Sisterhood is Powerful Handout

Sisterhood is Powerful is a second wave feminist anthology published in 1970. The editor of the
anthology, Robin Morgan, considered herself a radical feminist and wanted to separate herself
and the movement from leftist feminist. The anthology is the first comprehensive collection of
second wave feminist writings and can be seen as a guidebook to the women’s movement. Robin
and the contributors to the anthology wanted to fight workplace norms and family life norms. In
the process of doing this, they wanted to do things differently than the suffragettes and make sure
that their movement was inclusive.

Second Wave Feminism

● Increased feminist activity starting around the 1960’s
● Rose from the Civil Rights Movement and Anti-War Movement in America
● Decentralized movement- no regional, state, or national organizations that capture the full
scope and spirit
● Women begin to assert their own destiny
● Shortcomings: The discussion equality, without freedom
● Aims at intersectionality but there are questions about how widespread and accepted this
was
Robin Morgan
● Born in 1941
● Coined the phrase “the personal is political”
● Poet, novelist, editor, political theorist, and feminist activist
● Spoken in every major North American university
● Lectures internationally
● Global organizer for women against patriarchal oppression
Early Life
● Was a child actor
● At four, she had her own radio show, “The Little Robin Morgan Show”
● Starred on a popular television show “I Remember Mama”
● Even had her own doll
● In the 70s, Morgan stated that she didn’t want her child stardom to deflect from the
importance of her feminist goals and that her childhood was especially hard to talk about
because of the pressures and the trauma she felt when she later discovered she
was lied to about almost everything after she located her military father who
was long thought to be dead
Life
● Attended Columbia University
● In 1962, she married and started a family with an openly gay poet, Kenneth Pitchford
○ Almost everyone disapproved
○ But their marriage made sense to her because she felt she was following a literary
tradition and because they were supportive of each other’s art and political careers
● Began to publish poetry while she worked as a literary agent and freelance editor
 ● Became active in New York Radical Women- an organization that had developed many
of the ideas for the contemporary women’s movement
● Identified as “radical”
○ Etymology means going to the root
○ “I believe that sexism is the root oppression, the one which, until and unless we
uproot it, will continue to put forth the branches of racism, class hatred, ageism,
competition, ecological disaster, and economic exploitation."
● Became active in WITCH (Women’s international Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell)
○ “Guerilla-theatre” tactics such as demonstrating before the Miss America Pageant
and the New York Bridal Fair and “hexing” Wall Street
● In 1970, put out Sisterhood is Powerful
Making of Sisterhood is Powerful
● Published in 1970 during the second wave of feminism
● Splintering from liberal feminism
● Barriers to publishing
○ Many of the barriers that Robin faced to actually publish the anthology reflected
the problems that she was fighting for
■ All of the people in positions of power were men and they gave Robin a
hard time publishing anthology and forced her to change the title
■ The time commitment that the writer's had to invest ruined some
relationships
● Women had a place in the house and that role wasn’t being
fulfilled to the extent some spouses wanted when they were
working on the anthology
● Had to stop and delay the anthology when life happened in ways
that disproportionately affect women: divorce, pregnancy,
childbirth, abortion, hysterectomy
● The personal is political
○ Women’s liberation is based on the personal experience and accounts of women.
Because all women share similar experience it is political.

Important Concepts from Sisterhood is Powerful

● Radicalism
○ A splinter from liberal feminism
● Across Identities
○ Robin Morgan and the writers were intentional about making their movement
inclusive. To do so they included multiple different voices from different groups
to reflect on the shared and the different experiences of being a part of a group
and how that experience changes when an individual is at the intersection of
multiple oppressed identities.
● Consciousness Raising
 ○ Also referred to as “bitch sessions”
○ Demanded by black feminist
○ Meetings that occured across the United States where women gathered and
discussed topics and questions pertaining to their experience as women
○ These conversations were intended to get a sense of how women as individuals
and a group felt about the topic/question so that a collective feeling could be
found and action could be written up
○ Used two systems to help facilitate these meetings:
■ The Lot System
● Used to delegate responsibilities
■ The Disc System
● While at the meeting, each individual would be given a certain
number of discs
● One disc would have to be given up in order to speak and
contribute to a conversation
● This system was used to help allow those who might be talked over
or be afraid to speak the space to speak and voice their experiences
and opinions

Are Men Really the Enemy? A Questionnaire

By Jayne West, from No More Fun and Games

True or False
Women’s work is never done.
You can’t tell a book by its cover.
Housework can be fun.
 A female dog is referred to as a bitch.
One of the most degrading terms that can be applied to a man is “son of a bitch.”

Multiple Choice
1. Most rapes are committed by:
a. Women
b. Children
c. Men (perverts)
d. I am unable to distinuguish rape from ordinary sexual relations
2. Which do you prefer being called
a. Lady
b. Women
c. Female
d. Girl
e. None of the above
3. If I could do away with anything I wanted, the first thing I would do away with is:
a. The family
b. The state
c. Private property
d. Menstrual periods
e. All of the above
Essay
Discuss the variations in tone possible when asking a male druggist: “Have you a Tampax
Super?”