by an anonymous CWLU member (1973) ♦ Why one woman from a Southwest Side Chicago Catholic upbringing joined the women's liberation movement at her community college.

by Chris Lombardi and Ruth Surgal (2002) One afternoon in 1969, I turned on the radio in my Chicago home and heard Studs Terkel interviewing Marlene Dixon and Nancy Stokely, two professors who had been fired from the University of Chicago for their work with the women's movement.

by Cady (1985) — This paper is being written in response to the on-going oppression I feel and observe within the visible white women’s movement which has been "struggling with these "issues for at least the last 11 years.

By  "Mary Blake" from Womankind (1972) — I don’t know if I could get my job today -- I took my civil service exam and passed, but most people today are on patronage. But my main gripe is that we women get paid so much less. Men and women here do mostly the same work - the men don’t even do it as well - and the men still get paid more.

by Bob Simpson (2001)

It was an unusual agenda item, even for one of our commune’s house meetings. Usually house meetings discussed items like dirty dishes, leaving peoples’ vinyl LP’s out of their cases, or why someone had bought 6 bags of pinto beans when everyone was sick of them.

by Sue Davenport, Paula Kamen and the CWLU Herstory Committee — CWLU workgroups were the independent committees of the Union organized around particular interests and activities.

by Naomi Weisstein (1996) — In Chicago, one cold and sunny day in March of 1970, I decided to organize a feminist rock band. I was lying on the sofa listening to the radio -- a rare bit of free time in those early days of the women's movement. Perhaps a meeting had been canceled.

by Judith Kegan Gardiner (1999) — The UIC Women's Studies Program (WSP) has its roots in the Women's Liberation Movement of the late 1960s and early '70s and in other political movements of that period. I arrived on campus as an assistant professor of English in 1969 and report these events not as an observer but as a participant who helped found the Program and who remains committed to its future.

by Joan from Womankind (1971) — I remember when I first thought about whether Women's Liberation was relevant to me. I decided against it. My good (male) friend had gently hinted that this Women’s Liberation thing was attracting quite a few of the "cool" girls at school and maybe I should look into it.

by an anonymous CWLU member (Mid 1970's) — My mother got divorced when I was still in the crib. That was a heavy thing, back then in the 50's, especially because we lived in a Catholic neighborhood. I grew up with just her and me.