She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry is a reflective documentary released in 2014, which charts the rise of the Women's Liberation Movement in America and the heyday of second wave feminism, covering a period from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. The documentary is reflective in that it features many of the women who were instrumental in the movement at the time, as they look back on the issues they grappled with and injustices they sought to rectify in a quest for gender equality.
Viewed through today's lens, for all the powerful and essential moments of second wave feminism that provided foundations for later waves, more attention could have been paid to the work of Black feminists within the documentary. The challenges second wave feminism had with truly intersectional ideals are by no means ignored. In fact, the film explores the critiques of second wave feminism as overly focused on issues of relevance to white, heterosexual, middle-class women at the expense of the voices of queer women and women of colour. Dore navigates those challenges by through interviews with Frances M. Beal of the Black Women’s Liberation Committee (founded in 1968) features and Linda Burnham, who founded Black Sisters United. Burnham notes that Black women at the time were beginning to notice that there were cultural tensions between the women’s lib movement and some of the issues facing working-class women in black communities. She says:
“We started Black Sisters United, and it was basically a consciousness-raising group. We were struggling to understand what was different about our perspective on women’s place in the world from what we were hearing from the mainstream women’s movement. And we couldn’t have that conversation in spaces that were majority white women.”
“We started Black Sisters United, and it was basically a consciousness-raising group. We were struggling to understand what was different about our perspective on women’s place in the world from what we were hearing from the mainstream women’s movement. And we couldn’t have that conversation in spaces that were majority white women.”
The film also looks at the issues faced by queer women at the time, specifically lesbians. It delves into the splinters caused by the concern of Betty Friedan and others that conflating women’s issues with gay liberation would perpetuate stereotypes of feminists as “man-hating lesbians” and detract from the issues at hand. Rita Mae-Brown talks with good humour of the rise of the ‘Lavender Menace’ group of activists, who orchestrated a non-violent protest at New York's Second Congress to Unite Women. Angered at the fact that no issues pertaining to lesbians featured on the congress schedule, the Lavender Menaces infiltrated the event and later revealed their lavender t-shirts to the humour and widespread support of those in attendance.
I found the documentary to be an engaging walk through the history of this particular period of the feminist movement. History is lovingly recounted, with attention to detail and a plethora of clips from male civil rights activists heckling the female speakers off stage to a protest staged by a group of women during an all-male panel debate on the risks associated with birth control. These women fought for their voices to be heard and pointed out the clear fallacy with putting decisions around birth control in the hands of men, without asking a single woman to testify.
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry concludes by noting that the fight for gender equality is not over. It does not address some of the issues facing feminist movements today, notably the importance of a fully intersection feminism which recognises that violence perpetuated against transgender women comes from exactly the patriarchal hierarchies feminist movements have sought to dismantle. Perhaps most fittingly for young feminists watching this documentary today, it reminds us that a small group of people are capable of achieving great things. In the words of Mary Jean Collins from the documentary, “You can’t convince me you can’t change the world, because I saw it happen.”
Would recommend.
I found the documentary to be an engaging walk through the history of this particular period of the feminist movement. History is lovingly recounted, with attention to detail and a plethora of clips from male civil rights activists heckling the female speakers off stage to a protest staged by a group of women during an all-male panel debate on the risks associated with birth control. These women fought for their voices to be heard and pointed out the clear fallacy with putting decisions around birth control in the hands of men, without asking a single woman to testify.
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry concludes by noting that the fight for gender equality is not over. It does not address some of the issues facing feminist movements today, notably the importance of a fully intersection feminism which recognises that violence perpetuated against transgender women comes from exactly the patriarchal hierarchies feminist movements have sought to dismantle. Perhaps most fittingly for young feminists watching this documentary today, it reminds us that a small group of people are capable of achieving great things. In the words of Mary Jean Collins from the documentary, “You can’t convince me you can’t change the world, because I saw it happen.”
Would recommend.
