Radical Women - History

History

Radical Women emerged in Seattle, Washington from a “Free University” class on Women and Society conducted by Gloria Martin, a lifelong communist and civil rights champion. As a result of the class, Martin teamed up with Clara Fraser and Melba Windoffer (initiators of the Freedom Socialist Party) and Susan Stern (a prominent figure in the local Students for a Democratic Society) to launch Radical Women in 1967.

In Socialist Feminism: The First Decade, 1966-76 Martin writes that the new group was formed to “demonstrate that women could act politically, learn and teach theory, administer an organization, develop indigenous leadership, and focus movement and community attention on the sorely neglected matter of women’s rights — and that women could do this on their own.”

From the outset, Radical Women participated heavily in the explosive anti-Vietnam War mobilization and has opposed subsequent wars, interventions and occupations initiated by Western countries.

Members worked with African American women from anti-poverty programs to initiate the abortion rights movement in Washington State with a historic march on the capitol in 1969.

In the early 1970s, RW helped organize a strike and a union of low-paid employees (mostly female and of color) at the University of Washington. Many Radical Women members were trailblazers in the nontraditional trades. At Seattle’s public power company, Seattle City Light, Clara Fraser crafted and implemented the country’s first plan to train women as utility electricians. For these efforts and her prominent role in a mass walkout at the utility, Clara was fired. She fought an intense, seven-year legal case that ultimately affirmed the right of free speech in the workplace and won her reinstatement at City Light.

After working closely with the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP), Radical Women and the party formally affiliated in 1973 on the basis of a shared socialist feminist program.