Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: The Women’s Liberation Movement, now commonly called “second-wave feminism”, emerged out of the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-War Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, although issues related to women’s rights have always been part of American history. It would be impossible to date the “first” year of the movement, but most scholars would agree that the key years for that label would be 1967, 1968, or 1969. A single year would not mark the absolute inception of a movement, but this essay identifies 1968 as its focus because of key publications like the SCUM Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men, Valerie Solanas) and Notes From the First Year, which is labeled as “the first feminist journal put out by the new Women’s Liberation Movement” (Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt in Notes From the Second Year, 1969), as well as Voice of the Women’s Liberation Movement, “the first national women’s liberation newsletter” (Classical Feminist Writings Archive, www.cwluherstory.org, accessed 12 February 2008). This essay reconsiders primary writings from that important year, particularly the three identified here, in order to more fully understand the genesis and evolution of the subsequent movement. Strategies for identifying stakeholders, organizing public actions, and communicating ideological beliefs are of particular interest for the present study.