Firebrand Feminism

FIREBRAND
FEMINISM
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THE RADICAL LIVES OF

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TI-GRACE ATKINSON
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KATHIE SARACHILD
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ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ
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AND DANA DENSMORE

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Breanne Fahs
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University of Washington | Seattle
F.Fahs, Firebrand Feminism.indd 3 2/9/18 1:11 PM

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Copyright © 2018 by the University of Washington Press

Printed and bound in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Fahs, Breanne, author.
Title: Firebrand feminism : the radical lives of Ti-Grace Atkinson, Kathie Sarachild,
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Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, and Dana Densmore / Breanne Fahs.

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Description: Seattle : University of Washington, [2018] | Includes bibliographical

references and index. |
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Identifiers: LCCN 2017048934 (print) | LCCN 2017053559 (ebook) |

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ISBN 9780295743172 (ebook) | ISBN 9780295743158 (hardcover : alk. paper) |

ISBN 9780295743165 (pbk. : alk. paper)
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Subjects: LCSH: Feminism. | Radicalism.

Classification: LCC HQ1155 (ebook) | LCC HQ1155 .F34 2018 (print) |
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DDC 305.42—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017048934
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For my mother, for wanting willful daughters—

May all mothers be so brave and generous.
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It is well to note that from radicalism has flowed all that

makes life better today than yesterday. It is now, as in the
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past, the only force capable of leading the world out of its
night of hunger, hatred and fear. Humanity advances over
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a path blazed by radicals and stained with their blood. So

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long as there is injustice there will be radicals. The name

itself is the proudest title of free men and women.
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—Industrial Workers of the World

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CONTENTS
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Preface�� xi
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INTRODUCTION: The Necessity of Radical Feminism�� 3
1 Feminist Rage�� 36
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2 Radicalism and Refusal�� 58

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3 Tactics�� 81
4 Sex, Love, and Bodies�� 111

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5 Women as a Social and Political Class�� 138

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6 Intergenerational Dialogues and the Future

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of Radical Feminism�� 161

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EPILOGUE�� 190
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Acknowledgments�� 195
Notes�� 199
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Bibliography�� 233
Index�� 247
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PREFACE
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I first met each of these women—Ti-Grace, Kathie, Roxanne, and Dana—

when I contacted them in 2008 for an interview for my biography of
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SCUM Manifesto author and would-be assassin Valerie Solanas. As radical

feminists, they had a certain fondness for Valerie’s writings, particularly
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her anger toward men and “Daddy’s girls” and her ongoing insistence on
the twin impulses of destruction and revolution. We began our intergen-
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erational conversations with a shared vision for a feminism full of fire, one
defined not by careful institutional progress but by hot-temperedness,
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impatience, outrage, and willfulness.

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During our many conversations, I realized fairly quickly that each of

these women was a force of nature in her own right, defining and shap-
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ing decades worth of thinking and theorizing about radical feminism

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from its inception in the late 1960s through today. Their astonishing
bravery, hilariously dry humor, unabashed intensities, curious overlaps
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and disagreements with each other, and fresh insights about feminism,
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politics, and sexuality ignited an urgent feeling in me that more readers

needed to experience their world—the world as it could be, as it might
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be, with full-frontal firebrand feminism at the helm. And so, this book
is an extension of, and reflection on, parts of their lives and works. It is a
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testament to the collective energies of second-wave radical feminist orga-

nizing and to these women’s unique roles in shaping what would become
a powerhouse social movement with deep implications for today’s femi-
nist politics.
xi

The five of us have become, perhaps unwittingly, fellow travelers over
these past decades, as their friendships span fifty years, while my friend-
ship with them spans a mere three presidencies (and many hours of
emails, phone calls, and conversations). That they have given far more to
me than I have given to them is evident in every page of this book; I am
the younger radical, trying to absorb their lessons, at times foolish or
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hasty or full of blind spots, seeing their words and works through my
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own privileged lens of a women’s studies undergraduate and graduate

education and a long-term tenured women’s studies professorship. I
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have spent years sitting and listening, writing down, recording, tran-
scribing, wondering about, laughing with, studying, and thinking about
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these women. Their uncommon generosity of time and spirit, of humor

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and energy, of goodwill and insight, permeates the stories they tell here.
They remind us that academic feminist work must ground itself in the
lived realities of women’s lives (and can never refuse self-criticism and
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the push to listen more to activists), that marching on the streets and
barricading doorways matters as much as—if not more than—speech
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and text, that women’s studies began as the scholarly wing of an activist
movement and thus cannot constantly seek institutional approval and
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stories of “respectability.”
Directly or indirectly, they have taught me many lessons: Cowardice
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is one of the most dangerous forces in the world (and cowardly liberals
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should always be treated with suspicion). One must always write with
blood or else not write at all. Sisterhood is far more than a pithy term
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for female bonding—it can, and has, changed the world. All revolutions
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require fun and laughter. Learning across generations not only sustains
us but ensures that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. Radical
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change requires risk, loss, defiance, sacrifice, and setbacks, and is rarely
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recorded by historians in any depth or nuance (especially for the tales of

radical women). And the stories we already know about feminism—and
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radical feminism in particular—are wholly, permanently incomplete.

To tell the stories in this volume, I have chosen to foreground their
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first-person accounts in the form of oral history. Because oral history

seeks to both record and preserve oral testimony of historical events expe-
rienced firsthand, and because oral histories rely upon people’s accounts
of the past as connected to the present, this book relies heavily on the
xii Preface

preservation of these women’s words in order to craft a narrative of radi-
cal feminism and its relevance to contemporary feminisms. Oral histories
allow for free-flowing conversations and long passages of verbatim quotes
that showcase these women speaking in their own words about their his-
tories; thus, the impressions, ideas, verbiage, tone, and conversation styles
are determined by them rather than me.1 These methods provide a unique
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framework for viewing the stories and testimonies of radical feminists

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active during the second wave (late 1960s and early 1970s).
Nevertheless, the relationship between their stories and my framing
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of their stories remains fraught with possibilities for misunderstandings

and misinterpretations, though I have worked to minimize these when-
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ever possible. Oral histories ask that we become listeners, letting people
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tell their stories. I embrace here the notion that these following chapters
reflect the way that people select, recall, and reframe their experiences
in light of current sociopolitical and biographical contexts; they speak
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here to us forty to fifty years after the second wave. As Susan Geiger
wrote, “There is an interesting parallel, I think, between Jacqueline Hall’s
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call ‘for a historical practice that turns on partiality, that is self-conscious

about perspective’ and the stories and life stories oral historians relate,
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which are themselves partial, perspectival, and self-conscious. Feminist

oral history methodology reflects and values these parallel activities—
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the practice of the researcher, the practice of the oral historian. Neither
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practice stands for the other, but if she is careful, the feminist histori-
an’s own interpretive product will encompass radical, respectful, newly
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accessible truths, and realities about women’s lives.”2 These accounts are
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always partial, always shifting, always subject to revision and reframing,

but they are still stories worth telling, arguably more necessary now than
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ever before.
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While there is a small (and mighty) literature on the radical wing of

second-wave feminism,3 most of the historical studies use archival and
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written documents as sources of information and only a few pieces rely

on a mixture of archival and interview techniques to trace the tactics,
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goals, and structures of radical feminist organizations. These works typi-

cally do not place central importance on the words, ideas, impressions,
and sentiments of individual activists.4 This book uniquely integrates a
look at some of the early documents of radical feminism with extended
Preface xiii

oral histories. For ten years, I have interacted with these women in mul-
tiple ways: lengthy interviews, conversations in private between pairs of
them and me, public forums where we debated radical feminism together,
their public lectures at recent conferences, and keynote speeches deliv-
ered to university audiences. These multiple layers of interactions have
led to fruitful discussions in a wide variety of contexts. I have also
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engaged in follow-up emails and phone calls to clarify and fact-check,

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thus enriching this book with a variety of conversations in a variety of

times and places. The richness of these transcripts cannot be overstated;
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we are, the five of us, thinking together, making sense of the immensity
of the past fifty years.
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While I could have chosen many different women to give oral histo-
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ries of early radical feminism, I selected these four women for multiple
reasons. First, each of them contributed substantially to the birth of US
radical feminism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and each has an exten-
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sive body of provocative written work—mostly in the form of transcribed

speeches and short essays—from which I can establish context for their
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archive of radical feminist thought. Second, as I had originally asked to

interview them as part of a larger biographical project on Valerie Solanas—
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now published as Valerie Solanas: The Defiant Life of the Woman Who Wrote
SCUM (and Shot Andy Warhol) with Feminist Press (2014)—I knew that
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they had all supported someone who symbolized and embodied women’s
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rage. They did not shy away from difficult women and the transforma-
tional power of anger. Third, I wanted them to have a preexisting relation
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ship with each other so that the four of them had some shared contexts
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during the second wave (e.g., overlaps in cities, organizations, and time-
frames). Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dana Densmore were, and continue
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to be, good friends, and this bond led to interesting conversations when
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I interviewed them together. Similarly, Ti-Grace Atkinson and Kathie

Sarachild had a history together that allowed for much mutual affection
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and a stimulating conversation based on that history. The dialogue con-

tained in this book enriches the stories and narratives they provide, as
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they riff on each other’s perspectives and debate different events. Finally,
each of them, to differing degrees, rarely gave interviews to researchers
or journalists and had some sense of wariness about appearing in the
public eye despite each of them having major roles in radical feminist
xiv Preface

organizations. I had to earn their trust (a difficult process at times), but
the result is that we hear in this book from crucial voices of the early
radical feminist movement. This unprecedented access to their lives and
thoughts provided stories, texts, and conversations that help to fill in
some of the gaps of second-wave radical feminist history, while also
showcasing how their reflections provide a useful bridge to today’s femi-
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nist dialogues.
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This book could be used as a roadmap for early second-wave radical

feminist thinking, and in that sense, it provides signposts for moving
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between scholarship and activism; maps the terrain of many key issues
like sex, love, and memory; provides warning labels for what to not repeat
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in the future; and gives a topography of the highs and lows of early radi-
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cal feminist organizing. We learn about tactical decisions and major

shifts in theoretical and philosophical thinking about rage, radicalism,
and refusal, allowing us to better map out our next moves in light of this
of
history. The book highlights ways to use old tools differently (e.g., explor-
ing the utility of anger) and new tools more creatively (e.g., reimagining
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trans rights). We can better see the many miles traveled by older radical
feminists, giving younger radical feminists better insight into how to pre-
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pare, what to avoid, what to expect, and how to archive and document
these journeys. Most importantly, these stories have deep reverberations
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in the troubling political times we find ourselves in today. They remind

