Barbara Deming (July 23, 1917 – August 2, 1984) was an American feminist and advocate of

nonviolent Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...

social change.

Personal life

Barbara Deming was born in New York City. She attended a ''Friends'' ( Quaker) school up through her high school years. Deming directed plays, taught dramatic literature and wrote and published fiction and non-fiction works. On a trip to India, she began reading

Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

, and became committed to a non-violent struggle, with her main cause being Women's Rights. She later became a journalist, and was active in many demonstrations and marches over issues of peace and

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...

. She was a member of a group that went to

Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...

during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...

, and was jailed many times for non-violent protest.Andrejkoymasky.com
Deming died on August 2, 1984.

Relationships

At sixteen, she had fallen in love with a woman her mother's age, and thereafter she was openly lesbian. She was the romantic partner of writer and artist

Mary Meigs Mary Meigs (April 27, 1917 – November 15, 2002) was an American-born painter and writer. Early life Meigs was born in Philadelphia, the daughter of Edward Browning Meigs and Margaret Wister Meigs, and grew up in Washington, D.C. Her great ...

from 1954 to 1972. Their relationship eventually floundered, partially due to Meigs's timid attitude, and Deming's unrelenting political activism. During the time that they were together, Meigs and Deming moved to

Wellfleet, Massachusetts Wellfleet is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, and is located halfway between the "tip" and "elbow" of Cape Cod. The town had a population of 3,566 at the 2020 census, which swells nearly sixfold during the summer. A t ...

, where she befriended the writer and critic

Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer and literary critic who explored Freudian and Marxist themes. He influenced many American authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose unfinished work he edited for publi ...

and his circle of friends. Among them was the Québécois author

Marie-Claire Blais Marie-Claire Blais (5 October 1939 – 30 November 2021) was a Canadian writer, novelist, poet, and playwright from the province of Québec. In a career spanning seventy years, she wrote novels, plays, collections of poetry and fiction, newsp ...

, with whom Meigs became romantically involved. Meigs, Blais, and Deming lived together for six years. In 1976, Deming moved to Florida with her partner, artist Jane Verlaine. Verlaine painted, did figure drawings and illustrated several books written by Deming. Verlaine was a tireless advocate for abused women.

Life's work

Deming openly believed that it was often those whom we loved that oppressed us, and that it was necessary to re-invent non-violent struggle every day. It is often said that she created a body of non-violent theory, based on action and personal experience, that centered on the potential of non-violent struggle in its application to the women's movement. * Deming, Barbara: ''Prison Notes''. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1966. * Deming, Barbara: ''On Revolution and Equilibrium''. Liberation, February 1968. From the collection: ed. Staughton Lynd and Alice Lynd. ''Nonviolence in America: A Documentary History. Revised Edition''. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1995. * Deming, Barbara: ''Running Away from Myself: A Dream Portrait of America Drawn from the Movies of the Forties''. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1969. * Deming, Barbara; Berrigan, Daniel; Forest, James; Kunstler, William; Lynd, Staughton; Shaull, Richard; Statements of the Catonsville 9 and Milwaukee 14 ''Delivered Into Resistance'' The Advocate Press: 1969. * Deming, Barbara: ''Revolution and Equilibrium''. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1971. * Deming, Barbara: ''Wash Us and Comb Us''. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1972. * Deming, Barbara: ''We Cannot Live Without Our Lives''. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1974. * Deming, Barbara: ''A Humming Under My Feet''. London:

Women's Press The Women's Press was a feminist publishing company established in London in 1977. Throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s, the Women's Press was a highly visible presence, publishing feminist literature. Founding In 1977, Stephanie Dowrick cofou ...

, 1974. * Deming, Barbara: ''Remembering Who We Are''. Tallahassee, FL: The Naiad Press, 1981. * Deming, Barbara; Meyerding, Jane (Editor): ''We Are All Part of One Another a Barbara Deming Reader ''. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1984. * Deming, Barbara; McDaniel, Judith; Biren, Joan E.; Vanderlinde, Sky (Editor): ''Prisons That Could Not Hold ''. University of Georgia Press, 1995. * Deming, Barbara; McDaniel, Judith (Editor) ''I Change, I Change: Poems''. New Victoria Publishers, 1996. In 1968, Deming signed the “

Writers and Editors War Tax Protest Tax resistance, the practice of refusing to pay taxes that are considered unjust, has probably existed ever since rulers began imposing taxes on their subjects. It has been suggested that tax resistance played a significant role in the collapse of ...

” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. In 1978, she became an associate of the

Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP) is an American nonprofit publishing organization that was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1972. The organization works to increase media democracy and strengthen independent media. Mo Basic info ...

Money for Women / The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund

In 1975, Deming founded The Money for Women Fund to support the work of feminist artists. Deming helped administer the Fund, with support from artist

. After Deming's death in 1984, the organization was renamed as The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Today, the foundation is the "oldest ongoing feminist granting agency" which "gives encouragement and grants to individual feminists in the arts (writers, and visual artists)".

References

External links

''Barbara Deming: An Activist Life''

Barbara Deming Papers.Schlesinger Library
, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
A Random Chapter in the History of Nonviolence
by Michael L. Westmoreland-White
''On Revolution and Equilibrium''
*
On Anger
' * Robson, R. (1984)
"An Interview with Barbara Deming."Kalliope: A journal of Women's Art and Literature
6(1). {{DEFAULTSORT:Deming, Barbara 1917 births 1984 deaths American feminist writers American pacifists American political writers American tax resisters LGBT people from New York (state) American lesbian writers Nonviolence advocates War Resisters League activists 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers American Quakers Quaker feminists 20th-century Quakers 20th-century LGBT people