Abby Rockefeller

Abigail Aldrich Rockefeller (born 1943) is an American ecologist, feminist, and member of the Rockefeller family. She is the eldest daughter of David Rockefeller and Margaret McGrath.

Feminism and left-wing politics

Abby Rockefeller attended the New England Conservatory of Music in the early 1960s, where she encountered teachers critical of social inequality in the United States. This experience led her to embrace Marxism, the politics of Fidel Castro and ultimately radical feminism. She joined the Boston-area female liberation movement led by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, which subsequently changed its name to Cell 16. Along with Betsy Warrior, Dana Densmore, Jayne West and others they published ground-breaking feminist analyses.

Rockefeller and Jayne West joined other members of Cell 16 in promoting self-defense for women and became skilled in karate. They set up a Tae Kwon Do studio in Boston and taught hundreds of women who, in turn, taught other women, becoming pioneers in self-defense for women. This effort was initiated in response to the frequent, if unremarked, street harassment and sexual assaults women were subjected to during this era. After reading the literature of Cell 16, especially the initial "Journals of Female Liberation", Abby Rockefeller decided to join them. One of the articles she contributed to the Journals of Female Liberation was Sex: The Basis of Sexism, which posited male desire to access and control female sexuality for their own ends as a driving force in sexism. After being infiltrated by Trotskyites and F.B.I. agents, Cell 16 disassociated from its splinter group Female Liberation, which was providing a front for Trotskyist recruiting of aspiring feminists.

In the 1970s Rockefeller turned attention to environmentalism, establishing the Clivus Multrum company to manufacture the composting toilet known by that name.