The AP News Trust's Pre-1990's Hidden History Revisited: Part 5

 

Wikicommons photo by Alterego

As Downtown (6/24/92) previously noted, former Watergate Scandal investigative reporter Carl Bernstein, in an unpublicized 1977 Rolling Stone magazine article entitled “The C.I.A. And The Media,” wrote that: “Other organizations which cooperated with the C.I.A. include the American Broadcasting Company [ABC], the National Broadcasting Company [NBC], the Associated Press…”

Like other institutionally racist Big Media organizations,  the institutionally racist AP also has a long history of discrimination against women. A study by Lucy Komisar, cited in Women And The Mass Media by Matilda Butler and William Paisley, revealed that in 1970 at AP there were “no women in management positions and no women heading any of the 38 domestic or 6 foreign bureaus” and at AP’s then-Midtown Manhattan office there were only “7 women out of 52 editors and reporters” in 1970. Women And The Mass Media also noted that in 1972 Time magazine reported that U.S. women were only “11 percent of Associated Press’s nationwide news staff of 1050.”

The same book also revealed that “in 1973, the Wire Services Guild charged the Associated Press [AP] with discriminating against its female and minority members” and that “In May 1978, the EEOC found that AP did discriminate by not recruiting, hiring and promoting women” and “did not hire minorities as newspeople.” Women And The Mass Media also noted that “EEOC data for the end of 1977” showed that “males are 100 percent of the assistant bureau chiefs, 98 percent of the bureau chiefs, 97 percent of the correspondents, 90 percent of the news editors, and 85 percent of the newspeople.”

As late as the early 1990s, about 88 percent of AP’s U.S. bureau chiefs were still male, as were 75 percent of AP’s U.S. correspondents. All but two of the seats on AP’s board of directors were also still filled by men. And AP’s chairman, vice-chairman, president and general manager, as well as its six vice-presidents, were still all men in the early 1990s. 

Associated Press/AP Board of Directors in 21st-century

 (end of part 5)

(The following article originally appeared in the July 7, 1993 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative weekly, Downtown).

`Marilyn Monroe's Mysterious Death' folk song lyrica

An historical topical folk song from 2016 that revisits and raises some questions about the mysterious death  in California of 1950's Hollywood movie star Marilyn Monroe in August 1962.
(lyrics)
(chorus)
Two days before her press conference
Marilyn Monroe was dead
And her notebook diary disappeared
With the star of Hollywood.

(verses)
They called her "Marilyn Monroe"
And she planned to hold a press conference
To talk about being used
By the Attorney General and the President
To complain about the false words
Which each said to get her into bed
And to reveal what she knew of C.I.A. plots
To kill a Cuban government head. (chorus)

She had thought that "Mr. President"
Would make her the new First Lady
But the White House stopped accepting her calls
When it became too politically risky
And after being passed to the Justice Department
She wrote in her notebook diary
Of her bedroom conversations about covert
C.I.A. activity. (chorus)

No matter how big a movie star
Or how large are the crowds you attract
If you mix in their power game of politics
It can get dangerous to be near the top
They'll exploit your popularity
And spend nights with you secretly
But they'll dump your body quickly
When it threatens "The Company." (chorus)

Revisiting 2016 Democratic Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders' Pre-2000 Political Career--Part 7

In his 1991 book, The Socialist Mayor: Bernard Sanders in Burlington, Vermont, Steven Soifer indicated how 2016 Democratic party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders governed in Burlington, Vermont during the 1980's, when Sanders was the mayor of Burlington, Vermont:

"....One administration insider noted that Bonnie Vander Tain, Personnel Department director after Jim Dunn, was the only woman appointed by Sanders to head a department, and she didn't stay long....In another administration insider's estimation, `the tension comes with the women's groups because they don't see Bernie as a feminist--and he's not--and partly that's his age, and he tries hard. I think he relies on men primarily.'....

"Progressive critics of the Sanders administration were generally harsh on Sander's record with women. For example, one said:

"`I guess he's finally agreed to set up a women's committee (that is, Women's Council) that has some teeth to it, but for years women were trying to get to take their concerns seriously....and it was the same thing--he just wasn't listening....'

"Another progressive critic explained her view of the situation of women at city hall: The `lack of women around him and his seeming inability to have women in any leadership position in city hall [is a problem[....I think his inner circle's...all men.'

"Still another progressive critic had this to say about Sanders's relation to women:

"`If you look at all....the big jobs, very few [go] to women. Only through great pushing was there finally a Women's Council....in the city....after four years in office....He hasn't done anything affirmative, he hasn't done anything necessarily too bad, but he's done nothing that would make any great changes for women at all.'....

"....Women's issues were not one of Sanders's top priorities. Many women interviewed, both inside and outside the administration, raised concerns around the mayor's style and process....Women generally spoke of his `male style' of doing things and his not being a feminist....

"Sanders's leftist critics were harsh in their assessment of the mayor's interactions with women....People from various groups raised the issue of Sanders's inner circle of all male advisors. The mayor's inner circle, while changing somewhat over the years, included David Clavelle, Peter Clavelle, Jonathan Leopold, Jr., John Franco, Jim Schumacher, and George Thabault. Some women expressed feelings of having been `overlooked' or `cut out of the decision-making process' at various points...." 

Black Female Worker`Not Seasonally Adjusted' Unemployment Rate Increases To 8.6 Percent In July 2015

Between June and July 2015, the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Black female workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States increased from 7.9 to 8.6 percent; while the number of unemployed Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 71,000 (from 775,000 to 846,000) during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In addition, the “not seasonally adjusted” number of Black female workers over 20 years-of-age who still had jobs decreased by 34,000 (from 9,054,000 to 9,020,000) between June and July 2015.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States was still 8.7 percent in July 2015; while the “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all Black workers in the United States (youth, male and female) was still 9.7 percent during that same month. In addition, between June and July 2015, the “not seasonally adjusted” number of Black male workers over 20 years-of-age in the U.S. labor force decreased by 79,000 (from 8,870,000 to 8.791,000); while the “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 31 percent in July 2015.

