She's Beautiful When She's Angry Page #8

for women's emancipation.

FOX:
One of the earliest

battles was for child care.

It's in NOW's statement of purpose.

We knew that women could

not hold jobs and be promoted

until society recognized its obligation

to help take care of our children.

And I remember at some of

the early demonstrations,

those who had kids, we

would bring the kids.

People would say things like,

"We can't talk with

you nursing the babies."

We would say, "Show us the day care center.

We'll be happy to bring the

kids to the day care center."

Feminists are accused of

wanting woman out of the home

and leaving children, come what may.

We proclaim that when we

talk about 24-hour child care,

we mean to have it now!

Twenty-four-hour child

care centers today, now,

beginning this school year!

NORTON:
After a great deal of work,

where feminists were in the leadership,

we got close to having

a real child care system.

ROSEN:
In 1971,

amazingly enough, the women's movement,

the Congress, the Senate,

passed a comprehensive child care act.

Most historians don't even remember

that, forget about the rest of society.

And President Nixon vetoed it.

He said, "We don't want to make

our women like Soviet women.

We want women to take care

of their own children."

That was a tragic moment in history.

And we've been paying for it ever since.

It's one thing for women to pay the price.

It's another thing for generations

of children to pay the price as well.

I can think of, frankly,

of no more important issue

that early feminists raised

than educational child care.

Poor people, black women, women on welfare,

are often sterilized against their will.

I mean, that's been known to happen.

The same hospital that wants

to sterilize the black women

will not let a middle class

white woman be sterilized.

If she says, "I don't want

to have any more children,"

they say, "You have to be crazy.

You have to have a medical

reason. You have to be sick.

There has to be something wrong with you."

Those things are two ends

of the same dimension.

It's still the issue of

control over one's body,

whether it's the right to have children

if you want them, or the right not to.

(shouting)

In Puerto Rico,

over one-third of the women on the island

have been sterilized.

That means over one-third of the women

are never going to be able

to hold a baby in their arms.

Women in Puerto Rico

were used as guinea pigs,

as a way of controlling the population.

And with that sterilization program

being brought to New York City,

we actively organized,

raising the consciousness about this.

(chanting in foreign language)

The Young Lords Party

was dedicated to issues

effecting Puerto Ricans

in the United States.

We were the first ones to

begin to articulate an idea

of reproductive justice.

It's just as important for

women in our communities

to be able to have children,

raise children that don't go hungry,

have day care,

as well as have access to birth control

and the right to a safe abortion.

VELEZ:
The kind of developing

feminism that we had in the Young Lords

was make very clear decision

not to separate,

to wage struggle internally

with our brothers.

The men had written this program.

One of the points dealt

with revolutionary machismo.

What an oxymoron.

We weren't having it,

so we formed a women's caucus

and made demands on the

men in the organization.

It was ultimately changed to:

"We want equality for women.

Down with machismo and male chauvinism."

It was important that it's not

just women making that statement.

It should be men saying, "Yo, brother.

That's really a macho attitude you're

taking. You need to check your sh*t."

And that's what happened.

MAN:
What does women's lib mean to you?

MAN #2:
I think they have a lot of

good points. Extremely fine points.

The abortion laws are ridiculous.

The fact that, uh, unequal

pay... that's ridiculous.

- They're not after your job?

- No, I don't think so.

I don't think they can do my job.

I think the no-bra thing is ridiculous.

I'm not so sure about the day centers.

The girls I think of got it over the guys.

They get everything paid

for and everything else.

I don't see what they're

really arguing about.

Men treated them like ladies as

long as they acted like ladies,

and I'm afraid we're

losing that femininity.

By that time, we were so angry

that it wasn't so far,

such a reach to say,

"Why are you sleeping with men?

Aren't you sleeping with the enemy?"

There were a lot of women

very open to the idea

that they should be gay.

The Furies had come to Washington DC.

The Furies was a collective of all women,

most of whom were gay.

My God, what a trip that was.

I'm glad I did it, I really am.

But you know, all these women in one house,

it was like PMS in concert.

We were talking about

what really is a lesbian,

and how should a lesbian live

and we should withdraw all of our

energies from men, all this kind of stuff.

Could we live together in this way

and prove that it could be done?

And I think in many ways it worked,

but in other ways, it didn't.

It became too ideological...

of which I was guilty, you know.

WOLFSON:
I remember

being pregnant with Eric

and sitting there in the

women's liberation office

when the Furies' announcement came

that male infants were the enemy,

that women could not come into

the office with a male child.

That stopped me short. This was

even before I had my own kid.

This is wrong.

Women's liberation had the danger,

where you begin to tell

each other what to do.

You begin to tell each other how to think.

You begin to pressure people...

"You need to leave him."

And there were some women afterwards

that were sorry that that's what they did.

We were inventing things,

and that is a very

interesting edge to be on.

We were still figuring out what

it meant to create a movement

that could help to change the

whole world's perception of women,

challenge patriarchy.

You don't have much help,

and you don't have many

clues about how to proceed.

We were figuring it out,

and it wasn't always easy, and

we didn't always do it right.

Part of the reaction

of first new left women,

and then it spread to other women,

to male-dominated authority,

was not only to view structure

as bad but leaders as bad.

What women were trying to

do was to not have leadership

that was a hierarchy,

but to have leadership that is collective.

I mean, in a certain way it

was modeled on utopian ideas,

but there invariably became some people

who were more listened

to than others, I guess,

is the only way you can say.

And I was one of those people.

Part of this exuberance of women

finding a movement that was gonna

help them find their own voice,

there was also a competition

for leadership at the same time.

'Cause this was, for

many of us, our one shot

to be progressive leaders

and be recognized

and be able to get our ideas heard.

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