ABSTRACT
Late September 1970—Word spreads about a meeting to organize Amherst Womens Liberation consciousness- raising groups: all interested women are welcome. That evening meeting radically changed the outlooks, marriages, and families of many women, mine included. While our family was in England feminist leaders in Amherst had begun the local movement. At this organizing event the entire roomful of several dozen middle-aged, academic wives thrilled to the talk of liberation and gasped at the new look of the younger speakers—bra-less, boob-bouncing women in Army boots who wore no make-up, showed off unshaved legs and underarms—and registered shock at their obscenities and aggressively anti-male rhetoric. We were asked to commit to forming random groups of ten that would meet weekly for the coming year, discussion groups to heighten our awareness of how we had been victimized 215in our male-dominated society and to learn how to change all that—locally, nationally, globally! Yes!
