Radical Women (RW) is a socialist feminist grassroots activist organization affiliated with the Freedom Socialist Party. It has branches in Seattle, Washington, and Melbourne, Australia. History Radical Women emerged in Seattle from a "Free University" class on Women and Society conducted by Gloria Martin, a lifelong communist and civil rights champion. As a result of the class, Martin teamed up with Clara Fraser and Melba Windoffer (initiators of the Freedom Socialist Party) and Susan Stern (a prominent figure in the local Students for a Democratic Society) to launch Radical Women in 1967. In Socialist Feminism: The First Decade, 1966-76 Martin writes that the new group was formed to "demonstrate that women could act politically, learn and teach theory, administer an organization, develop indigenous leadership, and focus movement and community attention on the sorely neglected matter of women's rights—and that women could do this on their own." Radical Women participated heavily in the anti-Vietnam War mobilization, and has opposed subsequent military interventions initiated by Western countries. Members worked with African-American women from anti-poverty programs to initiate the abortion rights movement in Washington State with a historic march on the capitol in 1969. In the early 1970s, RW helped organize a strike and a union of low-paid employees (mostly female) at the University of Washington. After working closely with the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP), Radical Women and the party formally affiliated in 1973 on the basis of a shared socialist feminist program. Some of its early members, such as Lynda Schraufnagel, were employed by the FSP's newspaper, The Freedom Socialist, and also wrote for it. Many Radical Women members worked and organized in the nontraditional trades. At Seattle's public power company, Seattle City Light, Clara Fraser was recruited to craft and implement the country's first plan to train women as utility electricians. Three other members of Radical Women, Megan Cornish, Heidi Durham, and Teri Bach, participated in the program and went on to become some of the first women electricians in the country. Just weeks before the program began, however, Fraser participated in a walkout against new rules issued by City Light superintendent Gordon Vickery, which soured her relations with management. After their training, Cornish, Durham, and Bach were laid off in 1975 in an act seen largely as retaliatory against themselves and Fraser. The three women filed a lawsuit alleging discrimination on the basis of sex, and after a year a