Shane Snowdon is the 2022 recipient of the CSU Libraries’ Friedman Feminist Press Grant. She will deliver a presentation about her research on Sept. 22.
In a 1979 or 1980 letter to her father, Colorado State University student and feminist activist June Friedman expressed two different sentiments during the time she was living in.
“Dad, you may think that wonderful opportunities are now open to women and in some aspects this is true,” she wrote. “Nevertheless, this is still a patriarchal society and sexism is rampant. …We might have come a long way – but we have a long way to go.”
Friedman’s letter, which offers a glimpse into the mind and heart of a student activist around 1980, still resonates today. The letter is now part of the CSU Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections, along with a collection of second-wave feminism and lesbian works named in Friedman’s honor.
Feminists active in the 1970s and 1980s are disappearing now, and scholars like Shane Snowdon are remembering their voices and passing on their wisdom to a new generation.
Snowdon will present “U.S. Lesbian Feminism 1970-1985: A Critical Appreciation of a Vanishing World” and share her findings from rare materials in the Friedman Feminist Press Collection at 3 p.m. on Sept. 22 via Zoom. The public can sign up to attend the presentation.
Between 1970 and 1985, the world’s first self-declared lesbian community flourished in the U.S. — and had an outsize impact not only on feminism and LGBTQ+ liberation, but also on the country as a whole, in ways largely unrecognized, then and now.
Snowdon will bring that unique community vividly to life, discussing its achievements and joys, conflicts and mistakes. What did it contribute to feminism, queer theory, social justice and personal empowerment? How accurate are portrayals of it as dogmatic, short-sighted and far from diverse? As its members disappear, their revolutionary writing and activism — very much intertwined — deserve both appreciative and critical evaluation.
Snowdon is a visiting scientist at Harvard School of Public Health and the recipient of the CSU Libraries’ Friedman Feminist Press Grant in 2022.
About Shane Snowdon
Shane Snowdon came out at 17 into the heady early years of U.S. lesbian feminism. Inspired and energized, she became editor of the country’s largest feminist newspaper, then headed two national women’s health groups, an urban domestic violence agency and a university women’s center (as well as an environmental justice organization and an agency providing support and training to men just freed from prison).
In recent years, she has focused on LGBTQ+ advocacy in the following ways:
- At the University of California, she was founding director of the Center for LGBTQ Health & Equity and co-founder of the Center for Excellence in Transgender Health.
- At the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, she was founding director of a national LGBTQ+ health and aging program.
- She is currently a visiting scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health and a lecturer at George Washington University’s School of Public Health.
- She also recently completed fellowships at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center and the Five Colleges Women’s Studies Research Center, and has published widely on feminist and LGBTQ+ topics.
How to watch the presentation
Who: Shane Snowdon, visiting scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health, lecturer at George Washington University’s School of Public Health and LGBTQ+ advocate.
What: A presentation on her work with the Friedman Feminist Press Collection housed at the Morgan Library.
When: Thursday, Sept. 22, from 3-4:15 p.m.
Where: Zoom.