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us that change is not only possible but necessary; that we have an obliga-
tion to fight for and alongside each other; and that bravery, anger, and
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disobedience are values we must cultivate in ourselves and in future gen-

to
erations if we are to prevail over the ever-strengthening forces of misog-

yny, white supremacy, and patriarchy.
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Preface xv

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FIREBRAND FEMINISM
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Introduction
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The Necessity of Radical Feminism

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Imagine a world—or summon it back to memory—when a husband

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was required to countersign a wife’s application for a credit card, a

bank loan, or automobile insurance, when psychiatrists routinely
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located the cause of an unsatisfactory sex life in the frigid, castrating,

ballbreaking female partner, when abortion was an illegal, back-alley
procedure, when rape was the woman’s fault, when nobody dared
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talk about the battery that went on behind closed doors, or could file
a complaint about sexual harassment. And remember the hostile
humor that reinforced the times: the endless supply of mother-in-law
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jokes, the farmer’s daughter, the little old lady in tennis shoes, the
bored receptionist filing her nails, the dumb blond stenographer
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perched on her boss’s lap, the lecherous tycoon chasing his buxom
secretary around the desk. A revolution was brewing, but it took a
visionary to notice.
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—Susan Brownmiller, In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution

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g to
“Let’s order the one with ten scoops! We need to go all

in,” Ti-Grace Atkinson says gleefully to Kathie Sarachild. We sit together
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at a Cajun restaurant (an homage to Ti-Grace’s roots in Louisiana) in late

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March of 2013 in Phoenix, Arizona, where three of us have, for the last
two hours, covered a dizzying array of subjects: disappointments about
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politics, getting old, adorable cats with tumors, the importance (or unim-
portance) of orgasms, class action lawsuits, the best and worst of New
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Orleans cooking, why I should no longer read or trust the New York Times,
ideal masturbation techniques, and the horrors of marriage.
There are times, in conversations like these, when I find it unimag
inably confusing to merge the radicalness of these activists’ lifetime

commitment to politics with their rather unassuming and nonthreaten-
ing physical appearances. These are old women, after all, with small stat-
ures, worries about osteoporosis, fears about paying their bills with
limited Social Security income, and rather finicky schedules and prefer-
ences. In this country, we invisibilize, trivialize, and discard the lives of
older women who look like them. But, as this book shows, these women
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are also still radicals with powerhouse minds, outrageous courage, blunt
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and sarcastic ways of speaking, and at times shockingly prescient and

astute observations about the world. They are cat ladies, sure, but the cat
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is named Ruthless.1
Dessert has now arrived. The server delivers an absurd-looking sun-
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dae, ten scoops wide, slathered with chocolate and caramel sauce. Ti-Grace
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and Kathie, side by side in the booth, dive in, laughing and grinning. I sit
across from them with a surreal sense of contradiction and awe. Earlier
that day we sat together in a public forum discussing and debating the
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institutionalization of feminism, abortion rights, violence, radicalism, and

revolution. I can rightly argue that I have rarely encountered two more
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serious women—serious about their work, serious about activism, seri-

ous about social change and the heavy price each has paid for trying to
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enact such change, serious about radical feminism and women’s libera-
tion. These are women who have put their bodies on the front lines of
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protests, screamed in the faces of authority and power, undermined and

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“unworked,” and organized and recruited women from diverse back-

grounds to care about the status of women in the world. They have been
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bullied, harassed, and imprisoned for their words and actions.

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Historians of radical feminism have often highlighted divisions,

infighting, conflicts, and struggles for coherence between and within dif-
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ferent “waves” of feminist movements.2 They have emphasized the many

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ways that the women’s movement fractured and split apart (and, argu-
ably, fell into disrepair and sputtered out). They have sought to under-
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stand why so many different groups emerged as offshoots and offspring

of other groups, why so many groups imploded or became irrelevant, and
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the benefits and weaknesses of having a unified or splintered women’s

movement.3 This is not my interest. On the contrary, I am interested in
the kinds of provocative conversations I had at that Cajun restaurant, and
the ways that these women—different in their approaches to thinking
4 Introduction

but deeply respectful of each other’s positions—came together to share
such affection and joy over their rather extreme dessert. I am interested
in the delight I feel when I speak to them, the profound and moving
stories they have told me, and the ways in which their narratives high-
light the central relevance of radical feminism to contemporary feminist
politics. They shaped their own history, took matters into their own
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hands; consequently, they matter in a historical sense, but they are also
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living subjects of their own stories, driven to imagine beyond their time
and place. Their ideas continue to pulsate with vitality and audacity.
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Radical Feminism and Its Origins

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It is incredible to me that any woman should consider the fight for

full equality won. It has just begun. There is hardly a field, economic
or political, in which the natural and unaccustomed policy is not to
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ignore women. . . . Unless women are prepared to fight politically

they must be content to be ignored politically.
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—Alice Paul, “Women’s Party to Call a Convention”

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Radicalism means, most basically, “going to the roots,” or looking to dig

deeper and deeper into the foundations of something in order to under-
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stand its system, structure, or core. Radical feminism, then, seeks to look
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at the roots of the structural and systemic qualities of patriarchy and

sexism, paying particular attention to how seemingly private experiences
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(e.g., sexuality, the body, the family, emotions, or spirituality) connect to

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broader structures that disempower women and limit their freedom and
autonomy. Radical feminists of the 1970s took on, for example, topics as
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diverse as abortion, love, domestic housework, sexuality and celibacy,

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lesbianism, self-defense, media representation, daycare centers, and, in

one famous episode, the eroticism of the Virgin Mary. (Ti-Grace was
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physically assaulted by Patricia Buckley Bozell, sister of noted conserva-

tive William F. Buckley, in March 1971 at Catholic University, for discuss-
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ing the Virgin Mary’s sexuality and suggesting that the Virgin Mary was
more “used” than if she had participated in a sexual conception.4) Sec-
ond-wave radical feminists in the early 1970s were, as this example
showed, interested in challenging the core foundations of sexism, and
Introduction 5

were largely unafraid of confrontation, personal risk, and challenges to
traditional thinking about gender and sexuality.
While the material in chapter 2 (“Radicalism and Refusal”) illumi-
nates this complexity between radical and liberal feminism in far more
nuance and detail, it is crucial to note that radical feminism differs
quite dramatically from its more liberal counterpart.5 Liberalism in gen-
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eral focuses on individual equality and liberty, with special attention to

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concepts like freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of reli-

gion, democracy, and civil rights. The freedoms of religion, thought, and
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expression form the core of liberal beliefs.6 By extension, modern politi-

cal liberalism, which began with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s policies
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of the New Deal, emphasized caring about the welfare of the people and
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working toward equality for all.7 (Liberalism can also, of course, veer
into an embrace of the free market with an emphasis on individual
choices within the free market economy, also known as “neoliberalism”;
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this rhetoric has infused ideas of “choice” and “agency” with hyperindi-
vidualistic notions of consumerism.) As Michael Walzer wrote when
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critiquing liberalism, “Each individual imagines [herself] absolutely free,

unencumbered, and on [her] own—and enters society, accepting its obli-
as
gations, only in order to minimize [her] risks.”8

This rhetoric of political liberalism then extended into the core foun-
h
dations of liberal feminism, which, unlike radical feminism, often focuses

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on individual “empowerment” without looking at the bigger social struc-

tures that systematically restrict and subjugate women. Mary Becker
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wrote, “Part of the problem is the failure of feminists, particularly femi-

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nists working for legal change, to look at the big picture: a social structure
that is male-centered, male-identified, male-dominated, and which valo-
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rizes qualities narrowly defined as masculine.”9 While many groups of

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feminists took seriously the struggles of working-class women (particu-

larly socialist feminists, anti-imperialist feminists, and postcolonial femi-
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nists), most liberal feminism emphasized, particularly at the outset, the

plight of more formally affluent women, as bell hooks has aptly critiqued:
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“From the very onset of the women’s liberation movement these women
[working-class and poor women] were suspicious of feminism because
they recognized the limitations inherent in its definition. They recognized
the possibility that feminism defined as social inequality with men might
6 Introduction

easily become a movement that would primarily affect the social standing
of white middle- and upper-class groups while affecting only in a very
marginal way the social status of working-class and poor women.”10
Liberal feminists emphasized the role of equality between men and
women and “within-system” social change, while radical feminism empha
sized structural inequalities and targeted the entire sociopolitical system
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that enabled women’s oppression. For liberal feminists, incremental

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changes to norms and attitudes aimed at repairing gender biases—such as

achieving pay equity, promoting women in workforces, breaking glass ceil
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ings, getting more women into positions of power (governmental and cor
porate), and fighting back against hostile forms of sexism—constituted
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central goals. The National Organization for Women (NOW), which

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once included numerous radical feminists in its ranks (and even in its
presidency), now promotes a largely liberal feminist agenda rather than a
radical feminist one; its radical demands have largely been forgotten and
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ignored. NOW also focuses much of its resources on making electoral

changes in the government, and mostly does not challenge the basic prem-
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ises and foundations of gender inequalities. When it was founded, NOW

sought to end job discrimination and fight for equal pay alongside health
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care, child care, and pregnancy leave. Its goals remain similar today—
within-system change is at the fore, though its scope has expanded to
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include issues that affect a wider range of women, including disability

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rights, global feminisms, and antiracism.11

To push the metaphor a bit further, liberal feminists seek to repair
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the existing house without tearing down or examining its foundational

