From strikes and protests in the Women’s Liberation Movement to the periodicals written while the Furies, and after disbanded their activism changed but they remained advocates for the feminist cause. Activism was an essential component of the Furies. Although for some of the women their lives and priorities changed. For others, their advocacy spread internationally. The legacy of the Furies and their activism is demonstrated through the continued works of its members.
Dr. Charlotte Bunch is currently a professor of gender and women’s studies at Rutgers’ University. In recent years she has been on various committees concerning the rights of women internationally, including the UN Secretary General’s International Advisory Committee for the General Assembly Report on Violence Against Women (which she served on in 2004-6) and she began working on UN Women Global Civil Society Advisory Board in 2013 and continues working on the board.1 Additionally, she is the author of several publications which discuss women’s rights nationally and internationally.2
Ginny Berson was a co-founder of Olivia Records in 1973. She worked in public radio and was vice president the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.3 She serves on the World Trust as outreach manager.4
Joan Biren directly following the Furies disbanded started Moonforce Media, a film distribution company. She published two photography books focusing on individuals of the LGBTQ community, those books were entitled Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians, and Making a Way: Lesbians Out Front.5 In 2003 she released her film about Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, two women who in the 1950s founded the Daughter of Bilitis which was a lesbian organization.6
While not all the women persisted in advocacy, but enough women did which exhibits the importance of activism in the ideology that dictated their lives in the 70s but also the passions they followed throughout their lives.
1 Charlotte Bunch, “CV,” updated 2015, https://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/docman/unknown/767-charlotte-bunch-cv-updated-2015/file, 1-4.
2 Charlotte Bunch, “CV,” 9-18.
3 “Ginny Berson,” Mount Holyoke College, https://www.mtholyoke.edu/175/gallery/ginny-berson.
4 “Ginny Berson,” World Trust, https://world-trust.org/ginny-berson/.
5 Kelly Rawoski, “Pride 2017: Joan E. Biren Opens Up Her Archive of Lesbian History,” Vogue, June 25, 2017.
6 Joan Biren, “Voices of Feminism Oral History Project,” interviewed by Kelly Anderson, Smith College, February 2004, audio tape 5, 31:40, https://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/vof/transcripts/Biren.pdf.