Lillian Rubin's Activism

Lillian Rubin’s life has revolved a great deal around activism. Before beginning her academic conquest in her late thirties, she led an active life. All of her activism does not pertain solely to the feminist movement, although she has done her fair share in this area.

During the fifties, she was an activist against McCarthy’s attack on civil liberties. While in Los Angeles, she became an organizer for a women’s pioneering organization. She also became involved in civil rights movements and in the helping of electing the fist district black congressman in the state of California. During the early sixties she also managed the campaigns of congressional candidates.

While doing her graduate study at Berkeley, Lillian was involved with many movements. A few of these movements included the Third World Strike, Free Speech Movement, the anti-war movement, the People’s Park, Kent State, Women’s liberation movement , and the bombing of Cambodia.

One of her most memorable moments of activism was when she was protesting in 1967 along side 68 women and 100 men in front of the Oakland Induction Center. They were protesting against the men who had just been drafted. The police soon began to whisk the protestors away to the local jailhouse. She was soon locked into a cell until the next morning when she pleaded no contest. She was then sentenced to three weeks of jail time in Santa Rita.

Lillian is grateful for the feminist movement and the women who have come before her time. She believes it shows collective action and what can be accomplished when women work together. A collective voice made it possible to tear down the barricades for the academy as well as the publishing market for women and what they had to say. The feminist movement has taught her, “how much gender, not poverty, actually determined the direction of my life” (Hochschild 1975, p. 241).

Through her activism, she has tested the theories from the classroom and applied them to the life outside of acamedics. She has also had realizations from such experiences that required her to evaluate old perspectives and develop new ideas.
She is now most involved in the anti-war and environmental awareness movements.


Sources: 1. Hochschild, Arlie R. Women and the Power to Change. University of Nevada P, 1994. 229-247

2. Rubin, Lillian. E-Mail interview. 26 Feb. 2007.