REPORT - TRIP TO PHOENIX, AZ, BROOKLYN, N.Y, and ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.

October 2 to October 7, 2014

By Carol Downer

Background: Kinyofu Mlimwengu invited me to be the keynote speaker at her “Reproductive Awakening” event in Brooklyn.

Summary:

1. 10/2/14: stop in Phoenix, AZ airport to meet with Ann Hibner Koblitz 
2. 10/2/14 - 10/4/14 at Gilbert Gaynor’s N.Y. apartment 
3. 10/4/14: New York Magazine interview and presentation in Brooklyn
4. 10/5/14: Kathy Scarbrough and Kathie Sarachild and I drove to Carol Hanisch’s house in Ellenville, N.Y.; met 3 hours 
5. 10/6/14-10/7/14: Met with Mary Lou Singleton: presentation in Albuquerque

Phoenix 10/2/14 - Meeting with Ann Hibner Koblitz: She has an impressive background and has written several books.  Since 1998, she has been a professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Arizona State University, where she teaches courses on Women as Healers, Gender and Science/Medicine, and Feminist Theory.

Ann is the author of Sex and Herbs and Birth Control, Women and Fertility Regulation Through the Ages.  She discusses women’s efforts to maintain control of their sexuality and fertility through time and across cultures.  They have utilized herbs; fashioned barriers out of lemon, beeswax and sea sponge and circumvented religious and societal proscriptions in order to maintain access to abortion.  Ann emphasizes women’s agency, our pragmatism and resourcefulness.

Sex and Herbs and Birth Control is a wonderful book.  I highly recommend it. 

We found ourselves in agreement or close to it in many, many subjects, especially the potential of women to control our own fertility through self-knowledge, use of natural remedies and substances and simple abortion technology.  Ann is the one who recommended Caliban and the Witch to me.

We discussed the current attack of some transwomen on radical feminists’ exclusion of them from all-female events; she informed me that Arizona State University had just added complete coverage for trans-sexual surgery and care to their insurance policy.  We agreed that it is positive news that this surgery and drug treatment will be covered, but we marveled that it has been a fight to get abortion and other women’s reproductive medical services covered in insurance policies, and we have often been unsuccessful, yet the inclusion of this extremely expensive medical procedure in group insurance policies is becoming standard. 

We shared our dismay that young college women are generally inactive politically, even those in the Women’s and Gender Studies program.

If we both had not had to board planes, we would have kept talking for many hours more.

Ann wrote a lively account of our meeting on her blog, ahkoblitz.wordpress.com.

New York, 10/2 to 10/4: I had a restful but stimulating stay at the apartment of Gilbert Gaynor for 2 nights.  Gilbert is a brilliant constitutional lawyer.  I met him 30 years ago at the ACLU when he worked on the health center injunction to prevent some anti-abortionists from holding a funeral for the remains of 4,000 aborted embryos and a few fetuses.  (We won the legal battle, but they had the politicians on their side and did it anyway)  Gilbert clerked with a California Supreme Court Justice, Joyce Kennard, and as a private practitioner, he takes on complex litigation with gusto--and wins most of the time.  He does death penalty appeals, something that only the highest qualified attorneys are able to do.  He has recently moved to New York from California.  He’s looking for new paying clients.  He’s over-booked for pro bono for civil rights cases, and, like everyone else, he has to pay his bills.  I’ve worked on cases with Gilbert, and he not only writes persuasively and produces impeccable papers, but he’s very aggressive and creative in court, a combination of skill sets that are rare.

Brooklyn 10/4/14: Kinyofu Mlimwengu is the curator of “Reproductive Awakening: Narratives of Agency in Black America: An Exhibition” which started October 3, 2014 and will continue until November 23, 2014.  I gave the keynote talk on October 4.  The event is being held at the Women’s Museum of Resistance at 279 Empire Boulevard, Brooklyn.  The Museum is dedicated to black women’s experience in America and has beautiful artwork and relics of black people’s centuries of slavery and subsequent times in the United States.

