The Art of Waking Up into Second-Wave Feminism
This is the story of how one young mother (Anne!) with two small children became an active feminist.
It was 1968.
I was unaware of the feminist movement that had been arising for a few years.
I had, however, for most of my life, felt disturbed by the discrepancy I perceived between the choices girls and women had in life and those of the boys and men.
I had felt it ever since, I suppose, starting at age nine when it took me three years of requests for a set of real Lionel model trains to get them as my most desired Christmas gift—delayed because I was a girl asking for them (cost may have had something to do with it as well, I now realize).
In September 1968, however, my situation was that I had left my teaching position as Early Childhood Coordinator in a New York City public school in the Bronx because my husband and I had just welcomed our first baby in July.
The following year, we moved from New York City to a suburb on the north shore of Long Island.
So, in July 1969 I found myself at home during the day with a one-year old child, a dog, and a house on a hill, surrounded by an acre of woods—new responsibilities that, for me, the city-raised woman, were very unsettling. I missed city sidewalks.
Then, one day, this issue of Newsweek arrived in the mailbox of our suburban home in Huntington, NY. in March 1970!
The magazine’s cover story was my candle in the dark—the open door of my introduction to the feminist movement that was firing up around me while I remained oblivious to it.
I was stunned by the cover title. It spoke directly to me of my years of witnessing the role of wives within the families of the older women I knew; and of women’s place in the world from stories my grandmother had told me.
I hid the magazine in a drawer. I suppose I was the victim of the feminine mystique, and intuited that what the issue was describing could be a life-changer. I simultaneously felt exhilaration—and relief—that there were people, somewhere out there, finally doing something!
Women were saying a resounding “No!” to the way we have been viewed for so many years. I sensed that a revolution was afoot.
The magazine’s summary of its cover story indicates that my intuition was on the mark:
A new specter is haunting America—the specter of militant feminism. Convinced they have little to lose but their domestic chains, growing numbers of women are challenging the basic assumptions of what they consider a male-dominated society.
The complete story spanned pages 71-78.
But, to be perfectly honest, I hid the magazine because I didn’t want my husband to see it. It had lit a fire in me, and I wasn’t sure how he would feel about that.
A year later, however, another door opened for me one night. It involved taking a risk.
At a parent meeting at the nursery school of our son Chris, who was three years old at the time, I met another mother of a three-year old in his class. She was the sister of one of our neighborhood friends.
She invited me to share a morning coffee at her home to learn about her “group of women.”
It turned out that hers was a C-R group, a consciousness-raising group, the likes of which were rising up during the 1970s.
She explained how her group operated, and when I showed a keen interest, she told me whom to contact to get into a group of my own.
And that was how I learned about Consciousness-Raising (C-R) groups—and how I joined one myself.
We were seven women, none of whom I knew when we started.
We met weekly in rotating homes of the women in the group and followed a set list of questions that had been given to us.
Every woman was to reflect during the week on one of the questions by relating it to her own life. At the following meeting, each woman, individually, would share her reflections with the group.
There were supportive guidelines:
There are no leaders.
We are here to discuss topics important to women, such as marriage, motherhood, attitudes toward women.
Each woman treats what she hears as confidential.
We make a point of not judging negatively anyone else for their views or feelings.
We try not to allow ourselves to be interrupted when having our turn.
Be aware of digressing, which may take time away from others.
Each woman will be encouraged to speak, but she should not be pressured. Her contribution is voluntary, not obligatory.
If the discussion gets too general, members should try to react to it by how they feel.
Respond to the subject or what is being said with the preface “I feel” or “I think” and use the pronoun “I” instead of “We” or “someone I know.”
Examples of topics:
How do I feel about myself and what are my goals for myself?
How was I taught to behave as a woman?
What is/was your relationship to your mother? To your father?
How do you feel about raising your children? Can it be done in a non-sexist way?
What are the politics of housework?
How were you raised compared to your brothers?
The life expectancy of the group was about a year of meetings to complete the questions on the list, at which point, the group was expected to disband. Women were encouraged to move on into the feminist activism of their choice.
I took the call to action to heart.
I joined the Huntington, Long Island, NY Chapter of the National Organization for Women (N.O.W., the organization that Betty Friedan had co-founded). I wanted a group that was moderate in activism.
N.O.W’s monthly meetings were held in the local library—and I found them stimulating.
I had the deep sense that, finally, here was a way to do something about this thing I had been subliminally sensing almost all my life about the choices girls and women had.
I served the chapter as chair of its education committee, which examined sexism in the local schools and their district-wide compliance with the Federal Title IX mandate of 1972.
Here is the shape my activism took for the next seven years:
—Long Island Parent-Teacher Associations invited us to address their meetings where we presented a film program, entitled “Dick and Jane as Victims,” the result of a study by Women on Words and Images in Princeton, NJ on 16 different reading series covering 134 readers.
—With the approval of the Superintendent of Schools of our local school district, we replicated the “Dick and Jane as Victims” study by conducting our own examination of the children’s readers in the district.
We counted the number of stories that featured Jane as the lead versus those with Dick in the lead.
We checked to see if the boys in the stories were shown outdoors and being active, while the girls were pictured indoors and maybe baking quietly with Mother.
