Sex and Power: Sexual Bases of Radical Feminism

Author(s): Alix Kates Shulman

Source: Signs, Vol. 5, No. 4, Women: Sex and Sexuality (Summer, 1980), pp. 590-604
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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 Sex and Power: Sexual Bases of
Radical Feminism

Alix Kates Shulman

Thirteen years have passed since a handful of radical feministsbegan

organizing for women's liberation and analyzing every aspect of the
relationsbetween the sexes, includingthe sexual. Not thatthe subjectof
women's sexualitywas ignored before then. Sex had long been a "hot,"
salable subject. Men were studyingit in laboratories,in books, in bed-
rooms, in offices;after several repressive decades, changes called the
"sexual revolution"and "sexual liberation"were being widelydiscussed
and promoted all throughthe sixties;skirtswere up, pruderywas down.
Nor was the sudden feministattentionto the politicalaspectsof sexuality
in the late sixties without precedent, as it appeared at the time; for
feministshave always understood that institutionsregulating relations
between the sexes were theirconcern.' But by the 1960s feminismitself
had long been in eclipse, and, far frombeing viewed as a politicalrela-
tion,sex was considered a strictlybiological, psychological,personal, or
religious matter. Until the radical feministsboldly declared that "the
personal is political," opening for political analysis the most intimate
aspects of male-femalerelations,women's sexualityhad not fordecades
been viewed squarelyin its politicaldimensionas an aspect of the power
relationsbetween the sexes.
In the nineteenthand early twentiethcenturies, such sex-related
institutionsas family,motherhood,chastity,prostitution,birthcontrol,
and the double standard of moralityhad been subjected to feminist
1. Linda Gordon traces the development of feministideas about sexuality in the
United States,especiallyas they pertainto birthcontrol,in her importantbook, Woman's
Body,Woman'sRight:A SocialHistory ofBirthControlin America (New York: Penguin Books,
1977).
[Signs:Journalof Womenin Cultureand Society1980, vol. 5, no. 4]
Permissionto reprintthis articlemay be obtained only fromthe author.

590

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Signs Summer1980 591

analysis by the "firstwave" of feminists.Sexual repression had been

privatelyacknowledged as a primaryproblem by the older Elizabeth
Cady Stantonwhen she wrotein her confidentialdiary,begun at the age
"The firstgreat work to be accomplished for woman is to
of sixty-five,
revolutionizethe dogma that sex is a crime."2 But the suffragistsand
women's rightsadvocates mostlyshied away from publicly discussing
women's sexuality.Though first-wave feministsdid focuson the connec-
tionbetweenthe subjugationof women and male sexuality,3forthe most
part they did not make women's sexualitycentral to their analysis of
woman's social condition, except as it affected other institutions,like
motherhood.4
It was Simone de Beauvoir who reopened the subject of sex and
power to feministanalysisin 1949 withthe publicationof TheSecondSex
in France. A year earlier, Ruth Herschberger,biologistand poet, had
published the wittyfeministanalysisof female sexuality,Adam'sRib, in
this country;but her ideas seemed too eccentricto postwar America to
gain the audience they deserved.5 A larger feminist context was
needed-like that provided in Europe by Beauvoir's work and in this
countryby BettyFriedan's 1963 TheFeminineMystique,whichsignaled a
second round of organized feminism.6In her book, Friedan discussed
the use of sexual exploitationin advertising,the effectof sex roles on
sexual fulfillment,and women's sexual discontents;but NOW, the or-
ganization Friedan founded to fightsex discrimination,did not at first
concentrateon exposing injusticein the sexual sphere; indeed, thator-
ganization's early homophobia may even have exacerbated it. It re-
mained for the radical wing of the new feminism-those mostlyyoung
women of the New Left whose discontentwith their subordinationby
male radicals led them in the late sixtiesto formthe women's liberation
movement(WLM to the FBI)-to make sexualitya central part of their

2. MiriamSchneir,ed., Feminism:TheEssentialHistoricalWritings (New York: Random

House, 1972), p. 145.
3. In her chapter,"Social Purity,"Linda Gordon shows that "feministsbelieved that
men had developed excessive sexual drives whichcontributedto the subjectionof women
and hence limited the development of the whole civilization.From this they drew the
not merelychecked or sublimated,in
inferencethatexcessivesex drive had to be eliminated,
order to create a pure and sexuallyequal society"(pp. 118-19).
4. Outstandingamong exceptionswere the free-loveadvocates,notablythe notorious
Claflin sisters,Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin,who wrote frequentlyon the
connectionbetween sexualityand oppression in their publicationof the 1870s, Woodhull
and Claflin'sWeekly.Dora Marsdon is quoted byElaine ShowalterinA LiteratureofTheirOwn
(Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1977) as proposingin 1913 thatfrigidity
is the
resultof repression and economic dependence. The anarchistEmma Goldman spoke on
injury to woman's sexuality resulting from male domination and publicly defended
homosexual rightsin the firstdecades of this century[see Alix Kates Shulman, ed., Red
Emma Speaks [New York: Random House, 1972]).
5. Ruth Herschberger,Adam'sRib (New York: Peligrini& Cudahy, 1948).
6. BettyFriedan, TheFeminineMystique(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1963).

