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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971
1970-09-25 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 3
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GETTING IT TOGETHER WE get it together in small groups. The New People's group of WLF gathers on Wednesday night at 9 P.M. Call us at 337-4398 for where, who, why, or any thing we could enlighten you about. The Action Studies Office has women's literature in their library for your use in Room 301, Jefferson Bldg. There are books, pamphlets, underground papers, free leaflets, & this paper. personal to political views from new sisters Coming into a new people's group is like discovering a sanctuary. The absence of male-type influence means to me that we'll be free of some of the games people play. It doesn't take long to relax into the group even though you don't know the other women. We're all here under the same conditions. These words have brought us together: Women.... Liberation. Each of us is a woman; each of us has a personal interest in liberation. Each women's opinion is what we are hearing. A first-timer, a high school student is rapping... her words come slowly at first, deep feelings rising to the surface... then someone nods yes, me too... confidence increases and she finds herself more articulate and more people flash yes, I know, I've been there too... soon we see we've all been there. Are our problems really personal when so many of us have the same problems, the same frustrations, even the same words? I have been annoyed, thwarted, hurt by individuals who these women have never seen; yet they have suffered the same injustices. Maybe those who hurt me would have hurt my sisters in the group for I am "just a woman" too. Imagine just what would be insulting to any woman. Isn't that insult common? It's ---oppression, that's what it is. We must push back oppresssion , all together. We all feal it and our unity gives each of us its strength. Now we know we want to do something as we are together more often we'll find what we that something to be. Betty Friedan couldn't tell me; Marlene Dixon couldn't tell me; my favorite neighbor, who was in Women's Liberation, couldn't tell me; it took my own explosion against the powerlessness I felt as a woman to push me into doing something about my own and my sisters' liberation. What I wanted at first was to be heard and understood and to get this chain off my cradle-to-grave "identity". I got a lot more than I expected. My sisters were more than just nominally that. They were aware, articulate, and angry. (Shoot down my "other-women -are-stupid" stereotype.) For the most part, they were not competitive nor Personal-power-seeking; although I consider myself worth listening to, I have never been heard as attentively as by the women in the Iowa City Women's Liberation front. Age and special interest cease to be barriers. Rarely has analysis become dogmatic; everything is subject to question, including what we thought yesterday. I have never felt so together with a group of people in my life. It's tough to make any changes in your own life and its extraordinarily difficult to do it when it involves making demands on other people-- especially a man you might be close to. You can't even do that by yourself, much less change the whole system, alone. You gotta have sisters for both of those. And that is how you begin. "What Security?" SHE Said These are a series of photos from the women's strike on August 26th in New York. We had just arrived at the Social Security building at Federal Plaza to speak to some officials about the fact that women lost most of their own society security benefits when they married (instead getting part of their husbands). If for example you have worked 5 years, earning less than what your husband did - when you marry you lose the benefits of those years (that you have paid out) & instead are entitled to a share of your husbands benefits. When the pigs saw us coming with our signs they locked all the doors to the Federal Building refusing us entrance and locking out some of their own employees as well. They let the media in who were photographing us from inside. Betty Friedan arrived and at once they told her she could come in with 10 women. We demanded all of us in. When 10 of us did get in they shut the doors. We turned and demanded they let the rest of the women in at which point two pigs came and forcibly threw 2 of us out. Until a woman is allowed equal benefits she should refuse to pay any taxes to a system that exploits her labor. a woman? September 25, 1970 3
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GETTING IT TOGETHER WE get it together in small groups. The New People's group of WLF gathers on Wednesday night at 9 P.M. Call us at 337-4398 for where, who, why, or any thing we could enlighten you about. The Action Studies Office has women's literature in their library for your use in Room 301, Jefferson Bldg. There are books, pamphlets, underground papers, free leaflets, & this paper. personal to political views from new sisters Coming into a new people's group is like discovering a sanctuary. The absence of male-type influence means to me that we'll be free of some of the games people play. It doesn't take long to relax into the group even though you don't know the other women. We're all here under the same conditions. These words have brought us together: Women.... Liberation. Each of us is a woman; each of us has a personal interest in liberation. Each women's opinion is what we are hearing. A first-timer, a high school student is rapping... her words come slowly at first, deep feelings rising to the surface... then someone nods yes, me too... confidence increases and she finds herself more articulate and more people flash yes, I know, I've been there too... soon we see we've all been there. Are our problems really personal when so many of us have the same problems, the same frustrations, even the same words? I have been annoyed, thwarted, hurt by individuals who these women have never seen; yet they have suffered the same injustices. Maybe those who hurt me would have hurt my sisters in the group for I am "just a woman" too. Imagine just what would be insulting to any woman. Isn't that insult common? It's ---oppression, that's what it is. We must push back oppresssion , all together. We all feal it and our unity gives each of us its strength. Now we know we want to do something as we are together more often we'll find what we that something to be. Betty Friedan couldn't tell me; Marlene Dixon couldn't tell me; my favorite neighbor, who was in Women's Liberation, couldn't tell me; it took my own explosion against the powerlessness I felt as a woman to push me into doing something about my own and my sisters' liberation. What I wanted at first was to be heard and understood and to get this chain off my cradle-to-grave "identity". I got a lot more than I expected. My sisters were more than just nominally that. They were aware, articulate, and angry. (Shoot down my "other-women -are-stupid" stereotype.) For the most part, they were not competitive nor Personal-power-seeking; although I consider myself worth listening to, I have never been heard as attentively as by the women in the Iowa City Women's Liberation front. Age and special interest cease to be barriers. Rarely has analysis become dogmatic; everything is subject to question, including what we thought yesterday. I have never felt so together with a group of people in my life. It's tough to make any changes in your own life and its extraordinarily difficult to do it when it involves making demands on other people-- especially a man you might be close to. You can't even do that by yourself, much less change the whole system, alone. You gotta have sisters for both of those. And that is how you begin. "What Security?" SHE Said These are a series of photos from the women's strike on August 26th in New York. We had just arrived at the Social Security building at Federal Plaza to speak to some officials about the fact that women lost most of their own society security benefits when they married (instead getting part of their husbands). If for example you have worked 5 years, earning less than what your husband did - when you marry you lose the benefits of those years (that you have paid out) & instead are entitled to a share of your husbands benefits. When the pigs saw us coming with our signs they locked all the doors to the Federal Building refusing us entrance and locking out some of their own employees as well. They let the media in who were photographing us from inside. Betty Friedan arrived and at once they told her she could come in with 10 women. We demanded all of us in. When 10 of us did get in they shut the doors. We turned and demanded they let the rest of the women in at which point two pigs came and forcibly threw 2 of us out. Until a woman is allowed equal benefits she should refuse to pay any taxes to a system that exploits her labor. a woman? September 25, 1970 3
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