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structures, while radical feminists want to look at the root of the prob-
lems in the foundations of the house. If the house is built on shaky foun-
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dations, they may even want to burn the house to the ground and rebuild
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it altogether. Liberal feminists resist such dramatic gestures and thus

often serve as the voices of moderate social change (and are remarkably
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fickle when it comes to political struggle). Liberals tend to follow the lead
of mass public sentiment (for example, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary
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Clinton explicitly and unequivocally supported same-sex marriage until

years after the 2008 election, when it became more fashionable, and they
never explicitly talked about it as right or moral prior to 2012).12 Radicals,
on the other hand, often revel in unfashionable ideas long before they
Introduction 7

become normalized or mainstreamed; they do not mind offending people
and will strongly call out injustices that people do not want to publicly
address or rectify. Their commitment to understanding the roots of patri-
archy means that they typically address difficult or painful subjects with-
out the luxury of having mainstream audiences already in agreement
with them. The claim made by the Industrial Workers of the World (an
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early twentieth-century union, also known as the Wobblies, that wanted

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unions for the entire working class and preferred direct action over elec-
toral techniques) that “Humanity advances over a path blazed by radicals
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and stained with their blood” is true both literally and metaphorically.
Radical feminists focus on the broader structures of power that under
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lie, constrict, and inform women’s oppressed social status. As second-

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wave radical feminist Ellen Willis wrote, “We argued that male supremacy
was in itself a systemic form of domination—a set of material, institu-
tionalized relations, not just bad attitudes. Men had power and privilege
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and like any other ruling class would defend their interests; challenging
that power required a revolutionary movement of women. And since the
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male-dominated left would inevitably resist understanding or opposing

male power, the radical feminist movement must be autonomous, create
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its own theory and set its own priorities.”13 She went on to write, “We
will never organize the mass of women by subordinating their concrete
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interests to a ‘higher’ ideology. To believe that concentrating on women’s

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issues is not really revolutionary is self-depreciation. Our demand for

freedom involves not only the overthrow of capitalism but the destruc-
g
tion of the patriarchal family system.”14

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This complex description of radical feminism and its differences

from liberal feminism raises an even more important question: What is
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at stake in radical feminist activism? This book gives details about the
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lives of four radical feminist women and the seriousness of their work
and legacies, but it also showcases the costs of that work. Several of them
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were imprisoned for their activism and lost jobs because of it. They often
lived without the financial safety net of a long-term partner (a price they
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pay now more than ever as they rely on Social Security incomes that dis-
advantage older unmarried women). They paid the price for their work in
time (all of them devoted years of their lives to activism and organizing),
including time away from their children, or not having children at all.
8 Introduction

Attacking the foundational principles of American society—greed, indi-
vidualism, patriarchy, media, family, church, et cetera—required enor-
mous energy and commitment, including personal and reputational risk.
These women were belittled in mainstream news media—Time ran a piece
that argued “Many of the new feminists are surprisingly violent in mood
and seem to be trying, in fact, to repel other women rather than attract
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them . . . ‘Watch out! You may meet a real castrating female,’”15 while the
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New York Times said of Ti-Grace, “Miss Atkinson is 29, unmarried, good-
looking (in The Times, she has been described as ‘softly sexy,’ which is not
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necessarily a compliment to a feminist)”16 —or, more painfully, put down

by fellow feminists of their time. Still more, they continue to be trashed by
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many contemporary feminists, often enduring accusations of being out

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of touch, trans-exclusionary, moody, or irrelevant (see chapter 5, “Women

as a Social and Political Class,” for more details about this).
Perhaps most dangerously, as feminism has become more institu
of
tiona lized—in the form of women’s studies/gender studies programs

and departments, more women in government, and more corporate lead-
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ers (and the deeply problematic “Lean In” movement17)—feminism has

become more invested in notions of respectability (and, by association,
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patience and likability). This may signal a death knell to radical whistle-
blowing, rambunctious public activism, and the politics and ethics of
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troublemaking. Feminism began as a social movement based on collec-

in
tive activism, but has arguably morphed in recent years further into dis-
courses about neoliberal individual “choice” (e.g., feminism enables the
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choice to wear makeup, engage in BDSM, get married in a red dress, or

to
shave pubic hair), thus obscuring the radical edge of feminism with the
thick goo of “girl power” and “women’s empowerment.”18 (I have often
n
written about the crushing pressures on women to remove their body

Pr
hair, and women’s overwhelming compliance with this norm, as one such
example of how norms of respectability get imposed onto women.19)
es
Within academia, feminists must engage in the same sorts of rhetorics,

politics, and priorities as other university professors, seeking “respecta-
s
bility” through highly individualistic publications, conference presenta-

tions, and (too often) a distancing from radical social activism. As Roxanne
Dunbar-Ortiz said in a public plenary talk she gave with Dana Densmore
and me, “We all three here are activist-scholars, militant feminists, trying
Introduction 9

to embody all of those things together without breaking them down sep-
arately, which hasn’t been great for a successful career in academia.”20
And yet, if we are true to the foundational principles of feminism itself,
ones that value concrete social change and an unraveling of assumptions
about gender and power, we would understand that activism, scholar-
ship, and militant politics must go hand in hand; stripping any of those
U
aspects away, or distancing from feminist praxis, would insult and under-
ni
mine the core values of feminism itself.

We need radicalism—its difficulty, its provocations, its challenges to
ve
notions of respectability and politeness, its wildness, its insistence that we

keep on digging—more today than ever before. And, more specifically, we
rs
need radical feminists in this particular social and political moment, with
ity
the ascendancy of xenophobia, sexism, racism, white supremacy, and patri-

archy saturating the landscape of American politics. We need persistent
complainers, incessant troublemakers, and a threat of disruption to the
of
status quo. Without the presence of radical feminists, gender norms stay
static, economics create greater gender gaps in salaries, and few feminist
W
laws are passed.21 Without knowing some of these histories of our femi-
nist foremothers, we risk losing their knowledge—or seeing second-wave
as
feminism as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, rather than as Florynce

Kennedy and Valerie Solanas. We need edges and roughness, controversy
h
and contradiction, arguments and rage, persistence and guts. We must

in
refute cowardice and simplicity, politeness and popularity, respectability

and self-promotion. Ultimately, as these women’s narratives show, we
g
need to fight against discourses of patience and moderation, insulation

to
and unity, seeing these as outgrowths of those unwilling to take risks

and too willing to hide behind the shifting tides of political sentiment
n
without trying to change those sentiments. Instead, we need firebrand

Pr
feminism—troublemaking, agitating, revolutionary, and hotheaded.

es
Why Firebrand Feminism?

s
This book features the politics, lives, and works of four radical feminist
women—Ti-Grace Atkinson, Kathie Sarachild, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz,
and Dana Densmore—whose activism, leadership, organizing, and political
10 Introduction

theories changed the trajectory of early US feminist politics by pushing
the women’s movement into a more radical posture. Together, we look
back at the histories of second-wave radical feminism while also looking
forward to contemporary feminist conversations and the relevance of
early second-wave radical feminism to those conversations. Their “take
no prisoners” stance about everything from academia to liberalism, “girl
U
power” to trans studies, indigenous struggles to the brainwashing of

ni
women, weaves together the core of this book. In this sense, this book is
far more than a story about these women—although much of their brav-
ve
ery, ferocity, intelligence, and personality are clearly on display here—as

our conversations serve as a backdrop for an extended conversation about
rs
the impact of early radical feminism on contemporary feminist thought.

ity
Ultimately, this book showcases their provocative and “still ahead of

their time” thoughts alongside the pressing challenges of creating oral
histories of radical feminism.
of
The question of why this book, and why now, also haunts the dialogues
showcased in these subsequent chapters. Surprisingly few texts have
W
meaningfully documented the history of radical feminism in the United

States, and those that do exist focus primarily on anthologizing classic
as
radical feminist writings or recounting events rather than framing radical

feminism as something with clear connections to contemporary (third-
h
wave and beyond) feminisms. Few scholars have spoken at length with
in
radical feminist women. Even more, the history of feminism has clearly
prioritized the histories and lived experiences of liberal (that is, incremen-
g
tal, organization-based, institutional) feminisms rather than their more

to
radical counterparts. The continued, celebrated success of people like Glo-

ria Steinem22 and Robin Morgan often serves to smooth out the edges of
n
radical feminism and to, as Ti-Grace Atkinson would say, “defang” the
Pr
movement.23 Second-wave radical feminists today are often remembered

(if they are remembered at all) through a lens of dismissal (e.g., “trans-
es
phobic”), rejection (e.g., “too white”), condescension (e.g., “silly” or “too

narrow”), bafflement (e.g., “Why karate?”), and uncertainty (e.g., “What’s
s
the difference?”). I am interested in rejecting these overly simplistic mis-

characterizations of radical feminism by instead highlighting some of its
edges, complicating existing narratives of feminism and radical feminism,
Introduction 11

threading new memories into our existing stories of radical feminism,
and carving out space for more contentious or difficult stories of the late
1960s feminist movement.
The oral histories presented here showcase the determination of early
radical feminists to shape the conversation about a variety of subjects
that would eventually come to define third-wave feminisms: sexuality,
U
making an archive, body politics, indigenous rights, trans rights, refusals,

ni
intersectionality, and the importance of feminist rage. These four women

still have much to say about the directions (past and present) of femi-
ve
nism and the movements aligned with it. And, though they all consider
themselves colleagues and allies, they differ from each other in meaning-
rs
ful and productive ways. These points of contention and overlap inject
ity
the book with a spirited, controversial, and sometimes combative flair,

as the activists not only explore their differences with each other, but
also work toward refuting the premises of liberal feminism in its entirety.
of
They also skewer traditions of conservatism, reminding us that the forces

of fascism (which often arrive with a happy, friendly face) and oppres
W
sion are never totally out of reach. Further, these women embody the
assertion that women must act collectively and boldly in times of great
as
social stress. Together, we examine women who resisted (and how they
resisted) in order to think about, study, and understand the contributions
h
of radical feminism. They reflect on, and fire back about, the conditions
in
of late-1960s feminism as it speaks to today’s world.

Firebrand Feminism showcases the stories and reflections of four women
g
who have led, by all accounts, extraordinary lives. We travel widely in these
to
conversations: through “red-diaper” childhoods, adventures with Sand-

inistas, protests, sit-ins, freedom rides, marches on the Pentagon, sepa-
n
ratist communes, the halls of academia, and militant coalition-building.

