“I Walk in the History of My People”: Indigenous Women as Colonized Peoples

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Winona LaDuke posits in her interview “They Always Come Back” that “Native peoples have become marked as inherently violable through a process of sexual colonization. By extension, their lands and territories have become marked as violable as well. The connection between the colonization of Native people’s bodies– particularly Native women’s bodies– and Native lands is not simply metaphorical” (55). The oppression of Indigenous peoples is connected to the exploitation of the earth. With each generation, the capitalist system demands more resources from the land, “first for agricultural crops, then for gold, then for iron, then for oil, and now uranium” (LaDuke 53).  Because Indigenous people live in balance with the earth, their fate is directly related to the fate of the earth. There is an apparent historical trend in the subjugation of Natives, which like the desecration of natural ecosystems, can be traced back to the colonization of the “New World” centuries ago. The genocide of Indigenous peoples is systemic in the “development” of the “civilized” world. White Americans view the development of their society as “a mastery of the natural world, a prime example of the progress from primitive to civilized society,” without taking into consideration that their society is not immune to surviving ecological disasters of their own making. (LaDuke 57).

“I Walk in the History of My People,” as printed in the fourth edition of This Bridge Called My Back.

Published in all four editions of the feminist anthology This Bridge Called My Back, the poem “I Walk in the History of My People” by Native American writer Chrystos articulates how she carries the intergenerational trauma of her community within her flesh and blood. In the first stanza, the speaker illustrates the suffering of Native American women, which resides within her physical body. For example, there are “women locked inside [her] joints / for refusing to speak to the police,” referencing the historical sexual violence inflicted by white patriarchs in positions of power and Indigenous women’s refusal to cooperate with the same government entity that ignores the systematic abuse of Native women. In the first stanza, the speaker implements anaphora to describe how “in [her] marrow are hungry faces who live on land the whites don’t want,” alluding to how Native Americans are displaced within their own homeland. Within her marrow are also the faces of her people who are “not allowed / to hunt / to move / to be” because of the ongoing genocide of Indigenous people committed by the U.S. settler-colonial project through dispossession of their ancestral territory and the mass extermination of their sustenance, forcing them to become dependent on the very same state that is murdering them. For instance, the once great bison herds, a staple of the Great Plains indigenous peoples, were purposefully hunted to the precipice of extinction by the U.S. government. Without the bison, which they depended upon to survive, Native American nations became crippled and were forced to rely on the government to provide rations so as to not starve. In addition, Native Americans were prohibited from hunting for sustenance, limiting them from exercising autonomy in their rightful territory. 

February 27, 1973: Activists occupy Wounded Knee.

In the scars on her knee, one can see “children torn from their families / bludgeoned into government schools,” referring to the forced assimilation of Indigenous youth at the hands of the American educational system. By severing them from the umbilical cord of their Indigenous families, the youth forgot their native tongue and underwent cultural genocide as generations upon generations of Indigenous knowledge was erased. For at least three hundred years, the infection of white supremacist, patriarchal settler-colonialism has been festering in the knees of the Native American. The speaker’s infected knee is a historical allusion to the Wounded Knee Massacre, the state-sanctioned slaughter of nearly three hundred Lakota people by the United States Army in 1890. Nearly a century later, in the Wounded Knee Occupation in 1973, the American Indian Movement resisted colonial violence by protesting the United States government’s failure to fulfill treaties with Native American nations and by demanding treaty negotiations to ensure equitable treatment of their people and lands. In their “respective struggles for survival, the Native peoples [were] waging a war to protect the land, the water, and life, while the [colonial] culture [strove] to protect its murderous lifeblood” (LaDuke 56). Although the militant insurrection was ultimately disbanded, despite centuries upon centuries of genocide, Native Americans are still walking upright in an age where they are not meant to survive.

Sources:

“AIM Occupation of Wounded Knee Begins.” History, 9 February 2010, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/aim-occupation-of-wounded-knee-begins. Accessed 4 December 2021.

Anzaldúa, Gloria, and Moraga, Cherríe, editors. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. 4th ed., State University of New York Press, 2015.

Chrystos. “I Walk in the History of My People.” Anzaldúa, Gloria, and Moraga, Cherríe, editors. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. 4th ed., State University of New York Press, 2015.

LaDuke, Winona. “They Always Come Back.” Sinister Wisdom, no. 22-23, pp. 52-57.

The Military-Industrial Complex: An Ecofeminist Lens

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“we all live in a tomic submarine,” as printed in Heresies’s Special Environmental Issue “Earthkeeping/Earthshaking.”

In addition to advocating against the degradation of the natural environment via colonization, ecofeminists recognized that the military-industrial complex and its development of nuclear weapons would threaten life on earth as we know it. The poem “we all live in a tomic submarine” by Chris Domingo, published in Heresies’s Special Environmental issue in 1981, conveys the imminent potential for nuclear weaponry to extinguish the lives of every living, breathing organism inhabiting the earth.