Kinyofu and I became acquainted when she interviewed me for an excellent paper that she wrote as part of her class work, Self Help as the Base for Women’s Power.  It’s an overview of the women’s health movement of the ’70’s, its history and its politics of empowering women through regaining control of their reproduction.   

New York Magazine, 10/4/14: Rachel Syne of New York Magazine interviewed me re menstrual extraction.  She was interested in learning the history of menstrual extraction as it applies to the medical version of M.E., M.V.A (manual vacuum aspiration).  A doctor in New York City is offering this procedure, and Rachel is impressed with how superior the technique is.  The machine is noisy and often performed in an impersonal setting.  I believe a good article will be the result.  Rachel also was keenly interested in self-help.  I gave her a speculum.  

The Program, 10/4/14: Kinyofu constructed a “red tent” for her exhibit.  The tent was incredible; it occupied about 400 square feet, carpeted with a red padded floor.  It had filmy red drapes and velvet tie-backs.  Dozens of pillows formed a comfy circle; I had the immediate urge to go in it. 

First was a dance/drama with 2 women.  With my hearing impairment, I couldn’t understand the dialogue, but I appreciated their graceful moves and expressions.

Kinyofu gave a moving presentation.  The centerpiece of her talk was that our uterus is our core and the source of our strength.

My presentation, first consisted of a brief history of the abortion movement in the 1970’s and how self-help played a key role in building a women’s movement that was poised to take full advantage of the Roe v. Wade decision.  30 women-controlled clinics, almost all directly or indirectly connected with the FWHC’s started within a year or so of the decision.

Then I talked about Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici.  This was my first time to present this material in a talk, and I was worried the women would find my point of view too anti-capitalistic and too intellectual.  They were totally interested and their questions showed a profound understanding of the importance of Federici’s work.

 Then, Stephen, one of the members of Kinyofu’s team, shared an Indian line dance, which got our juices going.

Ellenville, New York, 10/5/14: Kathie Sarachild, Carol Hanisch and Kathy Scarbrough presented “De-Fanging the Women’s Liberation Movement” at the Boston Conference on the Second Wave of the Women’s Liberation Movement earlier this year.  I’ve met with Kathie Sarachild before, (the Feminist Women's Health Center’s have been supportive of Redstockings and their political decision to expose Gloria Steinem’s pre-feminist anti-communist activities.   They responded to my offer to come meet with them to continue discussing the panel’s topic.

At the conference, Kathy Scarbrough laid out how gender and sex are alternate categories to use to overthrow male-domination and Patriarchy.  We talked about the recent attacks of radical feminists by some transwomen. (born males transitioned to female physical appearance through drugs and surgery) for not allowing them into all-women meetings.  They charge discrimination and call radical feminists “rad fems” or “TERFS”, (trans-exclusionary radical feminists).  They have been verbally violent and sometimes property-damaging.  They have received wide support from leftists for their complaints.  They’re particularly angry with lesbians if they won’t have sex with them; they have come to occupy positions on advisory boards that previously were occupied by lesbians.  Consequently, I was anxious to continue the discussion with Kathy, Kathie and Carol.  Kathy proposed some questions to me that challenged my concern about “destroying gender”.  Since then, I’ve thought a lot about her points and I’ve written what I think is a clear exposition of my position.  I’m going to put it on my blog. 

At the Boston conference, Carol Hanisch, gave out a list of terms with two columns.  The first column listed that we used in the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM) in the 70’s and the second column listed the “new and improved” terms that have replaced them.  For example, “male violence” is now “spousal abuse” and “pro-abortion” is now “pro-choice”.  Some of these examples were amusing, but her point was dead serious.  The use of gender-neutral language has destroyed the feminist insight that 95% of violence is male-female which is caused by male-dominated culture, and supported by male dominated institutions, like the police and counselors, etc.

