The Pursuit of Happiness: 2011

The founding mothers of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the US were socialists, activists who came from committees against its war in Vietnam.

"Tomorrow" by Eric Drooker. Visit the artist's website (www.drooker.com)

Yet, way before the advent of the neocon corporatist meta-narrative, the feminist movement would lose its vitality for a number of reasons some of which related to the dirty work done by CIA operatives, such as Gloria Steinem.

Gloria Steinem at a news conference in January 1972. Wikimedia Commons/Library of Congress

"Many were and still are shocked to see Steinem’s CIA connections. They have been kept from wide publication until recently and of course they were never seen on television. These facts were first unearthed in Ramparts magazine in March 1967, as part of a revelation of the CIA’s role in international youth festivals (“Who Paid the Piper”). They were followed by later revelations in The Village Voice in 1979, which exposed Steinem’s particular role within the CIA and the Women’s Movement (“Inside the CIA with Gloria Steinem” by Nancy Borman, May 21, 1979). Steinem’s voice was never the only voice in the feminist movement. However, her rich funding and expertise combined with our naïveté to blunt the impact of class awareness and power for the mass of U.S. women."