Between June and July 2015, the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latina female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 6 to 7.3 percent; while the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all Latino workers (youth, male and female) in the United States increased from 6.8 to 7 percent during the same period. In addition, the “not seasonally adjusted” number of unemployed Latina female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 134,000 (from 632,000 to 766,000) between June and July 2015; while the “not seasonally adjusted” number of Latina female workers over 20 years-of-age who still had jobs decreased by 182,000 (from 9,933,000 to 9,751,000) during that same period.

The “not seasonally adjusted” total number of unemployed Latino workers (youth, male and female) increased by 67,000 (from 1,789,000 to 1,856,000 )between June and July 2015; while the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino males over 20 years-of-age was still 5.6 percent in July 2015. In addition, the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latino youth between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 20.9 percent in July 2015.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 14.4 percent in July 2015; while the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all youths (Black, Latino, white and Asian-American) between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States was still 17.1 percent during that same month

The “not seasonally adjusted” number of unemployed Asian-American workers increased by 13,000 (from 374,000 to 387,000) between June and July 2015; while the unemployment rate for Asian-American workers increased from 4.1  to 4.2 percent during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white female workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States increased from 4.4 to 4.9 percent between June and July 2015; while the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 4 to 4.1 percent during the same period.. In addition, the “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all white workers (youth, male and female) increased from 4.8 to 4.9 percent between June and July 2015; while the “not seasonally adjusted” total number of unemployed white workers increased by 136,000 (from 5.928,000 to 6,064,000) during the same period.

Between June and July 2015, the “not seasonally adjusted” number of unemployed white female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 267,000 (from 2,361,000 to 2,628,000); while the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all female workers over 16 years-of-age in the United States increased from 5.5 to 6 percent during the same period.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all female workers over 20 years-of-age also increased from 4.8 to 5.5 percent between June and July 2015; while, the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all male workers over 16 years-of-age in the United States was still 5.4 percent in July 2015. In addition, the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 4.6 percent during that same month.

Between June and July 2015, the official “not seasonally adjusted” total number of unemployed workers in the United States increased by 167,000 (from 8,638,000 to 8,805,000); while the official unemployment rate for all U.S. workers (male, female and youth) increased from 5.5 to 5.6 percent during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ August 7, 2015 press release:

“…In July, both the unemployment rate (5.3 percent) and the number of unemployed persons (8.3 million) were unchanged…The rates for adult men (4.8 percent), adult women (4.9 percent), whites (4.6 percent), blacks (9.1 percent), Asians (4.0 percent), and Hispanics (6.8 percent) showed little or no change…In July, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 2.2 million. These individuals accounted for 26.9 percent of the unemployed…

“The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in July at 6.3 million. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

“In July, 1.9 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force…These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

“Among the marginally attached, there were 668,000 discouraged workers in July, little changed from a year earlier…Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

“Mining employment continued to trend down in July (-5,000)….Since….December 2014, employment in the industry has declined by 78,000, with losses concentrated in support activities for mining.

“Employment in….construction, wholesale trade, information, and government, showed little change over the month…..”

Black Worker `Not Seasonally Adjusted' Unemployment Rate Increases To 12.2 Percent In July 2014

The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all Black workers (youth, male and female) increased from 11.1 to 12.2 percent between June and July 2014; while the total number of unemployed Black workers in the United States increased by 248,000 (from 2,107,000 to 2,355,000) during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States increased from 10.6 to 11.5 percent between June and July 2014; while the official “not seasonally adjusted’ unemployment rate for Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 9.3 to 10.9 percent during the same period. In addition, between June and July 2014, the total number of unemployed Black female workers over 20 years-of age increased by 163,000 (from 893,000 to 1,056,000); while the total number of unemployed Black male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 81,000 (from 922,000 to 1,003,000) according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

In July 2014, the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States was still 36.8 percent; while the number of unemployed Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased by 3,000 (from 292,000 to 295,000) during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 28.3 to 29 percent between June and July 2014; while the number of unemployed Latino youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased by 30,000 (from 355,000 to 385,000) during the same period.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 18.9 percent in July 2014; while the number of unemployed white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 1,059,000 during that same month, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data. In addition, in July 2014, the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 21.1 percent; while the total number of all unemployed youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 1,483,000 during that same month, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all Latino workers (male, female and youth) in the United States increased from 7.8 to 7.9 percent between June and July 2014; while the total number of unemployed Latino workers in the United States increased by 19,000 (from 1,988,000 to 2,007,000) during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latina female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 7.2 to 7.7 percent between June and July 2014; while the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 6 percent in July 2014.. In addition, the number of unemployed Latino female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 40,000 (from 735,000 to 775,000) between June and July 2014, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

In July 2014, the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all Asian-American workers was still 4.5 percent; while the “not seasonally adjusted” number of Asian-American workers who were still in the U.S. labor force decreased by 29,000 (from 8,746,000 to 8,717,000) during the same month..

The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 4.6 percent in July 2014; while the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 4.9 to 5.5 percent between June and July 2014. In addition, the number of unemployed white female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 277,000 (from 2,671,000 to 2,948,000) between June and July 2014, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data; while the total “not seasonally adjusted” number of unemployed white workers (male, female and youth) increased by 110,000 (from 6,858,000 to 6,968,000) during the same period.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 5.5 to 6.3 percent between June and July 2014; while the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 5.5 percent in June 2014. In addition, the total number of all unemployed female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 543,000 (from 3,843,000 to 4,386,000) June and July 2014, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data; while the total “not seasonally adjusted” number of all unemployed male workers over 16 years-of-age was still 5,220,000 in July 2014.

