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- How does Redstockings’ analysis of women’s inequality differ from NOW’s?
- Who is the intended audience of this document? Explain your answer.
- Put it in context*: Do Redstockings’ analysis and rhetoric reveal the influence of other protest movements in the 1960s?
Transcribed Image Text:13:45 1
REDSTOCKINGS MANIFESTO.docx
I After centuries of individual and preliminary political
struggle, women are uniting to achieve their final liberation from
male supremacy. Redstockings is dedicated to building this
unity and winning our freedom.
II Women are an oppressed class. Our oppression is total,
affecting every facet of our lives. We are exploited as sex
objects, breeders, domestic servants, and cheap labor. We are
considered inferior beings, whose only purpose is to enhance
men's lives. Our humanity is denied. Our prescribed behavior is
enforced by the threat of physical violence.
Because we have lived so intimately with our oppressors, in
isolation from each other, we have been kept from seeing our
personal suffering as a political condition. This creates the
illusion that a woman's relationship with her man is a matter of
interplay between two unique personalities, and can be worked
out individually. In reality, every such relationship is
a class relationship, and the conflicts between individual men
and women are political conflicts that can only be solved
collectively.
III We identify the agents of our oppression as men. Male
supremacy is the oldest, most basic form of domination. All
other forms of exploitation and oppression (racism, capitalism,
imperialism, etc.) are extensions of male supremacy: men
dominate women, a few men dominate the rest. All power
structures throughout history have been male-dominated and
male-oriented. Men have controlled all political, economic and
cultural institutions and backed up this control with physical
force. They have used their power to keep women in an inferior
position. All men receive economic, sexual, and psychological
benefits from male supremacy. All men have oppressed women.
IV Attempts have been made to shift the burden of
responsibility from men to institutions or to women themselves.
We condemn these arguments as evasions. Institutions alone do
not oppress; they are merely tools of the oppressor. To blame
institutions implies that men and women are equally victimized,
obscures the fact that men benefit from the subordination of
women, and gives men the excuse that they are forced to be
oppressors. On the contrary, any man is free to renounce his
superior position, provided that he is willing to be treated like a
woman by other men.
We also reject the idea that women consent to or are to blame for
their own oppression. Women's submission is not the result of
brain-washing, stupidity or mental illness but of continual, daily
pressure from men. We do not need to change ourselves, but to
change men.
The most slanderous evasion of all is that women can oppress
men. The basis for this illusion is the isolation of individual
relationships from their political context and the tendency of
men to see any legitimate challenge to their privileges as
persecution.
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Transcribed Image Text:13:45 1
REDSTOCKINGS MANIFESTO.docx
brain-washing, stupidity or mental illness but of continual, daily
pressure from men. We do not need to change ourselves, but to
change men.
The most slanderous evasion of all is that women can oppress
men. The basis for this illusion is the isolation of individual
relationships from their political context and the tendency of
men to see any legitimate challenge to their privileges as
persecution.
V We regard our personal experience, and our feelings about
that experience, as the basis for an analysis of our common
situation. We cannot rely on existing ideologies as they are all
products of male supremacist culture. We question every
generalization and accept none that are not confirmed by our
experience.
Our chief task at present is to develop female class
consciousness through sharing experience and publicly exposing
the sexist foundation of all our institutions. Consciousness-
raising is not "therapy," which implies the existence of
individual solutions and falsely assumes that the male-female
relationship is purely personal, but the only method by which we
can ensure that our program for liberation is based on the
concrete realities of our lives.
The first requirement for raising class consciousness is honesty,
in private and in public, with ourselves and other women.
VI We identify with all women. We define our best interest as
that of the poorest, most brutally exploited woman.
We repudiate all economic, racial, educational or status
privileges that divide us from other women. We are determined
to recognize and eliminate any prejudices we may hold against
other women.
We are committed to achieving internal democracy. We will do
whatever is necessary to ensure that every woman in our
movement has an equal chance to participate, assume
responsibility, and develop her political potential.
VII We call on all our sisters to unite with us in struggle.
We call on all men to give up their male privilege and support
women's liberation in the interest of our humanity and their
own.
In fighting for our liberation we will always take the side of
women against their oppressors. We will not ask what is
"revolutionary" or "reformist," only what is good for women.
The time for individual skirmishes has passed. This time we are
going all the way.
Source: https://www.redstockings.org/index.php/rs-manifesto
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