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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971

1970-12-11 "Ain't I a Woman" Page 2

[hand drawing of woman]
SOJOURNER TRUTH, "THE LIBYAN SIBYL.
"That man over there say that a woman needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helped me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me a best place... And ain't I a women? Look at me. Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me... And ain't I a women? I could work as much and eat as much as a man when I could get it, and bear the lash as well... And ain't I a woman? I have borned thirteen children and seen them most all sold off into slavery. And when I cried out with a mothers grief, none but Jesus heard... And ain't I a woman?"
Sojourner Truth: Speech before the Woman's Rights Convention at Akron, Ohio in 1851.

letters
New Orleans, La. 
November 18, 1970 

Sisters:
We want t apologize and criticize ourselves for distributing the material from "Red Women's Detachment" in New York. Our decision to distribute that material to some of our sisters came in the wake of our having discovered an information gatherer working with us, coming to mis-trust our own sense of things. WE thought we had to treat our "liberalism." Some of the doubts we had about GLF, women's liberation, and our disgust with the roles of SWP_YSA and NOW in the Women's movement were expressed in the RWD papers. Our mistake was to not trust our own ability to express what we had observed. Rather we took, whole and uninvestigated, papers from an unknown group. Also there was a great deal in the papers that we did not agree with, particularly the tone. For this we severely criticize ourselves. Since that time we have found out that the organization (RWD) is actually only two people, and the papers do not grow from or reflect practice. 

There is much to say about our deeper understanding, which would require a long paper, and this is meant to be a letter. The principle of our new thinking is about faith in the people. I realize that I lacked such faith in thinking people had to be pinned against the wall to raise their political consciousness. But the lack of faith is also reflected in a fear of struggling with sisters and brothers. I think most of us have been unwilling to trust our political judgement and growth, and to enter into discussions with people, committed to learn. Too often we are defensive with revolutionary and potentially revolutionary comrades. 

Futhermore, since the summer, we have thought a great deal about the questions we had which led us to distribute the papers. Also, tow of us went to Cuba on the Venceremos Brigade, and there we struggled over the questions we had with other women, white and third world,  and with men, white, third-world, and gay, as well as the Cubans. 

Yet I am convinced that the revo-lutionary love that is necessary for our long struggle will only be born of our growing struggles, to our wishes. That I what I learned in Cuba: unity and love come from struggle, and such struggle must be continual for unity and love to subsist. 

What we must now commit ourselves to is the struggle. We must build a base among women-- the working women, mothers, young girls-- not just our educated sis-ters. We must analyze our conditions, learn about struggles all over the world, develop a strategy in relation to the total revolutionary movement. We must decide on priorities. If we cannot accept the necessity for priorities, we cannot be serious about change. Whether or not there should be a women's movement, whether or not there must be female leadership, whether or not revolutionary men must be clear on "the woman question," there is no question of priorities. Women's involvement and consciousness and growing vanguard role in the movement is an irreversible fact. No, by priorities I mean Who will we organize among, since we cannot organize everywhere? What are our demands? How much can we satisfy personal needs before the revolution such as the kind of relation with men and children we project, life-style, skills, etc., and what do we have to sacrifice in order to build a revolutionary movement and win? 

More than anything, in Cuba, I was humbled by learning the necessity for sacrifice and hard work; how serious and long-term (all our lives) is our task. We learned this form the Cubans as well as the Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Africans, Latin Americans. In our rebellion against woman's traditional role, we have tended to scoff at the virtue of sacrifice, which has been forced upon women and other oppressed peoples. But sacrifice is one of the basic necessities in a rev-volutionary struggle, for a vanguard force, and is a virtue we should transform from its present bourgeois setting, which keeps people down, to a revolu-tionary perspective. Let us not throw out the baby with the bath water. Power to the sisters, Vencermos, 
Love
Roxanne Dunbar. 

page 2 Vol. 1 No. 10

Reprinted from Liberation NFews Service 
Radical Media Bulletin Board 

From: AIN'T I A WOMAN?, PO Box 1169, 
Iowa City, Iowa 55240. 

