Soon women’s groups were challenging all institutions, laws and concepts. The ERA, sports, LGBTQ and of course the War in Viet Nam all attracted women who more and more put a feminist interpretation on these issues. Not that they all agreed. As is true of ideological groups, they argued over nuances of interpretation as well as actions, often dividing and sometimes working in opposition to each other.
Winslow threads her story with information about race and racism. Feminism emerged when Black power was riding high. The latter argued that abortion and birth control were genocidal. Nonetheless, “Women of color played foundational roles in the radical women’s liberation movement ...even though the city was 94 percent White.” She includes in “women of color” Asian, Pacific Islander, Latinex and Indigenous. That six percent made White women “acutely aware of racism.”
This is a history not a memoir, even though the author participated in most of the events she writes about. She appears in the Introduction as she and her new husband drive from NYC to Seattle to enter graduate school at the University of Washington (UW) in 1967. She is also central in an Epilogue. But in between, you’d never know she was there. Instead she tells a very complex story, relying on archival research and numerous interviews, as well as her personal knowledge.
Revolutionary Feminists is a full featured book, with photographs, endnotes, an acronym list, a glossary, a bibliography and an index. It’s more than just a good read; it’s a good reference book.
Copyright 2023 by Jo Freeman
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