Keynote speech, First National Conference for Repeal of Abortion Laws, Chicago, Ill., Feb 14, 1969
There is no freedom, no equality, no fullhuman dignity and personhood possible for
women until we assert and demand control
over our own bodies, over our own reproduc-
tive process.
Then and only then will women move out
of their enforced passivity, their enforced
denigration, their definition as sex objects,
as things, to human personhood, to self-
determination, to human dignity.
The use of sex to sell everything from
cars to detergents to mouthwash, even the
glorification of breasts and behinds is finally
being understood by women for what it is:
This ultimately denigrating enshrinement of
women as sex objects and even the hypo-
critical tributes to motherhood.
Don't talk to me about abortion reform.
Reform is something dreamed up by men.
Maybe good-hearted men, but they can only
think from their point of view as men. Women
are the passive objects that must somehow
be regulated; let them have abortions for
thalidomide, rape, incest. What right have
they to say ? This is a woman's right and
not a technical question needing the sanc-
tion of the state, or to be debated in terms
of technicalities -- they are irrelevant.
I remember how they laughed when NOW
decided that there had been enough talk
about women, we wanted action; we decided
to define a new Bill of Rights for women, and
one of the rights had to be the right of
women to control their own reproductive
process.
Then, lo and behold, I began to hear
ministers and ADA and ACLU and others
begin to voice the same position, in terms
of the woman's basic right. The essence of
the denigration of women somehow, in this
country, in the world, is the treatment of
women as a passive sex object.
Women, almost to the degree that they're
almost too visible as sex objects in this
country today, are invisible people. As the
Negro was the invisible man, so women are
the invisible people in America today. Women
as people, women to be taken seriously as
people, women to have a share in the decis-
ions of the mainstream of government, of
politics, of the church -- not just to cook the
church supper, but to preach the sermon; not
just to look up the zip codes and address the
envelopes, but to make political decisions; not
just to do the housework of industry, but to
make some of the executive decisions. Women,
above all, to say what their own lives are going
to be, what their own personalities are going to
be, and no longer listen to or even permit male
experts to define what "feminine" is or isn't
or should be.
Am I saying that therefore women must be
liberated from sex? No. I am saying that sex
will only be liberated to be a human dialogue;
sex will only cease to be dirty, if you will; sex
will only cease to be a sniggering dirty joke
and an obsession in this society, when women
are liberated to be active self-determining
people, liberated to a creativity beyond
motherhood, to a full human creativity.
Am I saying that women must be liberated
from motherhood ? No, I am not. I am saying
that motherhood will only be liberated to be
a joyous and responsible human act, where
women are free to make, with full conscious
choice and full human responsibility, the
decisions to be mothers. Then and only then,
will they be able to embrace motherhood
without conflict. When they are able to de-
fine themselves as people, not just as
somebody's mother, not just as servants of
children, not just breeding receptacles, but
as people for whom motherhood is a freely
chosen part of life, freely celebrated while
it lasts, but for whom creativity has many
more dimensions, as it has for men.
The hostility between the sexes has never
been worse. The image of woman in avant
garde plays, novels, in the movies and in the
mass image that you can detect behind the
family situation comedies on television is
that mothers are man-devouring cannibal-
istic monsters, or else Lolitas, thing-like
sex objects. Objects not even of hetero-
sexual impulse, objects of a sadistic sado-
masochistic impulse. That impulse is much
more a factor in the abortion question than
anybody ever admits: the punishment of
women.
Men will only be truly liberated, to love
women and be fully themselves, when women
are liberated to be full people. To have a full
say in the decisions of their life and their
society and a full part in that society.
Until that happens, men are going to bear
the burden and the guilt of the destiny they
have forced upon women, the suppressed
resentment of that passive stage -- the
sterility of love, when love is not between
two fully active, fully participant, fully joy-
ous people, but has in it the element of ex-
ploitation. And men will also not be fully
free to be all they can be as long as they
must live up to an image of masculinity that
denies all the tenderness, the sensitivity, in
a man that might be considered feminine.
All the burdens and responsibilities that men
are supposed to shoulder alone makes them
resent women's pedestal, much as that
pedestal -- that enforced passivity -- may be
a burden for women.
Men are not allowed to admit that they
sometimes are afraid. They are not allowed
to express their own sensitivities, their own
needs, sometimes, to be passive and not
always active. Their own ability to cry. So,
they are only half-human, as women are
only half-human until we can go this next
step forward, of which this right of woman
to control her reproductive process, the
right of woman to have a say in the decisions
of her own life, is a part.
The real sexual revolution is the emer-
gence of women from passivity, from thing-
ness, from the point of view where they can
be the easiest victim and the channel, if you
will, for all the seductions.
It cannot happen without radical changes
in the family as we know it today; in our con-
cepts of marriage, in our very concepts of
love, in our architecture, our plans of cities,
in our theology, in our politics, in our art. Not
that women are special. Not that women are
superior. But, it's bound to be a different
politics, when women's voices are equally
heard.
If we are allowed finally to become full
people, not only will children be born and
brought up with more love and responsibil-
ity than today, but we will break out of the
confines of that sterile little suburban
family to relate to each other in terms of
all of the possible dimensions of our per-
sonalities -- male and female, as comrades,
as colleagues, as friends, as lovers, in a
life span that is now 75 years and is going
to be 100 years. And without hate and
without so much jealousy and buried resent-
ment and hypocrisies, there will be a whole
new sense of what love is that will make
Valentine's Day look very pallid.
human dignity and personhood possible for
women until we assert and demand control
over our own bodies, over our own reproduc-
tive process.
