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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971
1971-04-02 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 11
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WaSHingTon to WhaT chEER one wAy When we saw an article by Rita Mae Brown in the latest issue of Off Our Backs, we were delighted. Delighted because she had always been strongly feminist and woman identified, but also because this particular article was a questioning of the Anti-Imperialist Women's Movement -- a political direction that we have always questioned in the AIAW. During our discussion on whether to reprint it or not, we all admitted feeling a little hurt and slighted that she had not thought to send the article to AIAW. We knew very well, however, the reasons: 1) Rita Mae Brown is from the East and most people in the East wouldn't think that the Midwest (if they ever do think about the Midwest) has heard of Women's Liberation and therefore probably don't know about Ain't I A Woman? 2) If they heard of AIAW then they probably don't read it. 3) And if they read it, they probably don't listen to what we are saying. In other words we are invisible. We certainly were invisible to Rita Mae Brown when in the article she accuses the Women's Press of slighting the less glamorous issues such as lesbianism, class and race in the face of the easily handleable topic of anti-imperialism. We began in our first issue thinking about lesbianism and we are still ( turn to pages 6-7). We have continually shunned male politics and instead have devoted our time to analyzing classism and racism in the Women's Movement and struggling to rid AIAW of any such bias. In other words we have painstakingly begun the task of analyzing female culture and the Women's Movement and what direction both should go. We reprint Rita Mae Brown's article because we feel it is another small step in that analysis. Rita Mae Brown's criticism of the women's media in regard to the issue of lesbianism will continue to be valid if papers that do consistently deal with it, such as It Ain't Me Babe and Ain't I A Woman? are ignored. Most of the feedback we've gotten regarding our continual struggle with that issue has been negative, and some encouragement from people like herself who agree with us as to its importance would help keep us going. None of the writing we have done on lesbianism has been reprinted. Ironically, we have only had one article we've done deemed good enough for reprint by eastern and western newspapers. It was our Men's page (predictable) containing things for men to do to raise their consciousness. It was probably the most frivolous thing we have ever done and definitely the worst politically. [hand drawing of woman] *what cheer, Iowa; population: 956. Be local and serve the needs of your women if you want to touch their lives. If you carry articles of international feminist events, e sure to help your readers she how this affects their own lives. III: LESBIANISM Before our movement can advance as a political force with a coherent women's ideology ( not something borrowed form the male left) we need to completely analyze Lesbianism. This is the touchstone of our self-image, the mirror of our oppression ans is such an intense experience that it cuts across racial and class barriers. Living communes hinge on this issue as does all subsequent feminist analysis of sexism. Lesbianism is the one issue that deals with women responding positively to other women as total human beings worthy of total commitment. It is also the one area that demands deep self-criticism. To hide from this question is to hide from yourself. To hide from this question is to doom the movement to a pale imitation of existing leftist ideologies -- ideologies that may have served the needs of dedicated men in Russia in 1997, in China in the 40'd but which cannot and do not serve the needs of women today. Lesbianism is important structurally because confronting it will help us develop techniques we can use to deal with other differences. Every woman can confront the issue of Lesbianism because she has the potential to be a Lesbian. It is more difficult to confront class and racial differences because there is not that commonality. One does not transcend race and class -- you can only come to a clear understanding of those differences in your own life and then use that understanding in conjunction with women from different classes and races to build a solid politic. Lesbianism is the great gut issue, it touches every one of us. If we learn how to deal with such an explosive issue constructively (which we are in the process of doing) then we will have the tools to deal with the other two explosive issues: Race and Class. Lesbianism will provide us with the individual and group skills for constructive confrontation, for struggle, for progress. In other words, we need a foundation to build our house upon and this issue gives us our ideological and technical foundation. We cannot unify unless we deal with this issue first. Those three steps