Pr
In doing so, we see that these women, along with their feminist com-
rades, inhabited and transformed the history of women’s rights, sexual-
es
ity, love, friendship, science, and politics, and they did so largely without
the recognition they deserve. In essence, this book addresses the trials
s
and tribulations of being a radical feminist over a fifty-year cycle of ebbs

and flows of feminist mobilizations. It is meant as a way to promote dia-
logue and discourse, provoke responses and discussions, and challenge
oversimplified constructions of radical feminism.
12 Introduction

This book explores six key themes: Feminist Rage (chapter 1); Radi-
calism and Refusal (chapter 2); Tactics (chapter 3); Sex, Love, and Bodies
(chapter 4); Women as a Social and Political Class (chapter 5); and Inter-
generational Dialogues and the Future of Radical Feminism (chapter 6).
I chose these chapters based not only on these four feminists’ written
works but also on the issues that they spoke about with the most fre-
U
quency and passion—for example, they worked more on reproductive

ni
rights than on prison reform, and they thought more about sex and love
than they did about interpersonal violence. Within these six themes,
ve
these women ask (and answer) difficult questions about identity poli-
tics and tactical interventions, critique our obsession with sexuality and
rs
the body as the canvas upon which we examine social inequalities, and
ity
reframe the importance of seeing women as a collective force. As the

women fuse together activism and theory and fill in crucial blind spots in
radical feminist history, this book calls to task liberal feminists, critical
of
body scholars, historians, queer theorists, and social movement scholars,

asking them all to think more deeply about the impact of radical femi-
W
nism and its role in inciting social change. Drawing upon their narra-
tives, I craft an argument for the sustained relevance and importance
as
of radical feminist thought, and for the crucial work yet to be done that
must draw from and rely upon their stories. Ultimately, Firebrand Femi-
h
nism looks carefully at the future of radical feminist thought and the ways
in
that these ongoing conversations invite us to carefully assess our his

tory before we can adequately move forward into a more radical future
g
of feminism.
to
n
Introducing the Firebrand Feminists

Pr
As I introduce each of the radical feminists included in this book, I show-

case not only their accomplishments but also their own narratives about
es
their lives. Wherever possible, I have included an assortment of details

about them that give a window into their childhoods, early feminist com-
s
ing-of-age stories, relationship and children statuses, major written

accomplishments, engagement with radical feminism, activist endeavors,
careers, and current activities. I weave together in this next section the
biographical stories of their lives with some of their own words to fill out
Introduction 13

these details more fully and vividly and to contextualize how their per-
sonal biographies relate to their feminist activism.
Ti-Grace Atkinson
One of the founding foremothers of second-wave radical feminism, Ti-
Grace Atkinson was born on November 9, 1938, in Baton Rouge, Loui-
U
siana. Named by her grandmother to reflect the Cajun roots of her

ni
childhood—with “Ti” coming from the French word petite and “Grace”
for her grandmother, Grace Sydmir Broadus—Ti-Grace grew up the
ve
youngest of five girls in the family. Her sisters also each had two names:
Robin Louise, Mary-Wynne, Frances Gay (“Frani-Gay”), Thelma Byrd
rs
(“Temi-Be”). Her two older brothers, John and Richard (“Dickie”), both
ity
died quite young; John drowned in a swimming pool at age eight, and
Dickie died of double spinal meningitis at one year of age.
On her name, Ti-Grace said, “I kept the ‘Ti,’ which is Cajun, and I kept
of
it because I knew I was going to live in the North and I did not want to
forget or let anybody else forget that that was part of my heritage.” Her
W
father, Francis Decker Atkinson, a chemical engineer, moved the family

around after he left Standard Oil to work for the Atomic Energy Commis-
as
sion in Hanford: “I changed schools many, many times before I graduated

from high school, so it’s sort of more of a modern story in that way. It’s so
h
odd because each of us thinks that our childhood is more or less what
in
everybody else’s is, even though you know it isn’t.”24 Ti-Grace watched her
father navigate the oil business and its corruption from a very early age.
g
Ti-Grace’s mother, Thelma Broadus Atkinson, grew up in Virginia

to
with traditional Southern values that distinguished between Dixie and

non-Dixie states: “Both sides of my family, they were warring sides, so
n
that also confused things. My grandmother never referred to my father in

Pr
any way but ‘That Yankee.’ ‘Francis, for a Yankee, you’re not that bad.’ He
tried to please her for years, and she’d thank him, but he was a Yankee.”
es
Ti-Grace describes growing up in a family of all women after her grand-

father died: “The idea that women were inferior in any way was just
s
something I’d never heard. It gives you a little different attitude about
things.” Still, she described her mother as “very traditional, like with a
vengeance. Her variation was ‘Southern Belle.’ Everything would put her
in a swoon. She was tough as nails, but she was delicate—very unhappy,
14 Introduction

very talented, brilliant.” When Ti-Grace once asked her why she both-
ered with graduate school, her mother burst into tears. “She was born
in 1899, so she came of age just when women got the vote and the idea
that you could do anything—but not much had changed. So you went to
school thinking you could do anything, but then there were no real jobs
or careers.”25
U
She remembered her childhood as full of secrets, even about health

ni
issues: “In my family, you weren’t supposed to speak up. You weren’t sup-
posed to talk back. When we had been at Hanford, there were all of these
ve
nuclear waste leaks and I was diagnosed with leukemia and it was all
hush-hushed. I’d been really sick when we went up to Alaska the summer
rs
I was fifteen. There was a lot of lying going on.”26 She later found out that
ity
the radiation effects of uranium had made her and others sick.
The teenage years presented some difficult challenges for Ti-Grace.
Her mother had married her father, then divorced him, and then again
of
remarried him, which resulted in moving around frequently to chase his

various new jobs. Ti-Grace admits that she felt unhappy with this
W
arrangement, so she eventually ran away from home to live with her older
sister, Robin, in San Francisco: “They hired detectives to find me, but
as
because my first name is so difficult, the detectives kept getting lost.

Nobody would ever put it down right, thank God. So, then they found
h
me, and my mother was furious because I had embarrassed the whole
in
family, so she said, ‘How would you like to get married?’ This was when
I was only sixteen, seventeen. So I said, ‘To whom?’ The only person I’d
g
gone out with was a very (like seventh!) distant cousin, so we got mar-
to
ried and that was that. My grandmother was furious. She wouldn’t come
to the wedding.”27
n
Marriage had disastrous consequences for Ti-Grace. “I was pretty

Pr
catatonic,” she recalled.

es
I was very depressed. I didn’t realize it. I mean, I was just in a

deep, deep depression. I didn’t recognize how odd it was until,
s
if Charley [her husband] would leave for a long period, I’d jump
up and I’d be racing around and running to New York. “What’s
going on here? I have all this energy!” I was resentful, and I was
also trying to fit into this role. He claims that he knew I was
Introduction 15

inching toward the door when we got married, but I wasn’t
really conscious of that, primarily because I didn’t know how I
could survive. I think I have an inclination toward depression,
but I think that I’m able to keep it under control. I couldn’t keep
it under control with the marriage. I can’t keep it under control
if I’m really going against myself. Then it overwhelms me and
U
becomes about survival.

ni
With the help of her grandmother, she left the marriage. Her grand-
ve
mother said to her, “‘That’s enough of this. I’ve been thinking about this
and you have character. You don’t need him. You can survive. You are not
rs
going to necessarily live in luxury, but you can manage.’ So I went home
ity
and filed for divorce.”28

At the time of the divorce, Ti-Grace had enrolled in a five-year BFA
program at the University of Pennsylvania and at the Pennsylvania Acad-
of
emy of the Fine Arts. After her divorce she needed an income to support
herself, and she subsequently met people in New York who suggested
W
that she try her hand at art criticism: “They would pay for my trips to New
York, and I got into writing criticism.” This also led her to feminism. She
as
recalled that she was first drawn to feminist ideas through French femi-
nist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex:29
h in
In the summer of 1962, a sculptor friend of mine was reading

The Second Sex. He said to me, “You’ve got to read this book!”
g
So here I am: I’m a painter and living down in SoHo, going to

to
Elaine de Kooning’s for showers because I had no hot water, and

I started reading The Second Sex. I realized what had turned me off
n
about marriage was something about the structure. When my

Pr
ex-husband and I went to get my divorce there wasn’t “no-fault”

yet. My husband said, “I can get you for desertion,” and I said, “You
es
were the one who moved.” Well, that’s when I found out about
the law—that two people become one and the law is determined
s
by wherever the husband lives. Whoa. I had lost my freedom of

movement when I got married. I was trying to remember what I
signed when I got married, and all I could remember was some
little piece of paper with hearts or flowers or birds near the place
16 Introduction

we would sign. It’s the only contract of its kind where the terms
aren’t listed.30
Ending the marriage, Ti-Grace said, proved quite difficult in an age

that predated “no-fault” divorce. “The judge said, ‘There’s no reason for
this divorce here.’ I said, ‘We don’t like each other.’ ‘So what does that
U
have to do with anything?’ I said, ‘We have nothing in common.’ He said,

ni
‘What, does he beat you?’ I said no. ‘Well, you have to have some reason.’
I said, ‘Sometimes he drinks a little.’ ‘Oh, he’s a drunk, okay.’ I knew I’d
ve
never get married again. Why do women keep getting married? It’s con-
ceivable somebody could be happy despite being married but never because
rs
they were married.” The divorce gave Ti-Grace newfound freedom to

ity
read and explore politics:
I started reading all these books about the women’s movement.

of
This must have been 1962, 1963. I had a lot of anger, and The
Second Sex just goes on and on and on and on and on and on.
W
It’s like, drip, drip, drip; you know, it really affected me. In 1965,
I wrote Simone de Beauvoir. It was a long letter and was really
as
quite radical. I knew the Church was a main enemy. I knew

you’ve got to get rid of this, this, this, this, and we need to orga-
h
nize something to do it. Beauvoir wrote me back. She said that

in
all women were discriminated against, but the form it took

varied, so it didn’t make sense to organize outside of national
g
boundaries. She gave me Betty [Friedan]’s name and said she

to
was pulling together this organization.31 I finally called Betty in

1966. I had never had any political experience. I had had political
n
exposure, I realize now, but not in terms of doing things. I wasn’t

Pr
a red-diaper baby.32 I wasn’t any of these things.33

es
After writing for ARTnews with plans to pursue a life as an art critic,
Ti-Grace changed plans quite dramatically. She joined NOW when it first
s
began in 1966, eventually becoming the president of the tristate region

for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut in 1967. An ardent critic of
marriage, she wrote: “As women become freer, more independent, more
self-sufficient, their interest in (i.e., their need for) men decreases, and
Introduction 17

their desire for the construct of marriage which properly entails chil-
dren (i.e., a family) decreases proportionate to the increase in their
self-sufficiency.”34
In 1968, she split off from NOW forcefully and publicly when the orga-
nization decided to maintain its organizational hierarchical structure
(for example, insisting on a single long-term president rather than mutual
U
governance or rotating monthly leadership among the women) and when

ni
it refused to address systemic issues surrounding abortion and sexuality.