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592 Shulman Radical Feminism

analysisof sexism. Applyingthe tools of analysisand organizationthey

learned in the civil rightsmovement and the New Left to their own
situation,and drawing on the works of both Beauvoir and Friedan (as
theywould later draw on theirearlier feministpredecessors),theyused
their sexual discontentsto help them understand the power relations
between men and women.7
By late 1967 small groups of women were meeting regularlyto
discuss the effectsof male supremecynot only on women's professions,
education, and public life,as the women in NOW were doing, but on
their "private"lives as well. I was a fortunateparticipant.Those early
discussions(which soon evolved into the technique called consciousness
raising,laterabbreviatedCR) produced a greatemotionaloutpouringof
feelingsagainst the way women had been used sexuallyand revelations
of sexual shames and terrorswe had all lugged throughour lives. I was
surprisedto hear so manywomen who had come of age in the sixtiestalk
resentfullyabout theirsexual experience, for I had believed the media
version of the great sexual revolutionamong the young. But far from
having feltfreed by the so-called sexual revolutionof the sixties,those
young, dedicated women-many of whom had been politicized in the
New Left-actually feltvictimizedby it. They complained thattheywere
expected not onlyto typethe speeches, stuffthe envelopes, and prepare
the food and coffee for the radical men theyworked with,but to sleep
withthem besides, withoutmaking any demands in return.Their own
feelings,their needs for affection,recognition,consideration,or com-
mitment,did not count. If theydid not comply,theywere oftenmade to
feel like unattractive,unhip prudes who could readilybe replaced. Sex-
ual favorswere oftenthe price of politicalfavor.Naturally,thesewomen
resented being used sexually, as they resented performing political
labors withoutappreciation,and resentedbeing relegated to doing what
theycalled movement"shitwork"-all by so-called radicals whose pro-
claimed purpose in lifewas to end oppression. And these women saw an
intimateconnectionbetween the way men treatedthem in theirorgani-
zations and the way theytreatedthem sexually;theywere two sides of a
single demeaning attitude toward women-one that would not take
them seriously.
As soon as the earliestradical feministgroups were organized many
women withoutprior politicalexperience began joining them and voic-
7. Sara Evans recounts the emergence of radical feminismfrom the civil rights
movementand the New Left in her valuable history,PersonalPolitics:TheRootsofWomen's
Liberationin theCivil RightsMovement and theNew Left(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
1979). Although Evans does not discuss radical feministanalyses of sexuality,she does
document the sexual insults and exploitation of women within the New Left and the
persistentrefusalof the male radicals to take the complaintsof the women seriously.For a
firsthandaccount of the sexual resentmentsof New Left women, see Marge Piercy'sessay,
"The Grand Coolie Damn," in Sisterhood Is Powerful,ed. Robin Morgan (New York: Ran-
dom House, 1970).

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Signs Summer1980 593

ing other resentments.Some said they felt sexually rejected by their

partners,others complained that their husbands never leftthem alone
sexually. Some said they were afraid to tell their lovers what pleased
them sexually,others said theirpartnersresented being told. Some told
about passes theyhad to submitto at workand on the street,otherswere
bereft because men were intimidatedby them and they,the women,
were forbidden to make advances themselves. Some spoke about re-
prisals theyfeared or sufferedas lesbians,others spoke of theirfear of
lesbians. Some shamefullyconfessed to having masturbated all their
lives,others declared in anguish that theycould not masturbate.Many
complained bitterlythat their men never took responsibilityfor birth
control,for children,for the progressof their relationships.
The storiespoured out. In those days, few of the women had had
the opportunityto talk honestlyabout sex with anyone; it had been a
taboo subject in the fiftiesand was stillsuspect in the sixties.Certainly,
women had not feltfree to talk about the intimatephysicaldetails, for
not onlywere sexual topics embarrassing,but sexual problemshad long
been taken as signs of personal failings or illness and as such were
shameful,and talkabout sexual secretswas considered a betrayalof your
man and thus dangerous. I rememberthe excitementgenerated when
the women in my group in 1967 firstadmitted to each other that they
had been fakingorgasm-and forvarious "reasons." Once the truthwas
out, we tried to analyze whyso manyof us had all feltthe need to fake.
Instead of feelingguiltyabout it, we saw fakingas a response to pres-
sures that had been put upon us by men.8
Still,no matterhow liberatingand exhilaratingour discussions of
such intimate mattersmay have felt,our purpose was not simply to
improveour sex livesor to findsome personal solutionto our problems.
We wanted nothing less than to understand the social basis for our
discontents,including the sexual, and then to do somethingto change
it-for everyone.
This is a veryimportantpoint.Consciousness raisingwas not simply
a technique to make people feel betterabout themselvesor to cure their
personal problems. It was not therapy.9It was conceived as a political
tool, modeled on the Chinese practice called Speaking Bitterness.The
idea was this: The so-called experts on women had traditionallybeen
men who, as part of the male-supremacistpower structure,benefited

