THE NORTH COAST TIMES EAGLE, FRIDAY, 12 OCTOBER, 1979 PAUL 5 THE PUBLIC REPORT by Leonora Murray TH E 2 6 th OF AUGUST The summer is gone but August 26 was not just a summer day. It was a day of rememberance, a special day honoring three generations of American women who suc cessfully campaigned for 72 years and finally won the basic right of citizenship-the right to vote. One wonders how long it will take to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Susan B. Anthony went to jail because she attempted to vote. A federal judge told her “citizen” did not mean woman, “if we meant woman we would say woman” (so who says we don’t need the ERA?). I think all of us on the coast have feminist ancestors who endured ridicule, derision, distortion, verbal and physical assaults to gain equality. We all have grandmothers, mothers, aunts, sisters, wives, daughters, sweethearts and cousins, women who got thrown in jail for joining strikes, who got fired when asking for equal wages, who were denied access to training and education on the basis of sex, who marched and demonstrated-who still march and demonstrate, did you remember them August 26? Let’s remember our folk heroes, the women who attended the first equal rights conference in New York and published the Seneca Falls Declaration 1848.; the women who joined the Women’s Party that Alice Paul founded, the women who were blue-collar workers and union organizers; let’s remem ber them all with love, let’s celebrate! Let’s celebrate the gutsy Dr. Mary Wright, Congressional Medal of Honor Women, she was a battlefield surgeon for the Union Army. (Fifty years ater Congress decided she hadn’t been brave enough, so they requested the medal be returned; she refused, so Congress denied her military pen sion, unfortunately nobody bothered to take down her exact words but they must have been dillies to make Congress take such strong action against her, after all she was still a veteran, still entitled to her pension. Let’s celebrate exslave Sojourner Truth. Her speech “Ain’t I A Woman” made history when she asked, if women were frail and weak, how come nobody kept her from working as a field hand? And if motherhood and women’s sensitivity precluded them from public life-then where was everybody when her five children were sold into slavery, nobody wor ried about her sensitivity, and ain’t I a women? She sure was, and in another instance she faced down a bible-quoting mob saying she did indeed believe in Jesus but you men didn’t have nothing to do with Jesus-that was between God and Women, no men anywhere . . . A very nice lady. A very tough lady. And let’s not forget Sacajawea, pathfinder for Mr. Lewis and Mr. Clark? or Luch Stone who made up her own wed ding vows and kep her own name; or Jane Adams, not only a great humanitarian but FIRST American to win the Nobel Prize, and who insisted that her husband realize that more than just men were equal; and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abigail Adams; or Amelia Bloomer, who tried so damn hard to make sense out of fashion (now that lady would be in rat heaven to see jeans an acceptable garment.) I think our libraries need at least one set of American Women of History, without it the women I mentioned are just a splash in the ocean. And most of all let’s celebrate the grand old lady, Susan B. Anthony, who said “ Failure Is Impossible.” We believe it! If it takes us another 72 years to get women written into the national Constitution (and consciousness) we’re ready, but I don’t think our politicians are. She didn’t forget the men, either. On men’s liberation she said, “Of course, for are not all men the children of women?” , and most hearten ing and solemn of all, Susan B. Anthony said, “ Until women have the same rights as men on this green earth, there shall never be another season of silence.” Amen. Let’s all support our local day care centers, join the local chapter of National Organization for Women (NOW), sup port our Women’s Crisis Centers and best of all, celebrate our gallant women. Next year—August 26-celebrate! MANIFESTO REDSTOCKINGS I. After centuries of individual and preliminary political struggle, women are uniting to achieve their final liberation from male supremacy. Redstockings is dedicated to building this unity and winning our freedom. II. Women are an oppressed class. Our oppression is total, affecting every facet of our lives. We are exploited as sex objects, breeders, domestic servants, and cheap labor. We are considered inferior beings, whose only purpose is to enhance men’s lives. Our humanity is denied. Our pres cribed behavior is enforced by the threat of physical violence. Because we have lived so intimately with our oppressors, in isolation from each other, we have been kept from seeing our personal suffering as a political condition. This creates the illusion that a woman’s relationship with her man is a matter of interplay between two unique personalities, and can be worked out individually. In reality, every such relationship is a class relationship, and the conflicts between individual men and women are political conflicts that can only be solved