THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Irene Peslikis

Irene Peslikis’ remarks at the Veteran Feminists of America event, 30th Anniversary of the Women’s Liberation Movement, December 1997

I’ll tell you just what my experience was in regular consciousness-raising way. Shulie Firestone was one of the co-founders of it [the consciousness-raising group]. When I heard about it, I was there as soon as the next meeting came up, and I couldn’t believe what I saw, and I heard. I was so thrilled and excited. I mean, all these women together talking about their experience and that we could do something about it and change the world. I mean, it was overwhelming and thrilling. I absolutely fell right into movement with them.

I started calling up all kinds of friends that I knew and said, You have to come to this meeting. It’s so great. Anyway, I think, of course, it was also just historically a very important group. In New York, it was the primary group that developed and put forth a whole idea of consciousness-raising. Always had a clear goal, and what we needed to do was think things through and make our thoughts very clear through our personal experience so we could act on the world, but just abolish completely the whole concept and the whole reality of women’s subjugation. It also was the source of the whole Miss America action.

I attended the first Women’s Liberation conference in Chicago. To get back to what I really wanted to end up saying or trying to evaluate or talk about a little, is just what I feel is that what New York radical women had that I don’t feel today. That was this incredibly clear-sighted goal of freeing ourselves, and that our own oppression was totally linked with every woman’s oppression all over the world, and it was interrelated. It was also a place where no one felt inhibited about showing their differences or arguing their points or sharing their experiences, really in an honest way.

I feel that consciousness raising isn’t really going on in the way it was in the ’60s, and that we’ve lost a lot of our… I don’t know what it is, whether it’s enthusiasm or clear-sightedness or not thinking clearly enough or sharing or our thoughts or differences. Maybe it’s all of those things. But I think we really have to acknowledge that in spite of a common goal, that of women’s liberation, we have to face up to those differences, acknowledge them, be totally honest with each other about them, because out of that, there’s a potential for a new fresh thought to develop or for us to grow. If we just ignore them, it just deadens our whole movement. Thank you.