8. This attitudeis explored in the article,"When Women Rap about Sex," evidently
the transcriptof a meetingedited byShulamithFirestone,in one of the firstpublicationsof
the women's liberationmovement,NotesfromtheFirstYear (New York: New York Radical
Women, 1968).
9. In "The Personal Is Political,"an articleby Carole Hanisch in NotesfromtheSecond
Year: Women'sLiberation,Major Writingsof theRadical Feminists,ed. Shulamith Firestone
(New York: New York Radical Feminists,1970), Hanisch discusses thedifferencesbetween
therapyand CR groups.

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594 Shulman Radical Feminism

fromperpetuatingcertain ideas, and thereforewhat theysaid was sus-

pect. If we were truly to understand the situation of women in our
society,we had to base our analysison informationwe could trust,in-
formationthatwas notsuspect,and forthiswe had to gatherit ourselves.
We had to question all the generalizationsthathad been made in the past
about women and question the intereststheyserved,substitutingknowl-
edge based on the experience and feelingsof women, startingwithour-
selves. Those early CR sessions were really fact-gatheringsessions, re-
search sessionson our feelings.We wanted to get at the truthabout how
women felt,how we viewed our lives,what was done to us, and how we
functionedin the world. Not how we were supposedto feel but how we
reallydid feel. This knowledge,gained throughhonest examination of
our own personal experience,we would pool to help us figureout how to
change the situation of women. Those early meetings felt like life-
transformingdiscussionsbecause our object was justice forall women.10
We had to tell the truth; so much depended on it. We were going to
change the world.
What made the discussionsso powerfulwas the sense we had thata
great floodlighthad been turned onto the world, lightingup all our
experience; it was as though all the murkyand scary shadows we had
been livingwithall our lives were suddenlywiped away by the powerful
new light.Sex was a centraland explosive subjectto whichwe continually
returned;but as we talked of our mostintimatefeelingswe began to see
how interconnectedwere all our experiences and our seeminglydis-
parate lives.
Since everythingwe discussed was connected,we feltwe could start
anywhere in our analysis of women's lives: sex, class, work, marriage,
motherhood, sex roles, housework, health, education, images,
language-all these aspects of women's lives were riddled with sexism.
The movementwe envisioned would change them all.
A review of the major actions of those earliest years of WLM-
actionsinitiatedby a mere handfulof ardent women, at firstmaybe 100
in 1967, then, by 1970, many thousands-reveals how central was the
new feministanalysisof sexualityto our collectivestruggleforjustice. In
1967 the firstsmall groups began organizingand doing CR. By Septem-
ber 1968 the fledglingmovement considered itselfready for its first
national demonstration:about sixtyfeminists,mostlyfrom New York,
went to AtlanticCity to picket the Miss America Pageant, using that
event to demonstratehow women are (degradingly)judged as sex ob-
jects. Inside Convention Hall women unfurled a huge banner in the
10. In her widelydisseminated "A Program for FeministConsciousness Raising," in
NotesfromtheSecondYear, Kathie Sarachild, a founding member of Redstockingsand a
vitallyimportanttheoreticianof consciousness raising, repeatedly emphasized the im-
portanceof connectingpersonal testimonywithtestimonyof otherwomen,now and in the
past, and withpoliticalorganizing.

