I am appalled [now] that women permit the passing of restrictive laws with obscene stipulations that rule their bodies. Many states forbid abortions and birth-control. Abortion clinics are fewer and fewer and remain in danger of violent attacks. Will women again be forced to have illegal abortions in filthy back rooms without anesthesia, as I did when I was nineteen? Why don’t women rise up against this? Vera Klement

In my new job teaching art at the University [of Chicago], I wore jeans and gym shoes, and I rejoiced in being able to move about with the freedom of a man. I threw away the contrivances of torture—metal, bone and rubber, the curlers that pressed against my scalp at night, threw out the items that spelled sexy woman in magazines—items that knead and mold us into forms meant to be more feminine, but that were actually there to limit our movement, our freedom. Out they went. Exhilaration! There was a profound shift in psychological and philosophical thinking—a revolution of the mind that questioned the age-old social hierarchies, the ancient patriarchal authority. A shift that questioned, finally, what it meant to be human. Vera Klement