In the beginning, the narrator articulates how her father was involved in the Manhattan Project, unaware of the cataclysmic implications of being involved in the mass genocide of Japanese civilians in the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings in World War II. The government falsely promised him that the weapons of mass destruction being developed were only “for defense” and that they would “never be used” (Domingo 43). Although his role in the Manhattan Project was “only a tiny part,” he will never be absolved of his guilt for the severing of all umbilical cords, the cords of life, for the last time. In the following stanza, the speaker describes how she grew up in the fifties, when “fallout shelters / were the rage / of the Age of / the Bomb” (43). In the wake of the advent of the atomic bomb, the deadliest weapon developed in the history of humanity, the specter of “atomic bomb dreams” haunted the collective conscious of Americans. Yet, even when she would wake up from the dream, she would wake up to the equally nightmarish real world, where the bombs still “swim silently in the heads / of submarines” (43). Nevertheless, submarine-doctors, like her father, continue to play a role in the expansion of the military-industrial complex, even though it threatens to sever all umbilical cords from the womb of life by “[repairing] their carbon brushes / that keep corroding” (43). 

“Celebration 1982,” as printed in Sinister Wisdom’s Special Native American Issue.

Published in Sinister Wisdom’s Special Native American issue in 1983, Terri Meyette’s poem “Celebration 1982” also illustrates how patriarchal blood-rituals, such as war, are threatening the Anthropocene with extinction. Throughout the poem, the speaker implements anaphora by repeating the phrase “they say no one died”– “they” referring to the patriarchs that control the government and distort public perceptions regarding their involvement in wartime casualties. In the second stanza, the speaker brings up the culpability of scientists–the “unconscious mushroom button pushers”– for developing the technology to create nuclear weaponry, such as the atomic bomb deployed by the United States in World War II. However, the speaker also acknowledges that the government, namely the Secretary of Defense and the President, are the most at fault, for they are the warmongers ultimately responsible for funding this project of mass destruction and for dropping it upon millions of innocent civilians, and thus deserve to be “tried / for imposing fantasies and celebrations / on all life forms” (50).

For the warmongering patriarchs, it was not enough to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, instantly extinguishing the lives of millions of souls– the Nevada desert and its nearby inhabitants were their next victims. Because the U.S. government used the barren Nevada desert, devoid of life, as a testing site for nuclear weaponry, they “say that no one died” (50). Nevertheless, the desert itself is anthropomorphized into a living organism, whose “bowels melted [1000 miles into the earth]” (50). Even if the Nevada desert was devoid of living beings, the radiation that ensued from the detonations on the testing site “oozed into blood / of Shoshone and Paiute,” irreversibly polluting the territories of Indigenous nations who occupy the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Nevada in close proximity to the testing site. In fact, the Nevada test site itself is situated in the ancestral territory of the Shoshone and Pauite peoples. In 1951, the U.S. government appropriated the territory for the sole purpose of testing nuclear weapons, at the expense of the lives of Indigenous peoples. To politicians, saving a sacred area and preserving this archeological treasure was wholly irrelevant. With 814 nuclear tests having been completed to date, the Shoshone and Paiute nations are the most bombed nations on the planet.

Although the bomb itself lasted only minutes, the “intent lasts generations / in the womb of Creation, herself” (51). The radioactivity emanating from these detonations has contributed to a high concentration of cancerous diseases, such as leukemia, lymphoma, and melanoma, in the bordering reservations. The very survival of Indigenous peoples is at stake– they have no other gene pool in the world, and exposure to nuclear radiation and the ingestion of contaminants irreversibly mutate genes. These toxic compounds remain in the body, where they are passed on from the womb onto posterity decades after the testing of nuclear weapons in the site is halted. The Nevada test site remains radioactive to this day, making it impossible for Indigenous peoples to reclaim and return to their ancestral land, and the substantial radioactive fallout from the hundreds of detonations that have taken place since the 1950s has contaminated the womb of the earth herself, poisoning her offspring for generations to come. 

Sources:

“A Gathering of Spirit: North American Indian Women’s Issue.” Sinister Wisdom, no. 22-23, January 1983.

Domingo, Chris. “we all live in a tomic submarine.” Heresies, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 43

“Earthkeeping/Earthshaking.” Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Arts and Politics, vol. 4, no. 1, July 1981.

Meyette, Terri. “Celebration 1982.” Sinister Wisdom, no. 22-23, pp. 50-51.

“Nuclear War: Uranium Mining and Nuclear Tests on Indigenous Lands.” Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, September 1993, https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/nuclear-war-uranium-mining-and-nuclear-tests-indigenous. Accessed 7 December 2021.

“Earthkeeping/Earthshaking”: The Legacy of Ecofeminism in the Second Wave Feminist Movement

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In 1981, the radical feminist periodical Heresies published a themed issue titled “Earthkeeping/Earthshaking,” illustrating how the domination of Mother Earth is connected to the domination of women by the patriarchy. This issue was situated in the turn of the new decade in the 1980s, when the New Right, emboldened by the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan encroached upon the environmental acts enacted in the previous decade in the 1970s. The editors determined to encompass

The necessity for feminist theory to integrate social life, history, and natural environments; the art women are doing in and about nature; the equal importance of rural and urban ecologies; the contribution of women to the growing awareness of needs of nature; the relationship between women and militarism and struggles for liberation; and the exploitation of Third World countries for profit. (2)

This issue argues that although women have been socially shackled to their biological functions through their association with Mother Earth, acknowledging the parallels between the oppression of women and nature can lead to the upheaval of patriarchal systems and a radical reversal of structures of power. 

The cover of Heresies’s themed issue titled “Earthkeeping/Earthshaking,” published in 1981.

