Barbara Winslow, UW alum and campus activist, tells the story of the radical women’s liberation movement in Seattle during the 1960s and 1970s from the perspective of its founding members. In this preview of her book Revolutionary Feminists (Duke University Press, August 2023), she brings the voices and visions of those she calls the movement’s “ecstatic utopians” to life, charting their short-term successes and lasting achievements, from organizing women at work and campaigning for subsidized childcare to creating women-centered rape crisis centers, health clinics, and self-defense programs. The movement was central to winning the first popular vote in the United States to liberalize abortion laws. Despite these achievements, she also critiques the failure of its White members to listen to Black, Latina, Indigenous, and AAPI feminist activists. Reflecting on the movement’s accomplishments and shortcomings, Winslow offers a model for contemporary feminist activism.
 

About the Speaker:

Barbara Winslow is Professor Emerita of Women’s and Gender Studies at Brooklyn College and author of Sylvia Pankhurst: Sexual Politics and Political Activism and Shirley Chisholm: Catalyst for Change, 1926–2005. She received a BA, MA, and PhD from the UW Department of History, helped found the UW Women Studies Program, taught a course at the UW called Political Theories of Feminism, and was a revolutionary feminist activist at UW and in Seattle. Her collected letters, pamphlets, and photographs from this period of movement politics will become part of the UW Libraries Special Collections.

Reception to follow from 5:00-6:00pm in Smith Hall (SMI), Room 306.