collectively. HI. We identify the agents of our oppression as men. Male supremacy is the oldest, most basic form of domination. All other forms of exploitation and oppression are extensions of male supremacy: men dominate women, a few men dom inate the rest. All power structures throughout history have been male-dominated and male-oriented. Men have control led all political, economic and cultural institutions and back ed up this control with physical force. They have used their power to keep women in an inferior position. All men receive economic, sexual and psychological benefits from male supremacy. All men have oppressed women. IV. Attempts have been made to shift the burden of responsibility from men to institutions or to women them selves. We condemn these arguments as evasions. Institutions alone do not oppress; they are merely tools of the oppressor. To blame institutions implies that men and women are equal ly victimized, obscures the fact that men benefit from the subordination of women, and gives men the excuse that they are forced to be oppressors. On the contrary, any man is free to renounce his superior position provided that he is willing to be treated like a woman by other men. V. We regard our personal experience, and our feelings about that experience, as the basis for an analysis of ou common situation. We cannot rely on existing ideologies as they are all products of male supremist culture. We Girl You talk Like the clack The ceaseless keys o f typewriters clicking You clip your head In short convenient shreds Small heads like quail Disappearing in low scrub Flatland bush, have you stepped Inside an old clothing store And seen the colors The fine antique hues Ambergris silk so thin The slightest touch would ravel Did you ever spend a morning In old rosey satin A taupe afternoon? Say, a fog and brandy sundown Some nights so deep In black and bloody velvet No, the colors o f your day Are mohair pink and purple Born o f vats o f dye Your pantyhose Your low-heeled slingback shoes What harsh depression song Was wrenched with the cord o f an iron Drummed to the drone o f a television set And crowned In the entropy o f your body What made you fear to feel Beyond the office panic How fast you type or jump when he enters the room How many times you lie behind A Spick & Span brand-name smile / see your eyes, open and naive A nd weep for both o f us, and all Cemented in this masonry together Chattels o f co-partnership and gold. WOMENS CRISIS SERVICE OP CLATSOP COUNTY A VO LU NTEER O R G A N IZ A T IO N H eLP A N D R EPeRALS Friday P R O V ID IN G F O R V IC T IM S O F FAMILY VIOLENCE AND RAPE we offer • E M O TIO N A L S U P P O R T - • R f P E R A L S TO A G E N C IE S A N D S H t L lC f l H O M E S - • C O M M U N I T Y E D U C A TIO N A. SPEAKERS' • O N G O IN G S U P P O R T K A r GROUPS» COMPLETE CONFIDENTIALITY S 3 2 5 -5 7 3 5 C latsop co unty w o m e n s c r is is s e r v ic e I by the Redstockings Women’s Collective question every generalization and accept none that are not confirmed by our experience. Our chief task at present is to develop female class consciousness through sharing experience and publicly exposing the sexist foundation of all our institutions. Consciousness-raising is not “ therapy,” which implies the the existence of individual solutions and falsely assumes that the male-female relationship is purely personal, but the only method by which we can ensure that our program for liberation is based on the concrete realities of our lives. The first requirement for raising class consciousness is honesty, in private and in public, with ourselves and other women. We also reject the idea that women consent to or are to blame for their own oppression. Women’s submission is not the result of brainwashing, stupidity, or mental illness but of continual, daily pressure from men. We do not need to change ourselves, but to change men. The most slanderous evasion of all is that women can oppress men. The basis for this illusion is the isolation of individual relationships from their political context and the tendency .of men to see any legitimate challenge to their privileges as persecution. VI. We identify with all women. We define our best interest as that of the poorest, most brutally exploited woman. We repudiate all economic, racial, educational or status privileges that divide us from other women. We are determin ed to recognize and eliminate any prejudices we may hold against other women. We are committed to achieving internal democracy. We will do whatever is necessary to ensure that every woman in our movement has an equal chance to participate, assume responsibility, and develop her political potential. VII. We call on all sisters to unite with us in struggle. We call on all men to give up their male privileges and support women’s liberation in the interest of our humanity and their own. In fighting for our liberation we will always take the side of women against their oppressors. We will not ask what is “revolutionary” or “reformist,” only what is good for women. The time for individual skirmishes has passed. This time we are going all the way. 7 JULY, 1969