Photographs of Dorothy Marder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Women's Liberation and Peace

National Women's Conference (1977)
Women's Pentagon Action
Abortion Rights Demonstration
Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice (Seneca)


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Women's Liberation (1960s, 1970s, 1980s)
In the years after World War II increasingly women entered the paid work force, even after marriage, despite ubiquitous discrimination and cultural pressures to remain in the home. A variety of political and cultural shifts in the 1950s revitalized social awareness of women’s roles and the need for a new emphasis on women’s rights.  President John F. Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women (1960) attempted to document discrimination against women in the work place.  Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique (1963) was one book published early in the 1960s which helped focus attention on the plight of American women.  Friedan’s work a powerful and controversial book exposing the mass discontent of many middle-class women and challenged post-war ideas of domesticity. Feminists who had long fought for the Equal Rights Amendment and other rights for women were able to lobby successfully for the inclusion of Title IX in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Title IX was a huge victory for women’s rights, making it illegal for institutions or corporations receiving federal funding to discriminate based on sex.

The 1960s were an era of social consciousness, political activism, reform, and radicalization and women were significant activists in the growing anti-nuclear movement, the Civil Rights Movement and the protests against the Vietnam War.  Women’s Liberation was a broad-based movement of radical and progressive women, and fostered female activism.  In 1965, feminists including Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Flo Kennedy, and many others, founded the National Organization for Women (NOW), an influential, progressive organization focused on fighting for equality for women in all aspects of U.S. society. During the 1970s and early 1980s NOW led the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment to the federal constitution which would have outlawed discrimination based on sex.  Only 35 out of the needed 38 states ratified the amendment, and the ERA did not become law.  Issues women raised in this “Second Wave” of feminism grew to include equality in education and the workplace, marriage, legalizing abortion and reproductive rights, questioning of male militarism, and female sexuality. 

More radical feminists, who believed that a transhistorical and transnational patriarchal system primarily oppressed women were active on a broad range of issues outside of legislative and institutional politics, especially after the late 1960s.  Throughout this period Dorothy Marder continued to be active in progressive and radical feminist circles, as well as more traditional women’s organizations such as Women Strike for Peace.

Mary C. Lynn, Ed. Women’s Liberation in the Twentieth Century.  John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 1975

National Women’s Conference, Houston Texas 1977
         The re-newed fervor  of women activists in the 1960s and 1970s forced the presidential administrations of John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter to establish various federal commissions to explore the issues of equal rights for women.  President John F. Kennedy created a Presidential Commission on the Status of Women in the 1960s, and President Lyndon Johnson appointed a Citizen’s Advisory Counsel on the status of women. .  The United Nations declared 1975 to be “International Women’s Year”; and later declared 1975 to 1985 the Decade for Women. When he became President, Jimmy Carter appointed Congresswoman Bella Abzug to head the Commission. Abzug later proposed a National Women’s Conference.
         Two years later, the first National Women’s Year Conference was held in Houston, Texas.  Women from all 50 U.S. states and territories attended.  Notable women in attendance included Grace Paley, Betty Friedan, Maya Angelou, Corretta Scott King, Bella Abzug, Margaret Mead, Elizabeth Holtzman, and among others. Later, Dorothy Marder would write:

It was the first time in American history that so many women from so many different backgrounds…were able to assemble together in one place to talk and to hear each other…We connected with each other in a profound way. (55)
        
         Conservative women and men were also a presence the Conference, including anti-ERA activist Phyllis Schlafly and her supporters, pro-life supporters, the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazi Party, and the all-white delegation from Mississippi (a state with an African American population of over 36% in 1970).
         A National Plan of Action was voted on at the Conference proposing action on important national women’s issues, such as domestic abuse, welfare, Equal Rights Amendment, disability, minority rights, reproductive rights, and education.  25 of the 26 resolutions of the National Plan of Action were passed. 
         Dorothy Marder documented this historic event by photographing what she calls, “the ‘ordinary’ woman, who, of course, was extraordinary”(50) who attended the conference. Attending the Conference was particularly influential for Marder’s own personal and political growth.  She wrote, “Houston was indeed a turning point for me.  Although I had photographed dozens of conferences in the [19]70’s, this conference had a very special meaning for me.”(56) Marder was particularly touched by the testimonies at the Conference of lesbians oppressed “at work, in school, in the military…fears of being ‘found out’ by husbands during divorce proceedings… [and] losing their children.” (56)  And she found empowerment at the Conference in the community of women “all feeling free to be who [they were]” (57).  

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Bella Abzug, Rosaline Carter. Betty Ford, and Lady Bird Johnson, unidentified, Maya Angelou (standing left to right)
Event: International Women Year National Conference
Houston, Texas
November 18-21, 1977
Prints D 715 - 735
6.5" x 9.5"

 

"We are all lesbians"
Event: International Women Year National Conference,
Houston, Texas
November 18-21, 1977
Prints D 715 - 735
6.5" x 9.5"

Note
After the National Women’s Conference (1977) Marder prepared a spread for a liberal women’s magazine, The Feminist Bulletin, and included this photograph.  However, the editor objected to publishing this image because of its homosexual content.  Marder, in turn, refused to let her other photographs from the Conference be published without this photograph.  Marder explained to the editor that the word lesbian had been used to oppress all women, who “allowed [themselves] to be strong, independent, assertive, and yes, aggressive.” (57) To embrace the word lesbian is empowering for all women because at its core it means a woman who loves other women (57).  This withdrawal of her photography was Marder’s first public act for lesbian rights and an early coming out experience for Dorothy Marder herself. 

