March 19, 2018:
The Feminists spoke a language I'd not been previously exposed to but which made immediate visceral and intellectual sense.
This was the era of what's now considered Second Wave Feminism. We still called it "Liberation", a descriptive language I personally much prefer. Because it's about human freedom, and everything else is bullshit.
Even then there were competing currents. There was Liberal Feminism which was gradualist, reformist, concerned primarily with advancing women into positions of authority and compensation comparable to those historically dominated by men, without challenging the societal structures which had created that reality. There was Radical Feminism which was largely lesbian and separatist. There was Cultural Feminism, which was essentially the old pre-Feminist ideology of The Battle of the Sexes viewed from the POV of female solidarity. And there was Socialism Feminism, which melded gender and class into a single coherent critique of capitalist patriarchy. Naturally that's where I went.
My commitment was firstly to the liberation of working class women from double oppression. But it was ultimately to the elimination of the stupid and destructive and dangerous gender roles which at the end of the day oppress everyone of any gender orientation. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus: oh fuck you. Women and men are all from Earth. The gender roles that are assigned to individuals are socially conditioned and conventional. They can be overcome. The ultimate purpose of liberation is the freedom of all individuals to be who they truly are. We're talking about the freeing of all people, including men, including me. Go team!
I learned the subtle but effective movement practices appropriate to that vision. When chairing meetings, prioritize calling on women and people of color over men and Caucasians. Ensure that every person who wishes to speak at least once is allowed to speak before anyone is allowed to speak a second time. Limit speaking time to two minutes. What does this all accomplish? It prevents meetings and decision-making being dominated by the aggressive white males who've traditionally been trained-up by society to take leadership positions, for example, to be comfortable speaking their opinions out loud. And it not coincidentally leads to vastly more efficient meetings, where the usual white male blowhards aren't allowed to blowhard-on for hours at a time. Boy did they hate that! I thought it was awesome.
I volunteered at the women's center 'cos I thought it would be a good place to meet chicks. Ba-DUM-bump. But seriously folks. Only the thing is, there's actually a little bit of truth in that joke. And in reality it was a wonderful place to meet passionate, powerful, brilliant, sophisticated young women who were older and vastly more experienced than little high school I. Of course they were pretty much all gay. Once I cottoned-on to that fact I thought it was pretty great. I'd never before met people who were openly gay. I thought they were awesome.
There was one resource available at the women's center which turned out to be a lifetime lifesaver. That's the book Our Bodies Ourselves. I still have the Revised and Expanded 1976 edition on my shelf. The one with the green lettering. At last, female mysteries revealed! Every girlfriend since has The Boston Women's Health Book Collective to thank for every orgasm they've ever had in my presence.
I've remained committed my entire life since to that Second Wave Socialist Feminist vision of overcoming the stupid and dangerous gender roles capitalist society has partly inherited and partly imposed. This is one reason I can be impatient with the contemporary Liberal Feminists and Cultural Feminists you frequently encounter in the business world. They don't go far enough, in their analyses or their strategies. It's not adequate to simply promote more women into positions of authority. If human freedom is truly the goal, the existence of those positions themselves must be challenged, along with the immoral and planet-destroying economic system which creates them.