make up what I see as the first phase toward seriousness and toward real change in the lives of all women. Many of us can see beyond this first phase, but we must accomplish these goals before we can move on. They aren't easy goals, maybe that;s why we are tempted to concentrate on distant places. The first step involves nothing less than meeting the survival needs of all women. but we must do this or the Women's Liberation Movement is destined to stay a white, middle class, heterosexual movement -- physically and psychically. If you want to see what comes of that, visit the Women's Party at 144 Constitution Ave., Washington, D.C., the graveyard and the shrine of the last great wave of white, middle class, heterosexual feminism. To advocate other goals at this time, like world wide revolution is to slip from the serious and pragmatic to the imagined and fantastic. We can have women united across the globe but we must start somewhere and that somewhere is with the abovementioned measures, unglamorous though they may be. If we do not commit ourselves to this serious work, if we indulge ourselves in "right on" rhetoric, we create a preposterous lie and its twin, cynicism. The only people capable of living with that kind of unreality will be our self-ordained leaders who have need of the illusion to inflate the ego, who have need of the liturgy for a grim, old form revolution and its heavy death wish. We must begin to achieve concrete results with our energy or we will, as a movement, lapse into disbelief in our own capabilities and our political effectiveness will be limited to a few, self-indulgent media stars trotted out by the male establishment in an orgy of tokenism. We must begin to achieve these concrete ends in order to test ourselves, We will learn a great deal from these early projects -- self reliance, pride and organizational skills. If the management of the state were in our hands tomorrow we would not be ready for it. We must train to handle political responsibility for our own lives and other lives through these kind of outreach projects. You learn by doing. Do it. We will all do it together. This first step is the hardest because because we have so few models or examples for it, another reason why it is so crucial. So we have a lot to learn from a visit to Hanoi, we learn we have to come home to Hoboken. Let's take ourselves seriously and seriously support our sisters in Viet Nam who do believe in us. Let's begin the slow and tedious labor here in our won backyard that will eventually change the world. by Rita Mae Brown a Woman? April 2, 1971 , Page Eleven
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WaSHingTon to WhaT chEER one wAy When we saw an article by Rita Mae Brown in the latest issue of Off Our Backs, we were delighted. Delighted because she had always been strongly feminist and woman identified, but also because this particular article was a questioning of the Anti-Imperialist Women's Movement -- a political direction that we have always questioned in the AIAW. During our discussion on whether to reprint it or not, we all admitted feeling a little hurt and slighted that she had not thought to send the article to AIAW. We knew very well, however, the reasons: 1) Rita Mae Brown is from the East and most people in the East wouldn't think that the Midwest (if they ever do think about the Midwest) has heard of Women's Liberation and therefore probably don't know about Ain't I A Woman? 2) If they heard of AIAW then they probably don't read it. 3) And if they read it, they probably don't listen to what we are saying. In other words we are invisible. We certainly were invisible to Rita Mae Brown when in the article she accuses the Women's Press of slighting the less glamorous issues such as lesbianism, class and race in the face of the easily handleable topic of anti-imperialism. We began in our first issue thinking about lesbianism and we are still ( turn to pages 6-7). We have continually shunned male politics and instead have devoted our time to analyzing classism and racism in the Women's Movement and struggling to rid AIAW of any such bias. In other words we have painstakingly begun the task of analyzing female culture and the Women's Movement and what direction both should go. We reprint Rita Mae Brown's article because we feel it is another small step in that analysis. Rita Mae Brown's criticism of the women's media in regard to the issue of lesbianism will continue to be valid if papers that do consistently deal with it, such as It Ain't Me Babe and Ain't I A Woman? are ignored. Most of the feedback we've gotten regarding our continual struggle with that issue has been negative, and some encouragement from people like herself who agree with us as to its importance would help keep us going. None of the writing we have done on lesbianism has been reprinted. Ironically, we have only had one article we've done deemed good enough for reprint by eastern and western newspapers. It was our Men's page (predictable) containing things for men to do to raise their consciousness. It was probably