Barefoot and Protesting
Fire Island’s Feminist Herstory
By Jeffrey Salzberger

The first bottle hits the surf with an inaudible splash. Its landing is followed by the cheers of an unknown number of women standing on a narrow strip of sand in Dunewood. A shower of bottles follows the initial launch, and this volley’s splashdown is met with an even greater fanfare.

This was the Bottle Action. It was described by a radical feminist writing about the event anonymously for The Fire Island News on August 15, 1970, as a “pure and simple lark, designed to get us in the water beyond the breakers.” Each bottle contained a message intended for The News in Ocean Beach. Unfortunately, according to the author, the tide brought them in at Atlantique, a short distance to the east, where the messages were read by a group of confused Islip teens, re-corked and sent back out to sea. What did these kids read that had them scratching their heads?

The messages were equally pointed and hilarious. One was a call to arms—“Female trout and bluefish, unite. Demonstrate at Flynn’s pier, Aug. 26.” Another flatly stated, “Marriage is less important than you think.” Still others contained references from the period like, “Christine Keeler is the mother of us all” and “Justice for Alice Crimmins.”

Christine Keeler’s early ‘60s affair with British Secretary of State for War John Profumo and its ramifications generated headlines. In 1965, Alice Crimmins was arrested in conjunction with the abduction and murder of her two children after a divorce from her husband. It is safe to say that these activists were tuned in to the world around them.

But the author’s favorite was locally inspired, reading, “Help, I’m a prisoner in Dunewood, trapped with my husband, 3 children, and 2 schnauzers.” The barrier island was at once a frontline of feminism in the ‘60s and ‘70s and a representation of the obstacles they faced.

There were many common island occurrences that got the author to thinking, and offered her a canvas on which to paint her portrait of modern feminism. She explores what feminism means to her. It has meant something different to everyone involved since the early stages of the movement, well before women’s suffrage in 1920, and well before it was even called feminism. Though the author’s descriptions show a clear connection to Fire Island, her ideas have universality and in many ways, are still applicable.

It had been only recently that she started “fighting back” against the “biology is destiny” crowd. And it may be no small coincidence that the author’s awakening came a short time after the 1963 publication of Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique, some of which may have been written in Friedan’s Fair Harbor home.

The anonymous author writes, “The arrival of the Friday evening Daddy boat at Seaview and Dunewood should be seen as sociological evidence of the oppression of women.” To her, feminism meant “watching with deep satisfaction (and no guilt) as your man arose from the table to wash the dishes—after the dinner was communally prepared.”

The idea that there is a communal nature to family dinner on Fire Island that does not perpetuate female subservience was also stated by politico, feminist and Saltairean Sarah Kovner, who co-founded the First Women’s Bank which was designed to give women access to funds. She said in a New York Times article in 1989, “It’s not isolated and it’s not tiring.”

Our anonymous author also came to the realization that the purpose of her island visits was to relax, not to catch a man. When she saw the “macho volleyballers in Davis Park and Fair Harbor,” she looked at them with pity, not anger. She opted to “put aside the skimpy bikini,” replacing it with a one-piece she could really swim in. “Getting her hair wet in the ocean” was no longer a bad thing. Upon seeing a “swinging single parading hopefully through the Ocean Beach strip,” she had the urge to “put a leaflet in her hand.”

In an incident resembling any happening today in OBP, our anonymous writer states that when an “ Ocean Bay Park cowboy” crashed her conversation saying something like, “Hey, chicks, where’s the action,” feminism meant “breaking into uncontrollable giggles,” and not attempting to impress him. The idea of feminism also meant not comparing herself to any other woman in a bathing suit, trying to decide if she still “looked niftiest,” and no matter what, it meant not trading her position as an individual and radical for “all the clams in the Great South Bay.”

The article on the Bottle Action came in the wake of Bella Abzug’s island visit, where she stumped successfully. Abzug was an attorney, a feminist and a crusader for oppressed peoples everywhere. She was active in the ACLU, was the national legislative director of Women Strike for Peace, and she founded the Dump Johnson movement in New York. In 1970, Abzug was running for U.S. Congress, and would end up serving three terms. In her interview with The Fire Island News, she stated her intentions as a representative from New York City. She told reporter Tadea Dufault that not only was she against the war in Vietnam, she also realized that women, hardly represented in Congress or the Senate, were suffering at the hands of the “old boy” system which supported an expensive military action. Inflation made groceries unaffordable. Daycare, she said, was almost non-existent in places of employment, even though 40 percent of women were in the work force. Women were being ignored on important issues, and Abzug was out to change that, using Fire Island as one of her bases of mobilization. Her take was that “women belong in the House…and the Senate.”

That same year there was a house in Seaview occupied by attorney and feminist Flo Kennedy, and National Organization for Women’s New York chapter president, Grace Atkinson, who changed her name to Ti-Grace. Feminist author and advocate for social justice, Letty Cottin Pogrebin took over as cantor for the Fire Island Synagogue in Seaview during 1970, and started Synagogue services in the Catholic Church in Saltaire, where she still resides with her equally accomplished daughters. Feminist Gretchen Cryer, who was half of the first female composer-lyricist team with Nancy Ford, also lived in Saltaire until she recently sold her beach home.

Bella Abzug returned to the island again in 1975 as she attempted to get sexual orientation added onto the 1964 Civil Rights Act. She would return time and again as she campaigned for U.S. Senate, New York City Mayor, and again for the U.S. House of Representatives in the late ‘70s, focusing on feminism, as the government became more conservative and attempted to strip women of the rights she had helped them win.

In 1983 and 1984, Betty Friedan helped organize fundraisers at her Fair Harbor home for Vice Presidential hopeful Geraldine Ferraro. Ferraro herself still lives in her Saltaire home and continues to be active in the feminist movement. More recently, Hillary Clinton has successfully gotten funds, previously cut by the Bush Administration, allocated for the Army Corps of Engineers’ beach restoration plan here on Fire Island. She is at the fore when it comes to advocating for parity between men and women.

Laura Handman, First Amendment rights crusader and outspoken feminist, lived in Saltaire until the late ‘90s. She never pulled a knife from a cowboy boot to illustrate a point, unlike her husband, Harold Ickes, who was Bill Clinton’s first term Deputy Chief of Staff. That incident occurred at a Fire Island social gathering by the way, and might do well to establish certain boundaries between the sexes. One cannot imagine what point he could have been trying to illustrate.

The ideas and philosophies that comprise feminism are always changing, always different to everyone involved. Fire Island has not only been called home to many prominent feminists, it has been a staging area—for their writing, speaking, and overall expression. When one considers the overarching family atmosphere of the island, and the weight the definition of family carries in feminist thought, it comes as no surprise that feminism flourished here. It is best to end on the words from one of the bottles floated out to sea near Dunewood on that hot August day, words that were meant to inspire confidence and solidarity: “I have never met a truly confident woman. Women’s Liberation will change that.” Our anonymous author’s parting words— “It will.”