Far, 227–41; Bat-Ami Bar, “Feminism and Sadomasochism: Self Critical Notes,” in Robin Ruth Linden and Darlene Pagano, eds., Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis (East Palo Alto, Calif.: Frog in the Well, 1982), 72–82.
Feminism and sadomasochism. See Heresies, sex issue. Amber Hollibaugh, “Desire for the Future,” in Vance, and Joan Nestle, A Restricted Country (London: Shebe, 1981); Kathleen Barry, “Sadomasochism: The New Backlash to Feminism,” Trivia (Fall 1982): 77–92; Jessica Benjamin, “The Bonds of Love: Rational Violence and Erotic Domination,” in Hester Eisenstein and Alice Jardine, eds., The Future of Difference (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1985); Jessica Benjamin, “Master and Slave: The Fantasy of Erotic Domination,” in Powers of Desire, 280–99; Johanna Heimholt, “From S/M, Feminist and Issues of Consent,” in Coming to Power, Samois, ed. (Boston: Alyson Publications, 1981), 80–85; Gayle Rubin, “The Leather Menace: Comments on Politics and S/M,” in Coming to Power, 192–227; Gayle Rubin, Deirdre English, and Amber Hollibaugh, “Talking Sex: A Conversation on Sexuality and Feminism,” Monthly Review 58 (July/August 1981): 43–62; Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex; Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” in Vance, Pleasure, 267–319; Diana Russell, “Sadomasochism: A Contra-Feminist Activity,” in Against Sadomasochism, 176–83; Sally Roesch Wagner, “Pornography and the Sexual Revolution: The Backlash of Sadomasochism,” in Against Sadomasochism, 23–44. Also see letters from readers to Ms. magazine in “Sex: Whose Revolution Is It?” in Mary Thom, ed., Letters to Ms. 1972–1987 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, 1987), and “A Review of Current Work in the History of Sexuality,” Feminist Studies; “Sexuality in History,” the entire issue of Radical History Review (Spring/Summer 1979). For a good historical perspective on these sex debates, see Judith Walkowitz, “Male Vice and Female Virtue: Feminism and the Politics of Prostitution in Nineteenth-Centuiy Britain,” in Powers of Desire, 419–38. For a review essay on those writing for and against sadomasochism, see Ann Jones, “Fit to Be Tied,” Nation, May 28, 1983. Also see a nuanced review of the struggle and feminist objections to sadomasochism in Leah Fritz, “Is There Sex After Sadomaschism?” in Village Voice, November 1, 1983, 24. In 1982, these various views collided at Barnard College’s Scholar and Feminist IX Conference, “Toward a Politics of Sexuality.” Each side claimed the correct view of sexuality. Some emphasized sexual crimes against women, citing rape, incest, pornography, and the sexual slavery industry. Others defended women’s right to sexual freedom, opposed casting women as sexual victims, and supported the rights of prostitutes and sex workers to safe working conditions. See, for example, Varda Burstyn, ed., Women Against Censorship (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1985); Andrea Dworkin, Letters from a War Zone (London: Secker and Warburg, 1988; Brooklyn, New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 1993).
CHAPTER SIX: PASSION AND POLITICS
See Charlotte Bunch, Passionate Politics; Robin Morgan, Going Too Far; Mary Thom, Inside Ms.: 25 Years of the Magazine and the Feminist Movement (New York: Holt, 1997); Carol Hanisch “The Personal Is Political,” published in 1969, reprinted in Feminist Revolution; and Kathie Sarachild, “Program for Feminist Consciousness-Raising (1968),” in Notes from the First Year, APA. Vivian Gornick, “The Light of Liberation Is Blinding,” in The Village Voice, December 10, 1970, 21; Ruth Rosen, “The Day They Buried Traditional Womanhood,” in Peter Shafer, ed., The Legacy: Vietnam in the American Imagination (Boston: Beacon, 1990), 233–62; Amy Erdman Farrell, Yours in Sisterhood: Ms. Magazine and the Promise of Popular Feminism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1998); Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, eds., Framing Feminism: Art and the Women’s Movement 1970–1985 (London: Pandora Press, 1987); Gayle Kimball, Women’s Culture (New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1981); Linda Nochlin, Women, Art and Power (New York: Harper and Row, 1988); Moira Roth, ed., The Amazing Decade: Women and Performance Art in America 1970–80 (Los Angeles: Astro Arts, 1983); and The Power of Feminist Art, eds. Norma Broude and Mary Garrard (New York: Abrams, 1994).