Between June and July 2014, the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all U.S. workers (male, female and youth) increased from 6.3 to 6.5 percent; while the total number of unemployed workers in the United States increased from 9,893,000 to 10,307,000 during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ August 1, 2014 press release:

“…The unemployment rate was little changed at 6.2 percent…Both the unemployment rate (6.2 percent) and the number of unemployed persons (9.7 million) changed little in July….Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult women increased to 5.7 percent and the rate for blacks edged up to 11.4 percent in July…The rates for adult men (5.7 percent), teenagers (20.2 percent), whites (5.3 percent), and Hispanics (7.8 percent) showed little or no change in July...

"The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 3.2 million in July. These individuals accounted for 32.9 percent of the unemployed...

"The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers), at 7.5 million, was unchanged in July. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

"In July, 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force..These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

"Among the marginally attached, there were 741,000 discouraged workers in July…Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

.

“Employment in temporary help services changed little over the month…Employment in health care changed little over the month, with job gains in ambulatory health care services (+21,000) largely offset by losses in hospitals (-7,000) and nursing care facilities (-6,000)…Employment in leisure and hospitality changed little in July…Employment in…wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities, and government, showed little change in July…”

Black Worker Unemployment Rate Increases to 12.4 Percent in March 2014

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all Black workers (youth, male and female) increased from 12 to 12.4 percent between February and March 2014, according to recently released Bureau of Labor Statistics data; while the total number of unemployed Black workers increased by 82,000 (from 2,237,000 to 2,319,000) during the same period.

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 9.9 to 11 percent between February and March 2014; while the unemployment rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 12.1 percent.

In addition, between February and March 2014 the number of Black female workers over 20 years-of-age who still had jobs decreased by 92,000 (from 8,646,000 to 8,554,000); while the number of unemployed Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 112,000 (from 948,000 to 1,060,000) during the same period.

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States increased from 32.4 to 36.1 percent between February and March 2014; while the number of Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age who still had jobs decreased by 12,000 (from 425,000 to 413,000) during the same period. In addition, between February and March 2014 the number of unemployed Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased by 29,000 (from 204,000 to 233,000).

The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latino youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 21.3 percent in March 2014; while 220,000 Latino youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age were still unemployed during that same month.

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 18.3 percent in March 2014; while the number of unemployed white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased by 23,000 (from 807,000 to 830,000) between February and March 2014.

In March 2014, the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 20.9 percent; while the total number of unemployed youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased by 20,000 (from 1,173,000 to 1,193,000) between February and March 2014..

The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latina female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 8.4 percent in March 2014; while the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all Latino workers (male, female and youth) in the United States was still 7.9 percent during that same month. In addition, the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 6.9 percent in March 2014.

In March 2014, the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all Asian-American workers was still 5.4 percent; while the “not seasonally adjusted” number of unemployed Asian-American workers was still 480,000 during that same month.

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 5.3 percent in March 2014; while the jobless rate for white female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 5.1 to 5.3 percent between February and March 2014. In addition, the number of white female workers over 20 years-of-age who still had jobs decreased by 225,000 (from 51,822,000 to 51,597,000) between February and March 2014; while the total number of unemployed white female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 98,000 (from 2,813,000 to 2,911,000) during the same period.

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 5.9 to 6.2 percent between February and March 2014; while the official unemployment rate for all male workers over 20 years-of-age was also still 6.2 percent in March 2014. In addition, the total number of unemployed male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 5,636,000 in March 2014; while the official jobless rate for all male workers over 16 years-of-age was still 6.8 percent during that same month..

In March 2014, the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all U.S. workers (male, female and youth) was still 6.7 percent; while the official total  number of unemployed workers in the United States increased by 27,000 (from 10,459,000 to 10,486,000) between February and March 2014.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ April 4, 2014 press release:

 “…The unemployment rate was unchanged at 6.7 percent…In March, the number of unemployed persons was essentially unchanged at 10.5 million…Both measures have shown little movement since December 2013…Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult women increased to 6.2 percent in March…

 “The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), at 3.7 million, changed little in March; these individuals accounted for 35.8 percent of the unemployed…The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed at 7.4 million in March. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find full-time work.

 “In March, 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, little changed
from a year earlier…These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

“Among the marginally attached, there were 698,000 discouraged workers in March… Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

“Employment in government was unchanged in March. A decline of 9,000 jobs in federal government was mostly offset by an increase of 8,000 jobs in local government, excluding education. Over the past year, employment in federal government has fallen by 85,000. 

“Employment in other major industries, including manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail
trade, transportation and warehousing, information, and financial activities, changed
little over the month…

“…In March, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees edged down by 2 cents to $20.47….”

Hidden History of Texas--1890-1920--Part 6

(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on May 29, 2012)

During the period between 1890 and 1920 there was much dissatisfaction among Texas workers and farmers with how capitalist society treated them. So it’s not surprising that political support for an anti-corporate electoral alternative third-party to the pro-corporate Democrats and Republicans -- the Socialist Party -- began to develop in Texas by the beginning of the 20th century. As F. Ray Marshall’s Labor in the South noted:

“The Texas Socialist Party... was a member of the radical wing of the national party. E.O. Meitzen of Hallettsville, a member of the Grange, who helped organize the Farmers’ Alliance in Fayette County, and edited a German Populist paper (Der Anzeiger) during the 1890’s, was an active Socialist, and was secretary of the Renters Union, formed by Texas Socialists around 1909. Meitzen’s activities were continued by Thomas Hickey, a lecturer for the Social-Democratic Party in the south during the early 1900’s. Hickey published a magazine, The Rebel, from Hallettsville for many years... In 1912, Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist candidate for President of the United States [got] about 9 percent of the Texas vote...”

