Newspaper Page Text
February 8, 1971
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Photo by Chuck Jackson
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women are human too
Closeminded majority
tunes out feminists views
I She strode on stage with the
poise and grace of the fashion
model she used to be, but when
she planted her booted feet
squarely apart, and held the
microphone as if it were a
submachine gun ready for “the
enemy ”, the Wesleyan audience
at Porter Auditorium know this
was no fashion show. She was
Horace Atkinson, founder of
the Radical Feminists, and she
meant business.
Unfortunately, according to
reports of reaction at the
seminar held after her lecture
on January 27, the Wesleyan
audience did not mean business.
And who can blame them? After
all, with her masculine clothes
and severe hair style, Miss
Atkinson was the epitome of
what everyone thinks woman’s
lib is all about. She was
probably just another neurotic,
sexually frustrated woman who
would be much happier if she
would slick/ to her natural
^function in life, Right?
As in most instances in
volving woman's liberation,
everyone had already made up
his mind on the issue without
giving much serious thought to
the problem. Miss Atkinson's
long tirade against the
American culture’s concept of
what a woman should be proved
that the only people who are
going 'to .take her seriously,
whether they agree with the
-novement or not, are those who
have considered the possibility
that she just might be right
Aithougn Miss Atkinson’s
extremely radical views were
intellectually concrete, her
ideas were not feasible in a real
world. I cannot consider men
“the Enemy” because if we
women have an enemy, it is
ourselves. I do—feel, however
that many of the points which
by Marsha Matthews
she stressed at Wesleyan
deserved much more attention
than they received.
Miss Atkinson realized before
she began that she wa$
probably speaking to deaf ears
as she opened her speech by
saying, “I’m almost sure that
it 's impossible to do what I want
to do in an hour and a half.” But
she attempted to urge the
predominately female audience
to seriously examine their
position in a male oriented
culture.
She said 'The only thing
that's going to change anything.
. is if they (women) turn around
and look.” She admitted that
"The biggest problem I've had
is to learn how to get women
unhappy because we've learned
how to swallow shit and smile
forever.”
She directed much of her
attention trf the futility of
college education for women in
today’s culture by saying that .
women college students are just N
marking time until they get
married. In answer to those who
would say that they attended
college in order to be a better
mother, she said. "It makes you
a worse mother because of the
incidences of nervous break
downs."
Although some women do use
their college education. Miss
Atkinson said that the Career of
the man comes first. She
backed up her accusation by
pointing out the domicile law. a
. law by which a woman can be
sued for desertion if she refuses
to leave a good job in order to
follow her husband.
Miss Atkinson realized that
she would have difficulty in
reaching the Wesleyan
audience because during
college yean the future often
seems the brightest.
Young women with dreams of
future marriage to Mr. Won
derful tend to say that maybe
it’s your problem, but it's not
mine. . My boyfriend is
different. She cautioned the
young women who dream of
walking hand in hand into the -
sunset with their beloved to
watch out for the drop off at the
horizon.
Although women do not
realize they are trapped by
their roles until they are mid
dle-aged, she told the young
women “If you don’t face
things now, it's going to be too
'ate when they catch up with
/OU.” She said that during
middle age a woman has
completed her function in the
culture while a man is just
beginning to reap the rewards
of his role as the provider, and
she cited her own situation as an
example.
When she married in her late
teens, she was a fashion model
on the way down'f^cause she •
was getting older everyday
while her educated, successful
middle aged husband was
considered desirable by society.
Miss Atkinson closed her
lecture by reading a letter from
a 45-year old woman whose
complaint wascommon.She had
built her entire lif$ around her
home, and with the children
gone, and the youthful passion
for her husband mellowing,
there was nothing left.
I think one o. Miss Atkinson 's
most important messages was
an urging of college women to
pursue a career and build a life
outside of society's concept of
the woman's role. She said, “It
is a very understandable im
pulse we have to want a life."
Page 7
seifiheil
Feminist blitzkreig
flounders at Wesleyan
by Chuck
Ti-Grace Atkinson, radical
woman's liberationist and
founder of the Feminists, came
to Wesleyan recently as part of
the Cultural Revolution, and
failed to stir even a hint of
resentment among the
Wesleyans for their male
counterparts.
She adopted the mode of a
Nazi stormtrooper and having
been a model she dressed for
the part well in black slacks,
black turtle neck and boots.
She also assumed a very
pfoper Nazi posture and one
expected to hear a heil Hitler
(or a heil Millet)anytime.
But looks and style are not
what revolutions are made of.
She lacked entirely the
speaking force and poise of her
1940s counterpart. However,
unlike Hitler she does have the
sense to see that her revolution
is dying and the stupidiy to
admit it to an audience ske is
trying to convert. She would
have been of little use to der
Fuerher and is of less use still to
h£r sisters. (I suppose she
adopted that term from the
other revolutionaries in history
who have called each other
brother or comrade).
She began her talk by at
tempting to reach her college
aged audience and attack the
marriage which most of them
are heading for. She asked them
if they had ever considered
what they needed an education
for?
“Where you’re going you
don't need nothing, you only
need to know how to lie down
AlUiough many people would
find Miss Atkinson’s radically
militant views on woman’s role
difficult to accept entirely, even
the stauchest male chauvinist
would have a hard time denying
the fact that she was an ex
tremely intelligent women with
something to say. Yet. the only
comment I heard from one male
in the audience was, “Wow, did
you see her !egs?”Funny, isn't
it? Or is'it.
Jackson
. What you should try simply
is to stand up. if women just
stand up the roof is going to
come off,” • she said and
launched her tirade against
marriage.
Since she was married at 17
and never went to college we
can assume of course that she is
fqlly qualifed to attack a
marriage from the point of view
of a college educated woman.
. She told her youthful audience
that about the only reason they
were in college was so they
could be more amusing and
continually hammered away at
the idea that they weren’t going
anywhere anyway.
However, she failed to
mention that a successful and
educated man enjoys much
more a marital relationship
that challenges him as much as
the office. A wife who is
educated and can discuss in
telligently his problems and on
occassion mako suggestions to
help solve them.
She correctly pointed out that
the marriage contract is the
only legal agreement of Its kind
where the terms aren't pointed
out and that a man can sue his
wife for desertion if she fails to
follow him to Timbuktu.
But, she failed to mention that
non-payment of alimony is the
only type of debt for which a
man can be imprisoned. Nor did
she mention that two people
generally enter into a marriage
under the mutual bond of trust.
Any contract can go sour.
She . blamed and condemned
the institution .of marriage for
all of woman’s problems, but
she failed to offer an alter
native.
She said women have learned
“to swallow all kinds of shit and
smile”, but she offered no
solution for a change of diet.
Terming marriage a political
institution because there is an
“imbalance of power and some
one is property" she attempted
to analyze the, entire feminist
movement in jibout 60 minutes
and lost her entire audience in a
lot of needless rhetoric.
Photo by Chuck Jackson