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE POLITICS OF PARANOIA
FBI Women’s Liberation Files, SL; Hearings Before the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United State Senate, 94th Congress, 1st sess., vol. 6, November 18–19 and October 1, 3, 10, 11, 1975 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976); see Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “The FBI Was Watching,” Ms., June 1977. Works that discuss infiltration of this era, but not of the women’s movement, include The Cointelpro Papers, and Brian Glick’s The War at Home (Boston: South End Press, 1989), among many others. For material on Sagaris, see “An Analysis of Sagaris, Inc.,” by the August 7th Survival Community,” “Statement of the August 7th Committee,” “The August 7th Survival Community Newsletter,” all in APA. Also see “Our New Community,” “Budget of Sagaris,” “Sagaris: Table of Contents, Description, Self Criticism,” all in Charlotte Bunch Papers, SL. Also see Carolyn Heilbrun, The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem (New York: Ballantine, 1996) and Caroline Lazo, Gloria Steinem: Feminist Extraordinaire (New York: Lerner, 1998).
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE PROLIFERATION OF FEMINISM
Religion and spirituality. For those who challenged orthodox religion or created or rediscovered a spiritual tradition, see Mary Daly, The Church and the Second Sex (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), Beyond God the Father: Towards a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984); Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow, Womanspirit Rising (San Francisco: Harper, 1979); Carol P. Christ, Diving Deep and Surfacing (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995, 3d ed., originally published 1980), and Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ, Weaving Visions (New York: HarperCollins, 1989), and Charlene Spretnak, The Politics of Women’s Spirituality: Essays on the Rise of Spiritual Power within the Feminist Movement (Garden City, New York: Anchor, 1982).
Anne Carson, Goddesses and Wise Women: The Literature of Feminist Spirituality 1980–92, offers an annotated bibliography (Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press, 1992).
Important works that influenced the growth of the movement include Paula Allen Gunn, The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996); Diana Bahr, From Mission to Metropolis: Cupeno Indian Women in Los Angeles (Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1984); Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982), The Fifth Sacred Thing (New York: Bantam, 1993); Caroline Bynum, Jesus As Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); Caroline Bynum, Stevan Harrell, and Paula Richman, eds., Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986); Merlin Stone, When God Was a Woman (New York: Dial Press, 1976); Ginette Paris, Pagan Meditations (Dallas: Spring Publications, 1986).
Women’s studies and feminist scholarship. The best general overviews can be found in Marilyn Boxer, When Women Asked the Questions: Creating Women’s Studies in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1999); Ellen Dubois et al., eds., Feminist Scholarship: Kindling in the Groves of Academe (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985), especially part 3, “The Response from the Disciplines”; and Christie Farnham, The Impact of Feminist Research in the Academy (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1987). For a good sense of how far feminist scholarship altered the disciplines by the mid-eighties, see Kris Montgomery, “The Story of Women’s History Month: Reclaiming the Past, Rewriting the Future,” in Women Change America Gazette (Sonoma: National Women’s History Project, 1997), APA.
Working women. See early documents in Morgan, Sisterhood, and in Shapiro and Shapiro, The Women Say; see Denise D’Anne, “Working Women on Welfare,” 64; Lynn O’Connor, Fred Garner, and Par Mialocq, “Office Politics,” 45–51; Union WAGE, “Organizing Statement,” 73; Nine to Five, “The Bill of Rights for Women Office Workers,” 73; Union WAGE, “Purpose and Goals,” 74; Karen Nussbaum, “We Have the Power of Women!” 71; Jesusita Novarro, “I Am a Working Mother,” 72. Nancy Seifer, ed., Nobody Speaks for Me: Self Portrait of Working Class Women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976) is an important early work.
Young women responded to the women’s movement during the 1980s and 1990s in a variety of ways. See the widely read Susan Bolotin, “Voices from the Post-Feminist Generation,” New York Times Magazine, October 7, 1982, 28–31. Books by “Third Wave feminists” include Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake, eds., Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism (Minneapolis: University of Minnes
ota, 1997) Paula Kamen, Feminist Fatale: Voices from the “Twenty Something” Generation (New York: Fine, 1991), Rebecca Walker, To Be Real (New York: Anchor, 1995), and Barbara Findlen, Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation (New York: Seal, 1995) and Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, eds., Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000). In her bibliography, Paula Kamen cites a number of other articles and studies that document the acceptance by young women of ideas originally promoted by the women’s movement, and their simultaneous rejection of being identified as a feminist. See “The 35 Million: A Preliminary Report on the Status of Young Women,” Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Washington, D.C. This report was released October 12, 1990. For conversations and interviews with young feminists, as well as the children of feminists, see Diane Salvatore, “Young Feminists Speak for Themselves,” Ms., April 1983, 43, 89, and “WAC TALK,” a feature in New Directions for Women, January/February 1993, 19. Also see a collection titled The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk About Living Feminism, Christina Baker Kline, ed., (New York: Bantam, 1996); “Feminism Lures Young Allies,” New York Times editorial, June 2, 1986. For a study of young women and their attitudes toward feminism, see Rose Glickman, Daughters of Feminists (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).