  According to the labordallas.org website, the circulation of The Rebel “went over 20,000” before it “was suppressed by the United States government as World War I began and never was reborn.” The same Texas labor history website also recalled that Texas Socialist Party leader Meitzen “was elected County Judge in LaVaca County and... gained 11.7 percent of the votes in the governor’s race” in Texas in 1914, “was shot by a sheriff he had accused of `losing’ important records concerning county monies” that same year, and “survived the shooting and other physical assaults” before he “died in Houston in 1934.”

Dissatisfied feminist white women in Texas also began to organize during the 1890 to 1920 historical period. As Randolph Campbell’s Gone To Texas observed, in Texas the white feminist movement "stirred slightly in 1903 with formation of the Texas Equal Suffrage Association” and “suffragettes by 1916 formed 80 local chapters and claimed 9,500 members for their statewide organization.”

In Austin, the Austin Woman’s Suffrage Association was founded in 1908; and when the wife of Austin’s then-Superintendent of Schools, Jane McCallum, became the Austin Woman’s Suffrage Association’s president in 1915, this group had 80 members.

So, not surprisingly, the Texas state legislature soon passed an act in 1918 which allowed white women in Texas to also vote in Texas primary elections; and after a May 1919 referendum in Texas, white women also were given the right to vote in U.S. presidential elections, when Texas became the ninth state to ratify the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Ironically, “among those Austinites who supported the women’s voting rights movement was Adele Burleson, wife of Woodrow Wilson’s postmaster general [whose] husband urged the president to introduce racial segregation into the federal civil service,” according to David Humphrey’s Austin: An Illustrated History.

The same book also observed that former Austin Mayor A.P. Wooldridge “similarly sought to expand the rights of women while he limited those of blacks” and that “he advised a group of Austin blacks in 1919 [to] `keep out of politics’" and told them not to forget "that whites `will tolerate no idea of social equality.’”

After the Democratic Wilson Administration decided to involve the U.S. military in the European war between UK imperialism and German imperialism in 1917 -- over 197,000 people from Texas were either drafted into the military or volunteered during World War I. And according to Alwyn Barr’s Black Texans, “Negroes provided about 25 percent -- 31,000 men -- of the troops called up from Texas, though they formed only 16 percent of the state’s population” at that time.

Most draftees and volunteers from Texas served in the U.S. Army during World War I and “more than 5,000 men and 1 nurse” from Texas “died while in the service, most losing their lives in the great influenza epidemic of 1918,” according to Gone To Texas.

And the free speech rights and civil liberties of anti-war activists and dissidents in Texas who opposed U.S. military intervention in Europe during World War I were curtailed after the U.S. Congress passed its Declaration of War in 1917. According to the same book, “a special session of the... state legislature... passed espionage and sedition laws that made it a crime to criticize the U.S. government, its officials, the flag, or soldiers;” and the University of Texas regents "fired a well-known anti-war professor."

African-American soldiers who were stationed in Texas after the U.S. military entered World War I also apparently challenged the racism of the Houston police department and white supremacy in Texas in a militant way in August 1917. As Gone To Texas recalled:

“On Aug. 23, 1917, Houston police arrested a black soldier and then fired at and arrested a black military policeman who went to inquire about the first serviceman…The men still in camp... decided to march on the police station to secure the MP’s release... Gathering rifles, the soldiers... moved toward downtown Houston... killing 15 whites and wounding 12 others. Four of the soldiers also died...”

  But the U.S. Army subsequently found 110 of the African-American soldiers involved in this apparently anti-racist protest “guilty of mutiny and riot” and “19 were hanged and 63 received life sentences,” according to the same book.

The police had also “roughed up [a] black woman" on Aug. 23, 1917, according to Black Texans, and the incident “stimulated a retaliatory raid by about 150” African-American troops. So, not surprisingly, after World War I ended, African-Americans in Texas “organized an Equal Rights Association to promote democratic government and equal justice” in Texas in 1919 -- the same year that there were also anti-black race riots by some white Texans in Port Arthur and Longview (where homes of African-Americans were burned), according to the same book.

And according to Merline Pitre’s In Struggle Against Jim Crow: Lulu B. White and the NAACP, 1900-1957:

“The Houston Riot of 1917 served as a catalyst for the establishment of the Houston chapter of the NAACP. Investigating the 1917 riot, NAACP field worker Martha Gruening found the time ripe for organizing a Houston chapter... Shortly after Gruening’s trip to Houston, M.B. Patten, a postal worker... called a meeting of the city’s leading black professionals, clergymen, and business people... Subsequently the Houston chapter of the NAACP was established on May 31, 1918... By the end of 1918, membership in the Houston branch had reached 414...”

  By 1919, according to Black Texans, 31 chapters of the NAACP existed in Texas “with 7,000 members -- over 1,000 in both Dallas and San Antonio.” Yet in Austin -- which at the time was still just the 10th-largest city in Texas -- the following incident happened in August of 1919, according to Austin: An Illustrated History:

“John Shilladay, the white executive secretary of the NAACP... journeyed to Austin in 1919 to assist with legal difficulties encountered by the NAACP’s Austin branch... At mid-morning just outside the Driskill Hotel, John Shilladay was assaulted by County Judge David Pickle, a county constable, and several other Austinites...

  And that same month Democratic Texas Governor Hobby also warned NAACP national officers that “your organization can contribute more to the advancement of both races by keeping your representatives and their propaganda out of this state than in any other way.”

Yet as late as 1910, Austin still “had virtually no public parks or playgrounds, only two paved streets, and few sidewalks, ...refuse accumulated in alleys and was dumped on the banks of the Colorado, [and] the majority of residents still relied on backyard privies in the absence of sewer lines,” according to Austin: An Illustrated History.