Kathie Sarachild has been an influential voice in the WLM.  She and other WLM members promoted the use of consciousness-raising groups.  She and Carol are original members of the Redstockings, and one of their contributions is to emphasize the importance of remembering and honoring our history.  As Kathie has said, “If you can’t remember where these ideas comes from, they lose much of their power.”  Unfortunately, her warnings have been ignored.  I expressed my belief that the universities have created an anti-radical feminist tradition that is training young women who enroll in these courses hoping to learn about their history and instead are being taught to ignore the 70’s second-wavers because “they were all white, middle-class women”.   

The four of us shared a delicious, vegetarian lunch in Carol’s living room.  The windows on three sides looked out on a small town neighborhood in the Catskills with lots of trees and mountains all around.  Like most feminist discussions I’ve ever been in, a lot of our time was spent discussing the agenda, taking spirited detours to talk about specific questions as they arose.  In other words, we covered nearly all the topics that had been brought up, we shared what we were doing politically and yet there never was a “new business” and “old business” approach.

We found that we each differ on which organizing strategy and tactics to pursue at this time, but none of our different approaches are incompatible with the other; it’s more a matter of emphasis and differing histories, skills and personal situations.  I agreed with the others‘ belief that it is essential to keep articulating a radical feminist perspective and exposing the subversion and co-optation of the women’s liberation movement (what I called “muck-raking”, an honorable tradition in journalism), but I favor going past that by putting forth our positions and taking actions, rather than assuming that once people know the truth about what’s going on, they will do something to change the situation.  This difference came up in the context of discussing what, if anything, should be done to fight back against the transwomen’s attack against TERFS.  Kathie has already signed a public statement supporting women‘s right to have all-female meetings that exclude transwomen.  I believe that unless we act now and act forcefully, the radical arm of the women’s movement may be dead for generations to come.

Kathie, in particular, believes that Redstockings has an action program.  For example, they’re giving ten weekly sessions on Radical Feminist Theory and Action Today in New York City from September 18 through November 20th (contact: nwl@womensliberation.org).   

We talked about the upcoming meeting of StopPariarchy.org in New York City to plan a January 22nd protest.  All said they would attend protests put on by SP, but that they couldn’t be part of organizing them.  Kathie said that she wasn’t going to work on abortion anymore; she’d rather work on related reproductive rights issues, such as childcare, maternity leave, etc.  When I told her that I agree that the pro-choice movement limiting itself to birth control and abortion is a mistake.  I still think that the pro-abortion movement needs to give priority to the abortion issue, while always placing it in the larger context of reproductive rights, including childcare, natural birth, breast-feeding, toxins in work environment, getting rid of the Hyde Amendment, and increasing women’s power generally, because the legality and availability of abortion is the key determinant of the birth rate and thus the priority of the liberal anti-natalists and to the right-wing pronatalists. Allowing abortion (but not supporting women’s options to have children) or restricting abortion (and forcing women to be mothers) is the most direct threat to a woman’s right to control her reproduction.  She clarified her statement to say that she will support abortion rights by going to demonstrations, but she will not devote a significant amount of her time to it.    

I definitely achieved my goals of the meeting and justified my time and expense in getting myself there, and all three said they were glad I had come so that we could have a face-to-face in-depth discussion of these important issues.

We’ve been e-mailing since, and I hope that our meeting will give us a basis to continue to do so (of course, they already had this basis).

Albuquerque, 10/6 and 10/7: Mary Lou Singleton is a nurse practitioner and midwife and a fellow member of the advisory committee of StopPatriarchy.org.  She is a founder of PersonhoodforWomen.org.  She is a member of WoLF (Women’s Liberation Front), womensliberationfront.org a radical feminist organization that started this last year. Mary Lou, despite working her regular, more-than-full-time schedule, picked me up at the airport, crammed in every free moment to talk to me and organized a community meeting at her office. 

