Abjecting Whiteness: “The Movement,” Radical Feminism, and Genocide

Abstract

In 1970, in the introduction to her anthology of writings from the women’s liberation movement, radical feminist, Robin Morgan, mused:

I can no more countenance the co-optive lip service of the male dominated Left which still stinks of male supremacy than I can countenance the class bias and racism of that male “Movement.” I haven’t the faintest notion what possible revolutionary role white heterosexual men could fulfill, since they are the very embodiment of reactionary-vested-interest-power. But then, I have great difficulty examining what men in general could possibly do about all this. In addition to doing the shitwork that women have been doing for generations, possibly not exist? No, I really don’t mean that. Yes, I really do. Never mind, that’s another whole book.²

From the embers of the old movement, a new one rose scorching—sisterly, factional, wild, egomaniacal, furious with insight and excess, the voice of millions of women, living survivors of the death and transfiguration of the New Left.

Todd Gitlin¹