the most frivolous thing we have ever done and definitely the worst politically. [hand drawing of woman] *what cheer, Iowa; population: 956. Be local and serve the needs of your women if you want to touch their lives. If you carry articles of international feminist events, e sure to help your readers she how this affects their own lives. III: LESBIANISM Before our movement can advance as a political force with a coherent women's ideology ( not something borrowed form the male left) we need to completely analyze Lesbianism. This is the touchstone of our self-image, the mirror of our oppression ans is such an intense experience that it cuts across racial and class barriers. Living communes hinge on this issue as does all subsequent feminist analysis of sexism. Lesbianism is the one issue that deals with women responding positively to other women as total human beings worthy of total commitment. It is also the one area that demands deep self-criticism. To hide from this question is to hide from yourself. To hide from this question is to doom the movement to a pale imitation of existing leftist ideologies -- ideologies that may have served the needs of dedicated men in Russia in 1997, in China in the 40'd but which cannot and do not serve the needs of women today. Lesbianism is important structurally because confronting it will help us develop techniques we can use to deal with other differences. Every woman can confront the issue of Lesbianism because she has the potential to be a Lesbian. It is more difficult to confront class and racial differences because there is not that commonality. One does not transcend race and class -- you can only come to a clear understanding of those differences in your own life and then use that understanding in conjunction with women from different classes and races to build a solid politic. Lesbianism is the great gut issue, it touches every one of us. If we learn how to deal with such an explosive issue constructively (which we are in the process of doing) then we will have the tools to deal with the other two explosive issues: Race and Class. Lesbianism will provide us with the individual and group skills for constructive confrontation, for struggle, for progress. In other words, we need a foundation to build our house upon and this issue gives us our ideological and technical foundation. We cannot unify unless we deal with this issue first. Those three steps make up what I see as the first phase toward seriousness and toward real change in the lives of all women. Many of us can see beyond this first phase, but we must accomplish these goals before we can move on. They aren't easy goals, maybe that;s why we are tempted to concentrate on distant places. The first step involves nothing less than meeting the survival needs of all women. but we must do this or the Women's Liberation Movement is destined to stay a white, middle class, heterosexual movement -- physically and psychically. If you want to see what comes of that, visit the Women's Party at 144 Constitution Ave., Washington, D.C., the graveyard and the shrine of the last great wave of white, middle class, heterosexual feminism. To advocate other goals at this time, like world wide revolution is to slip from the serious and pragmatic to the imagined and fantastic. We can have women united across the globe but we must start somewhere and that somewhere is with the abovementioned measures, unglamorous though they may be. If we do not commit ourselves to this serious work, if we indulge ourselves in "right on" rhetoric, we create a preposterous lie and its twin, cynicism. The only people capable of living with that kind of unreality will be our self-ordained leaders who have need of the illusion to inflate the ego, who have need of the liturgy for a grim, old form revolution and its heavy death wish. We must begin to achieve concrete results with our energy or we will, as a movement, lapse into disbelief in our own capabilities and our political effectiveness will be limited to a few, self-indulgent media stars trotted out by the male establishment in an orgy of tokenism. We must begin to achieve these concrete ends in order to test ourselves, We will learn a great deal from these early projects -- self reliance, pride and organizational skills. If the management of the state were in our hands tomorrow we would not be ready for it. We must train to handle political responsibility for our own lives and other lives through these kind of outreach projects. You learn by doing. Do it. We will all do it together. This first step is the hardest because because we have so few models or examples for it, another reason why it is so crucial. So we have a lot to learn from a visit to Hanoi, we learn we have to come home to Hoboken. Let's take ourselves seriously and seriously support our sisters in Viet Nam who do believe in us. Let's begin the slow and tedious labor here in our won backyard that will eventually change the world. by Rita Mae Brown a Woman? April 2, 1971 , Page Eleven
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