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Signs Summer1980 595

balcony that read, simply, Women's Liberation. Outside on the

boardwalk, demonstrators mockingly crowned a live sheep "Miss
America,"filleda "freedomtrashcan" withitemsof female"torture"like
curlers,bras, girdles,and high-heeled shoes; spoke only to female re-
porters;and paraded withleafletsand posters.One of the mostpowerful
posterswas a replicaof a displayad fora popular steakhouse depictinga
woman's naked body charted withthe names of beef cuts. The pageant
seemed a perfectsymbolof the exploitationof women as sex objects,but
the ideas of WLM were then so unthinkablethatthe demonstrationwas
not well understood. Many onlookers and reporterswere incensed; it
was at that demonstrationthat feministsbecame known as "crazy bra
burners,"though no bra was burned. So acceptable was the practiceof
valuing women for their sexual attractiveness that many people
genuinelybelieved thedemonstratorsmustbe uglywomen,motivatedby
simplejealousy of the contestants,proclaiminga politicsof sour grapes.
The followingspringthe newlyformedRedstockingsheld theirfirst
abortionspeak-out,at whichwomen gave public testimonydescribingin
heart-rendingdetail what theyhad to go throughto get abortions.This
testimonybroke a verydeep taboo and starteda passionate public debate
thatis stillgoing on. It is hard to believe how stunnedthecountrywas by
this action. At the heart of the prohibitionagainst abortion (and birth
control)is the deeply held feelingthatfemale sex outside of procreation
must be punished. As a national columnistwrote at the time,"She had
the fun,now let her pay." (In the same way,the earlyspeak-outson rape
emphasized not only the brutalityand hatred in the act of rape but the
way in which,by society's"blaming the victim,"women's sexualitywas
held responsible for rape-as reflectedin laws, police procedures, and
relevance of the victim'ssexual history.)What was new at the abortion
speak-outwas thatthe women,speakingof theirfeelingsand experience
and pain, tied abortionto the question of women's freedom,which had
not been done publicly since the birth control debates of an earlier
time.11Indeed, what promptedthe Redstockingsspeak-outwas a legisla-
tive hearing on abortionat whichthe "experts"testifying were fourteen
men and one woman, a nun. The Redstockingsthoughtit time to hear
fromthe "real experts": women.
Those earliest years witnessed a proliferationof actions, from a
Whistle-Inin Wall Street,in which feministsmade sexual passes at men
on the streetat lunchtime,to a protestat the National Bridal Fair by
WITCH (Women's InternationalTerroristConspiracy fromHell), to a
takeoverby New York Radical Feministsof legislativehearingson pros-
titution-all intendedto raise publicconsciousnessof sexism.The insults
11. The other source of the abortion movementwas the population-controlmove-
ment,which in some ways promotes the opposite of women's freedom. For the relation
betweenthe feministand population-controlmovementsas theyapply to birthcontrol,see
Gordon.

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596 Shulman Radical Feminism

flungat demonstratorsby angryobserversat these demonstrationswere

predominantlysexual: we were called dykes,whores,and beasts,as well
as commies,bitches,and nuts.
In 1969 a coalition of feministgroups staged a sit-inat the Ladies
HomeJournal officesuntil we were granted twentypages in which to
presentfeministideas to theJournal'svast female audience. I joined the
committeethatwrotethe articleon sex. Many of the articlestheJournal
editors could stomach,but the sex piece scandalized them-in part be-
cause itbrieflydiscussed lesbianismbut also, I think,because it so clearly
broughttogetherthe privateand public,the personal and political.Late
in 1969 the firstCongress to Unite Women was held in New York City,
attended by more than 500 women. That same year, 1969, Barbara
Seaman's The Doctor'sCase againstthePill was published. Then, in 1970,
came Kate Millett'sSexual Politics,ShulamithFirestone'sDialecticofSex,
and the firstof the large publishers' anthologies of articles and pam-
phlets that had been circulated earlier in movementjournals: Robin
Morgan'sSisterhood Is Powerful,Leslie Tanner's VoicesfromWomen's Liber-
ation,Sookie Stambler's Women's A Blueprintfor
Liberation: theFuture,and,
the next year,Vivian Gornickand B. K. Moran's Womanin SexistSociety
and others-all including importantarticleson sexuality.There was a
greatoutpouringof articles,stories,books,conferences,demonstrations,
debates. Lesbian feministsbegan formingseparate groups and explor-
ing the connections between lesbianism and feminism;at the Second
Congress to Unite Women (1970), a radical lesbian group calling them-
selvesthe Lavender Menace forcedthe movementto examine itsattitude
toward lesbianism. The women's self-help movement encouraged
women to examine theirown and each other'sbodies, inside and out, not
only to overcome ignorance and shame, but to freeus fromthe bias and
controlof the male medical establishment.New York Radical Feminists
and other groups outside New York organized speak-outs,frequently
modeled after those early Redstockingsabortion speak-outs, on such
volatile topics as rape, prostitution,marriage, motherhood. Feminist
ideas were spreadingeverywhereas we made new connectionsand more
womenjoined the movement.It seemed to us then thatwe could not be
stopped.

II

What were the early radical feministideas about sex? Naturally,as

WLM was a political movement the new attentiondirected by radical
feministsto our sexualityhad to do withpower; withtakingforourselves
the control of our lives and our bodies that men-through the laws,
customs,and other institutionsof a male-ruled society-had appropri-

