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VIEWS. In a movement that has sought to avoid leaders, some women have become, more or less willingly, the articulators of the new militant consciousness. Among them are Gloria Steinem, founder of the new feminist magazine Ms., who in speeches and meetings is one of the movement's most effective proselytizers; Susan Brownmiller, an author who has organized conferences on rape and prostitution; and Robin Morgan, a radical feminist who has spent the past six months speaking at rallies. In recent interviews with TIME'S BJ. Phillips, they discussed their current concern:
GLORIA STEINEM: "In terms of real power—economic and political—we are still just beginning. But the consciousness, the awareness—that will never be the same. When we go to a town to speak, we usually spend three or four hours looking for the local issues: What's the name of the company in town that refuses to hire or promote women? How many women on the faculty? Who is the politician who has stood in the way of a child-care center? Since we go out on the next morning's plane, we tell the local women we can run some of their risks on a kind of take-names-and-kick-ass basis.
"It's an emotional experience. It doesn't seem to matter what you say as long as you're talking about the lives of women. The response is women standing up applauding with tears running down their cheeks. Then the questions start: How? How do I get a job, get a lawyer, get my husband to understand what I really feel, get courage? The hostility I get from men, saying that all I need is a good f— or a good beating—always some kind of conquest—or I must be a lesbian. And the lascivious part; the personally devastating things that people will just walk up to you and say. Even male politicians don't get the kind of viciousness that women get as routine. It is like being gang-banged in public. But it has been worth it because of something great out there, not just the pain and anger. Women are learning to respect and love themselves and each other, and there is a lot of joy and communion in knowing them."
SUSAN BROWNMILLER: "We are convinced that rape is a political crime and can be eradicated like lynching. We have the power to eradicate it, but that won't be done until it is understood not as deviant behavior but as the logical result of sexism. The left can't get over its old view of rape as a hysterical white woman accusing a black man. The left says that all prisoners are political prisoners who are there because they want a piece of society; what they think is their piece of society is a part of our bodies. That person is no political prisoner, he's a criminal.
"The divisions between us and the left are going to get wider and wider over these issues. There's a lot of talk going around that radicalism is in decline, things have cooled, gone conservative. But the truth is that all the women have left for Women's Liberation, and they're not there typing and filing and running the mimeograph for Abbie and Jerry."