NOW also refused to support Valerie Solanas after she shot Andy Warhol
ve
on June 3, 1968. Shortly thereafter, Ti-Grace founded the October 17th

Movement, 35 which a year later evolved into The Feminists, a radical
rs
feminist group that remained active from 1968 to 1973 (though Ti-Grace’s
ity
personal involvement with the group ended in April 1970). Ti-Grace said
of this split with NOW, “Everybody in NOW said they wanted a revolu-
tion. Everybody wanted a revolution. I didn’t know anybody who didn’t
of
want a revolution and I couldn’t understand why every time it came to an

action, we would have big fights even though we all said we wanted the
W
same thing.” In particular, Ti-Grace wanted to go after marriage as a tar-

get for feminist criticism: “They weren’t going to go after that. They’d say,
as
‘Oh yeah,’ and sort of agree with you on the surface, but when you talked
about doing something about it, there was no way.”36 With The Feminists,
h
Ti-Grace could thrive as an activist and public speaker, unchained by the

in
constraints of NOW and its liberal “within-system” goals.

Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ti-Grace self-published
g
several pamphlets and gave numerous activist speeches on college cam-

to
puses and community forums in US, Canadian, French, and German cities.
Most notably, Ti-Grace made history by arguing publicly against the
n
Catholic Church (and being physically assaulted during a speech at Cath-

Pr
olic University), crusading against marriage as a form of spiritual and

physical oppression, advocating political lesbianism as a response to
es
patriarchy, and claiming that vaginal orgasm represented, as she titled

one speech, a “mass hysterical survival response.”37 She protested the anti
s
woman policies of the Ladies’ Home Journal, battled the New York City mar
riage bureau, fought to reconfigure abortion politics away from “right to
privacy” as its basis, aggressively protested the New York Times’s gender-
segregated want ads (where women were relegated to secretaries and
18 Introduction

stewardesses and men got all of the intellectual jobs), publicly defended
SCUM Manifesto author Valerie Solanas after she shot Andy Warhol by
saying that some woman had finally done something about the oppression
they experienced, and was recognized by the New York Times Magazine as
feminism’s “haute thinker.”38
During this time, she also forged an alliance with Simone de Beau-
U
voir, befriending her and visiting Paris, where she gave speeches on wom-
ni
en’s rights, female nationalism, sexual violence against women, and

abortion organizing. She supported herself by “living on the edge.” In the
ve
early 1970s, she was asked by Links Books to compile an assortment of

her highly controversial speeches and writings into a collection called
rs
Amazon Odyssey: The First Collection of Writings by the Political Pioneer of the
ity
Women’s Movement, which was published in 1974. She also pursued phi-
losophy as an academic discipline and specifically focused on political
philosophy and the philosophy of logic. Ti-Grace has spent much of her
of
life teaching in different universities, including the University of Wash-

ington, Columbia University, Case Western Reserve, Harvard University,
W
and Tufts University.

These accomplishments, impressive as they are, still do not fully con-
as
vey Ti-Grace’s role as a nucleus of radical feminism. She stayed active in

the women’s movement from the mid-1960s until the mid-1990s, working
h
tirelessly for women’s rights. Perhaps what is most significant is the sus-
in
tained personal contact that Ti-Grace had with a multitude of her famous
contemporaries: famed Black Panther lawyer Florynce Kennedy, feminist
g
writer and theorist Simone de Beauvoir, first-wave pioneer Alice Paul,

to
Feminine Mystique writer Betty Friedan, iconoclast and would-be assassin

Valerie Solanas, radical antipornography crusader Andrea Dworkin, Dia-
n
lectic of Sex writer Shulamith Firestone, Sexual Politics writer Kate Millett,
Pr
radical feminists Anne Koedt and Ellen Willis, famed critic of psychiatry
Phyllis Chesler, photographer-of-the-bizarre Diane Arbus, and Warhol
es
superstar Edie Sedgwick (among others).

Since 2007, she has been pulling together her personal papers and
s
general archive, covering some fifty-plus years, and trying to make sense of
these decades. Most of her papers now reside at Harvard University’s Schle
singer Library, though some are owned by the Dobkin Collection, and some
are still in her possession.39 She has worked to remain self-sufficient; in
Introduction 19

2015, she organized the tenants in her building to fight against manda-
tory eviction from the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, saying, defiantly,
“They messed with the wrong bitch.”40
Kathie Sarachild
Kathie Sarachild (born Kathie Amatniek on July 8, 1943) was a founding
U
organizer of the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s, with a life-

ni
time commitment to “freedom organizing,” a phrase she learned as a vol-

unteer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)41
ve
in the Mississippi civil rights movement in 1964 and 1965.42 Growing up as

a red-diaper baby, she learned very early on about struggles for justice
rs
and the importance of fighting against inequality. In the seventh grade,

ity
she campaigned with her mother to allow girls to take shop classes
and boys to take home economics classes. In college, she helped defeat
the curfew and sign-out restrictions on women’s dormitories and later
of
opposed the Vietnam War as the only woman on the editorial board of
the Harvard Crimson.43
W
While doing activist work with SNCC, she spent thirteen days in
jail; the house of a family she stayed with was teargas-bombed and shot
as
into. She helped to register voters during Freedom Summer in Batesville,

Mississippi.44 Guided by the SNCC organizers to “fight your own oppres-
h
sors,” Kathie has been working primarily in the women’s liberation

in
branch of the freedom movement since 1967, and has also been active in
the labor movement. In 1968, she crafted slogans like “Sisterhood Is
g
Powerful”—first used in a flyer she wrote for the keynote speech she gave
to
for New York Radical Women’s first public action at the convocation of
the Jeannette Rankin Brigade45 —and developed strategies that fueled the
n
wildfire-like spread of feminism.

Pr
Kathie designed a program for “consciousness-raising,” a tool used by

women’s liberation groups to analyze women’s experiences. Two friends
es
and colleagues, Shulamith (“Shulie”) Firestone and Anne Koedt, called

Kathie “the originator of consciousness-raising.”46 Kathie first presented
s
her paper “A Program for Feminist ‘Consciousness-Raising’” at the First

National Women’s Liberation Conference outside of Chicago on Novem-
ber 27, 1968. It was later published in Notes from the Second Year in 1970; the
20 Introduction

collection included articles on women’s experiences, theories of radical
feminism, and the founding of radical feminism, along with a series of
pieces on consciousness-raising and organizing. Kathie later wrote “Con-
sciousness-Raising: A Radical Weapon,” a paper presented to the First
National Conference of Stewardesses for Women’s Rights in 1973 in New
York City.47
U
The concept of consciousness-raising—and of much of radical

ni
feminism—argues that people must use their own lives as a basis for polit-
ical activism, bringing in seemingly minute or trivial aspects of life (love,
ve
sex, the body, domesticity, and so on) into the fight against patriarchal
oppression.48 Kathie wrote, in “A Program for Feminist ‘Consciousness-
rs
Raising,’” “In our groups let’s share our feelings and pool them. Let’s let
ity
ourselves go and see where our feelings lead us. Our feelings will lead us
to ideas and then to actions. Our feelings will lead us to our theory, our
theory to our action, our feelings about that action to new theory and
of
then to new action.”49

Involved in some of the dramatic actions that made the “women’s
W
liberation movement” a household term, she was one of four young

women at the 1968 protest of the Miss America pageant who hung the
as
women’s liberation banner inside the convention hall in Atlantic City.

The protests drew over four hundred feminists to the city; they famously
h
threw symbols of women’s oppression into a “Freedom Trash Can,”

in
including tampons, false eyelashes, mops, bras, and kitchenware.50 Kathie

famously shouted “Women’s liberation!” and “No more Miss America!”
g
as the new Miss America was being crowned.51

to
In 1969, Kathie led the new radical feminist group Redstockings in the
disruption of a New York State abortion reform hearing where legislators
n
were listening to a so-called “expert” panel consisting of twelve men and

Pr
a nun. Redstockings interrupted the hearing to demand that women tes-

tify as the real experts on abortion and to demand a repeal of all abortion
es
prohibitions.52 This led, soon afterward, to the first “abortion speak-out”

of the women’s liberation movement: a public hearing where women
s
discussed their experiences with the then-illegal procedure. This was the
first use of the term “speak-out” by Women’s Liberation. Kathie also
wrote the Redstockings’ “Principles”53 and was editor of the anthology
Introduction 21

Feminist Revolution, published by Redstockings in 1975 and by Random
House in 1978.54 She also served as the founding coeditor of Woman’s World
newspaper in 1971.
Kathie grew up with her mother, Sara Amatniek, and her sister, Joan
Amatniek. Sara was an award-winning artist and printmaker and an
active member of the National Association of Women Artists; she was a
U
member of NOW and participated in Redstockings alongside her daugh-

ni
ter.55 In 1968, Kathie began using the matrilineal last name “Sarachild” to
honor her mother and to protest the expectation that children would
ve
always take their father’s or husband’s last name.56

Kathie married Daniel Harmeling,57 a fellow civil rights activist, in
rs
Gainesville, Florida, in January of 1995, and has four stepchildren. For

ity
many years Kathie supported herself and her movement work with earn-
ings as a union-affiliated motion picture editor in New York City. Today
she is analyzing, organizing, and mobilizing for women’s liberation as
of
director of the Redstockings Archives for Action project and the Red-
stockings Women’s Liberation Archives.58
W
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
as
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz was born on September 10, 1938 in San Antonio,

