Started by Sir Jessy of Anti, Mar 03, 2010, 10:59 PM
Monday, February 12, 2007The Redstockings ManifestoI am here presenting the full text of a classic early feminist document called The Redstockings Manifesto.This document, in its own way, is every bit as important and interesting as the more notorious SCUM Manifesto. Certainly, it ought to be equally well-known, for it is richly revealing of feminism in its entirety. Moreover, the SCUM Manifesto is commonly disowned nowadays by feminists, as being a non-feminist work. That assertion is disputable, but let it rest. My point here is that nobody can plausibly assert the same of the Redstockings Manifesto, for it is manifestly feminist through and through.The Redstockings Manifesto is useful to the historically-minded MRA because it is a virtual smoking gun indicator of what early women's liberationists had in mind for the future of their movement, and the future of us all. It is similar to the SCUM Manifesto in that it sketches and foreshadows many things, but unlike that better known work the Redstockings Manifesto is written in a serious, down-to-earth style that cannot be explained away as artistic exaggeration, metaphor, fantasy, rhapsody, poetic license, or the like.In this work we find many seeds that sprouted and grew luxuriantly in the years following its 1969 publication - for example, the idea that "the personal is the political", or the idea that "a woman's feelings" are specially sanctified and privileged, or the overarching assumption that "men are the problem". It's all in there! Well, quite a bit of it is, at any rate.Certain bits which I found especially telling, have been given a red font treatment [..]
