Below is my 15 minute contribution to a panel discussion given on May 22, 2021 on zoom in La Grande Transition, a post-capitalist international conference. My talk is based on an article — A Socialist Woman’s Experience in the Socialist Movement — published in March-April 2021 in a socialist magazine, Against the Current.
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Like all women, I have coped with the threat of sexual and physical assault and harassment. For women, this threat is omnipresent. It was a constant hazard of my younger years. Later, the danger of sexual attack shaped decisions of where I lived and with whom, where I worked and whether I felt able to speak and act freely. All told I suffered more than a dozen threatened sexual assaults. I suspect that this count is not unusual.
When I joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) USA in 1959, at the age of 18, anxiety of sexual assault was an obstacle to my participation in political activity. The threat could come from a stranger or from an intimate friend.
I fell victim to this threat in the dormitory of a socialist conference. It was evening, and an intimate friend flew into a rage. He bellowed and whacked me, with furniture and props flying around. It was behind closed doors, but the uproar was heard outside the room, and the assault left visible marks on my face. Yet the next day, socialist friends averted their eyes and showed no concern.