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Signs Summer1980 597

ated. The feministmovement for reproductive freedom,the women's

self-help movement from California, the broader women's health
movement-of whichthe Boston collective'sbest-sellingOur Bodies,Our-
selves was a product and a source-all organized around the idea of
reclaimingfor ourselves control over our verybodies. So with the new
feministanalysis of sexuality.'2 Perceivingsexual relations as but one
aspect of the power relations between men and women, early radical
feministsquestioned traditional definitionsof women's sexuality, of
women's"nature,"of sexual satisfactionand health (conceived as hetero-
sexual) on the grounds that such definitions,as propounded by men,
tended to justifythe sexual exploitation of women by men. "If sexual
relationswere not programmed to support politicalends-that is, male
oppression of the female-then the way would be clear forindividualsto
enter into physicalrelationsnot definedby roles, nor involvingexploita-
tion. Physicalrelations(heterosexual and homosexual) would be an ex-
tensionof communicationbetween individualsand would not necessar-
ilyhave a genitalemphasis,"read a 1969 positionpaper put out by "The
Feminists:A PoliticalOrganization to AnnihilateSex Roles."'3
"We must begin to demand that if certain sexual positions now
defined as 'standard' are not mutuallyconducive to orgasm, they no
longer be defined as standard. New techniquesmust be used or devised
which transformthis particularaspect of our current sexual exploita-
tion,"'4 proclaimed Anne Koedt in her famous essay, "The Mythof the
Vaginal Orgasm," published in 1968 in Notesfrom theFirst Year and
expanded the followingyear. Though Koedt focused on technique,the
point of her articlewas clearlypolitical.She was concerned not onlywith
the true factsabout female orgasm, then under scrutinyby sexologists,
but with exposing the distortionof those facts into the "myth"of the
vaginal orgasm:

Today, withextensiveknowledge of anatomy ... there is no igno-

rance on the subject [of female orgasm]. There are, however,social
reasons whythisknowledgehas not been popularized. We are living
in a male societywhich has not sought change in women's role....

12. Important pre-WLM feminist analyses of female sexuality included

Herschberger'sAdam'sRib (see n. 5 above) and MaryJane Sherfey's 1966 paper for the
Journalof theAmericanPsychoanalytic Association,"The Evolution and Nature of Female
Sexuality,"based on her studies of multipleorgasm in women. AfterWLM was launched,
Adam'sRib was reissued in paperback by Harper and Row, and Sherfey'sessay was pub-
lished in SisterhoodIs Powerfulas "A Theory of Female Sexuality"and laterexpanded intoa
book.
13. NotesfromtheSecondYear, p. 114.
14. Anne Koedt, '"The Mythof the Vaginal Orgasm," reprintedin Voicesfrom Women's
Liberation, ed. Leslie Tanner (New York: New American Library/Mentor Books, 1970), p.
159.

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598 Shulman Radical Feminism

The establishmentof clitoral orgasm as fact would threaten the

heterosexual institution.For it would indicate that sexual pleasure
was obtainable fromeither men or women, thus making heterosex-
ualitynotan absolute,butan option. It would thusopen up thewhole
questions of humansexual relationshipsbeyond the confinesof the
present male-femalerole system.15

This analysiswas continuedbyTi-Grace Atkinson,a founderof The

Feminists,the earlyantimarriagegroup whichlimitedto one-thirdof its
membershipthose women who lived with men. In "The Institutionof
Sexual Intercourse," in Notesfrom theSecond Year, Atkinson analyzed
sexual intercourseitselfas a "politicalinstitution,"analogous to the in-
stitutionof marriage,which serves the needs of reproductionand often
the sexual desires of men but not necessarilythose of women. Atkinson
coolly proposed thatwe tryto "discoverwhat the nature of the human
sensual characteristicsare from the point of view of the good of each
individual instead of what we have now, which is a sort of psychological
draftsystemof our sexualities."Never reducing sexual relationsto mere
technique,Atkinsonelaborated the insightthatorgasm is not everything
by observingthatwhat loversadd to the sexual experience "cannot be a
technique or physicalimprovementon that same auto-experience" but
"must be a psychologicalcomponent."16
Carrying the feministrebellion against the sexual exploitation of
women a step furtherstill,Dana Densmore of Boston's Cell 16 proposed
a reordering of women's prioritiesaway from the sexual altogether.
After all, the belief that sexual love of man is the core of woman's
aspirations-or is even necessary for fulfillment-justifieswoman's
exploitationand keeps her enthralled.In her powerful1969 essay,"On
Celibacy,"which appeared in the firstissue of No More Fun and Games,
thejournal associated withCell 16, Densmore wrote:

We must come to realize that we don't need sex, that celibacy ...
could be desirable,in manycases preferableto sex. How repugnant
itis, afterall, to make love to a man who despises you,who fearsyou
and wants to hold you down! Doesn't screwingin an atmosphere
devoid of respect get prettygrim?Why bother? You don't need it.
... This is a call not forcelibacybut foran acceptance of celibacyas
an honorable alternative,one preferableto the degradation of most
male-femalerelationships .... Unless you accept the idea that you
don't need [men], don't need sex from them, it will be utterlyim-
possible foryou to carrythrough,it willbe absolutelynecessaryfor
you to lead a double life, pretending with men to be something
other than what you know you are.. . If we are going to be liber-

15. Ibid., pp. 161 and 166.

16. Ti-Grace Atkinson, "The Institutionof Sexual Intercourse," in Notesfrom the
SecondYear, pp. 45-46.

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Signs Summer1980 599

ated we mustrejectthe falseimage thatmakes men love us, and this

willmake men cease to love us.... An end to thisconstantremaking
of ourselves according to what the male ego demands! Let us be
ourselvesand good riddance to those who are then repulsed byus!17

