For more than 50 years, Laura X’s house in north Berkeley with a sweeping bay view was a hub for social protest movements.
In the 1960s, after protesting for the Free Speech Movement and marching through the streets of Berkeley in support of women’s liberation, Laura started accumulating pamphlets, manifestos, posters and newspapers from the early days of feminism. The collection became so voluminous it morphed into the Women’s History Research Center, with more than a million pieces of paper. Now microfilm of those archives is spread in libraries around the world.
In 1978, Laura began crusading to make marital rape, then only outlawed in five states, a crime. Galvanized by the trial in Oregon of John Rideout, who was charged but acquitted of raping his wife, Greta, Laura created the The National Clearing House on Marital and Date Rape. She successfully lobbied to get California to criminalize spousal rape in 1979, and then spent the next 15 years helping to coordinate 45 other state campaigns. By 1993, all 50 states had outlawed it…