By Hyde Park Chapter, Chicago Women's Liberation Union
Heather Booth
Day Creamer
Susan Davis
Deb Dobbin
Robin Kaufman
Day Creamer
Susan Davis
Deb Dobbin
Robin Kaufman
Tobey Klass Chicago Women's Liberation Union, Hyde Park Chapter [1972].
We have written this paper to express and share with other women ideas for a new strategy for the women's movement. Currently there are two ideological poles, representing the prevailing tendencies within the movement. One is the direction toward new lifestyles within a women's culture, emphasizing personal liberation and growth, and the relationship of women to women. Given our real need to break loose from the old patterns socially, psychologically, and economically and given the necessity for new patterns in the post revolutionary society, we understand, support and enjoy this tendency. However, when it is the sole emphasis, we see it leading more toward a kind of formless insolation rather than to a condition in which we can fight for and win power over our own lives.
The other direction is one which emphasizes a structural analysis of our society and its economic base. It focuses on the ways in which productive relations oppress us. This analysis is also correct, but its strategy, taken alone, can easily become, or appear to be, insensitive to the total lives of women.
As socialist feminists, we share both the personal and the structural analysis. We see a combination of the two as essential if we are to become a lasting mass movement. We think that it is important to define ourselves as socialist feminists, and to start conscious organizing around this strategy. This must be done now because of the current state of our movement. We have reached a crucial point in our history.
