GINTRODUCTION 'fo f)URSELVE~ Ann Wakefield as told to by Ann Wakefield, Phoebe Walmsley, Suzanne Pharr, Kris Pott- horst, and Veronica Mull in This was written so that we would We hod these things in common: we hove the opportunity to tell other women rejected the options of living alone or in how we formed the women's collective we o couple relationship, we all felt the need ore now living in, the various practical for a feminist supportive base, and we ell problems we come across, and the solu- respected and Iiked each other. A few tions we discovered. It is by no means sketchy gu idelines were decided upon-- moved in. We learned fast that four is meant as a gu idebook to collective living, we were each to bove our own bedroom cozy, but five is a :.ollective. Rest rvc - but as on introduction to one, and as far (a ' room of one's own' is not to be turing our newly designed patterns around as we know the only, women's collective slighted, even under the most ideal living five made us reth ink some doily living now functioning in New Orleans. conditions). We would not have children practices. living in the collective, since none of us For one thing, the chores. We hod living in a women's collective is hod ever had o child, ond we all felt in- dec ided to hove our 'required' communal something else. Something else than capable of coping with that dimension just meals at dinner t ime, tv\onday through living 'at home', be it with parents, yet. We wonted one definite communal Thursday, leaving the weekends open. husband, lover or roommates. To under- meal a day, and we were to shore the With just four of us, t his four- da y week stand the d ifference between living with expenses and chores evenly. was very convenient --each of us hod to female roommates and living in o women's cook and wash on ly once a week. With collect ive, one must understand the It did't take too long to get these five, we hod to rest rvcture t he arrange- difference bet ween girlfriends and things straight -- it took a bit longer to ment, keeping the four day system, but ' sisters' . For the woman who is serious find a suitable house. We hod to match adding more chores to the list. Our about reassessing her identity as a human up the right size house {we really wanted clean-when- you - want- to method was being and wanting to increase her involve- at least 6 women in our collective, but it not exactly working. Needless to say, ment with the Women's Movement beyond proved to be impossible), the right such o system hos t he woman with the the purely intellectual stage, a women's landlord/lady {not everyone respects the lowest filth threshold doing all the house- collect ive offe:"S a good environment. fact that so many women went to Iive together), t he right rent, and the right work, causing feel ings of exploitation on one hand and g.1ilt on the other. neighborhood (we wonted to live uptown with handy access to busses and street- Another problem was money. The f ive cars). of us represented o salary range from After hunting for weeks, we finally did 5200 a m~mth to $600 (net). It was there- find o house, and we all signed the lease. fore inequitable to divide the expenses This turned out to be O'Wise thing to do. equally among us. We found that if we Verbal agreements are not contractual when each contributed 25% of our monthly it comes to renting. If or:ly one of us hod income, we would be able to pay for signed the lease at the beginning, the rent, food, heat, util it ies, and phone rest of us would end up without a lease if bi lls. By taking turns each month The ideo of our collective formed in the that one person should ever move. And handling the bill - pay ing and food shop- head of one women lost spring, was dis- without a lease the landlord/ lady has no ping, we ore ol l becoming more cussed with her roommate throughout the obl igation regor~i"l~ term of stay. experienced in the managing of finances. summer, end wos developed, verbalized, We, as women, hove been semi - or and planned along with two more of us in The first few weeks in our collective completely economically dependent on the fall. Each of us was searching for a home were exhausting and stimulating ones. others long enough. For two of us in our non-sexist, responsible, end free living Besides all the normal hassles of moving, collective, this was our first experience relationship. And, very important, we were getting the water turn~d on, phones in handling money. And we ore, by the all committed to living our feminist pol i- installed, locksonthedoor, etc., we also tics. One of us was living with her par- had to start from scratch on building our ents, with all the dependence and protec- more non-tangible environment. We had t ion we know that means. She wonted to no history of collect ive living, no do' s 'make it on her own' economically, pol i- ond don'ts. We hod nothing but ourselves tically, and socially, but not in marriage or .1 our ideas of how we wonted to live or in a one-to- one lover relat ionship. A- our lives. No roles to play, no ingra ined nother one of us hod recently returned to power expectations, no fairy tales to make her mother's house after o long enough suc- come true. Collective decision-making cessful marriage ---successful in that it sessions helped us deai with ourselves in hod not crippled her completely. The th ird a group living situation, and allowed us and fourth were roommates, bot h very much to draw our support end strength from each involved in local women's movement acti- other. The beginning weeks were thera- vities and both d issatisfied (or rather limited) peutic ones for all of us, and when they by the roommate set-up. The event ual fifth were over, we hod o supportive, learning /}~ came to us after having been attacked by a environment in which we were ab le to ~r----__J= live. way, doing o marvelous job. By planning rapist in her front yard one Sunday morning a t 10:30. Thanks to o lot of courage end a our meals and shopping responsibly, our We hod just been in our fNr