Dear Sisters and Brothers: 
Although we have used your service and appreciated having it made available to us, we feel we must be honest with you about our concerns. The service in general has not present a very high consciousness of women's oppression or of the movement to-ward the liberation of women. Often a news packet will have several articles on women while articles not dealing specifi-cally with women actually ignore women. One example of this would be your coverage of the Panthers' Constitutional Convention. You mentioned that the Radical Lesbians walked out in one sentence with nothing more about how women were treated. We feel you sincerely try but we feel you must try harder. Women all over the coun-try are starting to think we need a news service of our own if the services now available do not begin to display a higher consciousness when it comes to women. 

From the LNS Women's Caucus: 

Dear Sisters of Ain't I A Woman?:
We have thought a lot about your criti-cism and we accept it. You are right, we haven't had a feminist consciousness throughout the packer. Mos tof us who have been on the staff for a while came to LNS without much political consciousness at all. In the past two years, some of us went from being general shit workers to having a voice in policy and decision making. But the tremendous amount of time we spend at LNS and the fact that LNS developed as part of a male-dominated move-ment, kept us for a long time from develop-in a women's consciousness and expressing it in the packet. 
Now, we are trying to change. All of the new people presently coming to work at LNS are women an many of them do have close ties with the women's movement and have developed their political conscious-ness there. Together we are struggling to make the LNS packet reflect a feminist consciousness. 
Your letter was important to us. We realize that stories like the Panther Convention must be written by women. We are open to further criticism and we hope you don't give up on us, but keep on read-ing the packets. Love, 
LNS Women 
(AIAW -- We have heard that since this re-ply to us was written that some women have left LNS and we don't know at this time how many women are on the LNS staff or how much of a struggle is going on over the above issue. We trust we will be able to tell by reading their news packets in the future.)

[hand drawing]

page 2   Vol. 1 No. 10 ain't I

Saving...