She and I talked about hating capitalism and patriarchy.  We shared our information about the attacks of some transwomen on radical feminists at the Michigan Women’s Music Festival and other events.  In particular, we discussed the increasing number of very young children as being identified in their pre-school as transgender and the parents considering surgery and drugs as young as six years old, the participation of transwomen in women’s athletic events which is resulting in beating out born females in many categories, the widespread leftist support of transwomen being allowed to attend female-only events, the concurrent rise of the pro-pornography movement, etc.  It seems that the trans movement is receiving a lot of foundation support.  I noted that it would be consistent with the history of the anti-natalist movement to support any cause which had the net effect of reducing women having babies, such as gay rights.  But, since the behavior of some transwomen (does anyone know what percentage of transwomen take this aggressive, radical feminist-hating stand?) seems like such classic male behavior, it occurred to us that maybe the right-wing power structure is promoting the activities of that portion of the transwomen’s.

Meeting, 10/6/14: Approximately 20 women attended.  We sat around a large “coffee table” in the reception area of Mary Lou’s offices.  I started off with an introduction to the self-help movement, and the intense interest of the group in menstrual extraction determined the rest of the group’s discussion.  There were many questions about forming a ME group and discussions amongst the group about the possibilities of doing so.  There seemed to be a potential of several groups being formed.  One new possibility came up.  There are two “red tent” groups in Albuquerque, and one participant is a member of both.  She plans to take the information back to those groups.  I assured her I would be delighted to work with them if they wanted any further information.

People contributed to a collection basket, and it was given to me, so I raised about $100.00 to go toward the expense of the trip.

Sharing Resources
Sex and Herbs and Birth Control, Ann Hibner Koblitz.
http://kovfund.org/book.shtml
http://ahkoblitz.wordpress.com/

Radical Feminist Theory and Action Today in New York City from September 18 through November 20th  Contact: nwl@womensliberation.org

New Redstockings Button: “DUES-PAYING FEMINIST”
Proclaims the alternative to foundation-grant feminism, academic feminism and dependence on the academic-media complex, a independent financial base, for an independent women’s liberation movement. $One Dollar per button.
Redstockings Women’s Liberation Archives for Action
P.O. Box 744 Stuyvesant Statiion, NYC, 10009
www.redstockings.org

Follow-up:

1. To develop a questionnaire for people that work in the university setting to get facts about the establishment of gender studies, rather than women’s studies.  Who is doing it?  Have new positions opened up? 
2. To learn more about the transgender movement in general and the transwomen activities in particular.
3. Join WoLF (done) - womensliberationfront.org
4. Send Ann a list of people that I think would use her book to further their work, and she will send out copies to them.  Call me if you would use the book in your work.
5. Keep communicating via e-mail with Carol Hanisch, Kathy Sarachild and Kathy Scarbrough re Class, Gender issues
6. Possible Conference or some mini-conferences to get a discussion going about what to do about the attack of radical feminists by some transwomen for not letting them come into our all-female groups.

Contact Information:

• Kinyofu Mlimwengu - http://choosetoevolve.com
• Ann Hibner Koblitz - http://ahkoblitz.wordpress.com
• Gilbert Gaynor - http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/07102-nj-gilbert-gaynor-171325.html
• Kathy Scarbrough - http://meetinggroundonline.org
• Kathie Sarachild - http://www.redstockings.org
• Carol Hanisch - http://meetinggroundonline.org
• Mary Lou Singleton - https://twitter.com/prsnhood4women

Annotated Bibliography

Articles

• Heinsohn, Gunnar and Steiger, Otto “Witchcraft, Population Catastrophe and Economic Crisis in Renaissance Europe: An Alternative Macroeconomic Explanation”. 31 Pages  

Then, at the Summit Conference on the Persecution of Midwives, Hermine Hayes-Klein provided us with a paper written by german sociologists about how the Witch Hunt was specifically designed to stamp out "women's secrets", meaning how to have voluntary motherhood using herbal tonics and other substances.

Books

• Federici, Silvia Caliban and the Witch Women, The Body And Primitive Accumulation. Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2004

Silvia Federici's book places the Witch Hunts in the larger historical context of the establishment of capitalism, through primitive accumulation of capital in Europe, then using that capital to launch worldwide exploration and invasion of other lands and peoples, again using the Witch Hunts to destroy "women's secrets" forcing colonialized peoples to provide the slave labor for the European capitalists.

