Claire Reed

Toughing It Out: From Silver Slippers to Combat Boots

Claire Reed

She was the pampered daughter of a wealthy manufacturer, then the bored wife of the man who took over the business, lost in suburbia, drifting through the days until she found politics. Claire Reed always believed in helping others, but it wasn't until she began working with Women Strike for Peace, an early antinuclear proliferation organization, that she saw she could actually change the world. She went on to work with one of the the icons of modern feminism, Bella Abzug, and with civil rights groups. Her story is the story of an era when women could, at last, shed the feminine mystique and become the woman they had buried inside themselves.