When We Were Free to Be: Looking Back at a Children’s Classic and the Difference It Made

“Little Women’s Libbers” and “Free to Be Kids”: Children and the Struggle for Gender Equality in the United States

92 “Little Women’s Libbers” and “Free to Be Kids” Children and the Struggle for Gender Equality in the United States Lori Rotskoff In May 1973, Randi Lewis, a fifth-grade girl from Peoria, Illinois, wrote a letter to the editors of Ms., the first popular, unambiguously feminist magazine published in the United States.1 While her mother was the household’s official subscriber, Randi also looked forward to the magazine’s monthly delivery. Although Randi lived far from the Ms. headquarters in New York City, she believed that the magazine’s creators would understand some of her deepest concerns.“To the Editor,” she wrote, I’m writing to you to express my feelings to somebody who understands. At school. When ever we want to play kickball or baceball the boys always say girls can’t pitch or girls can’t catch. When we play kickball they always have to make some smart remark like look at those terrible outfielders. When ever there is a box or something like that the teacher always picks a boy to take it down to the office. My mom got me into all this equal rights. I believe in it, too. . . . Even though I’m eleven I still believe in equal rights.2 In her letter, Randi unburdened her frustration over social injustices she perceived at recess and in the classroom. Her expression of allegiance to liberal feminism—what she called “all this equal rights”— was striking in its simplicity: “I believe in it, too.” Perhaps Randi doubted whether most adults would take a child of her age seriously as a thoughtful supporter of sexual equality. But in her act of correspondence , she assumed that the Ms. editors, at least, would value her ideas. Children and the Struggle for Gender Equality 93 Randi Lewis was among thousands of children who expressed a commitment to sexual equality or communicated with national feminist leaders during this time—the same years when Free to Be . . . You and Me first hit record stores, bookshelves, and television screens across the country. This was also the moment when Ms. became the leading voice of popular feminism, boasting a circulation of nearly five hundred thousand and a readership of three million by mid-decade.3 Every month, hundreds of readers wrote letters to the magazine, and some of those correspondents, like Randi Lewis, were school-aged children. I first encountered Randi’s letter while working in the archives. My research project had sent me searching for documents revealing how social activists, professional experts, and ordinary mothers created a new mode of nonsexist child rearing during the 1970s. Approaching my subject from the vantage point of women’s history, I had simply presumed to find sources composed by adults with vested interests in childhood matters. “Equal Rights for Little People.” Children demonstrate in July 1976 outside the Democratic National Convention. Photograph by Bettye Lane; used with permission. 94 Lori Rotskoff What I didn’t expect, until I came across a thick file labeled “Kids,” was a cache of letters written by children. My first clue was the stationery : pastel pages adorned with rainbows, cards decorated with ladybug stickers, and that perennial staple of the 1970s classroom: newsprint, now yellowed, ruled with blue dotted lines. As I leafed through the kids’ letters—some penciled in basic print, some inked in confident cursive, and a few pecked out on the family typewriter— my mind raced as I realized the exciting implications they held for my project: Here were snapshots of children’s ideas and actions during the heyday of the women’s liberation movement. In this trove of children ’s voices, young people appeared not as figures of adult imaginations or targets of adult instructions but as historical actors in their own right.4 Perhaps these letters would reveal whether—and how— kids made a difference in the struggle for gender equality. In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised by the letters . I knew that the magazine’s founders believed that gender equality was for children, too. Ms. targeted young readers with its monthly Girls protesting about newspaper routes at the Long Island Press, October 1971. Photograph by Bettye Lane; used with permission. Children and the Struggle for Gender Equality 95 feature, “Stories for Free Children.” Free to Be . . . You and Me was by then a staple in many households, including my own. And given the impact of Title IX...