Known for her radical feminism and association with members of the Weather Underground Organization, Jane Alpert has always drawn controversy not only from the outside but also from the inside. Although she was never a member of the WUO or Students for a Democratic Society, Alpert nonetheless played an important role in WUO's development and shared her views of feminism with the Weatherwomen. Prior to WUO's development, Alpert first became involved in the radical politics upon attending Swarthmore College in 1967 and met her lover Sam Melville at her first demonstration. She first went underground after refusing to accept her parents' bailout for her arrest in the bombings. While hiding underground for four years, she worked closely with Weatherwomen, such as Bernardine Dohrn and Kathy Boudin, and helped conspire to overthrow the U.S. government. Along with the bombings of public buildings such as Chase Manhattan Bank, Alpert also wrote to the press of the WUO's further intentions. She addressed her famous manifesto to the Weatherwomen published in 1974 on Ms. Magazine titled "Mother Right: A New Feminist Theory." The manifesto drew criticism from the WUO through letters in response to Alpert.
Mother Right and its true meaning
edit"Mother Right" originated during Alpert's first year underground when she joined a consciousness-raising group that appealed to women of different backgrounds.[1] Bearing witness to their internal struggles, Alpert supported them in a way that she considered them capable of "asserting themselves in the face of male hostility".[1] In short, this manifesto specifically addressed Alpert's stance on feminism as a necessity to define oneself as a woman in a society that valued patriarchy. She wrote "Mother Right" because of her view on motherhood as "the only concrete expression of that potential that defines all women".[1] She asserted that although women share a universal role of a nurturing caregiver in the household, they also held as much power as men did. Her claim that biology determined the "essential difference between men and women" catalyzed her reason to encourage the Weatherwomen to separate themselves from their male counterparts and adopt a matriarchal perspective.[1]
Though "Mother Right" illustrated her strong separatist feminist views, Alpert inadvertently revealed a rather polarized view on men-women relationships in regards to the organization.