That well-worn feminist slogan "the personal is political" has taken on a new, exclusive meaning in the past several years. The personal, it seems, is all that's political anymore. Feminism--on college campuses, in the media and even in Washington--has become overwhelmingly personal at the expense of political action. While the economic chasm between rich and poor widens, why have many feminist sources repeatedly trumpeted Monica and masturbation, confessionals, Kegel exercises and Courtney Love?

The one big feminist political issue of the '90s was abortion. Feminists have obsessed over Roe v. Wade and championed Clinton and Gore for defending the right to choose. But at the same time, most women in this country have watched their ability to obtain an abortion disappear. As Miranda Kennedy points out in "Access Denied," 85 percent of counties nationwide have no abortion provider. It's still true that women with money can always access abortion, but women with less cannot.

From health care to the workplace, one important question has been lost: What about women who still lack the basic rights middle- and upper-class women now take for granted? In this issue, In These Times looks at a few of the problems facing those left behind in the feminist revolution. As Barbara Ehrenreich wrote last year in these pages, "While middle-class women gained MBAs, working-class women won the right to not be called 'honey'--and not a whole lot more than that."

It's time to move on to a "fourth wave" of feminism. It's goal should be to close the class gap and extend feminism's gains to all women. Old-time "women's lib" feminists and my generation's riot grrrls need to get busy and get radical. Instead of sticking up for politicians, we need to get in their faces and demand greater economic equality and, in turn, greater freedom for all women.

Kristin Kolb-Angelbeck

Gloria Johnson knew she had multiple sclerosis when she entered the maximum-security Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla to serve a 35-month sentence for embezzlement in 1995. She had been diagnosed with the degenerative disease in 1979, and she knew what medications and care she needed to keep her condition in check.

But in prison, not only was Johnson denied the medicine she needed, but guards and

JANET BLACKMON MORGAN

administrators were dismissive of her requests and questioned whether she even had MS. Lacking the necessary treatments and suffering the same poor nutrition and hygiene conditions that affect almost all women in prison, her condition drastically worsened. Johnson became a quadriplegic, unable to move her arms or legs, and she needed constant care. For the last 18 months of her sentence, she sat in her cell wearing a diaper 24 hours a day; she was brought to the toilet only once a day. She bathed "when they felt like it" and brushed her teeth "when they had time."

"They won't give you the medicine or the tests you need," says Johnson, 46, who now lives in San Diego and collects disability payments. "They have the attitude that you're a prisoner so you don't deserve anything. They had me on so many meds I was nodding off all the time, but they wouldn't give me betaseron." After her release, Johnson resumed her treatment. "Within nine months I was getting better," she says. "I could move my arms again. It was the prison that caused me to become a quadriplegic."

Cynthia Martin had a similar experience at Central California Women's Facility. She was convicted of arson after being caught in a fire in a house her boyfriend was rehabbing. Martin entered prison with second- and third-degree burns covering 54 percent of her body. Prison medics and guards denied Martin lotion for her burns. Her body was covered with pressure garments she needed to wear 23 hours a day, and she wasn't given new ones during the three years she was in prison."Imagine the worst sunburn you could think of, multiply that by 10, and think of not being able to put lotion on," says Martin, 52. "When I finally would get some lotion, it would run out in a few days, and I'd have to fight for months to get more. I even had my family sending me lotion and oils, and they would return the packages without letting me get them."

As bad as her care was, Martin says she witnessed even worse. "I saw guards kicking people having seizures, or standing by and letting them writhe on the ground, breaking their teeth," she says. "When other inmates tried to help, they would push them away. I saw a girl go to the doctor with heart problems, and he told her to take Motrin and go to bed. By morning she had died of a heart attack."

The abysmal care received by Johnson and Martin is typical. While many doctors and health advocates say the health care prisoners receive is substandard, incarcerated women face far worse situations than men. "Historically women in the United States have been treated as second-class citizens to men, and prison is no different," says Barbara Echols, executive director of the Chicago-based Prison Action Committee, which recently released a three-year study detailing the failings of health care in Illinois prisons. "Research has indicated that imprisoned males receive woefully inadequate and substandard medical care. The health care received by female prisoners is even worse, despite the fact that women have more numerous and more unique health care needs."