'The Personal is Political': Origins of the Phrase

The origin of the expression "the personal is political" has been discussed
on WMST-L several times.  For the benefit of those who did not see these
discussions, here are some of the messages that appeared on the list from 1996
through 2007.  For additional WMST-L files now available on the Web, see the
WMST-L File Collection.

Can anyone recall where this slogan, "the personal is political,"
originally came from?  Many thanks. D

Daphne.Patai  AT  spanport.umass.edu

In Maggie Humm s "The dictionary or Feminist Theory" Columbus, Ohio Univ.
Press, (second edition)1995 : "A fhrase first coined by Carol Hanisch in
Notes from the second year (1970)......"
Monica Tarducci
billyr  AT  mbox.servicenet. com.ar

I'm forwarding this request from another list.  Can anyone help with the
history and origins of the slogan "the personal is political?"

Kelley Crouse
kcwalker  AT  syr.edu

-------forwarded message------------------

i've been trying to track down the source of the feminist slogan "the
personal is political" and i'm not having much luck.  does anyone out
there either know the source, or have ideas where i might look?

it starts to crop up in a lot of feminist anthologies as section/chapter
headings in the 1980s, but never with a citation, suggesting that by then
it was well-established (and i remember this to be true). feminist
histories of radical/cultural feminism always say that the phrase was
widely used throughout the 1960s, but never referecning a specific
citation, speaker, group, or date.  i've read many, many primary
documents/books from the 1960s and still have had no luck.

robin morgan uses a similar (but not exact) formulation in 1970 (in her
introduction to "sisterhood is powerful"). unlikely as this may sound,
it's the earliest reference i can find, given that the consensus in
histories of radical/cultural feminism is that the slogan was coined in
the 1960s.

i'm wondering if anyone knows (remembers?) the origin of this phrase?  i'm
not even sure if it originated in the US, england, or perhaps australia
(because of morgan).

Carol Hanisch has a brief essay called "The Personal is Political" in the
Redstockings collection *Feminist Revolution* -- her essay is dated March
1969 (204-205).  The essay defends consciousness-raising against the charge
that it is "therapy."  Hanisch states "One of the first things we discover
in these groups is that personal problems are political problems.  There are
no personal solutions at this time."

Donna M. Bickford
dbic6066  AT  uriacc.uri.edu
Department of English and Women's Studies Program
University of Rhode Island
315 Roosevelt Hall
Kingston, RI 02881

        Queries about the origins of the phrase "the personal is political"
have appeared on WMST-L with some regularity.  They have elicited a number
of responses.  I did a quick database search for the phrase in the WMST-L
archives stored on UMDD (only the last three years are stored at UMDD; the
earlier years are on InforM, as my message below explains).  Here is what
that search turned up.  Joan Korenman (korenman  AT  umbc2.umbc.edu)

        ***********************************************************

[PLEASE REPLY PRIVATELY since this question is bound to draw zillions of
answers. I will post the answer to the list :   PEGUEROS  AT  uriacc.uri.edu]

I am looking for the source of the quote, "The personal is political."
I believe that Robin Morgan said it but I don't know when or in what context,
or, in fact, if it was hers. Thanks.

Rosie

Rosa Maria Pegueros                  pegueros  AT  uriacc.uri.edu
University of Rhode Island
Department of History                
80 Upper College Road,  Suite 3       
Kingston, RI 02881
		++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

i think margaret sanger said it first "the personal is political"
		 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

>i think margaret sanger said it first "the personal is political"

I THOUGHT IT WAS CAROL STAINCH IN 1972????
		 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I thought it was Katie Sarachild...

Dr. Renee Heberle, heberlrj  AT  potsdam.edu
Politics Department/Women's Studies Program
309a Satterlee Hall
SUNY Potsdam
Potsdam, NY  13676
		++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In Maggie Humm s "The dictionary or Feminist Theory" Columbus, Ohio Univ.
Press, (second edition)1995 : "A fhrase first coined by Carol Hanisch in
Notes from the second year (1970)......"
Monica Tarducci
billyr  AT  mbox.servicenet.com.ar
		++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

C. Wright Mills back in the 1950's wrote about the promise of sociology being
the ability to take personal troubles/problems and to locate them in the
context of public/political issues.  Not sure this is the basis of this
contemporary feminist slogan and theoretical insight, but it assuredly is a
related outlook.

Best wishes,

Steven Schacht
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology
Montana State University

I believe that C.Wright Mills coined the term "the personal is political",
probably in his book, __The Sociological Imagination___ in the 1950's.

Susan M. Belcher
Lecturer, Sociology and Women's Studies
Athabasca University
P.O. Box 11411
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada T5J 3K6

Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

c.wright mills does NOT use the phrase "the personal is political" in _the
sociological imagination_ that's carol hanisch's, as several people have
noted.  Mills, does, however, introduce the concept when he writes about the
intersection of public issues and personal problems, of personal biography
and history. Clearly the ideas that gave rise to the "personal is political"
predate feminism, but feminism crystallized these concepts as they referred
to the particular oppression of women.

