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| New York Radical Women | |
|---|---|
| Name | New York Radical Women |
| Founded | 1967 |
| Dissolved | 1969 |
| Location | New York City |
| Notable members | Robin Morgan, Shulamith Firestone, Carol Hanisch, Ti-Grace Atkinson, Kathie Sarachild |
| Predecessor | National Organization for Women (contrast) |
| Successor | Radicalesbians, Redstockings, Mother Courage |
New York Radical Women was a short-lived but influential second-wave feminist group active in New York City from 1967 to 1969. The collective organized public demonstrations, produced manifestos and pamphlets, and incubated activists who later formed groups such as Redstockings and Radicalesbians. Its work intersected with movements and figures across Civil Rights Movement, Anti–Vietnam War Movement, and the broader Counterculture of the 1960s.
The organization emerged amid the late-1960s convergence of activists associated with Students for a Democratic Society, New Left, and the Women's Liberation Movement. Founding meetings included participants from SDS chapters, staffers involved with Village Voice, and alumni of Goucher College and Barnard College. The group's formation reflected tensions with mainstream groups such as National Organization for Women and ideological currents from Marxist feminism, liberal feminism, and critiques found in writings by Betty Friedan and Simone de Beauvoir. Early organizers met in spaces near Greenwich Village, The New School, and community centers tied to activists from CORE, SNCC, and allied collectives influenced by theorists like Herbert Marcuse.
The collective staged consciousness-raising sessions inspired by practices circulating among New Left and Socialist Feminist circles, adapting methods used by activists in SDS and community organizers affiliated with Black Panther Party programs. Campaigns targeted institutions such as medical clinics, civil liberties groups, and universities including Columbia University and New York University. Tactics echoed those of theatrical agitprop from Bread and Puppet Theater and direct-action strategies associated with Women Strike for Peace and Freedom Summer veterans. The group also engaged with cultural intermediaries like editors at The New York Times and producers involved with Public Broadcasting Service programming.
New York Radical Women organized high-profile demonstrations that drew comparisons to actions by March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom veterans and antiwar demonstrations such as the March on the Pentagon. Notable actions included disruptions at award ceremonies and theatrical protests at venues like Madison Square Garden and cultural forums frequented by members of The New York Review of Books and patrons of Lincoln Center. The group helped plan actions that pressured institutions tied to figures from John F. Kennedy era administrations and those associated with Richard Nixon policy circles. Their street theater and pickets echoed methods deployed by activists from Stonewall Inn protests and allied communities.
Prominent participants included poets, scholars, and organizers who later became associated with groups and publications such as Ms. (magazine), The Village Voice, Redstockings, and Radicalesbians. Leaders and spokespeople moved between networks connected to Barnard College, Sarah Lawrence College, and activist hubs like Howard Zinn’s networks and cultural salons attended by figures from Beat Generation and Black Arts Movement. Members later collaborated with notable individuals and organizations including Gloria Steinem, Angela Davis, Sally Gearhart, Jo Freeman, and journalists at Time (magazine) and Life (magazine).
The collective’s politics combined critiques found in writings by Shulamith Firestone with organizational lessons from Marx, Friedrich Engels, and contemporary theorists such as Kate Millett and Adrienne Rich. Positions emphasized consciousness-raising, critiques of patriarchy as articulated against trends in liberal feminism and institutional reformism favored by National Organization for Women. Debates within the group paralleled arguments seen between Radical feminism and proponents of Socialist feminism, and engaged with discourses from thinkers like bell hooks and Audre Lorde in related circles.
The group produced leaflets, pamphlets, and manifestos circulated at actions and through distribution networks including radical bookstores and small presses related to City Lights Bookstore and Grove Press. Members wrote essays and articles that appeared in alternative media such as The Village Voice, Springfield Review, and early feminist journals that later fed into publications like Ms. (magazine), Off Our Backs, and Herizons. Their communications strategy mirrored underground press practices employed by The Berkeley Barb and collectively emphasized autonomous distribution over mainstream press channels such as The New York Times.
Though short-lived, the collective seeded organizations and ideas that profoundly shaped second-wave feminism, contributing to the formation of Redstockings, Radicalesbians, and influencing activists who participated in the founding of National Organization for Women chapters while disagreeing with NOW leadership. Alumni played roles in academic programs at institutions such as Barnard College, New York University, and Rutgers University, and influenced cultural debates involving figures like Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Simone de Beauvoir. The group’s tactics and rhetoric informed later debates around lesbian feminism, reproductive rights campaigns influenced by cases such as Roe v. Wade, and intersectional critiques that engaged with movements around Civil Rights Movement and LGBT rights movement. Its impact is traced through archival collections in repositories associated with Smith College, Schlesinger Library, and university archives housing papers connected to members who later published books and essays widely cited across feminist scholarship.
Category:Feminist organizations in the United States Category:History of New York City