I got so jealous while researching the women's circles of the 70s that I'm starting one
Introducing Women's Circle 2025
Quick announcement- the replay of our Chalice and The Blade discussion group is included at the end of this post for paying subscribers.
There have always been women who look around at the society’s gender roles and think, “something is off here.”
There have always been women who have spoken out.
But some periods of history are marked by much more effective societal change than others.
The 1970s was a decade of remarkably productive institutional change for women in America.
Unmarried women gained the right to contraceptives, Roe V Wade passed (RIP), housing discrimination was outlawed by Congress, The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission banned discriminatory hiring practices, women could get credit cards without a male co-signer and The Pregnancy Discrimination Act passed. To name a few.
Such a busy decade!
Why was this decade so much more effective than previous decades?
In November 1967, five women started meeting in Anne Koedt’s apartment in New York City. The gatherings weren’t anything fancy- they would just go around the room talking about personal issues they faced as women.
One night one of the women said, “Would everybody please give me an example from their own life on how they experienced oppression as a woman? I need to hear it to raise my own consciousness.”
They started calling their little group a “consciousness raising group.”
As they continued to meet, they kept noticing patterns in their personal experiences. They soon realized that what they had always been told were just their own private problems were actually societal patterns.
In 1968, one of those original five women, Kathie Sarachild, presented “A Program for Feminist Consciousness Raising” at the First National Women’s Liberation Conference. They even passed out helpful pamphlets on how to start your own.
By 1973, over 100,000 women all across the US belonged to consciousness raising groups.
The Women’s Liberation Union cited consciousness raising groups as “the backbone of the women’s liberation movement.”
Susan Brownmiller, author of Against Our Will, wrote that small group consciousness raising “was the movement’s most successful form of female bonding, and the source of most of its creative thinking.”
I recently had to research consciousness raising groups for a script I was writing about second wave feminism. The more I read about these groups, the more I thought, “I want one!”
Personally I’ve long stretched the limits of my IRL friends’ desire to discuss the patriarchy. Bless them.
I want a circle of women who think about this stuff as often as I do.
So I’m forming one.
I’m not using the name “consciousness raising group” because I don’t feel the need to raise anyone’s consciousness.1 Also, I’m not trying to start a world-wide political activism movement.2
I’m just a gal who wants to talk about patriarchy and feminism in our everyday lives with other women who also want to talk about that.
I'm hoping the group will be a sanctuary each month against the current misogynist political landscape.
The basic mechanics of consciousness raising groups — starting with a question and then going around the circle to discuss our answer to the question — will hold.
At least for the first group, we will meet first Sunday of every month at 12:00pm PT for an hour and a half.
Here are the discussion questions:
March 2: Tell us about your feminist awakening
Was there a catalyst? An event? Relationship? Book? Friend? Born a feminist?
How often do you think about feminism/patriarchy/gender roles now?
How is your feminism received by friends and family?
April 6: What causes you to feel feminist rage the most?
How does it manifest?
How do you deal with it when it comes? What helps?
Does it affect your relationships? How?
May 4: What were gender roles like in your family of origin?
What were the expectations of sisters/brothers? Were they different?
How did your mother and father relate to each other? Were there power struggles?
How do these roles affect you now? In your current relationships?
Do you think the next generation’s experience different than yours?
June 1: What is your relationship to your body?
What are the struggles and successes you've had in befriending your body?
How has patriarchy affected your body image?
What has helped?
July 6: What is your vision for a better world?
In a perfect world, what is your vision of how men and women would relate to each other?
What would an ideal society look like? Ideal romantic partnerships/marriage? Child rearing? Community?
August 3: How has patriarchy showed up in your current or past romantic relationships?
Was a patriarchal script the default assumption in your relationship? Did you have to re-define your roles? How did that go?
What are some on-going successes and struggles?
September 7: What does masculinity and femininity mean to you?
How do these terms and assumptions affect your day to day life?
How would you like these terms to be defined?
How much of masculinity and femininity do you think is nature and how much is nurture?
October 5: What is your relationship to sex? Sexual pleasure? Sexuality?
What was your sexual education like growing up? How has that affected you?
Discuss on-going struggles and successes when it comes to sex.
How do you feel about pornography?
November 2: What is your relationship like to domestic labor?
What were the assumptions in your current/past relationships surrounding domestic labor?
Are you happy with the division now?
How do we even the load?
December 7: How to lessen patriarchy's grip on the next generation?
Raising feminist boys and girls- what would that look like? How do we do it?
Have you noticed any unconscious biases show up in your parenting? Or how you were parented?
January 4: How easy/difficult is it for you to disappoint others?
Tell us about past experiences-failures or successes- in setting boundaries.
Do you struggle with co-dependency?
Share a time when you have upset/disappointed/inconvenienced someone. What lessons did you take from that?
These conversations don’t always pop up organically even among our closest friends. Sometimes because of differences of opinion, sometimes it isn’t always safe to release our feminist rage, but often we’re just busy and when we get together, we play catch up rather than going deep.
So it can be helpful to have a designated safe space to discuss these things.
The Deets
Who can join?
Any woman or nonbinary person who signs up for my founding membership. (I am open to creating a men’s circle in the future if there is enough interest - let me know.)
I would like to keep the group(s?) small- max 15- so I’ll form however many there is demand for. I will participate in each.
How much is it?
$300 for a year.
How do I sign up?
Go to your Substack settings here, click on Matriarchal Blessing and when you get to this screen select “Women’s Circle:
Is this separate from book club?
Yes.
If you are a paid subscriber, you are automatically included in the quarterly book club, but if you would like to join the women’s circle, you will have to upgrade your subscription.
Book club will keep going unaffected.
What’s my deadline to sign up?
Enrollment will close Friday, February 28th, and will not open again for a year.
Enrollment will only be open for a short window (Feb 2025) so that it will remain the same group of women and we can all get to know each other.
Will there be re-plays of any session I miss?
Yes. I will record every session and send out the replay the next day via email.
Where/when will we meet
At least for the first group, we will meet the first Sunday of every month at 12:00pm (noon) Pacific Time for an hour and a half on zoom.
Manage your subscription here.
Message me if you have any other questions!
Below this paywall is the replay from our book club discussion of The Chalice and The Blade- thanks so much for everyone who attended! Loved every minute!