• Koblitz, Ann Hibner Sex and Herbs and Birth Control: Women and Fertility Regulation Through the Ages. Kovalevskaia Fund, 2014

Ann Koblitz' book discusses how women have in the past controlled our own fertility.

•  Riddle, John M. Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Harvard University Press, 1994
  Eve's Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West. Harvard University Press, 1999

Then, I read John Riddle's books which pull together the evidence to show that women's knowledge of contraception and abortion did exist in the European society among women, but the chain of knowledge was broken by the witch hunts. He cites the studies that show that these remedies were effective, and populations were stable.

Handouts

• Wicanhpi Iyotan Win Autumn Cavender-Wilson BA “Midwifery, Colonialism, and Settler Identity: Deconstructing Colonial Norms in Modern Midwifery”

At MANA conference in Portland, Wicanhpi Iyotan Win Autumn Cavender-Wilson handed out these suggestions to U.S. settler midwives on how to maximize their support of indigenous midwives and ways to be accountable to them.  She told us "find out your own history".  I did so, and it turns out that as a white, European settler woman, our histories are different but interwoven, and we are oppressed by the same forces. 

Women's Need for Accurate Information About Birth Control Gets Lost in Controversy over Zimbabwe Official’s Speech About Dangers of Birth Control

By Carol Downer

The pro-natalist population controllers say they’re concerned about our health, and they charge that hormonal contraceptives are dangerous to our health, therefore we should stop taking them and have more babies; the other side says they’re concerned about our health, and they present the facts that show that the benefits of hormonal contraceptives outweigh the risk, so it’s prudent to use them to prevent unwanted pregnancy.  Who’s “facts” do we believe? 

Who’s checking the fact checkers, especially when they check up on jingoistic statements that we want to see proven wrong.  When a pro-natalist Zimbabwean official tells his countrywomen “to multiply” in order for Zimbabwe to be a “superpower” and warns that birth control can cause cancer, we can see that he’s trying to exploit women’s fears.  But, we must be equally wary when those of the “anti-natalist persuasion” rush to allay our fears.  When the facts start flying about what’s best for women’s bodies, those of us who want to control our reproduction without governmental interference have to carefully analyze this ideologically-driven debate.   

In the article, “Zimbabwe Registrar’s Claim that Contraception Causes Cancer is Misleading and Alarmist”, Africa Check cites two main claims by Zimbabwe Official Tobaiwa Mudede in his speech at an Africa Day celebration in Harare on May 25.  They ignore his first assertion that the promotion of birth control is a ploy by western nations to retard population growth in Africa.

They contact WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and their check reveals his facts are right.  IARC confirms that there can be a link between the use of oral and injectable hormonal contraceptives and particular types of cancer, increasing the risk in some cases and lowering it in others.  Dr. Elvira Singh of IARC gives their overview of the various risk factors for cancer in taking the Pill or the Shot; she concludes that Mudede’s comments are “alarmist”.  Dr. Singh’s support of the Pill and the Shot shows her complacency about the dangers of the Pill or the Shot, given that there a number of other equally effective but far safer barrier methods equally available.  She only compares the danger of the Pill or the Shot to doing nothing at all to prevent pregnancy.  Birth has dangers so the Pill and the Shot compare well with that.    

Abby Johnston of Bustle.com’s article, a shortened version of Africa Check’s, sums up WHO’s position as “the benefit far exceeds the risks” with contraceptive use, and mis-quotes Africa Check in saying that “the higher the birth rate in a country, the higher the maternal mortality rate”.  Fact?  The UN only said the dangers of having more children could result in increased mortality rate.  Johnston reveals her true concern, “Access and education on birth control is particularly important in areas facing overpopulation.”  She presumably means Africa.  African women, just as much as other women, need to have an unbiased comparison of all methods of birth control; www.birth-control-comparison.info

Methinks that the reason that Africa Check didn’t check the facts concerning Mudede’s allegation that there are those in the West that push birth control because they fear population growth in Africa, is because it is also based on fact.  Some people confuse the feminist demand that we have control over our reproduction with the anti-natalist drive to reduce those populations they believe are excessive.  These anti-natalist forces, usually wealthy families, use their money and influence to support national and international policies to push birth control as the primary way to attack poverty and environmental degradation.  They use the rhetoric of women’s liberation, but their foundations and university-funded projects push oral and injectable hormonal contraception, no matter how harmful these methods may be. 

