ABSTRACT
The Los Angeles anti-rape movement was part of a national wave of activism by women. Rape was only one of the many issues the new feminist movement of the late 1960s tackled. Two strands emerged in the broader women’s movement (Hole and Levine 1971; Freeman 1975; Ferree and Hess 1985). The older, bureaucratic strand was exemplified by the National Organization for Women, founded in 1966 by Betty Friedan and other women who were already involved in mainstream politics. The younger, collectivist strand, also known as “small group feminism” and the women’s liberation movement, had roots in the movement politics of the period, and originated as a trend among women involved in the Civil Rights and New Left movements (Evans 1979; Echols 1989).