Writing on "Lesbianism and the Women's Liberation Movement,"

Martha Shelly, an early Radicalesbian, pursued Densmore's argument
down another path:

To me, lesbianismis not an oddityof a fewwomen to be hidden in

the background of the Movement. In a way, it is the heart of the
Women's Liberation Movement. In order to throwoff the oppres-
sion of the male caste, women must unite-we must learn to love
ourselvesand each other,we mustgrow strongand independent of
men so thatwe can deal withthem froma positionof strength.The
idea that women must teach men how to love, that we must not
become manhatersis, at thispointin history,like preachingpacifism
to the Vietcong. Women are ... told to be weak, dependent and
loving.That kind of love is masochism.Love can onlyexistbetween
equals, not between the oppressed and the oppressor.18

Thus, the price of maintainingsexual relationswithmen in a sexist

societysometimesseemed too highto pay formanyradical feminists,just
as the price of motherhood in a sexist societyhas made many women
reasonably decide to forgo that experience as well. But most radical
feminists,rather than renounce heterosexuality,advocated struggleto
change itsbasis. (Many considered separatisma cop-out.) In TheDialectic
ofSex, ShulamithFirestone,shrewdlyanalyzingprevailingheterosexual
relations,tried to specifythe price women pay for male love. In the
chapter on "Love," she describeslove as requiring"mutual vulnerability
or it turns destructive:the destructiveeffectsof love occur only in a
contextof inequality."But because men and women are notequal, love is
destructiveforwomen. While "a man mustidealize one woman over the
rest in order to justifyhis descent to a lower caste,"19it is differentfor
women:

In theirprecarious politicalsituation,women cannot affordthe lux-

ury of spontaneous love. It is much too dangerous. The love and
approval of men is all-important.To love thoughtlessly,
beforeone
has ensured returncommitment,would endanger thatapproval....

17. Tanner, pp. 264-68.

18. Martha Shelly,"Lesbianism and the Women's Liberation Movement,"in Women's
Liberation:BlueprintfortheFuture,ed. Sookie Stambler (New York: Ace Books, 1970), p.
127.
19. Shulamith Firestone,The Dialecticof Sex: The Case for FeministRevolution(New
York: Bantam Books, 1970), pp. 130-31.

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600 Shulman Radical Feminism

In a male-runsocietythatdefineswomen as an inferiorand parasiti-

cal class,a woman who does not achieve male approval in some form
is doomed .... But because the woman is rarelyallowed to realize
herselfthroughactivityin the larger (male) society-and when she
is, she is seldom granted the recognitionshe deserves-it becomes
easier to tryforthe recognitionof one man thanof many;and in fact
this is exactlythe choice most women make. Thus once more the
phenomenon of love, good in itself,is corruptedby itsclass context:
women must have love not only for healthyreasons but actuallyto
validate theirexistence.20

To this end, women must subordinatetheirtrue feelings,cultivatesex

appeal, aspire to meet beauty standards,inhibitsexual spontaneity,and
even fake orgasms-anything to catch a man. It is less this behavior
many radical feministsdeplored than the condition of unequal power
and vulnerabilitybetween the sexes thatmakes such behavior seem nec-
essary for survival.As JenniferGardner wrotein the essay "False Con-
sciousness" that was published in the Californiajournal, Toothand Nail,
"Our oppression is not in our heads. We willnot become unoppressed by
'actingunoppressed.' Try it-if you have the economic independence to
survivethe consequences. The result will not be respect and support.
Men willeithernot like you-you are a bitch,a castrator,a nag, a hag, a
witch;or theywillaccuse you of not likingthem."21As Kathie Sarachild
wrote, observing the double nature of sex and power, "For most of
historysex was, in fact,both our undoing and our only possible weapon
of self-defenseand self-assertion(aggression)."22
That some women seem to be able to have satisfactorysexual re-
lationswithmen is as much beside the point,given sexism,as thatsome
manage to gain economic security: sexual (and economic) injustices
neverthelessprevail. From the pointof view of radical feminism,which
addresses the problemsof the many,not of the privilegedfew,even the
best "individual solutions"will be chancy,for unless a woman is strong
and independent her solution can disintegratewhen she alienates her
male protector,which happens to many women simplyby aging. (The
early feministgroup, OWL, Older Women's Liberation,defined "older"
as thirtyand up-by prevailingsexiststandards a ridiculouscut-offage
for men but a realisticone for women considered as sex objects.) Irene
Peslikisplaced at the head of her listof "Resistancesto Consciousness":
"Thinking that our man is the exception and, therefore,we are the
exceptions among women. . .. Thinking that individual solutions are
possible, that we don't need solidarityand a revolutionfor our libera-

