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Cell 16

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Cell 16
Formation1968
FounderRoxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Founded atBoston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Dissolved1973; 52 years ago (1973)

Cell 16, Co-founded by Roxanne Dunbar and Dana Densmore in 1968, included early members Betsy Warrior, and Abby Rockefeller and Jayne West,[1]Cell 16 was a progressive, radical feminist organization active in the United States from 1968 to 1973, known for its program of self-defense training (specifically karate), opposition to violence against women, analyses of relations between men and women in dating culture, politics and the economics of unpaid labor in the home. Cell 16 was sometimes mischaracterized as promotioning celibacy or separatism for its suggestion that women remain autonomous from men's groups and avoid romantic entanglements with either men or women, which would take away time and energy better spent on women's rights. [2] [3] The organization had a journal: No More Fun and Games," which exerted a strong influence over the development of the second wave of feminism.[4]

History

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In the summer of 1968, Roxanne Dunbar placed an advertisement in a Boston, Massachusetts, underground newspaper calling for a "Female Liberation Front". The original membership also included Hillary Langhorst, Sandy Bernard, Dana Densmore (the daughter of Donna Allen),[5] Betsy Warrior, Ellen O'Donnell, Jayne West, Mary Ann Weathers, Maureen Maynes, Gail Murray, and Abby Rockefeller.[6][7] The group's name was meant "to emphasize that they were only one cell of an organic movement" and referenced the address of their meetings – 16 Lexington Avenue.[8]

No More Fun and Games ceased publication in 1973.[9] Cell 16 disbanded in 1973 as well.[7]

Ideology

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Founded in 1968 by Roxanne Dunbar, Cell 16 has been cited as the first organization to advance the concept of separatist feminism.[10][11] Cultural historian Alice Echols cites Cell 16 as an example of feminist heterosexual separatism, as the group never advocated lesbianism as a political strategy. Echols credits Cell 16's work for "helping establishing the theoretical foundation for lesbian separatism."[10] In No More Fun and Games, the organization's journal, Roxanne Dunbar and Lisa Leghorn advised women to "separate from men who are not consciously working for female liberation", and advised periods of celibacy, rather than lesbian relationships, which some lesbian groups labeled as "nothing more than a personal solution".[12]

In Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's book, Outlaw Woman, in referring to an article by member Dana Densmore titled "On Celibacy" that was published in the first issue of No More Fun and Games (1970), Dunbar-Ortiz explains, "That essay mythologized our group as having taken "vows of celibacy."[13]

References

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  1. ^ Collier & Horowitz, Peter & David (January 1, 1976). The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty. Holt, Rindhart and Winston. p. 600. ISBN 0030083710.
  2. ^ https://hopesdoorny.org/betsy-warrior/
  3. ^ FeministEconomics
  4. ^ https://www.cambridgema.gov/cwhp/bios_w.html
  5. ^ "Donna Allen, 78, a Feminist and an Organizer". The New York Times. The New York Times. Retrieved August 9, 2024.
  6. ^ Endres and Lueck. Women's Periodicals in the United States: Social and Political Issues (1996) ISBN 0-313-28632-9
  7. ^ a b Echols, Alice. Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-75, University of Minnesota Press, 1990, ISBN 0-8166-1787-2
  8. ^ "Cambridge Women's Heritage Project". Archived from the original on January 28, 2010. Retrieved November 30, 2007.
  9. ^ No More Fun and Games, A Journal of Female Liberation
  10. ^ a b Echols, Alice. Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-75, University of Minnesota Press, 1990, ISBN 0-8166-1787-2, p. 164.
  11. ^ Saulnier, Christine F. Feminist Theories and Social Work: Approaches and Applications, 1996, ISBN 1-56024-945-5.
  12. ^ Dunbar, Leghorn. The Man's Problem, from No More Fun and Games, November 1969, quoted in Echols, p. 165.
  13. ^ Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne (2014). Outlaw Woman. University of Oklahoma. p. 'p. 128'. ISBN 978-0-8061-4479-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
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  • Pearson, Kyra, Mapping rhetorical interventions in "national" feminist histories: Second wave feminism and Ain't I a Woman (1999) (abstract)
  • Duke University has digitized vol. 1, no. 2, of the journal "No More Fun and Games"

Further reading

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