Striking for Equality Women's Lib Day in New York

BETWEEN CARS, dust flies: Between cars, dust flies, morning early; I hold tightly not to fall, and watch passing towns. Away from Harvard, between cars on Long Island Railroad, too early to get a seat; I watch (through grey dust) passing towns to avoid eyes of heavyset leering businessman who offers me a smoke, a stick of gum, a wink. Too early. Perhaps I should have looked harder for a seat; this area between cars is no-man's-land, and certainly no woman's. Same hazards as walking alone down 42nd St. Mister, mister, leave me alone; today is the day of Women's Liberation. Tonight I am going to march, strike for equality. Strike for Equality. I think I should talk to this man, explain why his low-voiced suggestions are an insult, but it is too early.

Eventual conversation, reduced: Miss, I like your breasts. Sir, I am a human being. Yes, but you have very nice breasts. I'd like to touch them. (I find a seat.)

Dusty, my city: Long Island Railroad leaves me in my city, to walk dusty through streets of commuters (resentful) and cripples (dying), or risk ultimate trip (subterranean) and possible brain damage. I choose the underground; I must admit I generally enjoy the subways here (not Boston's sterile parody), in much the same way I might enjoy a roller coaster, a truly garish wedding, or a Fellini movie.

However. More men. The hell of it is it's encounters with men like these that make me think of the march tonight, the clenched fist, being a Radcliffe student at Harvard University. Better if I talked to the tired woman waiting with closed eyes for this morning's F train to Brooklyn. Better if I talked to myself; I understand, but my head does not. (Who taught my mother to iron so well?) Whoever it was, they're more sophisticated now: my little sister isn't told don't be too smart, you'll scare the boys away, but go ahead, boys like girls who think. And a Harvard shrink told me last year: "Men are unhappy because there is nothing, women because there is no one." Harvard shrink is a man. What he says is effect, not cause; women learn that there is only one route to happiness. I understand this; my head does not.

AT CITY HALL: At City Hall the sun is shining, and lollipops grow from trees. Sprawling on the grass of a small park, encircled by police barricades, are young mothers, lots of children, and swarms of press. (I'm press too: summer job reporting for New York Post, but reluctant to use press card. For one thing, without it it's easier to believe in my own integrity-two years of attending all Harvard demonstrations with a notebook, dutifully recording each friend expelled by CRR, leaves bad taste. For another thing, my press card says Nancy O'Sullivan, who as far as I know does not exist). Reporters gather eagerly around young mothers, and pat children in passing. Old man hawks American flags, pins, pennants, or car decals. Nobody buys.

The scene is a sample day-care center in City Hall Park, set up to dramatize one of the strike's demands-free day-care throughout the city. Onlookers, men and women, crowd against police barricades-only mothers with children and press are to be allowed in. Except for Betty Freidan, the strike's national coordinator, without press card or child. And Bella Abzug, Congressional candidate. Not, however, Lucy Komisar, national Secretary of NOW, who is wearing slacks and hurling insults and behaving unlike a lady. A sound truck plays, over and over again, a recording of Liberation Now, the strike's official song. Liberation Now is a terrible song.

I talk to a young woman, in jeans and work-shirt, who is giving her third interview of the morning, and she sighs: "I once thought I'd get a job in publishing, perhaps in films, perhaps... oh, I don't know, something. I'd had a Master's in literature when I graduated. Everywhere I went, though, they said the same thing: learn a little shorthand and you'll make a great secretary. So, what did I do? I became a great secretary and married the boss." She grabs her three-year-old down from the tree he is trying to climb. "I love my husband, you know, but I'm... so tired..."

An older woman, overhearing: "I always knew I had to be a good wife, and I am. I want my daughter to learn something different. We're going to march together."

SUDDEN RUSH of newsmen to center of park, I am nearly trampled by cameraman. Betty Freidan has arrived. "No woman that I've encountered is not feeling great elation on this day," she says. The beat of Liberation Now gets louder. "Ah, they're not burning any bras; let's get out of here," a man mutters. "Flags, flags, flags for sale-look real good on television," that old man calls. A woman tries to interest the photographers in plastic playground equipment she is demonstrating. They ignore her.

