What, specifically, did the Chicago Womens Liberation Union do in the 60s/70s in an effort to bring about social change?
The Chicago Women’s Liberation Union had workgroups that addressed nearly all of the issues that feminists were concerned about. We organized protests and political lobbying. We had conscious-raising groups. We had a liberation school which was one of the first women’s study’s programs in the nation. We provided services like rape counseling, pregnancy testing, safe inexpensive abortions & legal counseling. We organized sports teams and even had our own liberation rock band. We published newspapers, magazines and posters. We had no funding other than what we generated ourselves.My main workgroup was the Chicago Women’s Graphics Collective. We distributed tens of thousands of feminist posters around the world. We addressed the obvious feminist issues in our art, but we also did posters on labor, imperialism, war, the Middle East conflict etc. There was always a certain pressure on us to stick to “women’s issues”. I guess we just defined “women’s issues” differently than some people.
