Casey Hayden and Mary King

Abstract

In 1964–65, some young white women in sncc began to examine their roles. Why did they do all the “shit work” and not share in the decision making or public speaking? Based on months of informal conversations, the respected movement veterans Mary King and Casey Hayden circulated this memo to young women around the country. Their goal was simply to start a dialogue about women’s exclusion from structures of power and their subordination in personal relationships. Although King and Hay-den thought that “the chances seem nil that we could start a movement based on anything as distant to general American thought as a sex-caste system,” that is exactly what happened. The memo noted that male radicals’ usual response to discussions of women’s oppression was laughter. This pattern of derision, repeated over several years, eventually led many of these women to leave male-dominated organizations.