Episode 8: She Said, She Said

In 1969, radical feminists known as the Redstockings…

gathered in a church in Lower Manhattan, and spoke about their experiences with abortion. They called this ‘consciousness-raising’ or ‘speaking bitterness,’ and it changed the history of women’s rights, all the way down to the 1977 National Women’s Convention and, really, down to the present. This idea of ‘speaking bitterness’, which came from a Maoist practice, is foundational to both the #MeToo movement and the conservative Victim’s Rights movement. But at what cost?

Image: The 1977 National Women’s conference in Houston, Texas. (Getty Images)

Key Sources

We used these audio recordings from the Redstockings Rap, 1969.

You can watch Florynce Kennedy’s public access television show, The Flo Kennedy Show, online. We learned more about Kennedy from the Florynce Kennedy Papers at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

We used multiple recordings from the National Women’s Conference to recreate the scene in the convention hall, along with this special edition of the NBC nightly news, and this clip from PBS about the National Women’s Conference, and these clips from the Pro-Family Rally in Houston, TX, 1977. 

We excerpt President Ronald Reagan’s campaign advertisement, “Morning in America.”

We included clips from the anti-abortion film Silent Scream.

You can listen online to President Reagan’s remarks after signing Executive Order 12360 and establishing a Task Force on Victims of Crime. 

Here are recordings of victim impact statements read during Larry Nassar’s sentencing hearing. 

You can watch Christine Blasey Ford testifying in front of the Senate during Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, and watch his opening statement here.