[PREV - ALL_ABOUT_ME_AND_FEMINISM]    [TOP]

UNDERGROUND_BEFORE_NET

                                                             December 23, 2014
                                                             February 19, 2015
So, how did a Long Island suburban teen like                 February 19, 2019
myself even hear about the women's movement
in the early 1970s?

Well, it had a certain amount of penetration into
the mainstream media-- the mythical "bra-burning"
provided great material for TV talk shows and Mad
Magazine and such-- but my real connections were
through more unusual channels.

I was ten years old back at the beginning of time,
and within a few years, I'd picked up the habit of
listening obsessively to WBAI, a listener-sponsored,      WBAI
non-commerical radio station located in New York
City (a member of the Pacifica network, along with
KPFA and KPFK).

If you talk to some of us old ones, you'll sometimes
hear a phrase like "that was the internet before
there was the internet!" and WBAI clearly functioned
like that for many people.  The talk shows
frequently featured listener call-in segments, and
they were proud of their lack of screening-- when
they answered the phone, it was live on the air, and
they had no idea who would be on the other end of
the line-- they might have to hang up fast for any
number of reasons, but typically they didn't.  At
one point they added a technical innovation for
"conference calling", and some of the late night
talk shows became dedicated to long, rambling
conversations between a half-dozen random New
Yorkers.  The audience clearly appreciated the
access to the airwaves, and regarded the station as
their own.

For myself, WBAI was a lifeline to a more civilized
society, and I deeply resented that I didn't have
the right to make the long distance phone calls I'd
need to make to participate in the discussions.

There were some other forums I knew of, one was the
SF fanzines such as the "Science Fiction Review" run
by Richard E. Geis, full of articles and letters of
comment, some featuring back-and-forth arguments that
might run for months.

In addition, there were some more above-ground
undergrounds, like the Village Voice, and later in
the 80s after moving to the Bay Area, I started
reading "The San Francisco Bay Guardian", and I was
occasionally picking up copies of things like "On       V. Vale's RE/Search
Our Backs"-- typically at "Bound Together", the         books were invaluable
anarchist collective bookstore on Haight Street.        in those days.

From sources like these I pieced together a view of
some of the odd corners of feminism which for me
were characteristic of the 1970s.
                                                          I often feel
I would not claim there's anything definitive about       baffled by phrases
this, it's just a snapshot of some things that were       like "mainstream"
going on.                                                 and "extreme".

                                                          How do you identify
                                                          whether a voice
                                                          is in the middle
                                                          or on the edges?






--------
[NEXT - LESBIAN_SEPRATIST_RADIO]