Whole Women Carologue

Guide courtesy of Margie Sved.

In 1973 a collective of triangle area women (to which Elizabeth Knowlton belonged) came together to create the Whole Women Carologue: A Guide to Resources for Women in North Carolina. The Whole Women Carologue emphasizes women’s liberation and covers all different topics, like health, athletics, children, long-living women, politics, women and the law, lesbians, skills, women’s voices, women’s studies, women’s places and includes a list of contacts by county. In the closing pages of the guide, they wrote that

“Our prime motivation in writing this book is that it will answer the requirements of many North Carolina women. We presently exist in isolation from one another because few viable opportunities for exchange are open. Most media are controlled by and directed toward men and do not being to serve the population of women. We hope that our publication will be a first step in establishing a community of women who have much to share with one another. Our certainty that such a sharing potential exists is a touchstone of our endeavor” (Whole Women Carologue 114).

As feminists who were very socially aware, the collective was forced to reconcile the homogeneity of their group, in terms of age, class and race–they were all white, middle class and in their mid 20s. They acknowledged their limitations as a homogeneous group, writing that “White middle-class people cannot pretend to comprehend other groups’ experiences, but we can relate to our common female experiences and try to represent some of the ways in which diverse women perceive them” (Whole Women Carologue115). Diana Press published 3,000 copies of the final guide in 1974. Each sold for $3. In the end, they wrote that “What happened was one of the most beautiful, inspiring, fatiguing, funny, tedious, meticulous, haphazard unfoldings we’ve ever seen. All of us doing everything and sometimes nothing and each of us developing new strengths and growing in old ones all the time” (Whole Women Carologue116).