By the way, Mills _The Sociological Imagination_ is, despite some dated
language, probably still the best statement of the sociological project that
I know of. br


Benita Roth, Ph.D.
Dept of Sociology,UCLA
roth  AT  ucla.edu

"Anatomy, like the bubonic plague, is history, not destiny."
            -- Chesler, _Women & Madness_

At 10:32 AM 2/7/98 -0700, you wrote:
>I believe that C.Wright Mills coined the term "the personal is political",
>probably in his book, __The Sociological Imagination___ in the 1950's.

A similar idea was in C. Wright Mills when he spoke of private problems
becoming public issues, as well as his discussion of the intersection of
biography and history. Mills work on vocabulary of motives is also relevant,
cinece we learned that what was called our "penis envy" was in fact our
anger at our inequality.  I have always maintained that a feminist analysis
must be a sociological analysis.  Admittedly I may be prejudiced.

Best, Pauline B. Bart  pbart  AT  UCLA.EDU

Dear Women,

As a member of what I call "The First Wave of the Second Wave" we never
called ourselves "cultural feminists".  That term has been applied to us
pejoratively by people recently.  We were always concerned with race and
class, as a quick look at the table of contents of Sisterhood is Powerful by
Morgan will show.

best, Pauline Bart pbart

Hello all,

While not saying "The personal is political" specifically, Claudia Jones,
in her 1949 essay "An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro
Woman!" (originally published in "Political Affiars", re-published in
"Words of Fire: An Antohology if African American Feminist Thought," New
York: The New Press, 1995) wrote;

"This means ridding ourselves of the position which sometimes finds certain
progressives and Communists fighting on the economic and political issues
facing Negro people, but 'drawing the line' when it comes to social
intercourse or inter-marriage.  To place the question as a 'personal' and
not a political matter, when such questions arise, is to be guilty of the
worst kind of Social-Democratic, bourgeois-liberal thinking as regards the
Negro question in American life; it is to be guilty of imbibing the
poisonous white-chauvinist 'theories' of a Bilbo or Rankin." (1995, p:117)

This passage sugests to me that the concept did not pre-date (is pre-date
the correct term?) feminism, as suggested in the discussion concerning C.
Wright Mills' ideas, but that the concept has been with us far longer.

kathryn troester
troes001  AT  metvax.metro.msus.edu

the post by kathryn troester makes an excellent point, and I would like to
correct myself -- in fact the idea that on some level the personal is
political is part and parcel of feminist and socialist women's activism --
think of Emma Goldman.  In thinking of mills, I was trying to come up with a
source that second wave activists would have been more directly influenced
by, but I certainly did not mean to imply that it all started with mills. br

Benita Roth, Ph.D.
Dept of Sociology,UCLA
roth  AT  ucla.edu

> I was wondering if someone on this list could help me with the
> original source of the radical feminist phrase 'the personal is
> political.'
> Thanks
> Carole <c.moschetti  AT  politics.unimelb.edu.au>

   "The Personal is Political" is from the New Left, a slogan of the old
Students for a Democratic Society.  It dates back to at least 1964, and it
might have been inspired by C. Wright Mill's 1959 book, "The Sociological
Imagination."

   I notice that you are from Australia, so you may not recognize these
terms.   Most of what I know about the SDS is from the 1988 book "Democracy
is in the Streets!:  From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago," by James
Miller (reprinted 1994) and the 1987 book "The Sixties:  Years of Hope, Days
of Rage," by Todd Gitlin.  Both are in print and recently reprinted.  Look
up books about the American New Left in the early 1960's and you may find
out who actually originated it, if anyone can say.

  Lastly, if anyone else is interested in the connection between the New
Left and Women's Liberation movement, please e-mail me.  Thank you.

Grant us Peace,
Hannah Miyamoto
UW-Green Bay, Senior
hsmiyamoto  AT  msn.com

I'm seeking the source of the quote "The personal is political." I know this
question has been discussed in the past, and I have read through the
discussion. I see that Maggie Humm's The Dictionary of Feminist Theory
attributes it to Carol Hanisch.

But somebody else suggested Hanisch might have had a predecessor--Margaret
Sanger. Can anybody locate that source?

Jennifer Lunden
jenniferlunden  AT  hotmail.com

In the recently published Yale Book of Quotations (Yale University Press), I
attempt to trace the origins of all famous quotations and sayings, paying
particular attention to those authored by women and those relating to feminism. 
For "the personal is political" I have the following:

The Personal Is Political.
     Carol Hanisch, Title of article, _Notes from the Second Year_ (1969)

In researching The Yale Book of Quotations I did not find any evidence of
Margaret Sanger preceding Hanisch.  If anyone has such evidence I would welcome
finding out the details.