20. Ibid., p. 138.

21. JenniferGardner, "False Consciousness,"reprintedin NotesfromtheSecondYear,
p. 82.
22. Sarachild, p. 78.

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Signs Summer1980 601

tion."23As for those "personal solutions"which do not depend on male

protectionbut involvewithdrawalfrommen, women who choose them
are subject to all the sanctions,reprisals,and punishmentstraditionally
dealt to women withoutmen under male supremecy."Until we have a
movementstrongenough to forcechange," wroteFirestoneinNotesfrom
theSecondYear,"we willhave to accommodate ourselvesas best we can to
whichever... adjustmenteach of us can bestlivewith,"never forgetting,
however,as Anne Koedt wrote in NotesfromtheFirstYear, "to go to the
root of the problem rather than become engaged in solving secondary
problems arising out of [woman's] condition." Just as women without
control over reproduction will feel sexual anxiety,so women without
controlover conditionsfor theirsurvivalwill also suffersexual anxiety.
From the beginning,radical feministshad differinganalyses of sexual-
ity,but all agreed thatsexual relationswere deeply affectedby the gen-
eral power relationsprevailingbetweenthe sexes, thatthe wayto change
sexual relationswas throughsolidarityand struggleto change the power
relations,and that the way to discover how these relations oppressed
women was throughconsciousness raising.

III

Like many other radical feministsat that time, impressed by how

quicklyour ideas were spreading and how much activitytheygenerated
among ourselves, I was optimisticabout the effectof our movement.
Our intense examination of our personal experience for its social and
politicalsignificanceeven helped me to develop as a writer.It was hardly
an accident that the firstarticle I wrote for publicationin 1969, called
"Organs and Orgasms," was on sex.24In it I cited case aftercase of the
injustice done to women by bias in the very terminologyof sex and
suggested that a solution to our sexual problems mightbe advanced by
reexamining our assumptions,definitions,and beliefs about sexuality
from a woman's point of view. It was not that I discounted the im-
portanceof politicalstruggle,but I believed we would have to change the
way we thinkbefore we could change the way we live. The ideas of the
movementwere spreading so fastthatit seemed to many of us in those
days thatit would not be difficultto organize masses of women to revolt.
(Firestone thoughtit would take "several more years" to build a strong
enough movementto "force change.") When the firstmass August 26
Woman's March was held in large citiesall over the countryin 1970 to
commemorate the fiftiethanniversary of the women's suffrage am-
mendmentand to demonstrateour power-as thousands and thousands
23. Morgan, p. 337.
24. Alix Kates Shulman, "Organs and Orgasms," in Womanin SexistSociety,ed. Vivian
Gornick and B. K. Moran (New York: Basic Books, 1970), p. 198.

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602 Shulman Radical Feminism

of women marched to demand theirrights-it looked as ifwe mightwin

withease. And in the yearsimmediatelyfollowing,our hopes rose as the
ERA passed through Congress for the firsttime since its introduction
fiftyyears before; as the Supreme Court ruled that abortion,at least in
the firsttrimester,was a woman's right; as suits for equal pay were
launched against large corporations; as prestigious all-male colleges,
professions,and institutionsconsidered admittingwomen.
However, even then a powerfulresistancewas organizing. Aftera
few years had passed, almost everythingremained to be done. People
spoke differentlybut acted prettymuch as they always had. Following
our initial success came a certain foreboding. Alice Paul, the veteran
suffragistwho had witnessed the defeat of feminismonce, warned
against allowing a timelimitto be attached to the ERA; but, heedless of
historyas Americans-especially the young-tend to be, too ready to
project our own changed consciousnessonto the world, feministsfailed
to heed her. In time it became clear thatour expectations,like myown
sex article,were too optimistic;we had changed onlythe surfaceof what
was wrong. Even if everywoman acknowledged the injusticeof sexism
and every man understood about the role of the clitorisin female or-
gasm, sexual strifewould continue,for the sexual arrangementsof the
world were stillbased on unequal power. Organized antifeminismfol-
lowed each of the movement'ssuccesses in changing public conscious-
ness. Movementor no movement,feministfeelingswere not given pub-
lic expression,our testimonywas not considered "expert,"our power in
the world of public decisions remained miniscule. The heart of our
sexual dissatisfactionwithmen was stillthatwithoutpower women were
forced to sell it or forgo it, and we were still powerless. Even if we
objected to Miss America standardswe stillhad to be judged by themin
our daily lives and then be tossed on thejunk heap when we no longer
measured up. Reexamining everything,even achieving perfectunder-
standing,was not going to be enough to enable us to change the relations
between the sexes, because sex had to do with power and those with
power were not about to smile sweetlyand give it up. A long, difficult
strugglewould have to followunderstanding.
This is not to discount the considerable politicalgains we did make
during the seventiesin the fightforsexual justice. Of all the movements
that emerged in the sixties,the WLM was the one that most securely
became a mass movement in the seventies. Out of those early efforts
grewchanged attitudesand laws regardingwomen's work,reproductive
freedom, physical abuse, and vast changes in notions of family.But
many of the changes are extremelyvulnerable to the growing anti-
feministbacklash, and if we stop far shortof our original goals we may
lose the gains we have won. It happened to the women in the first
wave-they gained certainimportantbut only partial victories,and they
were defeated and silenced for decades. It could happen to us if we let

