Article by Susan Faludi in The New Yorker on an early (late 60's-early 70's) feminist activist and writer. TL;DR version: radical feminist leader withdraws from movement over cruel backbiting and internal squabbles, diagnosed with paranoid schizphrenia, dies alone and on welfare.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/...act_faludi
The subject is Shulamith Firestone, who wrote The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (pub. 1970) and helping form various feminist organizations. She recently died alone in a tenement apartment where she'd been living on public assistance.
The easy sound bite from this is: "founding feminist literally insane!" But it is also interesting reading for a portrait of the self-destructive way feminist groups functioned (which Faludi blames for Firestone's descent into insanity).
In April, 1976, Ms. ran an essay that generated more letters than any article it had previously published. The author was Jo Freeman, and the subject was one that she had avoided committing to print for a long time: a “social disease” that had been attacking the women’s movement for some years. She called it “trashing.” She wrote:
Like a cancer, the attacks spread from those who had reputations to those who were merely strong; from those who were active to those who merely had ideas; from those who stood out as individuals to those who failed to conform rapidly enough to the twists and turns of the changing line.
In Washington, D.C., Marilyn Webb was forced out of Off Our Backs—because she was the only one with journalistic experience. “First it was ‘You can’t write at all; you have to help other people,’ ” she recalled. Then she was told that she couldn’t accept public-speaking engagements. “And then it was just ‘Get out!’ ” Freeman was ostracized by members of Westside, the group she had helped found. “There were dark hints about my ‘male’ ambitions—such as going to graduate school,” she said. Carol Giardina, who now teaches women’s studies and American history at Queens College, said, “I don’t know anyone who founded a group and did early organizing” who wasn’t thrown out. “It was just a disaster, a total disaster.” She was ousted from her Florida group by “moon goddess” worshippers who accused her of being “too male-identified.
John Duff, a sculptor who was Firestone’s on-again, off-again boyfriend in this period, remembers Firestone telling him that she had been forced out by an “anti-leadership” faction. “And guess who became the new leaders?” she said to him. “The anti-leaders.”
To be fair, the piece is also a reminder of how some kind of feminist movement was needed at the time, describing women who took the stage at an antiwar march to speak about women's issues being drowned out by men shouting, "Take her off the stage and fuck her!” and “Fuck her down a dark alley!”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/...act_faludi
The subject is Shulamith Firestone, who wrote The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (pub. 1970) and helping form various feminist organizations. She recently died alone in a tenement apartment where she'd been living on public assistance.
The easy sound bite from this is: "founding feminist literally insane!" But it is also interesting reading for a portrait of the self-destructive way feminist groups functioned (which Faludi blames for Firestone's descent into insanity).
In April, 1976, Ms. ran an essay that generated more letters than any article it had previously published. The author was Jo Freeman, and the subject was one that she had avoided committing to print for a long time: a “social disease” that had been attacking the women’s movement for some years. She called it “trashing.” She wrote:
Like a cancer, the attacks spread from those who had reputations to those who were merely strong; from those who were active to those who merely had ideas; from those who stood out as individuals to those who failed to conform rapidly enough to the twists and turns of the changing line.
In Washington, D.C., Marilyn Webb was forced out of Off Our Backs—because she was the only one with journalistic experience. “First it was ‘You can’t write at all; you have to help other people,’ ” she recalled. Then she was told that she couldn’t accept public-speaking engagements. “And then it was just ‘Get out!’ ” Freeman was ostracized by members of Westside, the group she had helped found. “There were dark hints about my ‘male’ ambitions—such as going to graduate school,” she said. Carol Giardina, who now teaches women’s studies and American history at Queens College, said, “I don’t know anyone who founded a group and did early organizing” who wasn’t thrown out. “It was just a disaster, a total disaster.” She was ousted from her Florida group by “moon goddess” worshippers who accused her of being “too male-identified.
John Duff, a sculptor who was Firestone’s on-again, off-again boyfriend in this period, remembers Firestone telling him that she had been forced out by an “anti-leadership” faction. “And guess who became the new leaders?” she said to him. “The anti-leaders.”
To be fair, the piece is also a reminder of how some kind of feminist movement was needed at the time, describing women who took the stage at an antiwar march to speak about women's issues being drowned out by men shouting, "Take her off the stage and fuck her!” and “Fuck her down a dark alley!”