Fred Shapiro
Editor
The Yale Book of Quotations (Yale University Press)

Greetings!

As per google result "The personal is political":

article by Carol Hanish in

http://scholar.alexanderstreet.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=2259

"I'd like to clarify for the record that I did not give the paper its title,
"The Personal Is Political." As far as I know, that was done by Notes from
the Second Year editors Shulie Firestone and Anne Koedt after Kathie
Sarachild brought it to their attention as a possible paper to be printed in
that early collection."

[hope this clarifies the origin of the phrase]

Josefa Schriever-Baldoz
Univeristy of the Philippines Diliman

I have a book about abortion coming out, in which I quote Carol Hanisch and
came up with the following (with her) that is accurate.

Carol Hanisch, a founder of New York Radical Women and scribe of the
position paper that launched the phrase "the personal is political" into
the public consciousness, recalls her disappointment with Roe

I do recall, though, that Robin Morgan has said that she may have said it
first at a meeting. Isn't that in Sisterhood is Powerful?

To further complicate this: Also, I once said to Gloria Steinem that Carol
Hanisch had coined the phrase "the personal is political," and she said that
was like saying you coined the phrase "World War II."

<<To further complicate this: Also, I once said to Gloria Steinem that Carol
Hanisch had coined the phrase "the personal is political," and she said that
was like saying you coined the phrase "World War II.">> 


  First, doesn't the likely possibility that two editors (Shulie and Anne)
came up with the title rather indicate that the phrase, "The personal is
political" was, may one say, "floating in the air" in 1969, and before?
   Second, what if Robin was the first to "say" it and Carol was the first
to write something that Shulie and Anne entitled?  We should not venerate
the publication above inspiration, I think.

   The idea that one had to live one's views, take risks for them, and not
just hold them, is in the Weatherman manifesto (1969) (see below), the Port
Huron Statement (1962), Mississippi Summer (1964), Lunch-Counter Sit-ins and
Freedom Riders (1960-64), and other landmarks of the Civil Rights movement.
Really, doesn't Jesus keep urging that on his followers in the New Testament
(c. 100 A.D.?)?  Isn't that Phil Och's criticism in his song, "Love Me, I'm
a Liberal"? (c. 1966)

Ah, the people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
Now I can't understand how their minds work
What's the matter don't they watch Les Crain?
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal

   For example, in this passage of "You Don't Need a Weatherman to Know
which way the Wind Blows" (1969), published by the Revolutionary Youth
Movement (RYM) wing of Students for a Democratic Society, one finds this:

"The point of the revolutionary youth movement strategy is to move from a
predominant student elite base to more oppressed (less privileged)
working-class youth as a way of deepening and expanding the revolutionary
youth movement... But this should not be taken to mean that there is a magic
moment, after we reach a certain percentage of the working class, when
all of a sudden we become a working-class movement. We are already that if
we put forward internationalist proletarian politics." 

http://www.antiauthoritarian.net/sds_wuo/weather/weatherman_document.txt

Mark Rudd's retrospective on Weatherman (2004):
http://www.markrudd.com/weather-documentary/thinking-about-the-weather-under
ground-documentary/

   Admittedly, this is not a passage about hypocrisy, but it does claim that
the only way to start a revolution is to hold revolutionary beliefs, and
speak about revolution to people who are most ready for revolution (they
thought)


   I don't want to start a debate on sexism in the old radical 1960s
Left--to say nothing about the class hang-ups of the mostly ruling-class
Weathermen, but this passage--written by two women, including Bernadine
Dohrn, and nine men--could almost be in a feminist theory book:

  To become more relevant to the growing women's movement, SDS women should
begin to see as a primary responsibility the self-conscious organizing of
women... Women who are working and women who have families face male
supremacy continuously in their day-to-day lives; that will have to be the
starting point in their politicization.  Women will never be able to
undertake a full revolutionary role unless they break out of their woman's
role. So a crucial task for revolutionaries is the creation of forms of
organization in which women will be able to take on new and independent
roles. Women's self-defense groups will be a step toward these
organizational forms, as an effort to overcome women's isolation and build
revolutionary self-reliance.

  Of course, all those pretty words literally exploded in their faces March
6, 1970, and much earlier:

http://www.cwluherstory.org/CWLUArchive/damn.html
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/mother/
http://newyorkdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2007/10/bomb-factory.html

In Sisterhood,
Hannah Miyamoto
Univ. of Hawaii-Manoa
hsmiyamoto  AT  msn.com


P.S.:  Here is my 11/5/2007 review of the evolution of the New Left "from
Protest to Resistance."  I have the nuttiest second job: I'm editor of the
Commentary section of the student newspaper!  (Please click, it helps
indicate my writing is popular, or at least desired ;-) )