Speeches and things: Speakers stand atop sound truck, and we all drip sweat. I write down every word I can get for the Post; don't feel like going through it again here. Spell speakers' names, with great difficulty, in French for woman from Montreal newspaper.

Confrontations: Speeches over, we stand around, arguing/talking/shouting in small groups, explaining what it's all about to curious men, to hostile men, to ourselves. Long-haired young woman argues with man (later identified as old high school friends). Man: "But women are different, you know. I want to go home to a woman, not a man. You're different-your hair is longer, your voice is softer..." Woman: "You mean you have a penis and I have a vagina, that's all." Man, blushing as crowd snickers: "A lady shouldn't talk like that."

Elderly black woman, shouting: "What are you bellyaching about? You're not suffering-why don't you go to Vietnam if it's so bad? You've got it made." Younger black woman: "I am a black woman; how can she tell the black woman has it made? No good, no good... you've been in this society too goddam long. Somebody has told you got it made and you believe them." Cheers.

I stand in small group, mostly men, mostly shouting. I want to be calm and reasonable and explain. "I'm a third child; where would I be now if my mother had an abortion?" someone calls. Very old man next to me takes my arm. "You're selling yourself out, lady. Make them take out the garbage, do the dirty work... you're selling yourself out." He shakes his head. I try to tell him, yes, I would take out the garbage, and yes, I'm willing to be eligible to fight immoral wars as long as men are, but he shakes his head. "Listen, honey, the system's good. Now I'm no one, but its my own fault. If I had a brain, I'd of got somewhere." His eyes, so empty.

And another man, also old, in bright red T-shirt and dirty cap. "Look at the animals. What do you think you have breasts for? Babies, babies. What..." He loses his thought, begins again. "If the woman works, she's too tired for love. Too tired, too tired, I'm always too tired. If the woman also is too tired, it's no good." If I were your wife I'd like to work, so maybe you wouldn't be too tired. Maybe.

A YOUNG male law student, three-piece suit and curly sideburns: "I'm here to learn; how are you discriminated against?" Female lawyer, bellbottoms and dangling earrings, rattles off examples "from your own field, the courtroom." I think of the examples I could cite. My own university, where merger seems unwise because people might then urge-equal enrollment of women and men, and Harvard has a duty to provide our nation with leaders. Leaders. Men. My own university, where the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid told a Faculty meeting that continuation of coed housing would require renovation of Radcliffe dorms and provision of bus service from Radcliffe to the Yard. (We can't send our men to live up there!)

My own university, remember? Where J. Boyd Britton, administrative vice-president of Radcliffe, explained the pay differential between men and women cooks by saying, "There's a long tradition of male superiority." Where F. Skiddy von Stade, dean of Harvard freshmen, described the women involved in the 1969 strike by saying, "They were so insolent, the worst of the bunch. At least you have to respect the boys just a little bit since they have something real riding on this... But if the girls get heaved, they'll just go off to secretarial school."

The young law student does not understand. "I treat women like people," he says. "I find girls I date much more exciting if they think."

Interlude: On my way to cover minor demonstration at Federal plaza, very tired, hot, I stop and ask directions of policeman. Very young policeman. He in turn asks me, what do all these women want, and we talk. I have never actually talked to a policeman before, I tell him, and he says he has never talked to a demonstrator either. We are about the same age; he agrees finally that Women's Lib makes sense, but he won't discuss the war. I tell him about Harvard, about my nightmares of policemen charging, swinging clubs. I really do have those nightmares. He is horrified. Maybe, he says, the police in Boston are different. Maybe. He tells me he'll remember my freckles.

(Earlier, I tried to ask one of few police women patrolling the City Hall area what she thought of the scene. She said she wasn't allowed to comment, but smiled. Another said, "I sympathize with the girls.")