Texas, where she lived only a short time before relocating permanently to
h
a rural part of central Oklahoma. The daughter of a landless farmer,

in
Moyer Haywood Pettibone Scarberry Dunbar, and a half–Native Ameri-

can mother, Louise Edna Curry Dunbar, Roxanne grew up poor and
g
suffered from disabling bronchial asthma as a child. She had three older
to
siblings—two brothers and a sister. Her paternal grandfather, Emmett

Victor Dunbar, a white settler, farmer, and veterinarian, was a labor
n
activist and Socialist in Oklahoma with the Industrial Workers of the

Pr
World (IWW, or “the Wobblies”) from the early 1900s to 1920. The Wob-
blies worked to abolish interest and profits and advocated for “public
es
ownership of everything, no military draft, no military, no police, and the

equality of women and all races.”59 Roxanne believes that the stories of
s
her grandfather inspired her to lifelong social justice activism.60 Her

father was born in 1907, two years after the IWW, and he was named
after three of the organization’s founders: William Moyer, Big Bill Hay-
wood, and George Pettibone.61 A prominent union activist, he organized
22 Introduction

sharecroppers, tenants, cotton pickers, and wheat thrashers throughout
the area and, as a consequence, was beaten by the KKK, which left him
with brain damage; he eventually moved the family to Texas because the
KKK ran him and fellow Wobblies off. Roxanne recounted that her father
always said that the rich wheat farmers bankrolled the Klan: “They
swelled up like a tick—night riding, killing stock, burning barns and crops,
U
lynching, burning crosses. Good Christians they were.”62

ni
Roxanne’s mother, Louise, fiercely religious and a stark contrast to

Roxanne’s father’s staunch atheism, had a difficult childhood of her own.
ve
Roxanne said, “She grew up harsh, you know—a little ‘half-breed’ on the
streets, an orphan. She got saved by the Baptist church and she became a
rs
very rigid antidrinking person. Her dad was an alcoholic and she proba-
ity
bly drank until she got saved, even as a kid. Her brother was a lifelong
alcoholic. She became a fanatic about it. We were really poor and she was
okay until she started drinking again and then the demons came out of
of
her. She was really violent.”63 Roxanne was thirteen years old when Lou-
ise began drinking again; she noticed that her mother drank in secret,
W
with bottles falling out of her purse or car. Drinking alcohol was illegal
in Oklahoma at the time. “She was arrested a lot,” Roxanne said, “but
as
people would just say she had a mental illness and she was crazy.”64 Prior
to that, Roxanne had forged an identity she admired: “I finished school
h
that year on top of the world: I had managed, despite asthma and vitiligo,
in
to find my niche in the community at the top. I was a good Baptist girl, a
Rainbow Girl, the smartest girl and the best typist. I had arrived and felt
g
confident. Now I would be in high school and read Shakespeare, act in

to
school plays, perhaps even make the baseball team, because I was grow-
ing out of my asthma. But the ominous summer that followed my gradu-
n
ation foreshadowed a bad time ahead.”65

Pr
During Roxanne’s high school years, Louise continued to escalate

her drinking but also became more independent of her husband, taking a
es
job as an assistant at a newspaper. Louise beat Roxanne and repeatedly

tried to get boys to marry her (against Roxanne’s will). When her moth-
s
er’s drinking escalated even further, Roxanne decided she needed to

leave: “I felt trapped alone with my parents, and scared for my life. Night-
time was filled with terror that kept me awake and trembling. Mama and
Daddy would fight all night after he stumbled in drunk, and she screamed
Introduction 23

accusations about his carousing.”66 Roxanne left Piedmont, Oklahoma, at
age sixteen, to live first with her brother and then with her sister. She got
a job working at the second-largest bank in Oklahoma City, and she
started trade school.67
During that time, she met a boy, Dan Callarman, whom she married
once she turned eighteen. Roxanne wrote, “Marriage was my way out of
U
my class and into the middle class.”68 For a time, Roxanne worked at the
ni
bank while supporting her husband through school; she remembered

this time as “alienated labor” in which she was overworked, broke, and
ve
lonely until she eventually got fired for suggesting that the bank workers
needed a union. She got work at a minimum-wage job shortly thereafter
rs
and experienced intensifying symptoms of insomnia, night terrors, men-

ity
strual cramps, migraines, and asthma attacks. In 1960, immediately after

her husband finished school, they left Oklahoma together for San Fran-
cisco, California, where Roxanne would live for most of her life. She never
of
saw her mother again; Louise died in 1968.69

On the drive to California, Roxanne had an epiphany that she would
W
need to leave her husband and forge ahead alone: “I acknowledged that
my destiny would not be with [Dan]. I would have to find my way alone
as
somehow, someday, without family or protection. I found myself headed

for the Promised Land, without God, without a history, born again in a
h
sense, in search of freedom.”70 After arriving in San Francisco, she stayed

in
married for a short time longer and immediately enrolled at San Fran-
cisco State College, taking classes in history while slogging through the
g
domestic hell of marriage: “I did the marketing and cooked the meals,
to
afterward washing the dishes. Weekly, I hauled the dirty laundry to the
Laundromat and I ironed, swept, vacuumed, and scrubbed. I managed all
n
of our expenses.”71 In the midst of taking extra classes and managing

Pr
the household, she got pregnant with her daughter, Michelle Callarman,
who was born on October 20, 1962. Roxanne divorced Michelle’s father
es
two years later. Though Dan eventually secured full custody of Michelle
due to “desertion” (after Roxanne went to Mexico City for the summer
s
with her boyfriend and future husband, Jean-Louis), she and her daugh-
ter stayed quite close.
In 1963, Roxanne graduated from San Francisco State College, a largely
working-class university that focused on undergraduate education, with
24 Introduction

a major in history. Following graduation, she left her life in San Francisco
to join activists in Cuba; later, she worked with the American Indian
Movement (AIM) and the women’s movement. From 1967 to 1972, she
was a full-time activist, living in a variety of places within the United
States and traveling to Europe, Mexico, and Cuba.
During this time, she began her doctoral studies at the University of
U
California, Berkeley, to work on her PhD in history; partway through, she

ni
transferred to UCLA to complete her degree. Here, she became involved

in organizing: “I was so pissed off at everyone—my boyfriend and every-
ve
one—just reacting to everything. I can’t do this all alone. I’m going to go

crazy.” She eventually quit UCLA “in this sort of fury” and returned to
rs
Berkeley to learn how to better organize people. She had been a leader on
ity
the UCLA campus, but there was not much of a movement there back
then. She felt stifled by this:
of
I can’t learn anything here because everyone is looking to me

all the time for the answers. . . . I didn’t know the answers
W
and I didn’t know anything. So I moved to Berkeley in December

1967 . . . this was coming on ’68, when everything went crazy
as
and the Black Panthers dominated everything, all the politics.

That’s really why I came up. I wanted to learn from the Black
h
Panthers, but it was the time when Huey Newton was in prison
in
and everything was around “Free Huey.” It was just constant. I

would go to the Black Panther office and it was always just chaos
g
and they were just like, “Go to this rally,” or “Go raise some
to
money for the Panthers.” It seemed like a mess. Over here in San
Francisco, it was right after the Summer of Love. There were like
n
ten million drugged-out kids in the street. It was a little more

Pr
interesting because I did some work giving out food and politiciz-
ing hippies, but that’s not really what I wanted to do either . . .
es
then Martin Luther King was shot.72

s
Having spent time working with Martin Luther King Jr. and various
Black Panthers, Roxanne felt increasingly distant from peaceful strate-
gies of social change. Shortly thereafter, sitting in a café in Mexico City,
she read about the “super-woman-power advocate”73 who had shot Andy
Introduction 25

Warhol and decided to leave Mexico immediately, eager to be a part of
“that delicious moment, that exciting, formative time.”74 When she heard
about Valerie Solanas shooting Warhol, she felt that someone had finally
stood up to patriarchy and she began fantasizing about Solanas as a sym-
bol of women’s rage: “I would go to the United States to launch this revo-
lution with this superwoman ideology, and also find Valerie. Because I
U
had come out of four years of graduate study in history, I thought Boston
ni
was symbolically and historically a perfect place. I started calling every-

one I knew. We would organize to defend Valerie, and we would take
ve
the whole ‘Free Huey’ movement as a model to create this ‘Free Valerie’
movement. Everyone was always copying everyone, so it’s hard to get a
rs
new idea. I was tired of playing the ‘Who’s more oppressed?’ games in
ity
the South and wanted a change.”75 Roxanne became concerned with who
would represent Valerie legally, knowing how pivotal legal representation
could be in times of social crisis.
of
Rushing back to the United States, Roxanne believed that the wom-
en’s revolution was imminent and that Valerie should be defended and
W
supported at all costs. She said:

as
It seemed to me like the most obvious thing in the world that

we would defend Valerie Solanas. After all, she wrote her mani-
h
festo and had made points we just couldn’t ignore. It’s maybe
in
not what we would have chosen, but you don’t get to choose
everything that happens when an issue bursts forth. It would
g
be like rejecting Malcolm X because he was too radical or he

to
was a Muslim or he’s about “by any means necessary” ideology.

I thought Valerie could really be an amazing “reader” of things,
n
or a person who would speak out more radically than anyone else
Pr
because now that she shot Warhol, she couldn’t go back on her
radicalism.76
es
Roxanne had arrived in Boston to form, or find, a female liberation

s
movement. Inspired by Valerie Solanas, Roxanne cofounded the radical

feminist group Cell 16, a militant feminist organization that advocated
separatism, self-defense, celibacy, karate, and radical resistances to patri-
archy. They read the SCUM Manifesto as “sacred text” while laughing
26 Introduction

hilariously at Valerie’s wicked satire. This group emulated Valerie by
writing and selling their propaganda on the streets of Cambridge and
Boston, even charging men for conversation, as Valerie had done. They
picketed the new Playboy Club, studied martial arts, and roamed the
streets of Boston in groups, daring men to be offensive.77
Local women’s liberation groups had started to form in Chicago, New
U
York, and Washington, DC. After linking up with several of these groups,
ni
Roxanne and fellow Cell 16 cofounder Dana Densmore arrived uninvited

to an invitation-only three-day planning meeting for the National Wom-
ve
en’s Liberation Conference in Sandy Springs, Maryland, in August 1968.