40 Years After Women's March for Equality & `Rat' Takeover--Conclusion

According to Ms.’s editor in the late 1990s, Marcia Ann Gillespie, the magazine’s then-current management played no role in formulating the Smith College library’s policy of restricting access in the 1990s to the Ms. archives material from the period when Pat Carbine and Gloria Steinem managed the magazine, prior to its subsequent re-organization.

Ms. was purchased in 1996 by Jay MacDonald’s MacDonald Communications, in partnership with Bud Paxson’s Paxson Communications media conglomerate. In its May 15, 1998 issue, the New York Times described Paxson Communications, then, as “the nation’s largest owner and operator of television stations” in 1998; and noted that Paxson’s vice-chairman at that time, William Simon Jr., was the son and business partner of former Secretary of the Treasury William Simon, Sr.—the then-president of the right-wing John M. Olin Foundation.

Later in 1998, Ms. founder Steinem and other investors created Liberty Media and repurchased the magazine from MacDonald Communications and Paxson Communications. But by 2001, Steinem’s Liberty Media was facing bankruptcy and Ms. magazine was sold to the tax-exempt Democratic Party-oriented Feminist Majority Foundation, which then turned it into a quarterly publication. But Steinem is still listed on the Ms. magazine masthead as a “Consulting Editor,” according to the magazine’s web site at www.msmagazine.com.

Ironically, despite its policy of still restricting the public’s access to some of the Ms. archives material during the late 1990s, the Sophia Smith Collection reported in its February 1998 newsletter that it received a $107,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities “to process eight collections documenting women’s activism.” And, coincidentally, according to the www.gloriasteinem.com site, Steinem is now apparently “working with the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College on a project to document the grassroots origins of the U.S. women's movement.”

Steinem also currently sits next to Robin Morgan on the board of directors of the Women’s Media Center, whose president—“a native of Austin” named Jehmu Greene—“got her start working in the fertile ground of Texas politics including an early stint with Governor Ann Richards’ campaign in 1994,” “later played key roles at…the Democratic National Committee” and was “an advisor and national surrogate for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign,” according to the Women’s Media Center website. In 2008, the Women’s Media Center received over $935,000 in contributions and grants, according to its Form 990 financial filing; and in 2009, the Ms. Foundation for Women also gave a $5,000 grant to the Women’s Media Center , according to the Ms. Foundation for Women’s Form 990 financial filing. And, coincidentally, between 2006 and 2010 the Ford Foundation gave three more grants, totaling $750,000, to the Ms. Foundation for Women, according to the Ford Foundation’s website. In addition, in 2010, the Ford Foundation—on whose board of trustees sit both Goldman Sachs Senior Director and former Vice-Chairman Robert Kaplan and Former Morgan Stanley Asset Management Vice-Chairman Peter Nadory—also gave a $100,000 grant to the International Women’s Media Foundation, a $100,000 grant to WomenEnews, a $200,000 grant to the Women’s Leadership Fund and a $300,000 grant to the Young Women’s Leadership Institute.

On a national level in recent years, U.S. working women in their 20s--who made a median income of $25,467--still earned less than working men in their 20s--who made a median income of $28,523. Yet in some U.S. cities, such as New York City and Dallas, U.S. women in their 20s have apparently been earning more than their young male counterparts. As an article that appeared in the August 3, 2007 issue of the New York Times, titled “For Young Earners in Big City , a Gap in Women’s Favor,” observed:

“Young women in New York and several of the nation’s other largest cities who work full time have forged ahead of men in wages, according to an analysis of recent census data. The shift has occurred in New York since 2000 and even earlier in Los Angeles, Dallas and a few other cities….

“The analysis was prepared by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College, who first reported his findings in Gotham Gazette…It shows that women of all educational levels from 21 to 30 living in New York City and working full time made 117 percent of men’s wages, and even more in Dallas, 120 percent….

“In 1970, all New York women in their 20s made $7,000 less than men, on average, adjusted for inflation. By 2000, they were about even. In 2005, according to an analysis of the latest census results they were making about $5,000 more: a median wage of $35,653, or 117 percent of the $30,560 reported by men in that age group.

“Women in their 20s also make more than men in Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis and a few other big cities. But only in Dallas do young women’s wages surpass men’s by a larger amount than in New York. In Dallas, women make 120 percent of what men do, although their median wage there, $25,467, was much lower than that of women in New York….Even among New Yorkers in their 30s, women now make as much as men.”

But although a lot of money from corporate sponsors and foundations has apparently been distributed to various organizations led by certain feminist women in the 40 years since Rat was taken over by radical feminist women and large numbers of U.S. women marched for equality on August 26, 1970, only a minority of U.S. women seem to have completely escaped the economic effects of continued institutional sexism, racism and classism in the United States in the 21st-century. While the official unemployment rate for white female workers over 20-years-of-age in the United States of 7.1 percent in July 2010 was less than the 8.6 percent jobless rate for white male workers and much less than the official 16.7 percent unemployment rate for Black male workers, over 6 million U.S. women workers over 16-years-of-age were still officially unemployed in July 2010.

Even though 40 percent of U.S. women who work now have jobs as either managers or middle-class professionals within an economic system whose corporations exploit women workers at home and abroad and whose endless imperial wars kill large numbers of women annually, 1.3 million U.S. women still worked as maids, 1.4 million as waitresses, 3.1 million as secretaries, 2.2 million as cashiers, 1.2 million as receptionists, 1.6 million as retail salespeople, 1.2 million as health care aides, 1.2 million as child care workers and 821,000 as office clerks for low wages in 2009. And although around 90 percent of the over 2 million people currently imprisoned in the United States are men, “the number of women in prison, a third of whom are incarcerated for drug offenses, is increasing at nearly double the rate for men,” according to The Sentencing Project’s website.

On Nov. 16, 2004, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research issued a press release which reflected its evaluation of what the status of women in the United States has been in recent years. The press release, titled “New Report: Women Still 100 Years From Full Equality,” stated the following:

“After decades of progress, women are still decades away from achieving full equality in America, according to a new report on the status of women.

