Second Wave Strategies and Organization

Front Cover

Page 2. Why CR? Purpose and Principles

Second wave feminism in the US addressed a wider breadth of issues than the first wave from reproductive rights to women in the workplace. The strategies developed in the second wave are still used today and many of the issues are still being debated.

There were three main types of feminist groups: reform groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), New Left groups who focused on class oppression, and radicals. Consciousness raising (CR) was a method developed by radical feminist groups in the late 1960s. Most notably the Redstockings Manifesto and Carol Hanishch's "The Personal is Political" were essential in establishing the rhetoric of the method.

The intention of CR was for women to analyze everyday situations in order to get to the root of the problems that caused them - classist and sexist oppression. Women’s problems are political and they stem from the power of men. It was made very clear in the onset of consciousness raising that it was not a therapy group. The point of them was for political action; it was an activism activity. The very idea of calling it therapy implied that there was something wrong with women and they needed to be fixed when society was really the problem.

NOW published Consciousness-Raising Guidelines for use as chapter development activities. The pamphlet, from the Bonnie Huval Papers at the Dolph Briscoe Center, is drawn from a time when Huval was the Director of the South Central NOW region (1983-1986). It was likely collected as an important document used in chapter practices. 

The purpose and principles of the guidelines are very similar to the ideology expressed by the radical orginator groups. Taken from the booklet: 

"CR helps us break through the conditioning we have received. It allows us to comprehend how society has trained and prepared us to play certain roles, accept certain situations, and feel certain emotions within the fabric of our culture."