Women's Majority Union publishes first issue of Lilith in the fall of 1968.

  • By Priscilla Long
  • Posted 1/01/2001
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 2320

In the fall of 1968, Women's Majority Union, a Seattle women's liberation organization, publishes the first issue of Lilith. The first issue of the mimeographed periodical contains the following articles:

  • Two pieces on Valerie Solanas, New York author of "S.C.U.M. Manifesto" and the shooter of Andy Warhol.
  • An article by Judy Bissel on Women and the Draft which argues that "It is therefore because women have no role in such questions as enforcement of civil rights laws, police brutality, the draft, the war in Viet Nam, that these are women's issues. In short, any example of social injustice can and should be seen as a women's issue."
  • An article by Janet Hews titled "On Becoming a Radical Woman," which begins: "How do you become a radical woman? Not overnight, certainly, but the first important step is taken when you awaken to the realization that women are molded, conditioned and limited by the expectations and needs of a male power structure. We are programmed from the day of our birth to a life that sees us as the mothers and servants of men, but not as single human entities to whom the procreative and nurturative functions are simply a part of their lives, not the sum entire."
  • A position paper from the Black Unity Party from upstate New York requesting "the Sisters to not take the pill. It is this system's method of exterminating Black People," along with a response from six black women from Mount Vernon, New York, which begins, "Poor black sisters decide for themselves whether to have a baby or not to have a baby."
  • A position paper by Marlene Dixon on radical women in the professions, responding to Alice Rossi's "Equality Between the Sexes: an Immodist Proposal," published in the Spring 1964 issue of Daedalus. The paper discusses the need for childcare and argues that career and wife and mother or career vs. wife and mother are false dichotomies.
  • An article on the word Lesbian by Elaine Smith

Sources:

Lilith No. 1 (Seattle: Women's Majority Union, Fall 1968), in possession of Dotty DeCoster, Seattle, April 2000.


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