Selected works
Wikiquote has quotations related to Anne Koedt .
- "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" (1970)
- "Lesbianism and Feminism" (1971) [17]
- Koedt, Anne; Levine, Ellen; Rapone, Anita (eds.) (1973). Radical Feminism.
Anne Koedt | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1941 (age 82–83) Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Nationality |
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| Occupation | Activist |
| Notable work | "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" (1970) |
| Spouse | Ellen Levine (m. 2011;died 2012) |
Anne Koedt (born 1941) [1] is an American radical feminist activist and author of "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm", [2] a 1970 classic feminist work on women's sexuality. [1] She was connected to the group New York Radical Women and was a founding member of New York Radical Feminists. [3]
Koedt was born in Copenhagen in 1941 to Bobs Koedt (born Andreas Peschcke-Koedt) and Inger Koedt. Her parents had been members of the Danish resistance during World War II, harboring Jews in their basement until the refugees could be smuggled to Sweden. Her father was an architect and photographer who forged passports for leaders of the Danish resistance. Born in Riverside, California, Bobs grew up outside of Copenhagen. Bobs was arrested and interrogated by the Germans and sent to Nazi headquarters, but survived unharmed. Due to her father's American citizenship, the Koedt family was able to easily immigrate to the United States and settled in San Francisco. Her father, suffering from depression and seizures, died by suicide shortly before his 80th birthday. Her mother lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for over 60 years. While having been raised Protestant, Inger was active with the Jackson Hole Jewish Community. [4] [5] In September 2011, Koedt married Ellen Levine, her partner for 40 years. In May 2012, Levine died. [6] Inger died on 14 August 2021 at the age of 106. She was among the oldest residents of Teton County. [7]
Koedt was a founding member of the New York Radical Women, an early feminist group begun in fall, 1967 which pioneered women's liberation through activism, such as disrupting the 1968 Miss America pageant, writing and publishing feminist work, and connecting personal issues to political oppression in the form of small-group consciousness-raising. [8] By late 1968, she also co-founded The Feminists, a strict feminist separatist group begun by Ti-Grace Atkinson after she left the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women; other prominent members included Sheila Michaels, Barbara Mehrhof, Pamela Kearon, and Sheila Cronan. In 1969, Koedt left the Feminists to form the New York Radical Feminists (NYRF) with Shulamith Firestone. NYRF (not to be confused, as it often is, with the larger and older New York Radical Women, which was still meeting and whose membership was fluid and often overlapped with the smaller groups] was organized into small cells or "brigades" named after notable feminists of the past; Koedt and Firestone led the Stanton-Anthony Brigade. By 1970, conflicting factions within NYRF had driven both Koedt and Firestone out of the group they had founded and Koedt withdrew from organized activism, later commenting "I was done with groups after that." [9]
In 1968, Anne Koedt published her most influential work, "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" in a radical-feminist journal from New York Radical Women's members, titled Notes from the First Year. [10] In the article, Koedt frankly challenged the dominant understandings of female sexual pleasure held by most medical and psychoanalytic experts of the time, who were almost exclusively male. In particular, the article took issue with the predominant Freudian account of female sexuality that discounted the clitoral orgasm as "juvenile" and viewed orgasm achieved through the vagina as the only "mature" form. Women who failed to achieve orgasm through penetrative, heterosexual intercourse were therefore labeled as dysfunctional or frigid by the professional community. In Koedt's view, this approach placed unfair blame on women for their lack of satisfaction during straight sex, inaccurately pathologized normal female sexual function, and caused many women to seek unnecessary psychoanalytic treatment for a nonexistent ailment rather than exploring techniques that would lead to a more pleasurable sexual experience. In support of her position, Koedt marshaled up-to-date research on the female anatomy and sexual response, including recent work by Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson, to demonstrate that the clitoris, rather than the vagina, is the primary site of erotic stimulation. Koedt went on to argue that male chauvinism and the urge to maintain women in a subservient role were the primary driving force perpetuating misconceptions surrounding female sexuality.