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signs Summer1980 603

up the pressure or lose sightof our original goals. If consciousness can

be changed once, twice,it can be changed again. We are experiencinga
strongmove to the right.Sterilizationabuse, hormone abuse are on the
rise.The gap between average male and female income is largerthan it
was a decade ago. If abortions were outlawed again, if women were
pushed back out of the work force,if we returnedto viewingsex as an
exclusivelyprivatematteraffectingeach person in isolationratherthan a
politicalmatteraffectingall of us, itcould happen again. Justas frighten-
ing as the organized politicalbacklash, which at least we know how to
fight,is the backslidingof consciousness,the erosion of radical feminist
ideals. The radical feministcritiquesof sexualityand sexual repression,
originallypresented as aspects, or examples, of a much larger male
dominationof women but hardlyas leading by themselvesto solutions,
have been diverted into concern with mere sexual technique or in-
creased activity.Co-optation and tokenism have made it easier for
people to deny thatanythingis stilldrasticallywrong betweenthe sexes.
Again and again it is claimed that women have won sexual equality
because the familyis in a stateof fluxand chaos; thatsince the pill there
is no longer any double standard-as iffearof pregnancy(whichpersists
in any case) were the sole source of women's sexual anxiety.People say
we are equal because a relativelysmallnumberof women are in positions
of tokenpower. (As withall "individualsolutions,"token power is differ-
ent fromreal power,because as soon as the women who have it refuseto
play the game theywilllose theirpositions;knowingthis,theyare mostly
supportersof the men to whom theyowe their power.) But these facts
only disguise the true situationof women's continued powerlessness.
A new generation does not know that ten years ago what are now
our basic demands were unspoken, many even unmentionable. The
ideas of women's liberationthatwere so recentlyshocking,thrilling,and
liberatingare already put down by many of the young as old hat and
boringand bythe old as a fad thatis passe, obliteratedin the swingof the
pendulum. The presentation of feminism in the mass media has
trivializedthe movement'sgoals; in the name of"liberation" courses for
women too frequentlyteach self-promotioninstead of understanding
and changing sexism in society;books on sexualitytoo often focus on
technique and, worse,on how women may make themselvesmore sexu-
ally appealing to men, teaching us to blame the victimrather than on
how to end victimization.The renewed search for personal solutionsto
collective problems is as arid today as it was a decade ago. Personal
solutionsto sexual problems center on findingthe rightpartneror the
rightattitudeor the righttechnique-at best chancy,at worstharmful,
since theyobscure the power relationsinherentin sexual relations.
Several years back some of the women fromthe earliestmovement
days got togetherto discuss the changes thathad occurred in theirown
sex livessince the movementbegan. All agreed thatsex had changed for

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604 Shulman Radical Feminism

them,but veryfewthoughtit had reallyimproved.True, some of them

were now able to specifywhat theywanted theirsex partnersto do, but
in some relationshipsthe man resented the woman's desires. Several
women who had changed fromnonorgasmicto regularlyorgasmicwere
sorryto findthat neverthelesstheywere unhappy in love. Some of the
women who had become lesbians found themselvesfacinga whole new
set of problemsand anxietiesin a world that punishes homosexuality.25
One woman grievedthatsince she no longer "played the game" she was
no longer interestedin sex at all and another that no one wanted her.
Not even the most ardent feministcan claim to be "liberated" in a
sexistsociety."Sexual liberation"can mean nothingunless it includes the
freedom to reject or enter into sexual relationships fearing neither
exploitationnor punishment.But sexual exploitationand punishment
stillthreatenevery woman. The denial of complete reproductivefree-
dom, the total responsibilityfor child rearing, the psychological in-
timidationof rape victimsare all punishmentsfor the sexually active
woman. The threat of job loss, ridicule, rejection,isolation, and even
rape are punishmentsthreateningthe woman who refuses sex.
As the radical ideas of feminism,developed under the powerful
insightthatthe personal is political,are absorbed byinstitutionsadept at
deflectingchange through co-optation, and as our radical programs
come under directattackby an increasinglyvocal conservativebacklash,
our awareness of the political dimension of sexual relations,with its
powerful potential for change, is in danger of being lost. Conceiving
sexual liberation apart from feministliberation can land us where
women have too often landed-not with more real freedom but with
new pressuresto put out or to withhold.Our only recourse is to deepen
our radical insightsabout the connectionsbetween sex and power and
build a politicalmovementwhich can put insightinto action.

New YorkCity
25. SydneyAbbottand Barbara Love observe that lesbians "sufferthe oppression of
all women but are not eligible for any of the rewards. . .. Fear of punishmentcreates
tremendousanxiety,even though punishmentmay not occur" ("Is Women's Liberationa
Lesbian Plot?" in Gornickand Moran, pp. 443 and 445.)

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