“`At the rate things are changing, it’ll be 50 years before women’s paychecks equal men’s, and nearly a full century before women hold half the seats in Congress,’ according to economist Heidi Hartmann…

“Seven states are rated worst for women in 2004 [than in the previous few years]; Mississippi, South Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas…

“American women are paid 76 cents for every dollar men earn, according to the new report…

“While it will take 50 years for women to close the wage gap, it will take women of color even longer. At the rate of progress between 1989 and 2001, it will take African American women 75 years to close the gap between their earnings and those of white men’s…Hispanic women are the hardest hit, as they have not experienced any progress in closing wage gap, and in fact the gap has widened…

“`There’s been progress since our benchmark report in the mid-90s, when there were only 58 women in Congress, but we’re still worlds away from the 268 seats American women have a right to expect,’ according to political scientist Amy Caiazza, one of the report’s editors.

“At the rate of change over the past decade, it will take 75 years for African American women to achieve equality of representation in Congress, and it will take Hispanic women 66 years…

“State legislatures are all heavily weighted toward men…

“One of every eight American women is living in poverty…Nationwide, nearly one out of four African American women live in poverty…One-fourth of all Native American women nationally live in poverty…

“`Life is getting worse, not better, for women near the bottom of the American economy…’ according to Hartmann.”

But, not surprisingly, the tax-exempt, multi-billion dollar Ford Foundation still had enough surplus capital in 2010 to give the Institute for Women’s Policy Research a $700,000 grant in 2010—40 years after U.S. women marched for equality and took over the Rat underground newspaper in Manhattan. (end of article)

40 Years After Women's March for Equality & `Rat' Takeover--Part 2

In late 1975, Redstockings self-published 5,000 copies of their theoretical journal, Feminist Revolution, which contained an article, titled “Gloria Steinem and the CIA;” and, on March 15, 1976, Redstockings signed a contract with Random House for Feminist Revolution to be published intact. But when the book was finally published by Random House in February 1979, according to an article by Nancy Borman--titled “Random Action: Whatever Happened to `Feminist Revolution’?"—which appeared in the May 21, 1979 issue of The Village Voice, “the chapter on Gloria Steinem and the CIA had been deleted in its entirety.”

According to the September 1979 issue of a Manhattan newspaper on the Upper West Side that was then published by the Columbia Tenants Union, Heights and Valley News, the chapter on Steinem and the CIA was “axed following complaints and threats of libel suits from an array of well-heeled, well-connected (and mostly inter-connected) individuals, corporations, and foundation-grant-funded women’s organizations.;” and “both the Village Voice and Heights and Valley News, two of the New York City newspapers that” broke “the near total media blackout on this information,” were apparently ”subjected to written threats of libel suits in an effort to stop publication of articles they were planning on the Redstockings case,” from Steinem’s attorneys.

And on September 6, 1979, a letter which was signed by at least 70 radical feminist activists (such as former New York SDS Regional Activist and novelist/poet Marge Piercy) also stated:

“We feel that we must respond to the latest in a series of attempts to suppress inquiry into the details and nature of Gloria Steinem’s association with the Central Intelligence Agency. We are alarmed that the most visible commentary on these events has come from several well-known figures in the feminist movement who not only condone but endorse this suppression. Because feminism’s appeal and impact spring from a fundamental intellectual honesty, it is particularly distressing that the suppression of dissent may be seen as some kind of official feminist position…

“…Gloria Steinem, Clay Felker…and Ford Foundation president Franklin Thomas were among those who threatened to sue for libel if Random House allowed the CIA chapters to be published in the Random edition of Redstockings' Feminist Revolution…The offending chapters were deleted. Thus, Steinem and her powerful supporters successfully used the threat of litigation to exercise prior restraint over publication…

“All this legal harassment was in response not to any actual instance of false, malicious defamation, but to the potential raising of embarrassing questions about some feminists’ relations with the power elite…

“…There is an urgent need for wide-ranging debate in the feminist movement on such questions as:

“…Is there a conflict-of-interest problem that our movement needs to solve—as other movements have tried to solve it—when movement representatives accept positions on the government or corporate side of the bargaining table? Are `right-wingers’ the only reason for the growing number of setbacks for women? Or is the feminist movement failing to discuss its own serious mistakes? Does dependence on government and corporate funding and foundation grants increase or decrease the effectiveness of feminist groups? Does it distort their politics and activities?...”

But in 1993 the Ms. Foundation for Women, for example, accepted the following three grants from the Ford Foundation: a $4.5 million grant for an “endowment campaign;” a $500,000 grant for “enhancing operational capacity” and a $45,000 grant for an “endowment feasibility study.” And by the early 1990s one of the daughters of the now-deceased Texas oil billionaire H.L. Hunt was sitting next to Gloria Steinem and a Rockefeller Family & Associates associate named Elizabeth McCormack on the Ms. Foundation for Women’s board of directors. As the Fall 1992 Newsletter of the Ms. Foundation, for example, noted:

“Nine years ago, Helen and Swanee Hunt, two sisters from Dallas, decided to start a foundation…Today, Helen is an active member of the Board of Directors of the Ms. Foundation for Women…Helen Hunt has made many leadership gifts to the Foundation. Most recently, her gift will enable us to allocate a portion of each…grant we give…for work with the Media…The Ms. Foundation for Women is proud to have the leadership and commitment that Helen Hunt has given us.”