The article was widely circulated in pamphlet form, inspiring many supporters to advocate for celibacy or to promote lesbianism as positive alternative to heterosexuality for women. [11] Other feminist readers were more critical, taking particular issue with Koedt's assertion that women who testified to experiencing vaginal orgasms were either confused due to lack of education regarding their own bodies or "faking it " so as not to offend their male lovers' egos. [12]
On February 17, 1968, Koedt delivered a speech regarding women's liberation and the role that radical women must play in the female revolution in order to change the overall fundamental concept of women. Koedt advocates for a systematic change, and urges radical women to challenge dominant/submissive dynamic that shapes the relationships between men and women. Koedt refers to women's issues and women's liberation as a social and political issue that has many similarities to the black power struggle. Koedt also touches on the topic of male supremacy and how to improve the condition of women as an oppressed group within society, highlighting the importance of fighting for women everywhere, not just within the radical movement. In her speech, Koedt calls for radical women to learn from history and from past revolutions in which women were a part of yet reaped none of the benefits, such as the American revolution and the Economic/Soviet revolution. The speech concludes that in order to change the basic structure of society which gives men power over women, women shouldn't support any revolution that aims to create change but does not care about the liberation of women from men's dominant position in society. It is not enough to improve secondary characteristics of freedom or to gain certain privileges, the real radical revolution must tackle the basic structure of female oppression within a patriarchal society. [13]
New York Radical Women compiled a group of feminist texts and speeches from their work in 1968 called "Notes From the First Year," which was edited by Koedt. The compilation included texts from Shulamith Firestone, Jennifer Gardner, Kathy Amatniek, and Koedt herself. Koedt's writings included The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm and "Women and the Radical Movement," the speech she gave at the Free University in New York City on February 17, 1968. [14]
Koedt's December 1969 Politics of the Ego, A Manifesto for New York Radical Feminists was first published in Notes from the Second Year and later in her anthology Radical Feminism. [11] An excerpt from this manifesto continued to be circulated as part of the 1976 "Introduction to New York Radical Feminists" pamphlet until the NYRF post office box closed in 1989.
Koedt became the editor of Notes From the Third Year replacing Shulamith Firestone in 1972. Some feminist groups felt that the more radical feminist positions that had been previously included were edited out of this third edition. [15]
In 1978, Koedt became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP). [16] WIFP is an American nonprofit publishing organization. The organization works to increase communication between women and connect the public with forms of women-based media.
Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other social divisions such as in race, class, and sexual orientation. The ideology and movement emerged in the 1960s.
Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades, ending with the feminist sex wars in the early 1980s and being replaced by third-wave feminism in the early 1990s. It occurred throughout the Western world and aimed to increase women's equality by building on the feminist gains of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Shulamith Bath Shmuel Ben Ari Firestone was a Canadian-American radical feminist writer and activist. Firestone was a central figure in the early development of radical feminism and second-wave feminism and a founding member of three radical-feminist groups: New York Radical Women, Redstockings, and New York Radical Feminists. Within these radical movements, Firestone became known as "the firebrand" and "the fireball" for the fervor and passion she expressed towards the cause. Firestone participated in activism such as speaking out at The National Conference for New Politics in Chicago. Also while a member of various feminist groups she participated in actions including picketing a Miss America Contest, organizing a mock funeral for womanhood known as "The Burial of Traditional Womanhood", protesting sexual harassment at Madison Square Garden, organizing abortion speak outs, and disrupting abortion legislation meetings.
Consciousness raising is a form of activism popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group on some cause or condition. Common issues include diseases, conflicts, movements and political parties or politicians. Since informing the populace of a public concern is often regarded as the first step to changing how the institutions handle it, raising awareness is often the first activity in which any advocacy group engages.
The principles of democratic structuring were defined by Jo Freeman in "The Tyranny of Structurelessness", first delivered as a talk in 1970, later published in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology in 1972. They were influential in power network theories, especially those challenging a single command hierarchy. She was a major influence in the theory of participatory democracy, consensus decision-making and collective intelligence, though her own work focused mostly on problems of elite formation in the American women's movement of the 1960s.
Redstockings, also known as Redstockings of the Women's Liberation Movement, is a radical feminist nonprofit that was founded in January 1969 in New York City, whose goal is "To Defend and Advance the Women's Liberation Agenda". The group's name is derived from bluestocking, a term used to disparage feminist intellectuals of earlier centuries, and red, for its association with the revolutionary left.
Carol Hanisch is an American radical feminist activist. She was an important member of New York Radical Women and Redstockings. She is best known for popularizing the phrase "the personal is political" in a 1970 essay of the same name. She does not take responsibility of the phrase, stating in her 2006 updated essay, with a new introduction, that did not name it that, or in fact use it in the essay at all. Instead she claims that the title was done by the editors of Notes from the Second Year: Women's Liberation, Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt. She also conceived the 1968 Miss America protest and was one of the four women who hung a women's liberation banner over the balcony at the Miss America Pageant, disrupting the proceedings.
