She's Beautiful When She's Angry Page #4

us through and made us fearless.

- Start the revolution

- (vocalizing)

WOLFSON:
In Washington, DC,

we had a very, very active

women's liberation movement.

I think we met every single

day for something or other.

WEBB:
We had this organizational structure

with all the different groups.

We didn't want it to be hierarchical,

so we decided on the name Magic Quilt.

(chattering)

In Washington, populated

by working-class women,

they were getting a fraction of the

salaries they felt they should be getting.

They weren't able to

support their children.

So we talked to government

workers, clerical workers.

People talked to nurses.

And all these women

responded so incredibly.

It was like, "Yeah! Yeah!"

SHULMAN:
Pretty soon there were

these meetings going on in New York

where there weren't

just half a dozen women,

but there were 50, 60,

80, even a hundred of them.

On one side of the block there

would be a Redstockings meeting.

On the other side of the block

there would be a WITCH meeting.

ROSEN:
There were conferences.

People drove all night, all

day to get to these conferences.

GIARDINA:
I got up to Sandy Springs,

and here were this bunch of women

talking about how we would

overthrow male supremacy

with this movement.

So we went back to Gainesville right away

and started a women's liberation group.

Somebody else would write a

position paper in another city,

they would send it, we would read it.

ROSEN:
Every time there was a meeting,

we'd see all these pamphlets

that just raced across the country.

Why do women not get paid properly?

Why do women not have child care?

They were consciousness-raising too.

All of these writings were

very precious to all of us

'cause they were the vanguard.

"There are a vast number of women

who are beginning to

wake out of the long sleep

that is known as cooperation of one's

own oppression and self-denigration,

and they are banding together

to make the beginnings

of a new and massive women's

movement in America and in the world,

to establish true

equality between the sexes,

to break the old machine of sexual politics

and to replace it with a more human

and civilized world for both sexes,

and to end the present system's

oppression of men as well as of women."

We had a lot to say. (laughing)

GRIFFIN:
"In answer to a man's question,

'What can I do about women's liberation?'

Wear a dress.

Wear a dress that you made yourself

or bought in a dress store.

Wear a dress, and underneath the dress

wear elastic around your hips

and underneath your nipples.

Wear a dress, and underneath

the dress wear a sanitary napkin.

Wear a dress and wear sling-back

shoes, high-heeled shoes.

Wear a dress with elastic and

a sanitary napkin underneath

and sling-back shoes on your feet

and walk down Telegraph Avenue."

ROSEN:
In the Bay Area,

poetry was a very big part

of our cultural life.

I think on the West Coast we

were accustomed to thinking

that skits and songs and poems

were all part of a movement.

GRIFFIN:
We had the wonderful

precedent of the Beat movement.

Sometimes a thousand people would

show up for a poetry reading.

It was a fantastic experience,

both to be part of the

audience and also to read.

Alta is gonna read first.

"I never saw a man in a negligee.

Two times I wore special fucky gowns.

You know the type... one look and

he turns off the football game.

But they never do.

I was so busy being dainty and

smelling fresh I couldn't hump,

couldn't wiggle, couldn't

sweat, couldn't scream.

You know damn well I couldn't come."

ALTA:
I started writing poetry,

and then I decided I

would start my own press.

I called the press Shameless Hussy

because my mother used that term

for women she didn't approve of,

and no one approved of what I was doing.

In 1969, when I started the press,

only six percent of the books

in America were by women.

This is one of the famous

poets that I published.

This is Ntozake Shange.

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered

Suicide/ When The Rainbow Is Enuf

became a very big deal on Broadway,

and we got famous

because of her

and because of George Sand.

George Sand had been unpublished

in America for about 80 years.

One of the earliest poets that

I published was Susan Griffin.

"This is a poem for a woman doing dishes.

This is a poem for a woman doing dishes.

It must be repeated.

It must be repeated again

and again, again and again.

Because the woman doing dishes,

because the woman doing dishes,

has trouble hearing, has trouble hearing."

Sue and Ruth Rosen and I

were all in a women's group.

We decided that a newspaper

was really essential

for what we were doing.

WOMAN:
I saw the first issue

of It Ain't Me Babe,

and I immediately phoned

them up and I said,

"Hi. I'm an artist. I

want to work with you."

It was so exciting.

So I got into the second issue

of the first women's liberation

newspaper in the country.

Here's one where I drew the women's liberation

movement as the Bride of Frankenstein,

and you see how terrified all

the various hippie types are.

The peace movement guy and the

hippie guy and the black power guy

are really afraid of this

woman who has just emerged.

And she's making the power sign.

This was something so new and so exciting.

And people read us. People read us.

(rock)

WOMAN:
Don't go out in

the street, little girl

And don't go out into town

Now, you don't know who

you'll meet, little girl

There are bad men around

WILLIS:
We were always being

subjected to a double message.

Sex was supposed to be okay now, but

if we were pregnant it was our problem.

There was this idea that

even when abortion was illegal,

middle class women could always get it.

I mean, this was not true at all.

WALTER CRONKITE:
Thousands

of women in the United States

are hospitalized each year

because of post-abortion complications.

5,000 of these women die.

I had a very good friend in high school

who went away to college

and she subsequently

had an illegal abortion and died.

So within three or four

months of going off to college,

she was dead.

GIARDINA:
People tried to self-abort.

My best friend took pills,

and she had the miscarriage

in the dorm shower with the...

Turned on really hard,

hoping the noise would

muffle her cries of pain.

BROWNMILLER:
Some were

able to find an abortionist.

Some had to have the child

that they didn't want.

All those kinds of experiences

we discovered were universal.

(shouting, chanting)

And abortion became

our big, unifying issue.

Free abortion on demand!

Sisterhood is powerful!

Women have a fundamental right

to control their own bodies

and to control their own lives.

- (cheering)

- Yeah!

Our bodies, our lives! Our right to decide!

Not since the suffragettes

fought for the right to vote

has an issue been more

critical to women than abortion.

Separate the church and state!

WOMAN:
Somewhere around 1970

I went to an abortion rights

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