Unfortunately, the anti-natalists have been wildly successful so far in keeping a low profile, framing their proposals as giving women “choice”.  But, as a start to understanding the controversy between these two sides, there is an excellent book out that gives us a road map to the christian patriarchy movement and a description and history of national and international pro-natalist trends.  I urge supporters of women’s reproductive rights to read my review of “Quiverfull” by Kathryn Joyce, a contributing reporter for Nation Magazine.  I think it is important for us to face the growing pro-natalist movement in the United States, the popular base for the right-wing politicians who are closing down abortion clinics. 

Obvious Child: The Other Taboo

By Holly Grigg-Spall

[Originally Published in Society for Menstrual Cycle Research]

The recently released rom-com ‘Obvious Child’ has been discussed far and wide for its mature, sensitive and funny approach to the topic of abortion and yet I have not seen one comment on the fact that this movie also makes mainstream (and yes, funny) the topic of cervical mucus.

In the opening scene stand-up comedian Donna (played by real-life comedian Jenny Slate) is performing on stage at her local open mic night. She wraps up with a joke about the state of her underwear and how, she describes, her underpants sometimes look like they have “crawled out of a tub of cream cheese.”

She claims that they often embarrass her by looking as such during sexual encounters, something she feels is not sexy.

Of course, by “cream cheese” I immediately assumed Donna meant cervical mucus. Unless she is supposed to have a vaginal infection – which seeing as it is not discussed amongst the other myriad bodily function-centric conversations in the movie, I doubt to be the case – then it’s clear she is detailing her experience of cervical mucus.

Later on that night, when Donna meets and goes home with a guy, has sex and then wakes up in bed with him the following morning, she sees that her underwear is laying next to the guy’s head on the pillow. Not only that, but this is one of those situations she finds embarrassing as the underwear is actually covered in the aforementioned “cream cheese” or cervical mucus. She cringes, retrieves the underwear and hastily puts it back on under the covers.

At this scene we can assume that the presence of visible cervical mucus indicates that the character is in fact fertile at this time during the movie. Even if we didn’t know this movie was about unplanned pregnancy, perhaps we would know now. Apparently Donna is not on hormonal birth control, and she’s not sure if, in their drunkenness, they used a condom properly. So, I speculate, if Donna had known she was fertile and that the “cream cheese” in her underwear was actually one of the handy signs of fertility her body provides, then she may have taken Plan B and not had to worry about an abortion. But, then, of course, we wouldn’t have had the rest of this movie. We would have had a very different movie – a movie someone should also make.

But it goes to show how some body literacy might go a long way in helping women make more informed choices. The abortion sets her back $500 and causes some emotional turmoil. A dose of Plan B is cheaper and easier to obtain, although not without some side effects. Maybe even, we can speculate, if Donna had known she was fertile she might have avoided PIV [Penis In Vagina] sex that night.

It’s great to see a movie approach the choice of abortion as though it really were, well, a choice. But isn’t it interesting that in doing so it shows how women can be hampered in their choices by a lack of body literacy?

We often see women in movies discussing their “fertile time” in regards to wanting to get pregnant – and so meeting their husbands to have sex at the optimum time in usually funny, crazy scenarios. Sometimes we have seen women taking their temperature or using ovulation tests and calendars to figure this out. However, I think this might be the first mention of cervical mucus in cinema.

I had the honor of seeing this movie with longtime abortion rights and women’s health activist Carol Downer and getting to discuss it with her after. Carol pioneered the self-help movement and self-examination, adding much to our collective knowledge of our bodies. 

This is what she had to say:

"I enjoy the genre of romantic comedies with all their faults; I’m not as critical of them as I am of other genres, and ‘Obvious Child’ more than met my expectations.

