About Us

Radical Women (RW) is a socialist feminist, grassroots activist organization that provides a radical voice within the feminist movement, a feminist voice within the Left, and trains women to be leaders in the movements for social and economic justice. It has branches in numerous United States cities; and Melbourne, Australia.

Contents

History
Purpose and ideology
Statements

History

Radical Women emerged in Seattle, Washington from a “Free University” class on Women and Society conducted by Gloria Martin, a lifelong communist and civil rights champion. As a result of the class, Martin teamed up with Clara Fraser and Melba Windoffer (initiators of the Freedom Socialist Party) and Susan Stern (a prominent figure in the local Students for a Democratic Society) to launch Radical Women in 1967.

In Socialist Feminism: The First Decade, 1966-76, Martin writes that the new group was formed to “demonstrate that women could act politically, learn and teach theory, administer an organization, develop indigenous leadership, and focus movement and community attention on the sorely neglected matter of women’s rights — and that women could do this on their own.”

From the outset, Radical Women participated heavily in the explosive anti-Vietnam War mobilization and has opposed subsequent imperialist wars, interventions and occupations.

Members worked with African American women from the anti-poverty program to initiate the abortion rights movement in Washington State with a historic march on the capitol in 1969.

In the early 1970s, RW helped organize a strike and a union of low-paid employees (mostly female and of color) at the University of Washington. Many Radical Women members were trailblazers in the nontraditional trades. At Seattle’s public power company, Seattle City Light, Clara Fraser crafted and implemented the country’s first plan to train women as utility electricians. For these efforts and her prominent role in a mass walkout at the utility, Clara was fired. She fought an intense, seven-year legal case that ultimately affirmed the right of free speech in the workplace and won her reinstatement at City Light.

After working closely with the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP), Radical Women and the party formally affiliated in 1973 on the basis of a shared socialist feminist program.

Purpose and ideology

The Radical Women Manifesto: Socialist Feminist Theory, Program and Organizational Structure defines Radical Women’s purpose and ideology as follows:

Radical Women is dedicated to exposing, resisting, and eliminating the inequities of women’s existence. To accomplish this task of insuring survival for an entire sex, we must simultaneously address ourselves to the social and material source of sexism: the capitalist form of production and distribution of products, characterized by intrinsic class, race, sex, and caste oppression. When we work for the revolutionary transformation of capitalism into a socialist society, we work for a world in which all people may enjoy the right of full humanity and freedom from poverty, war, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and repression.

Radical Women calls for a multi-racial, multi-issue, working class and anticapitalist approach to women’s liberation. The group looks to the leadership of the women of color and lesbians in movements for social change, and calls for solidarity and mutual aid of all the oppressed.

RW believes in mobilizing community protest against rightwing assaults on reproductive freedom. It calls for free abortion on demand, an end to forced sterilization of women of color, and for affordable, quality, 24-hour childcare.

RW persistently presses to form alliances and united fronts, including early efforts such as the Action Childcare Coalition, the Feminist Coordinating Council (an umbrella organization made up of the whole spectrum of women’s groups in Seattle), and the Coalition for Protective Legislation (a labor and feminist effort to extend female-designated workplace safeguards to men after passage of the Washington State Equal Rights Amendment).

RW has continuously supported the front-line role of women of color, combatted racism among feminist activists, and spoken out against sexism in people of color movements. In its early years, Seattle Radical Women worked closely with the local Black Panther Party chapter to prevent the kind of lethal police attacks that decimated Black militants in other cities. In the 1970s, members participated in mass civil disobedience organized by the United Construction Workers Association to break the color line in the all-white building trades. They defended Chicana feminist Rosa Morales, victim of a sexist firing from her position as Chicano Studies staff-person at the University of Washington. RW worked closely with Native American women leaders Janet McCloud and Ramona Bennett, and participated in the Puyallup Tribe’s successful takeover of Cascadia Juvenile Center, a former Indian hospital. The group demands affirmative action, ethnic studies, justice for immigrants, and an end to police violence.

Radical Women has played a leading role in lesbian/gay/bisexual/ transgender liberation struggles. Members have helped build militant lesbian/gay rights organizations and have been involved in many coalitions devoted to preventing forced AIDS testing, opposing ballot-box attacks on gay rights, lobbying for state gay rights bills, and more. In the 1980s Radical Women leader Merle Woo, a college lecturer, writer and Asian American lesbian spokesperson, triumphed against the University of California at Berkeley in two epic employment cases charging discrimination on race, sex, sexuality and political ideology.

Radical Women encourages its members to become union militants, and some have been sparkplugs for many years on county labor councils in San Francisco and Seattle. RW views women’s mass entry into the workforce as an issue of deep significance, seeing women workers as strategically placed in the rapidly growing and powerful service sector. RW's position is that, together with people of color and lesbians and gays, women are the overwhelming majority of workers and have the potential to revolutionize society.

Statements and opinions

End the Attack on Gaza! Dec 30, 2008
What do women want? RW's take on Governor Sarah Palin, Sept. 22, 2008
Rally against ICE Checkpoints, Pt. Angeles. Sept. 20, 2008
In commemoration of Celia Hart (1963-2008) September, 2008
Stop ICE Checkpoints on the Olympic Peninsula! September 2008
RW leaflet at the Democratic National Convention. August 2008
Women's Rights Day: The fight for equality continues. August 2008
Too many children left behind. August 2008
Pride 2008: the fight is not over! June 2008
Defending the right to choose. May 2008
End Cruel Immigration Raids in California. May 2008
Solidarity message to the Adelitas brigades in Mexico. May 2008
Mensaje de solidaridad por la brigada Adelitas de Mexico. 7 de mayo, 2008
Statement on the inexcusable death of Rebecca Griego. April 24, 2007
Solidarity message to the CONLUTAS women's conference. April 2008
RW Condemns Supreme Court Ban of Abortion Procedure April 2007
Bay Area Feminists Protest "March for Life" January 2007
Protest the Eviction of Somali Families October 2006
Join RW at Reproductive Freedom Summer July, 2006
Help the Reproductive Freedom Fighters in Jackson, Mississippi! July 19, 2006
Support Suzanne Swift's Fight Against Military Rape July 2006
Support the Student Walkouts — Protest Anti-Immigrant Legislation April 13, 2006
Happy International Women's Day! March 8, 2006
Showdown over the Supreme Court September, 2005
Statement on US Supreme Court Nominee John Roberts September 28, 2005
Feminists Protest Sexism in New Iraqi Constitution August 2005
Gay Pride Statements June 19, 2005
Iraqi Women Face Double Jeopardy May 19, 2005
Protest prosecution of a Utah Mother March 15, 2004
Statement Against Constitutional Ban on Same-sex Marriage February 14, 2004
Hit the Streets to Defend Abortion Rights November 19, 2003
Mass Murder as Comedy? June 17, 2003
To End War & Sexism Fight Capitalism! March 24, 2003
War is a Feminist Issue January 11, 2003
The War on the Poor December 4, 2002
NO to the Profit- Driven War on Iraq! October, 2002
Don't Blame Gays for Catholic Church Scandal June 19, 2002
Unveiling the Oppression of Afghan Women November 29, 2001
Feminists say NO to a U.S. war of revenge September 21, 2001
"Radical Women Make Demands"-- The Golden Gator, SFSU April 2001
Death, Rape and Rage at Seattle’s Mardi Gras March 23, 2001
Radical Women Protests Sweatshops March 3, 2001
Stand Up for Civil Rights and Affirmative Action July 9, 2000
A Feminist Cure for Dr. Laura's Bad Medicine July 8, 2000