She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry is a reflective documentary released in 2014, which charts the rise of “Women’s Lib” 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.
In contemporary discourse, second wave feminism encounters criticism for the pursuit of issues of relevance to white, heterosexual, middle-class women at the expense of the voices of queer women and women of colour. Dore’s film does a superb job of exploring those challenges by featuring a large group of diverse women and charting the growth of other women’s movements which gave a voice to marginalised women. Frances M. Beal of the Black Women’s Liberation Committee (founded in 1968) features, as does 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. It delves into the splinters caused by the concern of Betty Friedan and others that conflating women’s issues with lesbianism and 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 of lesbianism 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.
Feminism often finds itself at the receiving end of accusations of infighting caused by differing (and sometimes polarising) viewpoints within the movement. She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry demonstrates how causes can both align and diverge, but share a certain commonality at their heart. The term ‘intersectionality’ has gained significant traction in the mainstream of late and particularly in relation to discussions around modern feminism. Intersectionality seeks an inclusive movement which doesn’t limit the issues at its heart to those which pertain to white, able-bodied, middle-class, cis-gendered, straight women. As She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry demonstrates with warmth and clarity, intersectionality may be having its moment in mainstream discourse, but it has long been something feminists have grappled with.
I found the documentary to be an inspiring, engaging and – yes – empowering walk through the history of the feminist movement of the period. The 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. The women featured in the film and the things they achieved are truly remarkable and seeing the unexpected crowds who turned up for unprecedented protest marches moved me to tears. So many of the opportunities I have today are available thanks to the women who fought for gender equality and legislative overhauls. These women urged people to rethink female sexuality and forced the public and governments of the time to reassess the way a woman was viewed.
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry concludes by noting that the fight for gender equality is not over. Yet the documentary also reminds us that a small group of people are capable of achieving great things. In the words of Mary Jean Collins in She’s Beautiful: “You can’t convince me you can’t change the world, because I saw it happen.”
Would highly recommend.
Feminism often finds itself at the receiving end of accusations of infighting caused by differing (and sometimes polarising) viewpoints within the movement. She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry demonstrates how causes can both align and diverge, but share a certain commonality at their heart. The term ‘intersectionality’ has gained significant traction in the mainstream of late and particularly in relation to discussions around modern feminism. Intersectionality seeks an inclusive movement which doesn’t limit the issues at its heart to those which pertain to white, able-bodied, middle-class, cis-gendered, straight women. As She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry demonstrates with warmth and clarity, intersectionality may be having its moment in mainstream discourse, but it has long been something feminists have grappled with.
I found the documentary to be an inspiring, engaging and – yes – empowering walk through the history of the feminist movement of the period. The 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. The women featured in the film and the things they achieved are truly remarkable and seeing the unexpected crowds who turned up for unprecedented protest marches moved me to tears. So many of the opportunities I have today are available thanks to the women who fought for gender equality and legislative overhauls. These women urged people to rethink female sexuality and forced the public and governments of the time to reassess the way a woman was viewed.
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry concludes by noting that the fight for gender equality is not over. Yet the documentary also reminds us that a small group of people are capable of achieving great things. In the words of Mary Jean Collins in She’s Beautiful: “You can’t convince me you can’t change the world, because I saw it happen.”
Would highly recommend.
