Full transcript
0:01something that um a lot of young women
0:05believed in in the early 1960s was their
0:09ability to involve themselves in various
0:13rights movements like the Civil Rights
0:15Movement a lot of young women joined
0:17groups like The Student Nonviolent
0:19Coordinating Committee or Snick which
0:22was created 1960 to provide a sort of
0:24foot Army of protesters who would March
0:27in streets registering black voters who
0:30would go south in the summer to run
0:32Freedom schools and to educate people to
0:34pass uh restrictive uh voting laws uh
0:40qualifications um they were people who
0:42joined SDS uh students for Democratic
0:45Society who wanted to expand free speech
0:47on college campuses so that young people
0:51could participate in making life fairer
0:54in the early
0:561960s uh and particularly women felt
0:59like
1:00by helping other groups of people being
1:03involved in these other issues they
1:06could demonstrate their ability as women
1:09and be respected for it and what they
1:12hoped would happen was that in time um
1:17the people they were working with
1:18particularly men would see women's
1:20rights as an important issue and were to
1:23advocate for expanding women's rights um
1:26and that didn't really happen um take
1:29for inance
1:30this quote from two uh activists uh Mary
1:34King and Casey Hayden uh King is this
1:37woman on the top here next to the box
1:40fan Hayden is the young blonde woman in
1:43the picture down below both are involved
1:46in Snick and they have been for a couple
1:48years by 1964 the time they they uh
1:52released this statement and what's going
1:54on is that Snick is having it its annual
1:57convention and uh like a normal annual
2:01convention there's a a bulletin that
2:03goes with it a program of sorts and in
2:06that program King and Hayden have this
2:10statement this question excuse me this
2:12question inserted that says you know why
2:15is it you're treating us like women
2:17essentially right why aren't you
2:18treating us like equals um why are you
2:21giving us like pink colar
2:24jobs uh and the problem with being given
2:26these female jobs was that it it made
2:31the outside world look at them as just
2:33women like yes you have a place at the
2:34table but is as a woman it's not as a
2:37leader it's not as respected as the the
2:40roles that that men are playing in Snick
2:43so the head of Snick in 1964 is a young
2:48man named stokeley Carmichael who will
2:50go on to be very important in the Black
2:52Panther Party and in civil rights
2:54movement in the mid-60s and uh
2:57Carmichael is asked by a reporter
3:00um about this statement and the question
3:03he's asked is is what is a woman's
3:06position in Snick uh and
3:09Carmichael sort of snorts derisively and
3:12gives a one-word answer he says
3:15prone so he's he's asked what can women
3:19contribute what do they contribute and
3:22he basically says they're to lay down
3:24that's what prone is to lay down they're
3:26to lay down they're to be objects
3:28they're to be of us so if you're King
3:31and Hayden and this is the response Your
3:33Leader has given to you about this
3:36question you've posed to the larger
3:38group you know that you can't fight for
3:41women's rights in Snick you know that
3:44Snick isn't going to back you up when it
3:46comes to pushing for more acceptance at
3:49medical schools and law schools for
3:51women or for better workplace
3:53environments and promotions for women
3:55it's it's just not going to happen so
3:57what they're learning is is that they're
3:59going to have have to break away from
4:00groups like snck if they want to push
4:02for women's rights women and SDS had
4:06very similar
4:08experiences this is a cartoon from the
4:11SDS newspaper new left notes comes out
4:15in
4:161967 and at the time SDS is probably
4:20like their their number one issue is
4:22Vietnam they're they're particularly
4:25busy with the anti-war protest with
4:29helping uh men avoid the draft they see
4:33the war as something that's unfair uh
4:36and needs to be
4:38stopped and uh that's where most of
4:40their focus is uh women in SDS of course
4:43were worri equally worried about women's
4:47rights uh and so they advocated to
4:52produce a um Bill of Rights of sorts
4:57that they would publish in this
5:00magazine that everybody in the
5:02organization would get right and there's
5:04this group within SDS called the women's
5:07Liberation Workshop or the
5:10WLW and they it's made up of women who
5:13want to advocate for women's rights and
5:15so they produce this Bill of Rights and
5:17they argue with the editors of the new
5:19left notes who don't want to put it in
5:21there they say it's not as important as
5:23the war effort um
5:27but in the end they agreed to to publish
5:30the list but otes to the women they also
5:33published this cartoon on the opposite
5:35page so if you opened up the newspaper
5:38you would see the bill rights on one
5:40side and then this newspaper on the
5:41other and as you can tell it's not a
5:44particularly respectable respectful
5:47depiction of these women uh this woman
5:51uh is holding up this placard that says
5:52we want our rights and we want them now
5:55so the the tone is that of a demand um
5:59the one woman is portrayed in this dress
6:03that is very much mid1 1960s toddler
6:06fashion this is the way you would have
6:08dressed a a 2-year-old girl in this like
6:11kind of short shift top so that when she
6:14squatted and played on the floor the
6:16himem wouldn't get dirty uh and then
6:18she've got these Bloomers on underneath
6:20covering up her diaper or whatever uh so
6:24essentially they're they're calling the
6:26women's Liberation Workshop uh little
6:28kids and toddlers And they're they're
6:30they're portraying them as people who
6:32are throwing a fit uh that we shouldn't
6:34listen to right like you don't listen to
6:36toddlers who throw a fits you you put
6:38them in their place which is what the
6:40men of new left notes are trying to do
6:42you also see at the bottom of the
6:44placard they've been labeled the wlf the
6:46women's Liberation Front so that's a
6:49reference to uh the north vese
6:52Liberation Front radical North fanese
6:56group uh so portraying them as the WL LF
6:59makes them seem like people who are not
7:01reasonable like they are radical right
7:04so neither one of these groups of women
7:08feel like they can advocate for
7:10themselves as Women Within These groups
7:13they they've come to understand that
7:15what's happening to them is happening to
7:17a lot of women in professional schools
7:19in colleges uh in a workplace and that
7:23they need to begin banding together as
7:25women to push for women's rights without
7:27the help of men because they they can't
7:29trust
7:30them