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From Redstockings Manifesto (1969)

Redstockings was one of the radical movements that arose in the late 1960s. Based in New York, it

issued this manifesto, which, in language typical of the era, illustrates how at its most radical edge,

feminism had evolved from demands for equal treatment for women to a total critique of male power

and a call for women’s “liberation.”

After centuries of individual and preliminary political struggle, women are uniting to achieve their final

liberation from male supremacy. Redstockings is dedicated to building this unity and winning our

freedom.

Women are an oppressed class. Our oppression is total, affecting every facet of our lives. We are

exploited as sex objects, breeders, domestic servants, and cheap labor. We are considered inferior

beings, whose only purpose is to enhance men's lives. Our humanity is denied. Our prescrib ed behavior

is enforced by the threat of physical violence.

Because we have lived so intimately with our oppressors, in isolation from each other, we have been

kept from seeing our personal suffering as a political condition. . . .

We identify the agents of our oppression as men. Male supremacy is the oldest, most basic form of

domination. All other forms of exploitation and oppression (racism, capitalism, imperialism, etc.) are

extensions of male supremacy: men dominate women, a few men dominate the rest. Al l power

structures throughout history have been male-dominated and male-oriented. Men have controlled all

political, economic and cultural institutions and backed up this control with physical force. . . .

Our chief task at present is to develop female class consciousness through sharing experience and

publicly exposing the sexist foundation of all our institutions. Consciousness-raising is not "therapy,"

which implies the existence of individual solutions and falsely assumes that the male-female relationship

is purely personal, but the only method by which we can ensure that our program for liberation is based

on the concrete realities of our lives. . . . The first requirement for raising class consciousness is honesty,

in private and in public, with ourselves and other women.

We identify with all women. We define our best interest as that of the poorest, most brutally exploited

woman. . . .

We call on all our sisters to unite with us in struggle.

We call on all men to give up their male privilege and support women's liberation in the interest of our

humanity and their own.

From Jerry Falwell, Listen, America! (1980)

The Reverend Jerry Falwell, a Virginia minister who in 1979 founded the self-proclaimed Moral

Majority, was one of the leading conservative activists of the 1970s and 1980s. In language

reminiscent of Puritan jeremiads about the decline of moral values, Falwell helped to mobilize

evangelical Christians to ally with the Republican Party.

We must reverse the trend America finds herself in today. Young people between the ages of twenty -

five and forty have been born and reared in a different world than Americans of years past. The

television set has been their primary baby-sitter. From the television set they have learned situation

ethics and immorality—they have learned a loss of respect for human life. They have learned to

disrespect the family as God has established it. They have been educated in a public-school system that

is permeated with secular humanism. They have been taught that the Bible is just another book of

literature. They have been taught that there are no absolutes in our world today. They have been

introduced to the drug culture. They have been reared by the family and the pu blic school in a society

that is greatly void of discipline and character-building.

Every American who looks at the facts must share a deep concern and bu rden for our country. We are

not unduly concerned when we say that there are some very dark clouds on America's horizon. I am not

a pessimist, but it is indeed a time for truth. If Americans will face the truth, our nation can be turned

around and can be saved from the evils and the destruction that have fallen upon every other nation

that has turned its back on God.

I personally feel that the home and the family are still held in reverence by the vast majority of the

American public. I believe there is still a vast number of Americans who love their country, are patriotic,

and are willing to sacrifice for her. . . . I believe that Americans want to see this country come back to

basics, back to values, back to biblical morality, back to sensibility, and back to p atriotism. . . .

It is now time to take a stand on certain moral issues, and we can only stand if we have leaders. We

must stand against the Equal Rights Amendment, the feminist revolution, and the homosexual

revolution. . . . The hope of reversing the trends of decay in our republic now lies with the Christian

public in America. We cannot expect help from the liberals. They certainly are not going to call our

nation back to righteousness and neither are the pornographers, the smut peddlers, and those who are

corrupting our youth. Moral Americans must be willing to put their reputations, their fortunes, and their

very lives on the line for this great nation of ours. Would that we had the courage of our forefathers

who knew the great responsibility that freedom carries with it. . . .