Marder, Dorothy.  “Houston: IWY National Women’s Conference 1977.”Dorothy Marder Collection,Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Folder:  Life Experience Portfolio for Fordham University, 1989.

Maya Angelou and Coretta Scott King
Event: International Women National Conference,
Houston, Texas
November 18-21, 1977
Prints D 715 - 735
6.5" x 9"

Event: International Women Year National Conference
Houston, Texas
November 18-21, 1977
Prints D 715 - 735
7.5" x 9.5"

 

Event: International Women Year National Conference,
Houston, Texas
November 18-21, 1977
Prints D 715 - D 735
7.5" x 9.5"

Women From New York
Event: International Women Year National Conference,
Houston, Texas
November 18-21, 1977
Prints D 715 - D 735
6.5" x 9.5"

Event: International Women Year National Conference,
Houston, Texas
November 18-21, 1977
Prints D 715 - D 735
6" x 9.5"

Women’s Pentagon Action Records, Swarthmore College Peace Collection
Harriet Hyman Alonso.  Peace as a Women’s Issue.  Syracuse University Press: Syracuse, NY, 202-210, 221-222. Print.

 

Reading the "Unity Statement"
Event: Women’s Pentagon Action, Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 
November 16-17, 1980
Prints D 1030 - D 1042
6.5" x 9.5"

Version of WPA's "Unity Statement"

Grace Paley
Event: Women’s Pentagon Action, Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 
November 16-17, 1980
Prints D 1030 - D 1042
6.5" x 9.5"

Event: Women’s Pentagon Action, Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 
November 16-17, 1980
Prints D 1030 - D 1042
6.5" x 9.5"

 

Event: Women’s Pentagon Action, Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 
November 16-17, 1980
Prints D 1030 - D 1042
6.5" x 9.5"

Event: Women’s Pentagon Action, Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 
November 16-17, 1980
Prints D 1030 - D 1042
6.5" x 9.5"

Reproductive Rights

Event: Abortion Rights, March and Rally
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
July 17, 1982.
Prints D 1170 - D 1172
6.5" x 9.5"

 

"Every Woman Deserves the Right to Choose" Event: Abortion Rights, March and Rally
Cherry Hill, New Jersey
July 17, 1982
Prints D 1170 - D 1172
6.5" x 9.5"

        The Seneca Army Depot located in Romulus, New York was a transshipment facility housing short-range nuclear missiles destined for deployment in western Europe.  Protests by peace activists at the facility began in the early 1980s.  By 1983, feminist peace activists planned for a summer-long series of protests at the Army Depot.  The women were in part inspired by the 1981 march, and subsequent long-term women’s camp protesting at the U.S. Air Force base at Greenham Common, England. 
In the summer of 1983, thousands of women from diverse backgrounds and various peace and feminist organizations came together to set-up an all-women’s peace camp on purchased land next to the Depot in Romulus.  These feminists connected militarism with a patriarchal assault on the environment and human life.  The peace camp was known to the activists as “Seneca”.
         Women went to the Seneca peace camp both to protest nuclear missiles and to live in feminist community.  They valued environment, peace, cooperation, and unity and saw the possibility of creating an alternative to male patriarchal and militaristic society.  Protests included jumping fences to invade the Seneca Army Depot base itself and directly challenging the U.S. military with a constant oppositional presence. 
         The sense of community fostered at Seneca had a lasting impact for many of the women who spent summers at the peace camp.    The camp, drawing in thousands of women for a few days or forthe whole summer was run cooperatively; all of the women were responsible for maintaining sanitation, food preparation, and logistics.  The protests, political discussions, and community building inspired many women to carry their feminism and political activism into many other arenas.  Women remained at the camp protesting the nuclear weapons throughout the 1980s.
         In 1995, the encampment was turned into a retreat center and women’s community called Women’s Peace Land.  As of 2010 Women’s Peace Land reverted to the local county government for unpaid back taxes.  The Seneca Army Depot closed in 2000 and the land was transferred to the Seneca County government.

Literature cited:
Wendy E. Chmielewski, “Resisting Nuclear Madness:  The Utopian Vision of the Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice,” [unpublished paper], Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, 2001.

For more information, please visit Swarthmore College Peace Collection Resources:
http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/peace/peacewebsite/scpcWebsite/Documents/
ResourcesPeaceHistory.htm#Womens

 

Event: Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice
Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, New York
August 1, 1983
Prints D 1250 - 1274
6.5" x 9.5"

Event: Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice
Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, New York
August 1, 1983
Prints D 1250 - 1274
6.5" x 9.5"

Barbara Deming (seond from right), Blue Lundi (far right)
Event: Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice,
Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, New York
August 1, 1983
Prints D 1250 - 1274
7.5" x 9.5"

Event: Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice,
Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, NY
August 1, 1983
7.5" x 9.5"

Event: Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice,
Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, NY
August 1, 1983
6" x 9.5"

Created March 2010 by Elizabeth Matlock and Wendy Chmielewski
This file was last updated on February 20, 2015

Swarthmore College Peace Collection . 500 College Avenue . Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081, U.S.A.
http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/peace/>