Jo Freeman Reviews: Revolutionary Feminists: The Women's Liberation Movement in Seattle; A Good Read and Reference Book
Revolutionary Feminists: The Women's Liberation Movement in Seattle
by Barbara Winslow
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2023, xi + 248 pages plus 13 illustrations
Paperback, $26.95
Cloth, $102.95
Jo Freeman Reviews
The women’s liberation movement (wlm) flowered in the late 1960s. Seattle was one of the seeds, as one of five cities in North America where small groups formed independently, without an outsider bringing the news from someplace else. It pollinated much of the Northwest.
According to Barbara Winslow, Seattle Radical Women was founded in October 1967 by women with roots in the Old Left, where “the Woman Question” had been one of many issues, and the New Left, whose younger members brought energy and excitement. She describes the many left wing groups of that period in which wlm sprouted.
As was true elsewhere, wlm groups divided and multiplied. Within two years there were three independent women’s liberation organizations. As was not true elsewhere, the founders, and most of their followers, thought of themselves as revolutionaries before they became feminists.
They brought much of their left wing politics and perspective into the new movement. There were many fights and splits, but the divide between “politicos” and “feminists” that consumed wlm groups elsewhere was not one of them.
Washington was a progressive state. In 1967 it was a step ahead of most of the country on matters of race and sex, but it was a baby step. Men were still in charge and expected women to serve the interests of men.
As a progressive state it was one of the first to hold a Referendum on abortion. In the months leading to the November 1970 vote, the Voice for the Unborn placed ads against loosening the limits on abortion. Women’s liberation engaged in zap actions against those ads, putting the issue on the front pages. That transformed the debate from a health-care problem to a woman’s right to control her own reproduction. After Referendum 70 passed with 56.5 percent of the vote, the movement continued to expand, creating multiple reproductive control services.
Feminists began attacking male chauvinism directly. There was a biker bar with a sign saying “This is a man’s bar. Women will be tolerated only if they refrain from excessive talking.” Women ripped it down. A visiting UW professor talked about using his bed to recruit women into the New Left. Wlm graffitied his house. “Women were incensed” at men’s blasé reactions to multiple rapes at a 1970 rock festival, where the Hell’s Angels were in charge of security. Almost every incident brought more women into the movement, as well as more feminist groups, which often sought to specialize in a particular function or service.
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