The feminist self-defense movement of the 1970s emerged out of the anti-rape and battered women’s movement of the era. By calling attention to the issue of violence against women, feminists moved these topics out of the shadows and into the mainstream. They demanded societal reform to end women’s oppression. In the meantime, grassroots groups of women, many of them sexual assault survivors themselves, formed rape crisis centers and battered women shelters across the nation. In addition to support for survivors, some feminists also advocated for self-defense as a rape-prevention strategy. They recognized that self-defense training was not only a way to defend against assault but was also as a way to challenge gendered notions that women are inherently weak.
Read more in this blog post contributed by Dr. Wendy Rouse, Professor of History, San José State University; Recipient of a 2023-2024 Mary Lily Research Travel Grant Award from the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture. Her book, Her Own Hero: The Origins of the Women’s Self-Defense Movement, is available from NYU Press.
Image: Beth Seigler and Kathy Hopwood teaching self-defense at NWMAF Special Training, from the Kathy Hopwood Papers.
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| Moving All Of Us Forward: Reflecting With Mandy Carter
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Mandy Carter and Victoria Kirby York from our October 24 program honoring the National Black Justice Coalition.
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| Digging Around in Eve's Closet
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Eve Sedgwick poses in front of a shop called Eve’s Closet, Greenwich Village, NY, undated. Sedgwick Papers, Box 16.
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Katie Carithers, third-year doctoral student in the English Department, recently participated in the Rubenstein Library's Archival Expeditions program which supports graduate students in developing teaching modules based on primary sources. Carithers focused on the Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Papers to design a unit for an "Introduction to LGBTQ Studies" course. In an interview on the Devil's Tale blog, Carithers shares her appreciation of this structured opportunity to dig into the Sedgwick Papers and create an engaging activity for undergraduate students to "situate Sedgwick as a thinker within a cultural history." Read Carithers's full post.
Earlier this year, Annie Sansonetti, Ph. D. candidate from New York University, explored what Sedgwick's papers offer towards approaching queer and trans childhood, bringing a personal and playful reading to these materials. Sansonetti received an Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Research Travel Grant, 2022-23, which is supported by the Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Foundation. Read Sansonetti's full post.
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Cover of Further Poems of Valentine Ackland (1978); Shared bookplate of Ackland and Townsend Warner, as included in this edition of The Life of Llewelyn Powys.
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Poetry from Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland
We recently acquired seven rare items related to writers Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland, who lived together openly in a committed lesbian relationship in early-to-mid-twentieth-century England. Townsend Warner was a novelist, poet, and musicologist, known for Lolly Willowes, now considered a feminist classic. Ackland was a poet with a reflective, confessional style. Read more about these writers via the Sylvia Townsend Warner Society.
Sylvia Townsend Warner:
- Azrael & Other Poems. Libanus Press: Newbury, Berkshire, 1978. This copy is #100 of 200.
- Twelve Poems. Privately produced: 1977. This printing was circulated on June 21, 1977 as a Tribute for Sylvia Townsend Warner.
- The Week-end Dickens. Maclehose: London, 1932, first edition. With an introduction and edits by Townsend Warner.
Valentine Ackland:
- Elwin, Malcolm. The Life of Llewelyn Powys. John Lane: London, 1946. First edition. Ackland’s copy with her signature and 1946 date on flysheet as well as extensive annotations on the flyleaf.
- Further Poems. Welmont Publishing: Beckenham, Kent, 1978. A collection of illustrated poems written by Ackland over a span of 40 years and found after her death. (see image above)
Both Authors:
- The Bryanston Miscellany, edited by Victor Bonham-Carter. Bryanston School: Blandford, Dorset, 1958. Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland each contribute a poem.
- T. F. Powys. Mr. Weston’s Good Wine. Chatto & Windus: London, 1927. Signed by Townsend Warner on flysheet with the special bookplate created for gifts of Warner and Ackland together. (see image above)
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External Text, number 6, by Yumi Lee, Cambridge, MA, 2002. Lee credits the cover image as being from a 1970s flier from "Women Against Discrimination," a group that focused on Affirmative Action.
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Poetry, Intimacy, Zines, and More
This fall has brought a lively mix of classes using primary source materials from the Bingham Center, from repeat visitors like the "Dolly Parton for President?" writing class that focuses on zines, to new courses from the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies department that invited us to view our collections through a new lens. We enjoyed sharing the Mandy Carter exhibit with several of these courses outside of our traditional classroom space.
- Baldwin Scholars Senior Seminar
- Black Feminism and Fashion
- History of Intimacy
- Introduction to Poetry Writing
- Mediating Gender and Sexuality in East Asia and Global Asias
- Race, Gender, and Sexuality
- Representing Breast Cancer
- World of Japanese Pop Culture
- Writing 101: Dolly Parton for President?
- Writing 101: Radical Magic, Feminism, and the Occult
- Writing 101: Reproductive Justice
- Writing 101: Women, Leadership, and Purpose
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Would you wear this "I'm a feminist (not the fun kind)" button? (Source: Cookie Teer Papers)
See more snapshots on our new Instagram account: @binghamcenter
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