No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

by Rachel Louise Snyder

After a few years in Detroit, a group of women came to him and said they, too, wanted to organize. Some of them were the wives of men he’d organized in the past. The way he saw it, he’d help anyone who wanted to be helped. If you were ready to fight systemic prejudice or unfair labor conditions, if you were a justice warrior, he didn’t care who you were. The more bodies, the bigger the impact. The bigger the impact, the bigger the chances of change. But the men he worked with, it turned out, weren’t as egalitarian in their gender views. They were vehemently opposed to women organizing. It was 1975; women’s liberation was still in its infancy. As more women began to attend Sinclair’s community organizing events, some of the men Sinclair had already helped organize would complain about the women, and say women can’t be organized.