The women at the meeting, though all self-described militants, “cowered
rs
at the thought that their feminism might make them be perceived as ‘man-
ity
haters.’”78 Roxanne and Dana decided, “Those groovy women needed a

little consciousness-raising so we filibustered, disrupting their rigid agenda
and calm discussions with select readings from SCUM Manifesto.”79 They
of
caused a big controversy when, as feminist Charlotte Bunch recalled,

they read aloud excerpts from SCUM Manifesto and called it “the essence
W
of feminism.” In fact, Roxanne believed Valerie Solanas’s contribution to

feminism was so substantial that she and Cell 16 read aloud from SCUM
as
Manifesto as the group’s “first order of business.”80 With Ti-Grace calling

SCUM the “most important feminist statement written to date in the
h
English language,”81 the publication had become a kind of required read-

in
ing among radical feminists within months of the shooting.

Roxanne’s activism continued through the next several years. In May
g
1970, she helped to organize a conference in Jackson, Mississippi, right

to
before the Cambodian strikes ordered by President Nixon. She remem-

bers this as a catalyst for her to leave the country:
n
Pr
I just felt so alienated at my own conference. I was pretty well

known by then. People came, women came, from all over and
es
kind of changed the nature of the conference. Not many women

talked. I went around listening to different presentations and
s
panels, and people were talking, and I thought, No one is actually

talking about separation in the world and what can women do to change
the United States? I can’t do this. So I went to Cuba and joined
the Revolutionary Communist Party, which was then the RU
Introduction 27

[Revolutionary Union], and that was a big mistake. It was going
in this other direction, and it went underground and stuff.82
Roxanne returned to San Francisco during the height of consciousness-

raising and objected to the political priorities of local cultural feminists:
“I didn’t know what to make of it. Some of the women were very active
U
in things. Sometimes their feminism, especially their Berkeley-style PC

ni
[politically correct] feminism, was difficult. What you eat, what you
drink, what you wear, every little detail of life and how you raise chil-
ve
dren. God, I wouldn’t want to be their children, you know? But Berkeley
was a bit extreme.”83
rs
Though Roxanne maintained deep distrust for academia, she never-

ity
theless finished her dissertation at the urging of a mentor who con

vinced her that her involvement with Native American politics would be
helped by her credentials having a PhD: “At the law school of Santa Clara,
of
I got recruited by the American Indian Movement to get involved in the

Wounded Knee cases. I took my life in a different direction. There were
W
very few Native scholars at the time. They needed expert witnesses to
have credentials, and there were only two or three Native American law-
as
yers, and only one was really dedicated to the movement.”84 She wrote her
dissertation on a case in Lumberton, New Mexico, and graduated from
h
UCLA with a PhD in history in 1974.

in
Following graduation from her PhD program, she continued her invol
vement with AIM and the International Indian Treaty Council, beginning
g
a lifelong commitment to international human rights. Roxanne had

to
joined the Wounded Knee standoff in 1973 (where members of AIM occu-
pied Wounded Knee for seventy-one days to protest conditions on the
n
reservation) and was among those called to testify during the December
Pr
1974 hearing on whether the United States government had jurisdiction

over actions committed on Sioux land. She said of this hearing: “It was
es
packed in the courtroom. There wasn’t a jury, so we filled the jury box
with elders. There was an encampment outside the courthouse with at
s
least four thousand people. I was surrounded by Vine Deloria [Jr.] and
Lakota elders who told me I’d have the ‘privilege’ of converting the court
transcripts into a book.”85 The account of these hearings appeared in her
first book, The Great Sioux Nation.86
28 Introduction

Following her years on the road, Roxanne took a position in the very
small Native American studies program at California State University,
East Bay (formerly Cal State Hayward; nine thousand students attended
at the time, “all working class”). The university tried to fire her after the
first year because they wanted to eliminate the program, but she orga-
nized with students to block the program’s dismantlement and the uni-
U
versity changed its decision: “I never have been in any way beholden to
ni
the institution, so it’s hard for me. Prestige doesn’t matter when you’re a
leftist.”87 While there, she helped to found the women’s studies and eth-
ve
nic studies departments.

Roxanne maintained her position at Cal State East Bay for thirty-four
rs
years, teaching for only seventeen of those because she took extended
ity
unpaid leaves of absence to do other sorts of activist work. On being a radi-

cal in academia, she said, “I really saw [my primary role] as teaching in the
classroom, and I always got along with all of my colleagues because I never
of
got on any committees to judge them. I was never the chair, so I was never
the competition. I never taught summer school. That’s always the thing
W
they’re killing each other over. I never got spoiled on ‘We get paid half as
much as the UC system.’ I never got spoiled on having a high salary.”88
as
In 1981, she was asked to visit Sandinista Nicaragua to appraise the

land tenure situation of the Miskito Indians in the northeastern region of
h
the country. (The Sandinistas were Marxist rebels who overthrew the
in
US-backed Somoza family dictatorship/dynasty that ruled Nicaragua

from 1936 to 1979.) The two trips she took there that year “coincided with
g
the beginning of the United States government’s sponsorship of a proxy

to
war to overthrow the Sandinistas, with the northeastern region on the

border with Honduras becoming a war zone and the basis for extensive
n
propaganda carried out by the Reagan administration against the Sandi

Pr
nistas.”89 Active also in monitoring the Contra War, she took over a hun-
dred trips to Nicaragua and Honduras during the 1980s and fought
es
actively against the Reagan administration’s corrupt efforts to illegally

back the contras.
s
Roxanne maintains a close relationship with her daughter, Michelle,

who she describes with affection: “My daughter is great. She and I are
really great friends. I feel so lucky that she didn’t reject me completely.
She is really my hero. She really embodies this real respect for other
Introduction 29

women’s trust. She tends sometimes toward what I call ‘letting men off
the hook’ by thinking they are total imbeciles. She’s a great artist too
and, though she lives a pretty lean lifestyle, gets by fairly well.”90 Michelle
wrote of her mother, “My mother is my hero. . . . I am not comfortable
out on a limb; I would much rather hug the trunk. My mother dances on
that limb and shakes the leaves down on her critics’ heads.”91
U
A prolific and impactful writer, Roxanne is the author of numerous

ni
books: Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (1997, 2006); Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of
the War Years, 1960–1975 (2002, 2014); Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the
ve
Contra War (2005); Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico
(2007); An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (2014); and, most
rs
recently (with Dina Gilio-Whitaker), “All the Real Indians Died Off”: And 20
ity
Other Myths about Native Americans (2016). Her first published book, The
Great Sioux Nation: An Oral History of the Sioux Nation and Its Struggle for
Sovereignty, was published in 1977, and was presented as the fundamental
of
document at the first international conference on Indians of the Amer

icas, held at UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.92 A new edition,
W
The Great Sioux Nation: Sitting in Judgment on America, was published in

2013. Roxanne continues to spend much of her time writing about femi-
as
nism, indigenous rights, and radical activism, frequently giving book read
ings based on her latest works.
h
Dana Densmore
in
Dana Densmore—the daughter of Donna Allen, a founder of Women

g
Strike for Peace93 and an activist on the board of the Women’s Interna-
to
tional League for Peace and Freedom, born March 27, 1945—grew up work
ing in the peace movement. She said of her childhood, “The feminist
n
consciousness was always there through my mother, and the activism was
Pr
always there. I was active in a lot of other levels of social activism. I had
already been involved in the core sit-ins in the South and was arrested
es
and had a case that went to the Supreme Court.”94 Dana described her
mother as perpetually impatient with the gender roles and limitations of
s
her time, saying that her mother had worked at Arlington with various
code breakers during World War II and that others had said “she was by
far the smartest one there, and also beautiful, and everybody was in love
30 Introduction

with her.” Dana recalled her mother’s discontent: “She said that gender
roles were like being suffocated under sour cream or something—like she
just couldn’t breathe. The weight of contempt and dismissal and just
being so taken for granted, and the arrogance, ignorance, presumption—
even the slightest stepping out got stomped on so heavily. There was so
much pent up for my mother about that.”95
U
Dana said that her father, Russell Wykoff, was at times intimidated
ni
by her mother: “She was an amazing character. He respected it, and some-
times he felt unhappy—a little intimidated by the way she could be so
ve
formidable in argumentation. It’s not that she was actually more intelli-
gent, but he didn’t have quite the drive and command that she did.”96 Dana
rs
grew up in Chicago, where her parents had lived while they were in gradu-
ity
ate school. Her next two siblings were born in Chicago, after which they
moved to upstate New York, where her father’s first job was, followed by a
move to Washington, DC, when she was twelve years old. Her father
of
worked as the education director for the Association of Western Pulp and
Paper Workers (AWPPW)97 union located in Albany, New York, and then
W
became the education director of the AFL-CIO in the Industrial Union

Department.98 Dana has three siblings and describes being close to two of
as
them; she claims no child was the favorite in the family, but that they were
highly influenced by their parents: “They were very interesting people.”99
h
As a teenager, Dana fought against nuclear testing with the National

in
Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy100 alongside her mother, whom she
also joined for numerous peace demonstrations. She also advocated for
g
the draft resistance movement by doing draft counseling,101 which she

to
cites as the moment she knew that the peace movement was ready for
women’s liberation. She attributes Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique and
n
Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex102 as foundational texts, though her

Pr
activism also inspired her about the potential of the women’s movement:
“There was something more that was needed—at least for it to turn into
es
the movement that it did. The movement that it turned into was relying
on the energy of the New Left activists.103 I was moved by those books,
s
but they needed activism, and the movement needed activism, and it
needed people that were willing to toss all the conventions and all the
rewards.”104
Introduction 31

