Constructive Feminism: Women’s Spaces and Women’s Rights in the American City

280 Pages·2016·5.033 MB·English

by  Daphne Spain

CONSTRUCTIVE
FEMINISM

CONSTRUCTIVE
FEMINISM
Women’s Spaces and Women’s Rights
in the Americ an C ity
Daphne Sp ain
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
Ithaca and London
Cover illustration: Cambridge Women’s Center, Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Drawing by Reed Gyovai Muehlman.
Copyright © 2016 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review,
this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any
form without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage
House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 2016 by Cornell University Press
First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2016
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Spain, Daphne, author.
Title: Constructive feminism : women’s spaces and
women’s rights in the American city / Daphne Spain.
Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015038567 | ISBN 9780801453199
(cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501703201 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Feminism—United States—History—
20th century. | Women’s rights—United States—
History—20th century. | Public spaces—United
States—History—20th century. | Urban women—
United States—History—20th century. | Women
and city planning—United States—History—20th
century. | Feminism and architecture—United States. |
Feminist geography—United States.
Classification: LCC HQ1421 .S6753 2016 | DDC
305.42097309/04—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015038567
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For Steven
Proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution
“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the
United States or by any State on account of sex.”
1923: First introduced in Congress by Alice Paul of the National
Woman’s Party
1972: Passed both houses of Congress; sent to states for ratification
1982: Ratification failed, three states short of the required thirty-eight
states
“If you pick up any constitution written since 1950, any place in the
world, there will be a provision on the equal citizenship stature of men
and women. It’s not in our constitution. I would like to see a statement of
women’s full citizenship in the constitution on par with our freedom of
speech, freedom of religion. It’s a basic tenet of our society.”
—Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, September 12, 2014,
presentation at George Washington University, Washington, DC
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction: Spatial Consequences
of the Second Wave 1
1. Feminist Practice: Social Movements
and Urban Space 25
2. Women’s Centers:
Nurturing Autonomy 50
3. Feminist Bookstores:
Building Identity 84
4. Feminist Health Clinics: Promoting
Reproductive Rights 111
5. Domestic Violence Shelters:
Protecting Bodily Integrity 140
6. After the Second Wave:
Necessary Spaces 168
Appendixes
A: Data Sources for Figure 3 187
B: Women’s Centers, 1973 190
C: Feminist Bookstores, ca. 1980 196
D: Feminist Health Clinics, 1975 201
Notes 203
Index 251

Preface
In 1975 the filmmaker Sheila Ruth directed and
coproduced a video titled Constructive Feminism. In it she documented the reno-
vation of a three-story abandoned warehouse on Spring Street in Los Angeles
that was to become the second home of the Woman’s Building.1 (See figure 1.)
The organization’s first home, and the organization itself, came about as a result
of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s 1970 exhibition Art and Technology,
which included only male artists. The artist Judy Chicago, the graphic designer
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, and the architectural historian Arlene Raven were
outraged. They fought back by establishing, three years later, the first Woman’s
Building on Grandview Avenue. Its purpose was to serve as “a public center for
women’s culture”; the name was chosen to honor the Woman’s Building at the
1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Aware that much of women’s
contribution to the arts had been lost to history, the founders, intent on nurtur-
ing women’s “insurgent muse,” were determined to resurrect it.2
The renovated building on Spring Street housed the Feminist Studio
Workshop, galleries for women’s art, a print shop, a branch of Sisterhood
Bookstore, offices, and a restaurant. The entire third floor was an open space
where hundreds of lesbians once held a Dyke of Your Dreams Day dance to
celebrate Valentine’s Day. In 1978 members of the Feminist Studio Work-
shop hoisted a thirteen-foot-high papier-mâché-and-concrete model of a
nude woman to the roof as one of a series of sculptures created by the author
Kate Millett while she was an artist in residence. Before the Building closed
in 1991, Adrienne Rich, Rita Mae Brown, Ntozake Shange, and many other
emerging artists had read their new works to enthusiastic audiences.3
The Woman’s Building and the title of the documentary capture the spirit
of this book. I wanted to find ways in which the mid-twentieth century
feminist movement known as the Second Wave created new uses for urban
space in order to nurture women’s growing autonomy. Art spaces were one
example, but more common were the women’s centers, bookstores, health
clinics, and domestic violence shelters that appeared for the first time in the
early 1970s. In remembering her days as a staff member at the Woman’s
Building, the performance artist Terry Wolverton acknowledged that she