The cover is a photograph of Mt. St. Helens because “she” is both nurturing and destructive. This ties in with why the issue is called “Earthkeeping/Earthshaking” because feminists aim to both dismantle the patriarchal system guilty of raping the Earth and protect Mother Earth from further destruction. According to Native American mythology of the Klickitat Nation, the volcano is Loo-Wit, an old woman and fire keeper who “mediated a dispute between two individuals by sharing her fire,” transforming her and the two leaders into Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, and Mt. Adams. The eruption of Mt. St. Helens the year before in 1980 is a symbol of the “revolt of nature” because the editors know the significant role “feminist culture will play in that revolution” (2).

In the article “Energy Modes: Towards a Harmony of the Biosphere,” Lorna Salzman criticizes industrial society and its prioritization of infinite material growth at the expense of finite resources on planet earth. The utopian promises of industrialization, such as the end of poverty, disease, illiteracy, and hunger, have yet to be fulfilled, as inequities of distribution of material wealth between Western industrial society and the Third World have only increased. Salzman calls upon us to reject our religious faith in technology, which also entails “rejecting the Faustian bargain wherein we [attempt] to control the very processes of Nature” (34). Indeed, if the roots of the environmental crisis are embedded in our relationship to nature, the limits to growth and our use of the earth’s resources, then society must reject the global consumerist economy that sees the biosphere as an infinitely expanding, utilitarian resource to be exploited by mankind.

“Crucified Coyote: He Died Because of Our Sins” by Paula Nenner, printed in Heresies’s themed issue titled “Earthkeeping/Earthshaking.”

The “Crucified Coyote” is “a reaction to certain Judeo-Christian concepts which inadvertently alienated humanity from nature” when anthropocentrism became a major religious faith (Nenner 80). While Judeo-Christian traditions solely depict humans as holy figures, elevating humanity to be above and beyond the reach of empathy with the earth, other religions, such as Indigenous faiths, include animals as deities. The practitioners of these religious faiths are deeply connected to the earth and revere its inhabitants as the incarnation of god. For instance, when Native Americans hunt deer for sustenance, they pray for the soul of the fallen deer and thank the earth for helping them to survive. However, Western society treats the earth and its inhabitants as utilitarian resources to be exploited. Only when the last tree has been cut, the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, only then will mankind realize that one cannot eat money.

This special issue of Heresies, “Earthkeeping/Earthshaking,” contributed to the women’s liberation movement during its second incarnation by embracing the ecofeminist ideal that the women’s liberation movement and ecological concern are intrinsically connected, and that the only solution to end the exploitation of Mother Earth is to dismantle the patriarchy and to resurrect a culture of harmony with all living beings. This periodical contributed to the women’s liberation movement and the emerging environmental movement by laying the framework for a sustainable future envisioned by the collective power of women. By invoking the “earth’s revenge” brought about by patriarchal value systems, this publication highlights how women from all walks of life are forging a new world of harmonious reciprocity with the earth in the wake of the imminent sixth mass extinction of the Anthropocene. Today in the 21st century, when climate change threatens to end life on earth as we know it, it is more important than ever for feminists to assert an ecological perspective that recognizes the interconnectedness of all living beings and to transcend the false dualism between nature and culture. How can we transform the oppressive connection between women and nature into one that is empowering? 

Sources:

“Earthkeeping/Earthshaking.” Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Arts and Politics, vol. 4, no. 1, July 1981.

“Editorial Statement 13.” Heresies, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 1

King, Ynestra. “Feminism and the Revolt of Nature.” Heresies, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 12-15.

Nenner, Paulette. “Crucified Coyote: He Died Because of Our Sins.” Heresies, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 80

Salzman, Lorna, “Energy Modes: Towards a Harmony of the Biosphere.” Heresies, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 34-36.

Arraignment

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Robin Morgan’s “Arraignment” as it was published in 1972 in The Feminist Art Journal.

Robin Morgan’s “Arraignment” was originally published in her book Monster in November 1972. Morgan wrote the poem in response to the death of the well-known feminist poet Sylvia Plath. Plath committed suicide in 1963. Her suicide occurred after a lifetime of mental health struggles and also, importantly, after her husband, Ted Hughes, left her for another woman. “Arraignment” became a symbol for the feminist movement, republished in periodicals all over the country. 

Morgan’s poem is an accusation. The poem’s title refers to charges being read to a defendant in court. In the first stanza of the poem, it becomes very clear what these charges are. Morgan states “I accuse / Ted Hughes / of … the murder of Sylvia Plath,” and later “real blood on real hands,” leaving no room for question about who she feels is to blame for Plath’s death (Morgan 4). Morgan also makes sure to emphasize within this first stanza that she feels Hughes’ role in Plath’s death has been covered up to a certain degree. She states that Hughes’ “murder” is something that “the entire British and American / literary and critical establishment / has been at great lengths to deny” (Morgan 4). This inclusion is pertinent because it shows how Morgan’s choice to write about Hughes in a negative light is going against popular media at the time; she is choosing to call out a man to whom the rest of the world appears to have turned a blind eye. Morgan’s choice to speak out when no one else did highlights her direct approach to attacking the issue of domestic violence. 