I particularly liked ‘Obvious Child.’ I liked the uninhibited tipsy lovemaking scenes that showed casual sex at its best. Then, the complications that arose when she found out she was pregnant and needed to have an abortion and when he continued to be very interested in having a real relationship rang absolutely true to me. It’s just our luck, isn’t it, to get pregnant when there’s no realistic way to continue the pregnancy? The women, married or unmarried, who get abortions have some variation of this experience. When we have such bad timing, it’s the pits! I loved that their relationship grew in facing the regrettable necessity of the abortion and the recovery together, and you get the feeling that the relationship has a good future ahead of it. A darned good story."

We need to take back the Campus!

This article has an exciting title, “Take Back Your Campus”.  Unfortunately, even though it is a beautifully written expose of the epidemic of campus rape, it’s “call to action” is in fact an invitation to get on our computers and ask universities, governments and the police to continue their ineffectual policies. 

In the late 60’s and early ’70’s, college women were forming groups to stop rape on campus.  Actions included confronting a man identified as a rapist en masse, outing the same with leaflets posted strategically and forming all-women escort groups to take women through sections of the campus where rapes were occurring.

What was patriarchy’s response to the blatant actions of “strident” feminists?  They studied the problem.  They created task forces.  They devised new rules and structures, combined with educating men to respect women and women to take precautions.  The U.S. Law Enforcement Assistance Agency was funded to replace community-controlled women’s projects with professionally-run rape crisis centers where rape victims would answer questions, submit to pelvic examinations to make rape kits (many of which would languish on police departments’ shelves).  Women were pressured to become complainants; the goal was to arrest and imprison perpetrators. 

Almost fifty years later, The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Assault is continuing in patriarchy’s efforts to “protect” women rather than giving them more power. The Task Force has found that, (after having co-opted authentic action by the women themselves), their paternalistic, police-state programs have not improved the situation.  In fact, it seems to be worse.

Chandler McCorkle does urge readers to engage fellow students and citizens, presumably multi-gendered, to help change the way campuses are run across the nation.  Let’s learn from history.  If we want to recapture the outrage and the energy of the Second Wave, we females will organize ourselves, whatever gender we identify ourselves as, to fight against our common problem.  Collectively, we can demand better policies, such as using university or government budgets to fund our collectively controlled projects. 

We demanded sexual liberation in the 70’s; instead we got license to like sex, to want sex and to have sex, but we have not achieved the ability to exercise that freedom to have sex without fearing rape.  Why not?  What happened to those many thousands of women who took to the streets and who made these outrageous demands.  Did they all just give up?  Is it that women aren’t interested anymore?  No, from the moment we started raising our voices, patriarchy has been using all its weapons-- its universities, its foundations, its publishing industry, its police powers, to quell our movement.      

But, besides the benign takeover of women’s projects by government's pale imitations and strings-attached funding and academic jobs, independent women’s organizations have been hounded and harassed, many out of existence.  We at the Feminist Women’s Health Centers, one of the most successful and influential of outspoken women’s groups working for female control of sexuality and reproduction, were arrested for looking at our own cervixes in 1972.  Even though American women were given permission by the U.S. Supreme Court to have abortions and risky, medically-controlled methods of birth control at our clinics, our centers were not allowed to use cervical caps, herbal remedies or other women controlled methods of safe birth control or to have participatory clinics in which non-licensed health care workers shared self-examination skills with groups of women. 

Women are licensed to get abortions, but we don’t have the freedom to seek abortion without going through a gauntlet of screaming fanatics.  The government refused for several decades to enforce simple “disturbing the peace” type laws to restrain protestors from accosting women who try to use abortion facilities.  Finally, the reign of terror culminated in burning and bombing clinics, killing abortion doctors and their staff and supporters.  Our clinics have been repeatedly investigated for such things as use of guns and non-doctors to do abortions.  We’ve been charged with fraud.  Payment for medical services rendered at the clinic have been withheld due to suspicion of overcharging.  In all of the above situations, the investigations have found nothing.  Charges have been dropped and payment for services has been restored. 

We need to take back the Campus!