Within the New Left, Dana realized that women were being mis-
treated and taken for granted. “The people that were really countercul-
tural, that did not have any investment in the systems of rewards and
social approval and deprivation, were essentially the people in the New
Left movement,” she said. “And meanwhile, they—that is to say, we, the
women that were involved—were getting an incredible education in the
U
tension between what we were working for, what we were putting our
ni
lives on the line for, and how we were being treated by those very orga-
nizations and the men of those organizations.”105 She attributed bad
ve
treatment by men on the left as a key catalyst for the women’s movement
and for her personal involvement in the women’s movement.
rs
The need for a radical feminist intervention became ever more press-
ity
ing to Dana. She and a few others started thinking in radical terms about
women’s status and roles, a move which came with immense risk: “The
people that were willing to go out—they were largely alone. But then,
of
as there got to be more and more, it was more safe, or the word could
spread. But it was really frightening for the earliest ones.”106 Specifically,
W
Dana credits Bernardine Dohrn,107 a member of the Weather Under-

ground, as the catalyst for her recognizing the full need for a radical femi-
as
nist movement. She said:

h
[Dohrn] had talked about it, and she was saying, “We women
in
of the New Left aren’t going to put up with this anymore.” So

my involvement, or really anybody’s involvement in this radical
g
wing, was coming directly from Bernardine Dohrn. That was very
to
much connected. I got to know other women that came to it from

other parts of the country—women that came out of social jus-
n
tice organizations in the South, and various other parts of the

Pr
New Left. And it was always the same kind of story, and they
liked to quote stuff like Stokely Carmichael’s comment about the
es
“position” of women,108 and they talked about the flagrancy of

the disrespect. It wasn’t just that women had to do all the typing
s
and the cooking.109
(She is referring to SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael’s alleged quote

that “The only position for women in SNCC is prone”—which, according
32 Introduction

to historian Ruth Rosen, was said initially as a joke, but later became a
point of contention when women addressed the serious sexism of SNCC
and the civil rights movement.110)
In 1968, Dana cofounded the Boston radical feminist group Cell 16
with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. She said, “That spring, Roxanne Dunbar
came to town, and that’s when things really took off.”111 A lifelong scien-
U
tist and one of the pioneers of radical feminist science studies, Dana
ni
helped to found No More Fun and Games, a radical feminist journal for
which she wrote numerous essays and commentaries. She has written
ve
about topics as controversial as celibacy, the “hang-up” of sexuality for

women, and the need for sexual independence from men; as a scientist,
rs
she has written about Newton, gravitational pull, and elliptical orbits.
ity
Thinking back on the early days of writing for No More Fun and Games
and working with other women in Cell 16, Dana recalled the vicious
backlash they faced from men: “The rage, a pride in the real violence of
of
the men that were confronted at the beginning, or threatened. When I

say ‘confronted,’ I don’t even necessarily mean face-to-face holding them
W
accountable, but just the refusal to go along with the prescribed catego-
ries, was so threatening, and the reaction so violent, that there was even
as
some physical violence.” Dana later wrote about men as “the enemy” in
order to provoke a reflection about masculinity and privilege, saying,
h
“You are making us the enemy. We weren’t necessarily saying that you
in
are doing physical violence to us. And the implication of that is, ‘We will
fight back as if our testicles were on the line.’” Dana also prized the idea
g
that she could have objections to sexual objectification—particularly at

to
her workplace—and that those objections were understood explicitly as

a rejection of all sex: “That someone can be all for sex, and still not find
n
being objectified sexy, was hard for them to understand.”112

Pr
Dana described her romantic and family relationships as complicated:

“I always just knew what I thought, knew what I wanted, and whoever I
es
was with had to be good with that, had to like that.” She had two chil-
dren (she did not use their names) who she described as independent and
s
autonomous: “I mean, one’s a boy, and so he does whatever he does, but

I’m sure he’s very careful about things. And the girl, yeah, she’s definitely
her own person. And there’s a granddaughter who’s definitely her own
person!” Dana says that she finds it deeply pleasurable to see her children
Introduction 33

stand up for things they believe in: “I don’t say there aren’t issues or
problems or patterns that they still get into, but they can imagine stand-
ing up—in fact, to the extent where they cannot understand how things
were at the time [in the 1960s and 1970s]. They say, ‘What? That hap-
pened? I would not have put up with that!’ Anything from how you need
to dress or how you need to behave or you can’t play guitar because you’re
U
a girl, you know.” Thinking back on the major contribution of feminism

ni
to her children’s generation, she said, “What [my children] don’t hear is,
‘Put that thing away—you’re embarrassing me.’ Or ‘Don’t speak up,’ or
ve
‘You should be in the kitchen. We don’t want you in this conversation.

Don’t cut your hair short.’ And they say this is not about feminism. And
rs
guess what? It isn’t. It was made possible by feminism, but what it is is

ity
just being a self-respecting human being. And that’s a victory, because

that’s what we wanted. Just to be able to be a self-respecting human being,
being who you are.”113
of
The Circuitous Path of Radical Social Change

W
Taking stock of the history of radical feminism—alive in these follow

as
ing six chapters as we move through their ideas about rage, radicalism
and refusal, sex and love, tactics of activism, women as a social and polit-
h
ical class, and intergenerational dialogues—allows for a reconsideration of

in
the value of radical feminist politics both historically and today. As their
brief biographies show, each of these women has led an extraordinary
g
life, and each was ahead of her time in thinking, activism, politics, and
to
theory. Roxanne, Dana, and Kathie each came from families that had
strong connections to labor history and justice movements, showing how
n
social movements are not distinct entities, but instead are infectious,
Pr
overlapping, and building upon each other.114 Each of these four women
had extraordinary childhoods—some born into families where leftist poli-
es
tics and women’s power were assumed, some born into families where
they had to leave in order to thrive—just as they had extraordinary adult-
s
hoods, filled with the challenges inherent to living through times of great
social upheaval.
Listening to them reflect on their lives and actions has been one of
the great pleasures of my life, as it has enriched my understanding of the
34 Introduction

circuitous path of radical social change. That Ti-Grace Atkinson knew
and corresponded with Alice Paul and Simone de Beauvoir is but one
example of this path; if we are wise, we learn from each other, listening
across gaps in time and space, sharing stories in hopes that these will
have a lasting impact on the future. We keep an ear out for the radical
voices buried beneath the cacophony of liberal, moderate, and, most dan-
U
gerously, conservative ones. We remain vigilant about the destructive

ni
qualities of cowardice, moderation, and passivity. We try to dig out a his-

tory of those who may have been too busy with social actions (or too
ve
villainized by those actions) to effectively document those actions. We

take pause at sweeping dismissals of “certain types of women” from the
rs
feminist canon, and we recognize both the value (optimism, energy) of

ity
youth and the foolishness of being too narrow and short-sighted to see
that others have come before and laid the foundations for our very lives
and livelihoods. We watch closely and feel intently for the rumbles of
of
change, the tremors beneath the surface, and the fault lines about to
break, waiting to crack open.
W
as
h in
g to
n
Pr
es
s
Introduction 35

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FIREBRAND

THE RADICAL LIVES OF

AND DANA DENSMORE

University of Washington | Seattle

F.Fahs, Firebrand Feminism.indd 3 2/9/18 1:11 PM

Copyright © 2018 by the University of Washington Press

Design by Katrina Noble

22 21 20 19 18 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in

University of Washington Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, and Dana Densmore / Breanne Fahs.

Description: Seattle : University of Washington, [2018] | Includes bibliographical

Identifiers: LCCN 2017048934 (print) | LCCN 2017053559 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780295743172 (ebook) | ISBN 9780295743158 (hardcover : alk. paper) |

Subjects: LCSH: Feminism. | Radicalism.

F.Fahs, Firebrand Feminism.indd 4 2/9/18 1:11 PM

For my mother, for wanting willful daughters—

F.Fahs, Firebrand Feminism.indd 5 2/9/18 1:11 PM

It is well to note that from radicalism has flowed all that

a path blazed by radicals and stained with their blood. So

long as there is injustice there will be radicals. The name

—Industrial Workers of the World

F.Fahs, Firebrand Feminism.indd 7 2/9/18 1:11 PM

INTRODUCTION: The Necessity of Radical Feminism���������������� 3

2 Radicalism and Refusal��������������������������������������� 58

4 Sex, Love, and Bodies��������������������������������������� 111

5 Women as a Social and Political Class����������������������� 138

6 Intergenerational Dialogues and the Future

of Radical Feminism����������������������������������������� 161

F.Fahs, Firebrand Feminism.indd 9 2/9/18 1:11 PM

I first met each of these women—Ti-Grace, Kathie, Roxanne, and Dana—

SCUM Manifesto author and would-be assassin Valerie Solanas. As radical

impatience, outrage, and willfulness.

During our many conversations, I realized fairly quickly that each of

ing decades worth of thinking and theorizing about radical feminism

politics, and sexuality ignited an urgent feeling in me that more readers

testament to the collective energies of second-wave radical feminist orga-

F.Fahs, Firebrand Feminism.indd 11 2/9/18 1:11 PM

own privileged lens of a women’s studies undergraduate and graduate

these women. Their uncommon generosity of time and spirit, of humor

recorded by historians in any depth or nuance (especially for the tales of

radical feminism in particular—are wholly, permanently incomplete.

first-person accounts in the form of oral history. Because oral history

F.Fahs, Firebrand Feminism.indd 12 2/9/18 1:11 PM

framework for viewing the stories and testimonies of radical feminists

of their stories remains fraught with possibilities for misunderstandings

call ‘for a historical practice that turns on partiality, that is self-conscious

which are themselves partial, perspectival, and self-conscious. Feminist

always partial, always shifting, always subject to revision and reframing,

While there is a small (and mighty) literature on the radical wing of

written documents as sources of information and only a few pieces rely

goals, and structures of radical feminist organizations. These works typi-

F.Fahs, Firebrand Feminism.indd 13 2/9/18 1:11 PM

engaged in follow-up emails and phone calls to clarify and fact-check,

thus enriching this book with a variety of conversations in a variety of

sive body of provocative written work—mostly in the form of transcribed

archive of radical feminist thought. Second, as I had originally asked to

I interviewed them together. Similarly, Ti-Grace Atkinson and Kathie

and a stimulating conversation based on that history. The dialogue con-

INTRODUCTION: The Necessity of Radical Feminism�� 3

2 Radicalism and Refusal�� 58

4 Sex, Love, and Bodies�� 111

5 Women as a Social and Political Class�� 138

of Radical Feminism�� 161

ignore women. . . . Unless women are prepared to fight politically

critiquing liberalism, “Each individual imagines [herself] absolutely free,