A wonderful collection by editors Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon provides lots of ready made material for creative artists.
Their book, "Dear Sisters: Dispatches from the Women's Liberation Movement," gathers eclectic works of over 100 feminists active in the 1960s and 70s. But this text, first published in 2000 (paperback in 2001), is no ordinary compilation of dreary articles and dull essays. In it are cartoons, essays, poems, satire, songs ... the thunder and raucous joy of the struggle for women's rights. Creativity spills out of these pages.
The book's twelve chapters naturally include reproductive rights, as well as health, sexuality, family and culture. Just about any page can be translated into an art piece or performance. There is, for example, a 1969 cartoon by Irene Peslikis that might be the definition of irreverence (page 148): with an array of phallic symbols, it shows a member of the Catholic hierarchy waving a banner that says: "Friends of the Fetus." A more serious woodcut poster (p. 153) says: STOP FORCED STERILIZATION/ALTO A ESTERILIZACION FORZADA." A cartoon shows Wonder Woman wielding a speculum as her weapon (p.123).
One of my favorites, and one that might make a great period performance piece, is the gender-switching "Hernia: A Satire on Abortion Law Repeal" by Sarah Wernick Lockeretz (p. 144). In a prologue to it, editors Baxandall and Gordon explain: "The women's liberation's approach to abortion was encapsulated in the slogan, "If Men Could Get Pregnant, Abortion Would be a Sacrament." In other words, feminists insisted on interpreting abortion in the context of male privilege and female subordination...."
"Hernia" is written as a faux newspaper article by someone who understood the genre elements of the day, and used them to her advantage. Here are a few excerpts:
NEW MILITANT DEMAND PRESENTED TO STATE LEGISLATUREAside from using this particular writing (with permission), gender-flipping is a wonderful exercise for exposing hypocrisy. (For special fun, try flipping a right-wing talk show host!)
A band of militant men recently disrupted a session of the state legislature calling for hernia operations on demand. The strident males--mostly jacket-less and tieless, many not wearing athletic supports -- puzzled and alarmed the legislators, medical experts and others present.
The attractive blond spokesman for the radicals, who was wearing a wedding band, seized the microphone and spoke in a gruff voice read the demands of the group. As the legislator, who speech on public health had been interrupted, moved from the podium, she murmured, "What do these men want anyway?"
....State legislation generally permits men to obtain legal hernia surgery if the reasons are valid. All states permit hernia operations in order to save a man's life. Some states interpret this to allow surgery to a man if two psychiatrists testify that he will commit suicide because of his hernia..... Many states tolerate the operation if the hernia is the result of a violent attack on the man....
Conservatives oppose any liberalization of existing laws, fearing that such changes will open the way to herniorraphy on demand.
...Perhaps the response of the majority was best summarized by a leading anthropologist when she remarked, "In all known human societies men have had hernias. We simply can’t change the facts of nature.”
The Baxandall-Gordon collection, well-worth having, can be opened to any page to start a discussion. One great place to buy Dear Sisters is from Women and Children First, a feminist bookstore in Chicago that will deliver anywhere. The W&C direct order inquiry/link is here. You can see a Google preview of the book here.
This and other wonderful resources about women's history also can be found at the Chicago Women's Liberation Union Marketplace.
by Cindy Cooper
pictured above: cover of Dear Sisters, ed Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon
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