In 1989 a book by Vance Packard, titled The Ultra Rich: How Much Is Too Much?, estimated that “at one point in the early 1980s the money of families created by H.L. Hunt amounted to $6 or $7 billion” and in 1986 the New York Times estimated that the total assets of the Helen and Swanee Hunt (and their brother Ray Hunt of Dallas) was around $2 billion. Besides helping to fund the Ms. Foundation for Women in the early 1990s, Swanee Hunt also contributed $251,000 to the 1992 presidential campaign of Secretary of State Clinton’s husband, prior to being named U.S. Ambassador to Austria by Bill Clinton in 1993. And by December 2009, the Ms. Foundation for Women was distributing over $4 million in grants each year and the value of its endowment had increased to nearly $24 million.

Coincidentally, in the late 1990s some of the material in the 250 boxes of Ms. magazine archives donated by the magazine to the Smith College library’s Sophia Smith Collection in Northampton, Massachusetts still contained “restricted material” that a woman anti-war activist and this Movement writer were still not allowed to examine. But some of the “restricted material” was briefly described in the typed index of the Ms. records which the woman anti-war activist and this Movement writer were allowed to look at. The “restricted material” contained in box 115 of the Ms. archives included Gloria Steinem’s 1971-1977 correspondence, material on the Ms. Foundation, Women’s Action Alliance annual meeting reports for the years 1980 to 1982 and “Gloria Steinem—correspondence clippings, 1971-1982.” The “restricted material” in Box 62 was described as “Gloria Steinem speaking request—fee correspondence” for the years 1973 to 1976. And the “restricted material” in Box 132 included material on Gloria Steinem’s 1970 to 1981 appearances, more material on the Ms. Foundation and more Steinem correspondence. In the course of examining the typed index of the Ms. records, the woman anti-war activist also noticed the following hand-written note on one page: “Material re: Redstockings events & Elizabeth Harris restricted.”

In her 1997 book Inside Ms.: 25 Years Of The Magazine And The Feminist Movement, former Ms. editorial staff member Mary Thom claimed that the Independent Research Service entity “had been founded by former National Student Association [NSA] officials”—not by Steinem; and that “Steinem learned of the CIA financing from NSA people.” Yet in a February 21, 1967 New York Times article which confirmed the Ramparts magazine disclosure, Steinem had told the Times that: (1) the CIA had been “a major source of funds” for the Independent Research Service since its formation in 1958; (2) “she had talked to some former officers of the National Student Association, who told her CIA money might be available;” (3) she “was a full-time employee of the service” until 1962; and (4) “The CIA’s big mistake was not supplanting itself with private funds fast enough.”

Under Steinem’s leadership, the CIA-funded Independent Research Service had, according to Ramparts magazine, “actively recruited a delegation of hundreds of young Americans to attend” world youth festivals in Vienna in 1959 and in Helsinki in 1962 “in order to actively oppose the communists;” and important officers and ex-officers of the CIA-funded National Student Association “were very active in the Independent Research Service activities in Vienna and Helsinki.” At the 1962 Helsinki Youth Festival, the Independent Research Service distributed a daily newspaper, The Helsinki News, which was printed in five languages. The Helsinki News was apparently edited by Clay Felker—the New York magazine editor who would later fund and distribute Ms. magazine’s initial December 1971 sample issue as an insert in his patriarchal New York magazine.

Also attending the 1962 Helsinki Youth Festival with Steinem was Barney Frank, who subsequently became an aide to Democratic Boston Mayor Kevin White and then a long-time Massachusetts Democratic representative in Congress. As The Pied Piper: Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream by Richard Cummings would note in 1985:

“Barney Frank at Harvard had been with the Independent Research Service delegation to Helsinki, an operation which, by Frank’s own admission, he clearly understood was CIA-backed. Frank joked about the role of fellow delegate Gloria Steinem, whom he described as `running around at nightclubs set up by the CIA in Helsinki, helping to win over Africans.'”

Steinem was “on the agency’s payroll” for 4 years, according to America’s Other Voice: The Story of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty by Sig Mickelson. And in late February 1967, the then-32-year-old Steinem had told Newsweek magazine:

“In the CIA, I finally found a group of people who understood how important it was to represent the diversity of our government’s ideas at the Communist festivals. If I had the choice, I would do it again.”

In November 1968, Steinem then apparently attended a meeting in New York City of Redstockings to gather material about the new wave of feminism for her magazine column in Clay Felker’s New York magazine. (end of part 2)

40 Years After Women's March For Equality & `Rat' Takeover--Part 1

Forty years ago, on Aug. 26, 1970, between 20,000 and 50,000 women marched in Manhattan to demand equality for women in the United States. And earlier in that same year anti-war Movement women in Downtown Manhattan took control of the Lower East Side anti-war 1960s counter-cultural underground newspaper, Rat. As Robin Morgan wrote in her “Introduction: Women’s Revolution” essay that appeared in the 1970 Random House book which she edited, Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology Of Writings From The Women’s Liberation Movement: “Women have attacked, disrupted, seized, or completely taken over certain media institutions: Rat and High School Free Press, two major underground radical newspapers, have been taken over completely by women.”

In a lengthy essay, titled “Goodbye to All That,” which was published in the Feb. 6-23, 1970 issue of the now-defunct Rat, Morgan explained why she felt Movement women needed to take over Rat in 1970. She wrote, for example, the following:

“So Rat has been liberated, for this week, at least. Next week? If the men return to reinstate the porny photos, the sexist comic strips, the `nude-chickie’ covers (along with their patronizing rhetoric about being in favor of Women’s Liberation)—if this happens, our alternatives are clear. Rat must be taken over permanently by women—or Rat must be destroyed.

“Why Rat?...Rat…has always tried to be a really radical cum life-style paper…It’s the liberal co-optive masks on the face of sexist hate and fear, worn by real nice guys we all know and like, right? We have met the enemy and he’s our friend. And dangerous…

“And that’s what I wanted to write about—the friends, brothers, lovers in the counterfeit male-dominated Left…

“Goodbye to the male-dominated peace movement.

