History
It was founded in 1968 as a split from the New York City chapter of National Organization for Women (NOW) by members who felt NOW was not radical enough. It was originally called the October 17th Movement after the date that it was founded, but soon changed its name to The Feminists. Ti-Grace Atkinson was the group's central figure and informal leader until she left the group in 1971; other prominent members included Anne Koedt (who left in 1969 to co-found New York Radical Feminists), Sheila Michaels, Barbara Mehrhof, Pamela Kearon, and Sheila Cronan.
The Feminists' best-known action may have been in September 1969, when members picketed the New York City Marriage License Bureau, distributing pamphlets protesting the marriage contract:
"All the discriminatory practices against women are patterned and rationalized by this slavery-like practice. We can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage."
Read more about this topic: The Feminists
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)