An important clarification is that Morgan is not accusing Hughes of physically murdering Plath. Plath’s death by suicide occurred after she had separated from Hughes; she had physically moved apartments away from him with her two children and was alone when she ultimately ended her life. Rather, Morgan implies that Hughes’ abuse throughout their marriage contributed to Plath’s mental illness and eventual suicide. In her second stanza, she makes this explicitly clear, proclaiming “not that it isn’t enough to condemn him / of mind-rape and body-rape” (Morgan 4). Here, Morgan alludes to both physical and emotional assaults on Plath by Hughes. She insinuates that even if Plath had not killed herself, Hughes would be a villain solely for his behavior in their marriage. The Guardian published an article in 2017 supporting Morgan’s claims of Hughes’ abuse; the article brings to light recently found letters between Plath and her therapist in which she states that Hughes beat her before she miscarried their child and “wanted her dead” (Kean). The context of Morgan’s argument running parallel to Plath’s is important because it gives more validity to “Arraignment” in that Morgan is not speaking for Plath so much as amplifying statements Plath already made. Thus, a big part of Morgan’s role in pushing back against domestic violence is through a type of elevation of female victims’ voices and a refusal to be intimidated by the fact that no one else seemed to be speaking up for Plath.

A photo of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. This image is from the Boston Globe article “The Last Days of Sylvia Plath.”

Morgan goes on to accuse Hughes of not only crimes of domestic violence, causing Plath’s death, but also “hiding of her most revealing indictments / against her jailor” (Morgan 4). The inclusion of the word “jailor” in reference to Hughes refers to Plath’s poem “The Jailor” which discusses an abusive relationship through the metaphor of a prisoner and a jailor. Furthermore, after Plath’s death, Hughes was given the rights to her work due to their still technical status as a married couple even though they had been separated. So, what Morgan is referring to in the quotation is that because Hughes had the rights to Plath’s body of work, he also had the power to remove or refuse to publish certain aspects of it in a self-serving way. For example, according to Sady Doyle’s in her book Trainwreck “her journals were released–but Hughes admitted to burning or losing the ones from the last months of her life and the edited ones were full of [OMISSION] marks” (Doyle). So, Morgan is making the claim that the journals which Hughes admitted to destroying likely contained more evidence of his abuse. The line “and making a mint by becoming her posthumous editor” refers specifically to the omission marks aforementioned (Morgan 4). Morgan is portraying Hughes as not only an abuser but also someone who attempted to leech off of his victim after causing her death–the ultimate villain. Through demonizing Hughes to the degree that she does, Morgan successfully fights back against a culture that previously failed to condemn domestic violence, a culture that assumes male superiority and turns a blind eye to injustices. She makes an example of Hughes through the statement that she will not allow his crimes to go unnoticed or unpunished.

Morgan’s poem does not focus solely on Plath, a very well-known figure, but also seeks to bring justice to Hughes’ second wife, Assia Guttmin Wevil. She states “and / if he’s killed one wife / he’s also killed two / the second, also, committed suicide” (Morgan 4). Her choice to include Wevil’s story makes her argument against Hughes more powerful because it highlights Hughes as a common denominator in two cases of extreme mental illness to the point of death. She sarcastically states “what a coincidence,” in reference to both of his wives committing suicide, underscoring her earlier assertions of Hughes as abusive by implying that these events could not be coincidental (Morgan 4).

Morgan’s poem was especially effective in outing Hughes as a villain because her poem was aggressive enough to cause him to sue her (Doyle). She anticipated this, ending her poem with “in the meantime, Hughes / sue me,” making the fact that Hughes actually did sue her almost comical; she anticipated his very move and therefore he essentially played into her hands (Morgan 4). Hughes sued in an attempt to not let the poem be seen but his choice had the opposite effect. Feminist periodicals all over the country started to publish the poem as a result because they felt that Hughes’ attempt to cover it up was further evidence of the truth in the accusations of abuse it contains. 

Morgan’s bold choice to call out Hughes directly is symbolic of a larger statement. She refuses to allow victims of domestic violence to be ignored; in an originally somewhat solitary stance, she highlights the power of the individual voice. Morgan’s poem began as her own statement on domestic violence and abuse and grew to become a part of the larger feminist movement. 

 

Sources:

Doyle, Sady. Trainwreck. Melville House, 2016.

Kean, Danuta. “Unseen Sylvia Plath letters claim domestic abuse by Ted Hughes.” The Guardian, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/11/unseen-sylvia-plath-letters-claim-domestic-abuse-by-ted-hughes. Accessed December 2021.

Morgan, Robin. “Arraignment III.” The Feminist Art Journal, vol. 1, p. 4.

Morgan, Robin. “Arraignment III.” The Spokeswoman, vol. 3, p. 5

Rollyson, Carl. “The Last Days of Sylvia Plath.” The Boston Globe, 2013. https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/01/20/the-last-days-sylvia-plath/Dlpv1hzF4OFO6gtxoGNG5I/story.html. Accessed December 2021.

The Feminist Art Journal, vol. 1, Issue 2, September 1972

The Spokeswoman, vol. 3, Issue 6, December 1972

 

The Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter

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The cover of the January/February 1977 issue of the Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter.

The Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter began in 1974, turning out monthly issues with resources and opinion pieces aimed at combatting rape and rape culture. The issues both suggest new ideas and critique flaws in the entire anti-rape movement. The January/February 1977 issue is particularly poignant. The issue focuses on the problematic nature of the criminal justice system and the police being the first place victims of assault are told to go for help. It seeks to explain why this encouragement to always go to the police is not necessarily beneficial to the movement or to victims and further attempts to provide alternative resources for victims. 

