New York Radical Feminists (NYRF) was a

radical feminist Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a Political radicalism, radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are al ...

group founded by

Shulamith Firestone Shulamith Bath Shmuel Ben Ari Firestone (born Feuerstein; January 7, 1945 – August 28, 2012) was a Canadian-American radical feminist writer and activist. Firestone was a central figure in the early development of radical feminism and second-w ...

and

Anne Koedt Anne Koedt (born 1941) is an American radical feminist activist and author of " The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm", a 1970 classic feminist work on women's sexuality. She was connected to the group New York Radical Women and was a founding member ...

in 1969, after they had left

Redstockings Redstockings, also known as Redstockings of the Women's Liberation Movement, is a radical feminist nonprofit that was founded in January 1969 in New York City, whose goal is "To Defend and Advance the Women's Liberation Agenda". The group's name ...

and

The Feminists The Feminists (also known as Feminists—A Political Organization to Annihilate Sex Roles, formerly as October 17th Movement) Greer, Germaine (1970). '' The Female Eunuch''. New York: McGraw-Hill, p. 295. was a second-wave radical feminist gr ...

, respectively. Firestone's and Koedt's desire to start this new group was aided by

Vivian Gornick Vivian Gornick (born June 14, 1935) is an American radical feminist critic, journalist, essayist, and memoirist. Early Life and Education In 1957 Gornick received a bachelor of arts degree from City College of New York and in 1960 a master of a ...

's 1969 ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...

'' article,
The Next Great Moment in History Is Theirs
. The end of this essay announced the formation of the group and included a contact address and phone number, raising considerable national interest from prospective members. NYRF was organized into small cells or "brigades" named after notable feminists of the past; Koedt and Firestone led the Stanton-

Anthony Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the '' Antonii'', a ''gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Anton, ...

Brigade. Central to NYRF's philosophy was the idea that men consciously maintained power over women in order to strengthen their egos, and that women internalized their subordination by diminishing their egos. This analysis represented a rejection of the two other prevailing theories of women's subordination current at the time – Redstockings' "Pro-Woman Line", which emphasized men's subordination of women and women's often deliberate adaptations to that reality, and The Feminists' theory that emphasized women's subordination as being rooted in the unconscious playing out of internalized

sex roles A gender role, also known as a sex role, is a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on that person's sex. Gender roles are usually cente ...

. Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt left NYRF in 1970 over disagreements about organization and leadership with other factions of NYRF. Nonetheless, the group continued to be active through the mid-1970s.Echols, ''Daring to Be Bad'', p 191–195. Its activities during that time included holding a monthly

consciousness raising Consciousness raising (also called awareness raising) is a form of activism popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group on some cause or ...

meeting, publishing a regular newsletter, and maintaining a speaker's bureau. NYRF also organized a number of public conferences and speakouts through the early to mid-1970s on topics such as rape, sexual abuse, prostitution, marriage, lesbianism, motherhood, illegitimacy, class, and work.

Florence Rush Florence Rush (23 January, 1918 – 9 December, 2008) was an American certified social worker (M.S.W. from the University of PennsylvaniaLove, Barbara J. and Nancy F. Cott. ''Feminists Who Changed America, 1963—1975.'' University of Illinois ...

introduced

The Freudian Coverup The Freudian Cover-up is a theory introduced by social worker Florence Rush in 1971, which asserts that Sigmund Freud intentionally ignored evidence that his patients were victims of sexual abuse. The theory argues that in developing his theory of ...

in her presentation "The Sexual Abuse of Children: A Feminist Point of View," about childhood sexual abuse and

incest Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity (marriage or stepfamily), adoption ...

, at the April 1971 NYRF Rape Conference. Rush's paper at the time was the first challenge to

Freudian Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...

theories of children as the seducers of adults rather than the victims of adults' sexual/power exploitation.Obituary "Florence Rush, 90, feminist author who focused on child abuse", '' The Villager'', December 24–30, 2008. A 1971 speak-out led by the New York Radical Feminists is considered one of the first feminist efforts to bring rape to the public’s attention. The New York Radical Feminists framed rape as a tool to maintain patriarchal control and silence women in contrast to the predominate conception of the time that rape was committed by a few bad men or was the victims’ fault. Additionally, The New York Radical Feminists called out male-dominated institutions such as

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term en ...

and

hospitals A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

for failing to protect women and often re-victimizing them. In 1972 Lisa Orlando aided by Barbara Getz wrot
The Asexual Manifesto
for the NYRF Asexual Caucus. In 1982, NYRF was listed among the signatories to a leaflet produced by the "Coalition for a Feminist Sexuality and Against

Sadomasochism Sadomasochism ( ) is the giving and receiving of pleasure from acts involving the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation. Practitioners of sadomasochism may seek sexual pleasure from their acts. While the terms sadist and masochist refer ...

", an ad hoc coalition put together by

Women Against Pornography Women Against Pornography (WAP) was a radical feminist activist group based out of New York City that was influential in the anti-pornography movement of the late 1970s and the 1980s. WAP was the most well known feminist anti-pornography group out ...

to protest the Barnard Conference.Abelove H, et al. (1983). "The Barnard Conference". ''Feminist Studies'' 9(1):177–182.

Notes

Further reading