The results of our project verified that the books in use in the South Huntington classrooms in 1975 were following the same patterns of sex stereotyping that had been found in classrooms throughout the United States.
Evaluation Report
Sex Stereotyping in Primary Grade Basal and Supplementary Readers Now in Use in the South Huntington Schools.
Presented by:
The Education Committee
Huntington N.O.W.
July 25, 1975
Page one of the report
Top segment of page two of the report
Story with evidence of sex-stereotyping
We presented the results of our study to the school district’s Director of Academic Services and to the Superintendent.
—The committee held two public meetings at local public libraries, one in 1976 and one in 1977.
Over 100 were in attendance at each.
We called them “Report Card ‘76” and “Report Card ‘77” because they were designed to report on our school district’s compliance on sexism and self-evaluations that were mandated by Title IX.
Here is one success story that was a direct outgrowth of “Report Card ‘76.”
It is my story: my son Chris’ elementary school had a policy of forcing girls to remain confined during recess to a small blacktopped area behind the school, while the boys were always free to run up on a grassy hill, also behind the school.
Children and parents were not pleased about that routine.
I suggested to the principal that we were having this public library meeting on Title IX compliance. I told him that parents were invited and the New York Times would be there. I also said that we would have to cite his school as being out of compliance because of that sex-segregated practice of the black-top and the hill. So, perhaps he might want to take a look at it.
When Chris, who was in third grade at the time, came home from school the next day, he excitedly told me:
Guess what mom! My school changed the way we do recess!
Now, on some days in the week, the boys and girls in certain grades all get to go up on the hill together, and boys and girls in the other grades will have to stay down on the blacktop together. Then they will switch on different days in the week.
Isn’t it amazing what a little bit of creative thinking—combined with a Federal law and the threat of public exposure—can do to change a sexist practice of boy/girl segregation?
“The New York Times” and “Newsday”, Long Island’s premiere newspaper, sent reporters to cover our library events.
The NYT, reporting on “Report Card ‘76” at the Huntington Public Library, included coverage on other school districts as well. They printed my comments in the 5th and 6th paragraphs from the end on page 30.
Newsday focused their coverage solely on our education committee’s “Report Card ‘77” at the Commack Library.
—An extremely ambitious venture that our committee took upon ourselves was our collaboration with the education committees of the three other chapters of N.O.W. on Long Island to organize and offer The Long Island Feminist Education Action Conference at Hofstra University in January 1975.
The N.O.W. L.I.F.E. Conference had 350 attendees on a heavily stormy day; we felt blessed that it was rain, and not snow!
It should be noted that the educators and other speakers from around the country whom we asked to hold workshops on sexism in schools, did so on a volunteer basis to support the movement.
Administrators allowed professional development credit for their teachers who attended our workshops.
“Newsday” covered the conference.
Fun fact: In the news photo, I am pictured in the back and to the left of the pole.
—The New York State Education Department in Albany, NY had developed an external college degree program for women who might want to return—or begin—to take college courses leading to an undergraduate degree, but who might feel intimidated to sit with currently young students. (Remember, this was 1970.)
The NYS office contacted me, because I was chair of the N.O.W. education committee, to serve as an advisor for their Regents External Degree program. They trained me on how to help women attend college at an older age.
— I designed and taught a multi-week adult education course at my Catholic church entitled “The Changing Roles of Men and Women.”
—Grassroots activism opportunities abounded. One was as a rape support volunteer, for which I volunteered to be listed as a person who would accompany a female victim to a hospital if she were to have been assaulted or raped.
The aim was to support her, especially in the event of potentially intrusive and/or insensitive police questioning and attitudes. Thankfully, I was never called.
I supported one of the “Take Back the Night” walks in Suffolk County. These walks spotlighted the fear—and danger—women faced when outside alone at night. They were aimed at reclaiming spaces in which women felt unsafe.
All the participants, in those early days, were women, in order to symbolize women's individual walk through darkness and to demonstrate that women united can resist fear and violence.
And by the way…
through all the years since I hid that Newsweek magazine in March 1970, my husband Bruno has been my grandest supporter.
He very sadly passed on May 20, 2019, but I can still feel him smiling, even now as I share my story in this post.
This post on my introduction to feminist activism is not a tale of mine alone:
It is surely one that would have resonated at that time with women throughout the country—and in the world.
I wish we could get back the fervor.
One last part of the story: A change occurred in January1978 when we moved for my husband’s work—this time to Weston, CT.
I continued my feminist work, but it took a very different direction. I began looking at my Catholic religion and how it was treating “women in the church.”
And that is another story, for another time!
Today, women and men, boys and girls:
We are called to become—or to remain—aware, especially in these unsettling times.
And, we should be sure to remember that women are still captives of the views and words that have been spoken about them by ancient philosophers, religious leaders, and other thinkers for centuries—basically coming from their understanding that the male is the norm and the female is “Other”.
And so, to keep up on news from the ancient world about the heritage of women, here is another patriarchal quote to keep you going:
—Aristotle: A proper wife should be as obedient as a slave.… The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities—a natural defectiveness.
…To be continued
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We have planned this series to explore two movements—the Women’s Movement and the Environmental Movement—as they exist, and are linked, in a patriarchal world.
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