The layout of the issue is simple; it does not seek to draw any reader in who does not wish to use its resources. Its simplicity is highlighted especially through the cover. The editors chose to use black and white text, an image of a documentary it will review, and text explaining upcoming conferences. The cover thus jumps right into the content of the newsletter. So, logically, the only people who are going to be drawn to the newsletter are those in need of resources who are looking for it; the newsletter does not want to attract masses of people, necessarily, but rather seeks to be a resource for victims who need it and allies/feminists who want to engage with the movement more intentionally.

The header of the criminal justice segment of the newsletter. It reads "Feminists Critique Anti-Rape Movement."The first piece in the newsletter is “Feminists Critique Anti-Rape Movement,” by Robin McDuff, Deanne Pernell, and Karen Saunders. The bolded font is eye-catching, as is the title. The idea of a publication, focused on fighting rape and rape culture, critiquing the very movement it is a part of is a daring way to begin the publication; it draws the reader in intentionally. The newsletter has already targeted a very specific demographic, victims and allies, with its cover and so the daring first piece serves to keep that demographic engaged. The focus of the article, explicitly in an open letter format to the entire anti-rape movement, is to “address the issue of the relationship of the anti-rape movement to the criminal justice system” (McDuff). The reason the authors see this relationship, one which encourages women to immediately go to the police when they have been assaulted, as problematic is because it is often the only option presented to victims. The authors clarify that they “support the right of individual rape victims to go through the criminal justice systems,” but specifically dislike the idea of a woman being “forced to do anything” in regards to her deeply personal experience with sexual assault (McDuff). So, their first issue with the criminal justice system is that it seems to be the only resource available to women. Furthermore, they claim that the overall “sexist and racist nature of the criminal justice system only makes the problem [of rape] worse, citing “hostile” and unsupportive” treatment of rape victims by the system (McDuff). In addition, the authors frame the criminal justice system as taking the power over her experience away from the victim as well as often failing to convict rapists even when women come forward. So, part of the way The Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter seeks to further the fight against rape culture is through identifying parts of the movement that can be worked on in order to make it stronger and more supportive for victims as a whole.

An advertisement for Inez Garcia found within the newsletter.

The issue further provides examples of the corruption of the criminal justice system. It includes the stories of women who are on trial or in prison for killing or injuring their abusers/rapists. Each story is also an advertisement because it tells the reader how to donate to the cause of helping the woman affected. An example of such a story is that of Inez Garcia, a woman “in the midst of her second trial for killing a man who helped another man rape her” (The Feminist Alliance Against Rape newsletter). This inclusion is relevant because it highlights the hypocrisy of the criminal justice system which is willing to punish women for fighting back but not willing to punish rapists. It also tells the reader how to help, giving specific calls to action to fight rape culture on an individual basis. 

This is an advertisement for “Nutcracker Suite” found within the Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter. This advertisement is another example of the resources the newsletter provides.

Furthermore, the newsletter provides concrete resources for victims and potential victims of sexual assault. For example, it includes an advertisement for the self-defense school’s “summer training program for women” (Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter). The inclusion of resources such as the self-defense class is important because it means that the newsletter not only critiques the idea of the criminal justice system being the only resource offered to victims but also offers alternative resources. This backs up the earlier point that the anti-rape movement can and should move away from the criminal justice system as its go-to resource. The Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter pushes back against rape culture in that it focuses on building the movement in new and innovative ways. The editors look at the big picture of the movement and include both theoretical critiques and concrete, action-driven ideas and resources. The newsletter thus serves to create both short-term and long-term change within the movement. 

 

Sources:

Feminist Alliance Against Rape Newsletter, May 1997.

Poem About My Rights

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Final version of Poem About My Rights. This was published in Essence Magazine in 1978.

“Poem About My Rights,” By June Jordan. The poem was published in Essence Magazine in 1978.

“Poem About My Rights,” by June Jordan was published in Essence magazine in 1978. Jordan combats rape culture by sharing her personal experience with the world. The poem takes a stream-of-consciousness-like form. For example, the opening lines read “even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear / my head about this poem about why I can’t / go out without changing my clothes my shoes” (Jordan). Here, she uses no punctuation when she changes the topic. The lack of punctuation is a phenomenon that continues throughout the poem. The lack of punctuation, free verse format, and Jordan’s highly personal reflections make the reader feel as though they are seeing the world from Jordan’s point of view. Through describing her own life, Jordan highlights how rape culture affects women’s and especially women of color’s everyday lives. 

The poem specifically highlights the prevalence of victim-blaming towards women of color. Jordan proclaims “and if after stabbing him if after screams if / after begging the bastard and if even after smashing / a hammer to his head if even after that…then I consented and there was / no rape” (Jordan). In this example she clearly does not consent; she fights back to the best of her ability. She uses this heartbreaking example in order to assert that even when a sexual assault case seems clear cut, even when a woman does everything in her power to fight back against her assaulter society will find a way to blame her; society will find a way to say it was consensual. 

This is an early edition of “Poem About My Rights” published by the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The draft is not extremely different from the final product but it is interesting to see Jordan’s process.

