Women's Movement Archives - Public Seminar

Feminism

Our Bodies, Ourselves, Online

Historian and activist Saniya Lee Ghanoui explains how a feminist classic entered the twenty-first century

October 27, 2022 • by Saniya Lee Ghanoui and Claire Potter

When we started, we knew we needed experts from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Women and gender-expansive people from different races brought their own perspectives, personal and expert, and that would help us address racial health disparities. ...

Gender

What Does It Mean to Be “Authentic”?

Skye C. Cleary chats with Luis Jaramillo about her new book on Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy-from-life method

October 11, 2022 • by Skye C. Cleary and Luis Jaramillo

Finding your “authentic self” is often taken to mean: “Let’s turn inward and look for the blueprint that’s going to tell us what decisions we should make and that will make us happy.” But Beauvoir argued that we’re humans who are always growing, always changing....

Activism

Betty Friedan’s Radical Century

Because of this organizer, you can’t understand the twentieth century without talking about feminism

March 4, 2021 • by Peter Dreier

"A century after her birth, Betty Friedan’s radical ideas are common sense, and that’s a victory not just for feminists, but for everyone."...

Feminism

Why #MeToo Isn’t Enough

The Morning Show wrestles with the ambiguities of workplace sexual harassment—and how complicated the truth really is

February 25, 2021 • by Claire Potter

"Can the word “rape” describe the experience of a woman who submits to sex, but only because she is so frightened she lost her capacity to move or speak?"...

Exiles on 12th Street

Nevertheless, She Persisted

Exiles on 12th Street, Episode Eight

May 10, 2020 • by Claire Potter

This is the eighth episode of Public Seminar’s podcast, Exiles on 12th Street. If you like it, go to iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe. Thanks to the bravery of several generations of activist women, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, finally granting women in the ...

Feature

Women’s Liberation Marches onto the Atlantic City Boardwalk

Photos of the 1969 Miss America Protest

September 8, 2018 • by Jo Freeman

In 1968 and 1969 women's liberation staged demonstrations at the annual Miss America Beauty pageant held in Atlantic City, NJ. The 1968 protest shocked the country, creating a lot of publicity, and some myths, about the new movement. The 1969 protest was smaller and was largely ignored. The 1968 protest originated with New ...

Women’s Liberation Marches onto the Atlantic City Boardwalk

Feature

Reading The Second Sex in the Age of #MeToo

Where are we coming from, and where do we go?

March 12, 2018 • by Hannah Leffingwell

In the firestorm of debates about the implications of #MeToo, feminist activists and commentators have found themselves circling around the definitions of a handful of essential terms: rape, harassment, assault, consent. We have seen the word “pleasure” disentangled, and the word “inappropriate” expanded. We have discussed power and victimhood, empowerment ...

Reading The Second Sex in the Age of #MeToo

Feature

Millions March Throughout Country on Inauguration Anniversary

Hundreds of thousands in New York City

January 26, 2018 • by Jo Freeman

It was called a Women’s March, and it took place on the first anniversary of the massive women’s march on Washington after Trump’s inauguration. But women and women’s rights were only one of several themes. The most prevalent theme was opposition to everything Trump has done and said, before and ...

Millions March Throughout Country on Inauguration Anniversary

Multi Media

An Open Letter to Donald Trump

About the January 21st Women’s March

January 30, 2017 • by Jo Freeman

Dear Mr. Trump: I just returned from the Million Women’s March on Washington, one of 673 that took place around the world today. I want to thank you for making this possible. It was your “locker room talk” that gave us the kick in the pants we needed to get off ...

Multi Media

The Women’s March, Russia, and Obama’s Farewell

Past Present: Episode 66

January 19, 2017 • by Neil J. Young, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Nicole Hemmer

In this week's episode, Niki, Natalia, and Neil debate the women's march on Washington, US-Russian relations, and Obama's final speech to the nation.

...

The Women’s March, Russia, and Obama’s Farewell

Feature

The 1@1

National Minute of Silence for Women’s Equality

December 29, 2016 • by Alyson Palmer

On 11/9, I felt physical pain. I'd lived through Reagan, and Bush ...and Bush... so, it wasn't a Republican win that squeezed my stomach with icy fingers. It was the vertiginous plunge of the elevator just as the doors were about to slide open onto full equality, the hurtling backward ...

Feature

Organized Women at the Democratic Convention

October 25, 2016 • by Jo Freeman

While women faded into the background at the Republican Convention, they were front and center at the Democrats’. Women were everywhere, and not just sitting in the seats. Women were roughly half of the delegates because Democratic Party rules require equal division by sex. The Republicans do not have such a ...