feminist movement
TRANSCRIPT
The Pelham Weekly Friday, January 30, 2015 Page 7
By Allee ManningThe Picture House’s special screening of “She’s
Beautiful When She’s Angry” followed by a discus-sion with filmmaker Mary Dore treated audience members to a comprehensive view of the early sec-ond-wave feminist movement in all its power and strife.
Set between the years of 1966 and 1971, the documentary covers everything from consciousness-raising groups to various activist demonstrations for women’s liberation to the politics of the movement itself. It features a wealth of archival footage and in-terviews with 38 women involved set to a high-ener-gy soundtrack of artists including Janis Joplin and Bikini Kill. The film is now playing in 60 theaters across the country and will soon be making rounds at national film festivals.
“I always wondered why no one had made this film,” said Ms. Dore, an accomplished television doc-umentary producer. “I just didn’t understand why the women’s movement was so neglected.”
Topics addressed within the six years the wide-ranging documentary spans include the Jane Collec-tive’s fight against abortion restrictions, black femi-nist sects like Black Sisters United, the making of the now-famous book “Our Bodies Ourselves,” the fight for the recognition of lesbians within the move-ment, and the attempted Childcare Act of 1969.
“Most people think the women’s movement began with ‘Ms. Magazine,’ but there was so much activ-ism that started much earlier coming out of the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement,” Ms. Dore said. “I wanted to cover that. I also didn’t want to focus on the most famous people because I felt that it was a grassroots movement and that’s really im-portant for people to understand. It was a movement made by all kinds of regular people and I wanted to show how amazingly diverse and complicated it was.”
A major concern she cited in creating the docu-mentary––over 10 years in the making––was ad-dressing points of contention within the movement, such as invalidation of lesbians and women of color.
“I wanted to show the flaws and the mistakes and the conflicts that of course were in the movement be-cause I didn’t think anyone needed to get a sentimen-talized version,” she said. “It was a very contentious movement and they challenged all kinds of things, which was not easy. Sometimes they’d butt heads with each other and not just at the world. I think that’s a really important thing to understand, that all movements make progress as well as mistakes. We should learn from our mistakes and use that to move forward.”
The fight for women moving forward was covered in the film through glimpses at modern-day targeted restrictions on abortion providers and the feminist
crusade against rape culture. New York State As-semblywoman Amy Paulin also addressed women’s rights of today when she opened the event by discuss-ing the recently-passed state legislation to protect sex trafficking victims.
“I often think that one of the key reasons I do the work I’m doing is growing up in the women’s move-ment,” Assemblywoman Paulin said. “I think this film will demonstrate that we’ve already come a long way and we should be proud of that, but I’m here to solicit your help because we still have a long way to go.”
Feminist Movement Explored in “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry” Screening
Marshall Fine and Mary DorePhoto by Allee Manning
Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum is hosting an Owl Prowl this Satur-day, Jan. 31 from 2:30-4:30pm. Join naturalist and bird watcher Debbie Becker on this search for nature’s most exclusive and elusive avian creatures. There’s no guarantee that they will be found, but it’s always fun to try. Reg-istration requested at 718-885-1461 or via e-mail at [email protected]. Free.
Dr. John Cahill of Pelham will speak on “Travel Tips and Interna-tional Health” at The Manor Club next Thursday, Feb. 5 at 7:30pm. All are welcome to attend.
Dr. Cahill is a specialist in inter-national health and is an attending physician in Emergency Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Mt Sinai
St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. He is an Adjunct Associ-ate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Brown Medical School and Visiting Senior Lecturer for the Department of International Health and Tropical Medicine at the Royal College of Sur-geons in Ireland.
Dr. Cahill received his medical de-
gree from Mt. Sinai School of Medi-cine and holds postgraduate diplomas from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Fordham University, and the University of Geneva, Switzerland.
Light refreshments will be served. Admission is $10 for non-members. RSVP to The Manor Club at 738-1528 or [email protected].
Travel Tips and Health Talk at The Manor Club Next Thursday, Feb. 5