Then and only then will women move out
of their enforced passivity, their enforced
denigration, their definition as sex objects,
as things, to human personhood, to self-
determination, to human dignity.
The use of sex to sell everything from
cars to detergents to mouthwash, even the
glorification of breasts and behinds is finally
being understood by women for what it is:
This ultimately denigrating enshrinement of
women as sex objects and even the hypo-
critical tributes to motherhood.
Don't talk to me about abortion reform.
Reform is something dreamed up by men.
Maybe good-hearted men, but they can only
think from their point of view as men. Women
are the passive objects that must somehow
be regulated; let them have abortions for
thalidomide, rape, incest. What right have
they to say ? This is a woman's right and
not a technical question needing the sanc-
tion of the state, or to be debated in terms
of technicalities -- they are irrelevant.
I remember how they laughed when NOW
decided that there had been enough talk
about women, we wanted action; we decided
to define a new Bill of Rights for women, and
one of the rights had to be the right of
women to control their own reproductive
process.
Then, lo and behold, I began to hear
ministers and ADA and ACLU and others
begin to voice the same position, in terms
of the woman's basic right. The essence of
the denigration of women somehow, in this
country, in the world, is the treatment of
women as a passive sex object.
Women, almost to the degree that they're
almost too visible as sex objects in this
country today, are invisible people. As the
Negro was the invisible man, so women are
the invisible people in America today. Women
as people, women to be taken seriously as
people, women to have a share in the decis-
ions of the mainstream of government, of
politics, of the church -- not just to cook the
church supper, but to preach the sermon; not
just to look up the zip codes and address the
envelopes, but to make political decisions; not
just to do the housework of industry, but to
make some of the executive decisions. Women,
above all, to say what their own lives are going
to be, what their own personalities are going to
be, and no longer listen to or even permit male
experts to define what "feminine" is or isn't
or should be.
Am I saying that therefore women must be
liberated from sex? No. I am saying that sex
will only be liberated to be a human dialogue;
sex will only cease to be dirty, if you will; sex
will only cease to be a sniggering dirty joke
and an obsession in this society, when women
are liberated to be active self-determining
people, liberated to a creativity beyond
motherhood, to a full human creativity.
Am I saying that women must be liberated
from motherhood ? No, I am not. I am saying
that motherhood will only be liberated to be
a joyous and responsible human act, where
women are free to make, with full conscious
choice and full human responsibility, the
decisions to be mothers. Then and only then,
will they be able to embrace motherhood
without conflict. When they are able to de-
fine themselves as people, not just as
somebody's mother, not just as servants of
children, not just breeding receptacles, but
as people for whom motherhood is a freely
chosen part of life, freely celebrated while
it lasts, but for whom creativity has many
more dimensions, as it has for men.
The hostility between the sexes has never
been worse. The image of woman in avant
garde plays, novels, in the movies and in the
mass image that you can detect behind the
family situation comedies on television is
that mothers are man-devouring cannibal-
istic monsters, or else Lolitas, thing-like
sex objects. Objects not even of hetero-
sexual impulse, objects of a sadistic sado-
masochistic impulse. That impulse is much
more a factor in the abortion question than
anybody ever admits: the punishment of
women.
Men will only be truly liberated, to love
women and be fully themselves, when women
are liberated to be full people. To have a full
say in the decisions of their life and their
society and a full part in that society.
Until that happens, men are going to bear
the burden and the guilt of the destiny they
have forced upon women, the suppressed
resentment of that passive stage -- the
sterility of love, when love is not between
two fully active, fully participant, fully joy-
ous people, but has in it the element of ex-
ploitation. And men will also not be fully
free to be all they can be as long as they
must live up to an image of masculinity that
denies all the tenderness, the sensitivity, in
a man that might be considered feminine.
All the burdens and responsibilities that men
are supposed to shoulder alone makes them
resent women's pedestal, much as that
pedestal -- that enforced passivity -- may be
a burden for women.
Men are not allowed to admit that they
sometimes are afraid. They are not allowed
to express their own sensitivities, their own
needs, sometimes, to be passive and not
always active. Their own ability to cry. So,
they are only half-human, as women are
only half-human until we can go this next
step forward, of which this right of woman
to control her reproductive process, the
right of woman to have a say in the decisions
of her own life, is a part.
The real sexual revolution is the emer-
gence of women from passivity, from thing-
ness, from the point of view where they can
be the easiest victim and the channel, if you
will, for all the seductions.
It cannot happen without radical changes
in the family as we know it today; in our con-
cepts of marriage, in our very concepts of
love, in our architecture, our plans of cities,
in our theology, in our politics, in our art. Not
that women are special. Not that women are
superior. But, it's bound to be a different
politics, when women's voices are equally
heard.
If we are allowed finally to become full
people, not only will children be born and
brought up with more love and responsibil-
ity than today, but we will break out of the
confines of that sterile little suburban
family to relate to each other in terms of
all of the possible dimensions of our per-
sonalities -- male and female, as comrades,
as colleagues, as friends, as lovers, in a
life span that is now 75 years and is going
to be 100 years. And without hate and
without so much jealousy and buried resent-
ment and hypocrisies, there will be a whole
new sense of what love is that will make
Valentine's Day look very pallid.
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