[hand drawing of woman] SOJOURNER TRUTH, "THE LIBYAN SIBYL. "That man over there say that a woman needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helped me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me a best place... And ain't I a women? Look at me. Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me... And ain't I a women? I could work as much and eat as much as a man when I could get it, and bear the lash as well... And ain't I a woman? I have borned thirteen children and seen them most all sold off into slavery. And when I cried out with a mothers grief, none but Jesus heard... And ain't I a woman?" Sojourner Truth: Speech before the Woman's Rights Convention at Akron, Ohio in 1851. letters New Orleans, La. November 18, 1970 Sisters: We want t apologize and criticize ourselves for distributing the material from "Red Women's Detachment" in New York. Our decision to distribute that material to some of our sisters came in the wake of our having discovered an information gatherer working with us, coming to mis-trust our own sense of things. WE thought we had to treat our "liberalism." Some of the doubts we had about GLF, women's liberation, and our disgust with the roles of SWP_YSA and NOW in the Women's movement were expressed in the RWD papers. Our mistake was to not trust our own ability to express what we had observed. Rather we took, whole and uninvestigated, papers from an unknown group. Also there was a great deal in the papers that we did not agree with, particularly the tone. For this we severely criticize ourselves. Since that time we have found out that the organization (RWD) is actually only two people, and the papers do not grow from or reflect practice. There is much to say about our deeper understanding, which would require a long paper, and this is meant to be a letter. The principle of our new thinking is about faith in the people. I realize that I lacked such faith in thinking people had to be pinned against the wall to raise their political consciousness. But the lack of faith is also reflected in a fear of struggling with sisters and brothers. I think most of us have been unwilling to trust our political judgement and growth, and to enter into discussions with people, committed to learn. Too often we are defensive with revolutionary and potentially revolutionary comrades. Futhermore, since the summer, we have thought a great deal about the questions we had which led us to distribute the papers. Also, tow of us went to Cuba on the Venceremos Brigade, and there we struggled over the questions we had with other women, white and third world, and with men, white, third-world, and gay, as well as the Cubans. Yet I am convinced that the revo-lutionary love that is necessary for our long struggle will only be born of our growing struggles, to our wishes. That I what I learned in Cuba: unity and love come from struggle, and such struggle must be continual for unity and love to subsist. What we must now commit ourselves to is the struggle. We must build a base among women-- the working women, mothers, young girls-- not just our educated sis-ters. We must analyze our conditions, learn about struggles all over the world, develop a strategy in relation to the total revolutionary movement. We must decide on priorities. If we cannot accept the necessity for priorities, we cannot be serious about change. Whether or not there should be a women's movement, whether or not there must be female leadership, whether or not revolutionary men must be clear on "the woman question," there is no question of priorities. Women's involvement and consciousness and growing vanguard role in the movement is an irreversible fact. No, by priorities I mean Who will we organize among, since we cannot organize everywhere? What are our demands? How much can we satisfy personal needs before the revolution such as the kind of relation with men and children we project, life-style, skills, etc., and what do we have to sacrifice in order to build a revolutionary movement and win? More than anything, in Cuba, I was humbled by learning the necessity for sacrifice and hard work; how serious and long-term (all our lives) is our task. We learned this form the Cubans as well as the Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Africans, Latin Americans. In our rebellion against woman's traditional role, we have tended to scoff at the virtue of sacrifice, which has been forced upon women and other oppressed peoples. But sacrifice is one of the basic necessities in a rev-volutionary struggle, for a vanguard force, and is a virtue we should transform from its present bourgeois setting, which keeps people down, to a revolu-tionary perspective. Let us not throw out the baby with the bath water. Power to the sisters, Vencermos, Love Roxanne Dunbar. page 2 Vol. 1 No. 10 Reprinted from Liberation NFews Service Radical Media Bulletin Board From: AIN'T I A WOMAN?, PO Box 1169, Iowa City, Iowa 55240. Dear Sisters and Brothers: Although we have used your service and appreciated having it made available to us, we feel we must be honest with you about our concerns. The service in general has not present a very high consciousness of women's oppression or of the movement to-ward the liberation of women. Often a news packet will have several articles on women while articles not dealing specifi-cally with women actually ignore women. One example of this would be your coverage of the Panthers' Constitutional Convention. You mentioned that the Radical Lesbians walked out in one sentence with nothing more about how women were treated. We feel you sincerely try but we feel you must try harder. Women all over the coun-try are starting to think we need a news service of our own if the services now available do not begin to display a higher consciousness when it comes to women. From the LNS Women's Caucus: Dear Sisters of Ain't I A Woman?: We have thought a lot about your criti-cism and we accept it. You are right, we haven't had a feminist consciousness throughout the packer. Mos tof us who have been on the staff for a while came to LNS without much political consciousness at all. In the past two years, some of us went from being general shit workers to having a voice in policy and decision making. But the tremendous amount of time we spend at LNS and the fact that LNS developed as part of a male-dominated move-ment, kept us for a long time from develop-in a women's consciousness and expressing it in the packet. Now, we are trying to change. All of the new people presently coming to work at LNS are women an many of them do have close ties with the women's movement and have developed their political conscious-ness there. Together we are struggling to make the LNS packet reflect a feminist consciousness. Your letter was important to us. We realize that stories like the Panther Convention must be written by women. We are open to further criticism and we hope you don't give up on us, but keep on read-ing the packets. Love, LNS Women (AIAW -- We have heard that since this re-ply to us was written that some women have left LNS and we don't know at this time how many women are on the LNS staff or how much of a struggle is going on over the above issue. We trust we will be able to tell by reading their news packets in the future.) [hand drawing] page 2 Vol. 1 No. 10 ain't I