Throughout the poem, Jordan labels her various identities and attributes as “wrong.” She states, directly describing the rape aforementioned, “they fucked me over because I was wrong,” drawing a direct parallel between her identity as a Black woman, something society sees as lesser or “wrong,” and the likelihood that she will be assaulted (Jordan). This parallel is important because it brings to light the fact that women of color are at higher risk for sexual assault than white women; she brings awareness to the issue using her own experience. Further, she is highlighting that within society women of color are faulted for simply existing. It follows that they will be faulted for their own victimhood because society blames them for their very existence. This first time she labels herself as wrong it is more general; she is stating what she has been told as a woman of color in society. Later in the poem, she is more specific: “it was my father saying I was wrong saying that / I should have been a boy” and “it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for / my nose and braces for my teeth” (Jordan). Jordan is using the personal example of her parents criticizing who she is and the features she possesses, aspects of her life that are out of her control. She is not criticizing her parents specifically, but rather exposing to the reader all the small comments that were made throughout her childhood as a woman of color that led her to feel inferior, to feel “wrong.” 

June Jordan

Feeling “wrong” is not specific to Jordan. She states “I am the history of rape / I am the history of the rejection of who I am” (Jordan). Jordan is asserting that the pattern of women of color often being victimized by rape and rape culture is not new, it is part of history. Furthermore, this victimization causes women of color to reject themselves, to blame themselves because society tells them they are wrong. Using herself as an example, Jordan seeks to break this trend, to break the historical pattern to which she too has fallen victim. She concludes the poem by flipping the narrative, stating “but let this be unmistakable this poem / is not consent I do not consent” (Jordan). Here, consent refers to societal perception; Jordan does not consent to her experience being defined by anyone but herself, does not consent to rape culture, does not consent to be complacent in rape culture. She then takes her rejection of societal imposition a step further. She speaks from her current perspective, saying “I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name,” refusing to buy into victim-blaming. She elaborates “my name is my own my own my own,” asserting that she defines who she is and what has happened to her; the repetition of my own is very intentional in underscoring her agency over her own life and how she describes it. Finally, she ends with “I can tell you from now on my daily resistance…may very well cost you your life”(Jordan). This ending is so impactful because she speaks directly to society; she speaks to the people who have tried to tell her that being raped is her fault and challenges them. Her words fill the reader with a sense of empowerment, rejecting any notion that rape culture is valid and implying that the reader too should resist the systems and mindsets that allow rape culture to continue. 

June Jordan reading “Poem About My Rights.”

 

Sources:

“‘A Language to Hear Myself’: Feminist Poets Speak.” Harvard Radcliffe Institute, 2016, https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2016-feminist-poets-exhibition. Accessed December 2021.

Jordan, June. “Poem About My Rights.” Essence Magazine. 1978

Women and Violence

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Photo of Melanie Kaye

This is a photo of Melanie Kaye which embodies her spirit as a fighter for the women’s movement beautifully.

The header of Kaye’s “Women and Violence” as it appears in the periodical Sinister Wisdom.

Melanie Kaye’s “Women and Violence” was written in 1979 and published in Sinister Wisdom #43/44 in summer 1991. Kaye, a prominent Jewish and feminist activist, was also an editor for Sinister Wisdom from 1983-1987. “Women and Violence” is a theoretical piece aimed at discussing the reasons that rape culture persists in the US and suggests ways women can combat it collectively. Kaye quotes Ellen Willis before beginning: “men don’t take us seriously because they’re not physically afraid of us” (80). Kaye’s inclusion of this quote is very intentional; “Women and Violence” uses examples of men assuming power over women in order to make the broader claim that women should fight back against men whenever possible in order to dismantle the power hierarchies that allow rape culture to thrive.

Kaye makes her case by highlighting the battle-like nature of gender dynamics in the United States. She states that “yesterday in Portland between 2-20 women got raped,” “between 6-60 women got beaten,” and “every day in this country a woman gets raped every minute,” using horrifying statistics to then ask the question “what am I counting if not causalities of battle?” (Kaye 81). She uses the metaphor of a battle, comparing rape culture to war, in order to emphasize how urgent it is that individuals take action to stop it. Then, she states: “rapists and batterers are the military arm of the patriarchy” (Kaye 81). Here she is implying that abusive men are the visible part of a system that oppresses women but they are not the only people contributing to and benefiting from that system. All men, not just those who abuse women, benefit from the power dynamics rape culture affords them, from feeling safe walking alone at night, and from being able to form friendships with other men without immediately fearing an ulterior motive. The idea of all men being on the beneficial side of rape culture further backs up Kaye’s idea of US gender dynamics as a “war.” If all men are on one side then all women, by default are somewhere on the other and what is this if not a war.

Upon setting up her view of rape culture as war, Kaye moves into her proposed solution. She believes that “our task” is to “make abuse of women more and more risky; something men can’t get away with” (Kaye 82). She clarifies what she means by “risky” by listing names of women who have killed their abusers and claiming that the list continues to grow, that these women represent the resistance to rape. She believes that only if men are “afraid of women” will their “consciousness change” (Kaye 83). So, Kaye intends to fight rape culture by literally fighting men; she intends to flip the power dynamic. Through her essay, she is attempting to empower more women to physically fight men. She is urging a violent revolution. Her approach to fighting rape culture is very broad; she wants to help women change their mindsets in relation to men as a group. “Women and Violence” is an attempt to make sweeping changes to gender dynamics in America. It does not urge specific action but attempts to empower women to fight back in any way that they can. 

Sources:

Sinister Wisdom, vol. 43/44, Summer 1991

Kaye, Melanie. “Women and Violence.” Sinister Wisdom, vol. 43/44, p. 81-84.

Country Women as a Periodical

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A collection of four different covers of the feminist periodical Country Women, all featuring a venus symbol with a fist enclosed in the circle. This fist clutches a grain of wheat.