AT LAST, the March: I hurry first the wrong way along Fifth Ave., heading uptown to join the marchers waiting at the 60th St. entrance to Central Park. The march down Fifth Ave, is scheduled to begin at 5:30; 5 p. m. now and my feet hurt. Already the crowds fill the street, lining up along sidewalks behind police lines, waiting to watch. "Madness, confusion, police clearing streets," I write in my little notebook. A young boy, 13 or 14, is defending the women passionately toa group of angry men, all shouting at him. He grins at me when I stop to watch. "Gee, and this morning I didn't even believe in Women's Liberation."

At Central Park, so many people; this may be the most disorganized mass march I've ever attended. Potential marchers are repeatedly urged to go to the back of the line, wherever that is. I can barely turn around; I doubt that anyone ever expected this many women. (10,000, we are told at the time. Later estimates range from 7500 to 35,000). I am supposed to meet Debbie near the beginning of the march, but I never find her.

I join a group, stand surrounded; braless girls in blue workshirts beside working women with matching shoes and bag. A banner near me, marked with dove, Women's Strike for Peace. Not far away, Hands Off Angela Davis. The Third World Women's Alliance. I can't see in any direction; somewhere cars honk, and voices begin the familiar war whoop. We are anxious to begin. A laughing girl breaks off mid-whoop: "Hey, maybe this isn't feminine." In my notes I describe her as pretty, blond, and am ashamed. I would never describe a man that way.

It is a relief to begin marching. We are chanting, the group near me-Free our Sisters. Free Ourselves-and I feel suddenly happy, for a while at least, truly part of a movement, less alone. Even Liberation Now doesn't seem all that terrible. Along the sidewalk women wave, raise the V-sign, occasionally a fist; men look puzzled, sometimes hostile. "Fuck you" the most common insult. A little yellow car forces its way down the street, supposedly cleared of traffic; police apologize. I stand for a minute in its path, hoping I guess to stare down the driver. He doesn't look up, and I move.

FOR A WHILE I march with a group that looks like my Cambridge friends, with NLF flag and Right On With Weatherwomen banner, and am suddenly terribly homesick. It's been a long summer, my friends are scattered across the country. I'm walking alone down Fifth Ave., carrying a notebook. One of these women (I must admit, I don't really think of people my age as men and women, still) sees my notes, is suspicious. I mention the CRIMSON, but also the Post; she warns me. "This is not a bourgeois women's movement. It's OK to write something if you tie it in to the Panthers, to the revolution, but if you don't, it's fucked up." I don't know, I swear I don't. I don't even know what revolution means any more, but I don't think it's going to be marching with anyone's flag. We know it's all related; racism, militarism, and the masculine mystique, but where do we attack first? If bourgeois women don't relate to the Panthers, should they stop marching? I just don't know.

People hang out of windows waving all along the line of march. A group of about 25 male hecklers-those shifty-eyed little men who stand on streetcorners and smack their lips-follow along chanting "Be a woman, be a mother." Their hand-lettered signs read "We Love Women: In the Kitchen and in the Bed" and "End Toilet Facility Discrimination Now." Be a mother. "Why?" I shout at one and he shrugs. "Because I need a mother."

Finally: Finally, I sink down on damp grass, Bryant Park. Fifth Ave. and 42nd St. Almost 8 p. m., darkening tired; people all around. More speeches, but I don't listen; will read about in tomorrow's Times. We sit in the damp, and it grows too dark to see the speakers, and with 20,000 people around me (the park's capacity) I feel very alone. What do we want? so many, men and women, have asked today. I want to be a woman, equal in the eyes of the world and free within my own head. Are we a movement now? Most of the women here are white and middle-class: what do they have to do with my friends who work for revolution? With the young black woman carrying the banner of Third World Women's Alliance? Could we end the war by drafting all your daughters? Voices. Last year a woman wrote in RAT. "In the dark we are all the same, and we are all in the dark." I sit in the dark, on the wet grass, and think of the long ride home.