New York Radical Feminists (NYRF) was a radical feminist group founded by Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt in 1969, after they had left Redstockings and The Feminists, respectively. Firestone's and Koedt's desire to start this new group was aided by Vivian Gornick's 1969 Village Voice article, "The Next Great Moment in History Is Theirs". The end of this essay announced the formation of the group and included a contact address and phone number, raising considerable national interest from prospective members. NYRF was organized into small cells or "brigades" named after notable feminists of the past; Koedt and Firestone led the Stanton-Anthony Brigade.
New York Radical Women (NYRW) was an early second-wave radical feminist group that existed from 1967 to 1969. They drew nationwide media attention when they unfurled a banner inside the 1968 Miss America pageant displaying the words "Women's Liberation".
The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution is a 1970 book by the radical feminist activist Shulamith Firestone. Written over a few months when Firestone was 25, it has been described as a classic of feminist thought.
Sexual Politics is the debut book by American writer and activist Kate Millett, based on her PhD dissertation at Columbia University. It was published in 1970 by Doubleday. It is regarded as a classic of feminism and one of radical feminism's key texts, a formative piece in shaping the intentions of the second-wave feminist movement. In Sexual Politics, an explicit focus is placed on male dominance throughout prominent 20th century art and literature. According to Millett, western literature reflects patriarchal constructions and the heteronormativity of society. She argues that men have established power over women, but that this power is the result of social constructs rather than innate or biological qualities.
Vivian Gornick is an American radical feminist critic, journalist, essayist, and memoirist.
Florence Rush was an American certified social worker, feminist theorist and organizer best known for introducing The Freudian Coverup in her presentation "The Sexual Abuse of Children: A Feminist Point of View", about childhood sexual abuse and incest, at the April 1971 New York Radical Feminists (NYRF) Rape Conference. Rush's paper at the time was the first challenge to Freudian theories of children as the seducers of adults rather than the victims of adults' sexual/power exploitation.
"The Tyranny of Structurelessness" is an essay by American feminist Jo Freeman that concerns power relations within radical feminist collectives. The essay, inspired by Freeman's experiences in a 1960s women's liberation group, reflected on the feminist movement's experiments in resisting leadership hierarchy and structured division of labor. This lack of structure, Freeman writes, disguised an informal, unacknowledged, and unaccountable leadership, and in this way ensured its malefaction by denying its existence. As a solution, Freeman suggests formalizing the existing hierarchies in the group and subjecting them to democratic control.
"The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" is a feminist essay on women's sexuality written by American radical feminist activist Anne Koedt in 1968, and published in 1970. It first appeared in a four-paragraph outline form in the Notes from the First Year which resulted in an extended article in Notes from the Second Year journals published by the New York Radical Women and was partially based on findings from Masters and Johnson's 1966 work Human Sexual Response. It was then distributed as a pamphlet in its full form, including sections on evidence for the clitoral orgasm, female anatomy, and reasons the "myth" of vaginal orgasm is maintained.
Feminist views on sexuality widely vary. Many feminists, particularly radical feminists, are highly critical of what they see as sexual objectification and sexual exploitation in the media and society. Radical feminists are often opposed to the sex industry, including opposition to prostitution and pornography. Other feminists define themselves as sex-positive feminists and believe that a wide variety of expressions of female sexuality can be empowering to women when they are freely chosen. Some feminists support efforts to reform the sex industry to become less sexist, such as the feminist pornography movement.
The personal is political, also termed The private is political, is a political argument used as a rallying slogan of student movement and second-wave feminism from the late 1960s. In the context of the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, it was a challenge to the nuclear family and family values. The phrase was popularized by the publication of a 1969 essay by feminist activist Carol Hanisch under the title "The Personal Is Political" in 1970, and has been repeatedly described as a defining characterization of second-wave feminism, radical feminism, women's studies, or feminism in general. It has also been used by some women artists as the underlying philosophy for their art practice.
Susan Gordon Lydon was an American journalist and writer, known for her 1970 feminist essay "The Politics of Orgasm", which brought the female fake orgasm into popular discussion.
Celestine Ware was a radical and Black feminist theorist and activist. A founding member of the Stanton-Anthony Brigade and of the New York Radical Feminists (NYRF), she authored Woman Power: The Movement for Women's Liberation.
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