Four covers of the Country Women periodical, covering topics such as “Homesteading” and “Work & Money,” depicting a venus symbol with a fist inside of the circle, clutching a grain of wheat. Various line drawings skirt the outer edges of the covers showing women spreading seed, picking fruit, and reading.

Though most periodicals of the second-wave feminist movement emerged out of major U.S. cities, rural feminist literature managed to become part of the national feminist consciousness. One of the most prominent of rural feminist periodicals is Country Women, a journal published out of Mendocino County in California from a women’s farming commune. The journal describes itself as “a feminist country survival manual and a creative journal” (Country Women). This highlights the two-pronged approach of the rural feminist project: creating a rural lifestyle that is more empowering for women and making space for the artistic endeavors of rural women. Art was critical to the Second Wave feminist movement, and this remains true amid rural feminist circles. Many scholars of the second-wave feminist movement note “the centrality of poetry in the feminist projects of the 1960s and 1970s” (Voyce 162). This is certainly seen in Country Women which features prominently the poetry of rural women. The poems are often set alongside or within line art that provides both context for the poetry and a reminder of the necessity of artistic expression by women within the feminist movement. In a piece entitled “We’re Not Just Farmers,” one country woman laments the leading role that practical farm chores plays in her life and warns against denying the part of oneself that longs for beauty, arguing that “we need to take the artistic parts of ourselves more seriously” (Rodgers 6). Not only does Country Women show that rural women are not lacking in feminist ideology, it also shows that the feminist poetry movement is alive and well in the countryside. Rural women are not simply tending to the farmhouse all day; they are writing poetry, blowing glass, painting landscapes, and drafting political essays. Even as Country Women encourages rural women to make artists of themselves, the journal does not deny the importance of practical skills that pertain to a country lifestyle, specifically when it comes to work that is seen as traditionally male labor. Country Women advertised itself in a fellow feminist publication, Heresies, as devoting half of its content to writings and art focused around a theme relevant to the women’s movement and centering the other half on “learning specific skills [such as] building a solar energy collector, caring for cows and goats, reglazing windows, and winter gardening” (Heresies 122). The reality of country life can be brutal; it is not all just feasting on one’s harvests and relaxing in meadows. Women must have the practical skills to run a successful farm and make a living, especially considering that most young girls growing up in the country are not necessarily instructed upon how to operate a farm and the equipment that comes along with it. This information is usually bestowed upon sons. Women existing in traditionally masculine spaces such as the farm or the literary world itself is a radical act, and Country Women provides critical documentation of these routine radical acts throughout the Second Wave feminist movement.

Works Cited:

Country Women. Vol. 1, no. 3, Country Women Editorial Collective, 1973.

Heresies. Vol. 2, no. 2, Heresies Collective, 01 Jul. 1978, p. 122.

Rodgers, Amy. “We’re Not Just Farmers.” Country Women, no. 22, Country Women                  Editorial Collective, 01 Dec. 1976, p. 6.

Voyce, Stephen. “The Women’s Liberation Movement: A Poetic for the Common                        World.” Poetic Community, University of Toronto Press, 04 May 2013, pp. 162-                201.

“Hippiechick” and the Necessity of Rural Feminism

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A poem entitled "Hippiechick" by Susan Saxe that discusses the gendered oppression that rural women face surrounded by line art of flowers.

The poem “Hippiechick” by Susan Saxe, originally published in her poetry collection Talk Among the Womenfolk, republished in the 22nd issue of Country Women in 1976 and situated within art of a floral, dreamlike landscape. The poem chronicles the sexist oppression that country women encounter.

There is a prominent ideology stating that city women need feminism most. When we think of feminist issues, these issues are often very city-centric: sexual harassment within the office, women not being able to walk the streets alone at night, gendered wage gaps in white-collar jobs, and more. Because of this, there is an idea that removing oneself from the city will also lessen the burdens of societal oppressions. There is an idea that rural communities are stuck in their ways and happy with them—that rural women’s liberation is a hopeless cause. Saxe’s poem examines exactly why these ideas could not be further from the truth. Women in the countryside do massive amounts of labor—both labor that is seen as traditionally feminine and labor that is not. One rural woman describes their disruption of popular conceptions about the kind of work that farm women do, proclaiming that “contrary to what the Farm Journal and Hoardes Dairyman might lead one to believe, the women on farms in this country are doing a good deal more than baking cherry pies and tending the chickens…they are running big equipment, pulling calves and cleaning barns” (Hoth 3). Women’s role on the farm is not an easy one. On top of raising children and doing housework, these women are helping to run a farm that provides them with sustenance. It is these women, especially, that are in dire need of feminist policies such as wages for housework, more equitable distribution of domestic labor, and free childcare. Susan Saxe appears frightened at the notion of a woman returning to the country, commenting disapprovingly that “you have drifted, my sister, / Into the arms of disaster, / Back to the farm” (17). Likely due to the enormous amounts of labor that women are expected to perform in the country, Saxe equates the farm to the “arms of disaster.” Saxe uses listing to compound the undesirable aspects of country life, describing “wrists scratched raw by blackberry thorns, / A baby crying upstairs, / The flies buzzing round. / It was from this, my sister, / That your grandmother fled” (17). By stacking these responsibilities, Saxe portrays the many duties that rural women are burdened with.

