Still Going Strong: Pioneers of the Second Wave Women’s Movement

Still Going Strong: Pioneers of the Second Wave Women’s Movement 

Join us for a live webinar with some of Connecticut's second wave feminists who will speak about what life was like for women and for them in particular in the late 1960’s to early 1970’s; what drew them to the Women’s Movement; what each achieved; and how their lives and other's lives have changed and benefited from their actions and commitments.

Panelists are:

Suzanne Benton founded and organized the first CT Chapters of NOW, and the CT Feminists in the Arts in the 1960’s. She’s since shared her multi-faceted artwork for nearly 70 years in 32 countries. A recipient of the pioneer feminist award from the Veteran Feminists of America, she’s listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Art, and Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975. In 2017, having founded and co-organized the 25,000-people Women’s Solidarity March, St. Petersburg, FL she received the Pinellas ACLU Civil Liberties Award for her efforts. Suzanne is currently writing the memoir, Spirit of Hope.  www.suzannebentonartist.com. 

Jeanne Hirsch Ingress, artist, author, and activist was swept into the second wave of feminism with her mother Lolly Hirsch when they took up the torch of gynecological-self-help and home-birth for women, booking themselves as “the first-feminist-mother-daughter-team since the Pankhursts.” 

Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree is an ordained United Church of Christ minister who has been a strong advocate for women throughout her life, starting with a letter to the editor of Ingenue magazine when she was barely a teenager. She founded the Prudence Crandall Center in New Britain in 1973, which created the first shelter for women subject to domestic violence east of CA. Her archives are held at the Congregational Library in Boston.

Barbara Love is an activist feminist pioneer of the Second Wave Women's Movement, and of the Gay Movement. Early on, she’d been a loud and effective voice exhorting the women's movement to recognize lesbianism as a feminist issue. She steadily pushed the National Organization for Women to fight for gay rights. In 1971, she co-authored the first book depicting lesbianism as a positive lifestyle, Sappho Was a Right-on Woman: A liberated View of Lesbian. Barbara is also the editor of the groundbreaking compilation of over 2000 biographies of feminists, Feminists Who Changed America: 1963-1975, University of Illinois Press, Sep 22, 2006,”

Lele Stephens is not able to participate due to failing health but will send a short narrative to be read to the audience. She has been a journalist of the Old School, writing columns, editorials, and lead stories when everyone read newspapers. Also editor, lyricist, and Second Wave Feminist, she supported Sisterhood as a moral cause. In 1976, she was named an Outstanding Woman of Connecticut by the United Nations Association and received an award from Governor Ella T. Grasso at the state capitol for her “contributions to culture, the development of women, and to the arts.”

This program is made possible thanks to the Noreen L. Papa: Mothers Live Your Lives series and is also presented as part of a town-wide celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment.

Please register to receive the Zoom link in the confirmation and reminder emails.