“Goodbye to the `straight’ male-dominated Left…

“It is the job of revolutionary feminists to build an ever stronger independent Women’s Liberation Movement, so that the Sisters in counterleft captivity will have somewhere to turn…

“…All male leadership out of the Left as the only way; and it’s going to happen, whether through men stepping down or through women seizing the helm…

“Goodbye, goodbye forever, counterfeit Left, counterleft, male-dominated cracked-class-mirror reflection of the Amerikan Nightmare. Women are the real left…We are rising with a fury older and potentially greater than any force in history, and this time we will be free or no one will survive. POWER TO ALL THE PEOPLE OR TO NONE. All the way down, this time.”

Yet for nearly three years before Movement women took over Rat and Morgan urged revolutionary feminist activists in 60s New Left groups to either form and build separatist Women’s Liberation Movement groups in the USA or assume leadership roles in the patriarchal New Left, women activists in SDS had already been demanding an end to male supremacy and male chauvinism both within the United States and within SDS. At the June 1967 SDS National Convention, for example, the now-deceased former U.S. political prisoner, Marilyn Buck, had chaired a plenary session in which the report of an autonomous women’s workshop on women’s liberation was presented to the National SDS organization as a whole. And in the March 18, 1968 issue of SDS’s New Left Notes, two other New Left women activists, Naomi Jaffe and Bernardine Dohrn, had already previously written, in an article titled “The Look Is You,” that “over the past few months, small groups have been coming together in various cities to meet around the realization that…we are unfree within the Movement and in personal relationships, as in the society at large;” and “a strategy for the liberation of women, then, does not demand equal jobs (exploitation), but meaningful creative activity for all; not a larger share of power but the abolition of commodity tyranny; not equally reified sexual roles but an end to sexual objectification and exploitation; not equal aggressive leadership in the Movement, but the initiation of a new style of non-dominating leadership…”

Following its takeover by revolutionary feminist women forty years ago, Rat was only published until early 1972. Funding for Rat from its white feminist supporters and white advertisers in Manhattan apparently had dried-up--after a collective of Black and Latina women staff members had eventually been given editorial power at the radical feminist underground newspaper in 1971. And by 1975, one of the founders of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1960s, Marlene Dixon, would write the following:

“…What happened to the Women’s Liberation Movement in the early 1970s is precisely what happened to each mass movement of the previous decade: internal differentiation along class and political lines. In the case of the women’s movement, the remnant of Women’s Liberation have come to be dominated by a middle-class leadership, reducing a vigorous and radical social movement to a politically and ideologically co-opted reformist lobby in the halls of Congress…

“For the middle class woman, particularly if she has a career or is planning to have a career, the primary problem is to get men out of the way (i.e., to free women from male dominance maintained by institutionalized discrimination), in order to enjoy, along with the men, the full privileges of middle-class status…

“…Abolishing discrimination would not lead to a `revolution’ in the status of women because it would leave the class structure absolutely untouched. Gloria Steinem might build a corporation, a woman might become a general or a corporation vice-president, but the factory girl would remain the factory girl…

“…Sisterhood temporarily disguised the fact that all women do not have the same interests…

“…Political conflict…became acute throughout 1970-71. Under the guise of rejecting `elitism,’ left-wing women were attacked mercilessly for being `domineering,’ `oppressive,’ `elitist,’ `male-identified,’ etc. In fact, the early radical leadership was in this way either discredited or driven out of the movement…

“…Leadership thus passed to liberal reformers or left opportunists…

“…Usually women’s studies programs arose as a demand of Women’s Liberation as the women’s arm of the student movement for democratization and reform of the university…Early women’s studies programs tended to bring in staff who were progressive; this in turn alarmed university and college administrations. The result was a dual tactic of financial strangulation and staff purges…

“…The co-optation of women’s studies were part of the general purge that was being carried out against radicals and radical activists in North American universities and colleges…Women who had built careers in the context of liberal professionalism were as hostile to the intellectual and social challenge of the Radicals as were their male counterparts…”

In addition, on May 9, 1975, a press release would be issued at a Women in Media Conference by Redstockings--a radical feminist group, whose members initiated much of the theory, slogan, writings, and actions that helped launch the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1960s--which stated:

“…Gloria Steinem has a ten-year association with the CIA stretching from 1959 to 1969 which she has misrepresented and covered up.

“Further, we have become convinced that Ms. magazine, founded and edited by her, is hurting the Women’s Liberation Movement.

“As the originators of consciousness-raising and the Miss America Protest, as the women who were the first to talk in public about their abortions and the need for women to control their own bodies, who coined such slogans as “sisterhood is powerful” and “the personal is political” that launched the movement, we are concerned that Steinem, Ms. magazine and Ms. Corporation are endangering the feminist movement.

“In 1967 the New York Times made the first revelation of Steinem’s past in setting up a CIA front, the Independent Research Service. This was after Ramparts magazine had just disclosed the organization had been funded by the CIA…

“Both Steinem’s career in political journalism and Ms. magazine were launched by the publisher of New York [magazine] Clay Felker who worked as an editor of a newspaper published by this CIA front.

“To many people, Ms. appears to be the voice of the women’s liberation movement. But in actuality it has substituted itself for the movement, blocking knowledge of the authentic activists and ideas. Ms. outgrowths proliferate into many other areas—women’s studies programs, television shows, feminist organizations—duplicating and many times substituting for the original, authentic activists and groups that sparked the movement. It is widely recognized that one major CIA strategy is to create or support `parallel organizations' which provide an alternative to radicalism…

“…A look below the surface shows that Ms. is…promoting token women, wonderwomen, and `role models’ and denigrating the real achievements of most women…

“This whole structure is backed by curious corporate financing.

“Women’s liberation’s popularity and groundbreaking success preceded the installation of Gloria Steinem as the movement’s `leader’ by the rich and powerful. Today all the trappings of the radical upsurge remain, but the content and style have been watered down…”

(end of part 1)