Though the grandmother of the rural woman being referred to fled the country for a better and perhaps easier life, there is clearly an allure to the country that would cause this woman to desire a homecoming. The continual use of the phrase “my sister” connotes commonality between urban and rural women while acknowledging the political consciousness of the rural woman. It is not as if this exchange is one in which the urban woman is proselytizing to an ignorant country woman; this is an exchange between equals with different ideas about liberation. Saxe points out the gendered inequality present in many rural households, decrying that the “man grows stronger / with each passing day” while the woman’s “belly grows bigger. / My sister, I’m freaking out. / You’re barefoot and pregnant” (17). These few lines exemplify the absolute necessity of a feminist ideological presence in the country. It’s true that many rural women exist in states of acute oppression and have a vast quantity of unique issues to be addressed. The effects of many social issues are felt most by people in under-resourced areas, such as the rural countryside. This poem embodies the line of deep solidarity felt between women of different identities that was often expressed in feminist poetry; poetry allowed women to connect across boundaries of race, class, sexuality, and place. Saxe begins the last stanza of the poem with a reminder of the necessity of rural women’s liberation, warning that the woman says she does not “need liberation / Because you’re natural, and natural is free, / But soon you’ll be just two vacant eyes” (17). In order to prevent the eventual burnout of these incredibly powerful and hardworking country women, a feminist analysis is necessary. Simply belonging to the land and being connected to nature is not enough to amount to women’s liberation. Women’s liberation must be accomplished across socioeconomic divisions and carried out to the greatest extent in areas where women are traditionally undervalued.

Works Cited:

Hoth, Sandra. “Belonging to the Land.” Country Women, no. 31, Country Women                      Editorial Collective, 01 Nov. 1978, pp. 2-3.

Saxe, Susan. “Hippiechick.” Country Women, no. 22, Country Women Editorial                          Collective, 01 Dec. 1976, p. 17.

Periodicals as a Locale of Connection: Rural Women and the Construction of Communities

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A picture of a letter to the editor in a feminist publication in which a rural woman describes her eagerness to receive more feminist content.

Carol Bellhouse, a rural woman, wrote into Off Our Backs: A Women’s Liberation Newspaper in January of 1971 with a letter entitled “Hooray for Women’s Liberation!”, expressing a keen interest in receiving more feminist periodical material.

Letters written to feminist publications from women in the country make incredibly clear their earnest interest in feminism both as a concept and in practice. Feminist periodicals, especially those like Country Women that are attuned to the specific oppressions and needs of rural women, play an essential role in disseminating feminist ideology in the countryside. They allow for women to connect with feminist ideas when people in their community may not be doing that work. They allow for rural women to express themselves in the form of art, poetry, and the circulation of how-to articles for other rural women looking to hone their crafts. One woman from a “small town” derides the traditional feminine lifestyle that she encounters around her, stating that the main objective of the “nice, decent girl[s] in her town is to get married and have 44 kids.” She writes to Off Our Backs, a newspaper of the Women’s Liberation Movement, requesting more materials from the newspaper (Bellhouse 5). This is just one example of a woman in the countryside that is hungry for feminist literature and to engage with the movement. Though it is just one woman, coupling this with the many women that write in and contribute to Country Women, the feminist presence in the countryside cannot and must not be discounted. The letter of a feminist collective in Alberta, Canada, to Country Women is another testament to this hunger, a representative stating that they all “leaped at the literature and ideas of the [feminist] movement, convinced that it was valuable to us” (Slim 4). Rural women were actively engaging with the feminist thought of the time, seeking out this material and often discussing it in groups. Feminist publications are especially “valuable” to country women, who may not have a women’s resource center or consciousness-raising group located in their area.

A letter from a rural woman's collective in Canada attesting to the necessity they have for feminist literature, accompanied by an image of a woman feeding her chickens.

A letter from a women’s collective in Canada, published in the 8th issuing of Country Women in 1973, commenting on the profound importance that feminist literature and periodicals have for isolated rural women. A picture of a woman feeding her chickens appears alongside the letter.

Another woman writing to Country Women expresses not only a lack of feminist resources in her area but an outright lack of support for and acceptance of female farmers, expressing that she “had to draw support from women through publications” (Slim 4). It is easy to see how a publication like Country Women would be instrumental in the lives of many farming women looking to find a community within what could have been an, at times, hostile rural environment. These publications allow for rural women to feel supported and tapped into the national Second Wave feminist movement occurring at the time. Perhaps Country Women shouldered the burden of this job connecting rural women even more than other periodicals, with a reflection on their printing holding that “because many women who read Country Women see no other feminist publication, we discovered the important role we play in introducing the women’s movement to our more isolated sisters” (Bye 60). Even though these women are isolated and it is likely difficult for them to access feminist print material, issues like Country Women still circulated widely and truly did allow for some manifestation of connection to form among farming women across North America. Feminist periodicals are an avenue for connection among remote rural women and were critical in shaping the Second Wave feminist movement in the country.

Works Cited:

Bellhouse, Carol. “Hooray for Women’s Liberation!” Off Our Backs, vol. 1, no. 16, off                 our backs, inc., 21 Jan. 1971, p. 5.

Bye, Harriet. “Country Women in Print.” Country Women, no. 22, Country Women                     Editorial Collective, 01 Dec. 1976, pp. 60-61.

Slim. “Letters to Country Women.” Country Women, no. 8, Country Women Editorial                Collective, 01 Oct. 1973, pp. 2-8.