“This is the first action we’ve organized,” related Karina Garcia, a press officer for WORD. The march kicked off at Times Square at 1 pm with over a hundred people participating, around a quarter of the crowd male. “Women have been treated like bargaining chips, particularly by the Democratic Party. Politicians seem to think that they can trade off our rights.”

Ms. Garcia was referring to the incident last summer when President Obama told the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, “I'll give you abortion in D.C.” to reach a budget compromise. This means that low-income women in the District of Columbia will be prevented from receiving Medicaid assistance offered by the D.C. government for abortion procedures.

On August 24, we bonded over dinner with Radical Women and their leader, Anne Slater. Radical Women is a socialist, feminist organization dedicated to achieving the full equality of women. It was formed in Seattle in 1967 and has since expanded into an international organization. The dinner was held at the Black Women’s Blueprint in Brooklyn, at the table where Ms. Coretta Scott-King, Rosa Parks and other Civil Rights activists communed to bring about change. This served as a reminder that the battle for suffrage came directly out of the battle against slavery.

“Right now, we are facing an attack on women’s rights,” Ms. Slater announced to the hushed room. “The media are calling it the War on Women. Over the last two years, state legislators have passed 164 laws restricting women’s rights.” Ms. Slater is visiting NYC to support the Durham-Lopez Freedom Socialist presidential campaign, which prioritizes survival issues facing women, LGBT communities, people of color and immigrants.

The Observer endeavored to speak to three pioneering women about the importance of campaigning for women’s rights. Activist Shelby Knox, who starred in “The Education of Shelby Knox,” documenting her campaign for comprehensive sex education in the high schools of Lubbock, Texas, told us why the documentary filmmakers had reached out to her.

“We had already made headlines in Lubbock with our campaign,” Ms. Knox recounted. “In the Washington Post a reporter wrote:- ‘There’s nothing to do in Lubbock except have sex, says 15 year old virginity pledger, Shelby Knox.’ My parents and grandmother were thrilled.”

Unfortunately, despite arduous campaigning, Ms. Knox did not succeed in changing the law.

“There is still an abstinence only policy,” she admitted. But the undaunted crusader has not stopped campaigning since then. Ms. Knox is now the Director of Organizing, Women’s Rights for Change.org and recently helped 14-year-old Julia Bluhm convince Seventeen magazine to make a pledge not to photoshop and to show diverse ranges of beauty in their pages.

For Ms. Knox, the dwindling support for the Feminist movement may be the result of poor education in schools concerning women’s struggle for equality.

“We are not really taught the history of women, both our struggle for our rights and also the history of what women contribute to the world,” she explained. “I think it’s very important that we have a day that we sit down and remember that history.”

“Any social reform takes about a century to really seep into society,” Ms. Knox replied when we asked how long she thinks it will take to reach full equality. “In this country we really do see unfortunately the birth of women’s rights in the 1960s so I would say, we’re into that century about 50 years. And I don’t know if in 50 years we’ll be completely equal but hopefully we’ll at least be having the right conversations.”

In Bryant Park, the Observer had lunch with Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of The Raunch Culture (2005), which criticized the highly sexualized American culture where women objectify each other and themselves, and where female sexuality is about performance rather than pleasure. Coincidentally, we were sitting next to a couple engaging in an enthusiastic game of tonsil tennis.

“They’re really fond of each other. They like each other a lot,” Ms. Levy commented. Tearing our eyes away from the spectacle, we asked how she had reacted to Republican Todd Akin’s infamous comments last week about “legitimate rape.”

“There are plenty of people who don’t have any sense of how the female body works and who don’t believe in science. I mean it’s the same minds that bring you Creationism,” she replied, unsurprised by his gaffe. “It’s a fundamental philosophical difference and you either think abortion is murder or you don’t… and if you don’t, then you don’t think people should be imposing their religious views on your body.”

For Ms. Levy, the public reaction to Mr. Akin’s comments proves that there is still an enduring Feminist conscience.

“People are in a genuine froth about that Akin quote,” she added. “I think it’s going to play a big part in the next election. The War on Women is sticking. People do care about that.”

In Female Chauvinist Pigs Ms. Levy hammered the point home that gender is constructed rather than innate, so we asked what she thought about campaigns such as Pinkstinks, which targets products and media to undo the “pinkification” of girlhood and the gender stereotyping of children’s toys.

“I don’t think the solution to fixing our world is to tell your daughter she can’t wear a tutu and be a ballerina if that’s what she wants,” Ms. Levy replied. “I think the point is to make it clear that there are other options.”

“The other thing that is really important is that you don’t want to be saying “pretty” all the time,” she added. “You don’t want to be drilling into a little female person from the minute she’s born that that’s her value. I think that to me is more something I would be fixated on as a parent than pink and blue, and dolls versus trucks, because a lot of the time it seems like resistance is futile.”

After coffee with Ms. Knox and lunch with Ms. Levy, the Observer finally managed to corner lawyer, professor and political commentator for Fox News, Susan Estrich. She bluntly declared that she would not be celebrating Women’s Equality Day.

“I think what I’d really celebrate is when we have Men’s Equality Day. The idea that we still have to have a Women’s Equality Day, it just suggests that we’re not even close,” Ms. Estrich replied. “It’s like every day we have Men’s Equality Day and then one day we pick out a day and say this is Women’s Equality Day.”

Mr. Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape” enraged Ms. Estrich who not only was a rape victim herself, but also published a book called Real Rape dealing with the legal and social issues surrounding the cataloguing of rape cases.

“The whole point of the book was that you didn’t have to be raped by a stranger in an alley, which I was, to be really raped,” Ms. Estrich told us. “I wrote that book in 1986, and what’s really depressing is to be making the same point in 2012. The problem is that you can change the words of the law but unless the public understanding, the public and prosecutor’s perception changes, having a better-worded statue doesn’t get you necessarily a different result.”

For Ms. Estrich, the “hook-up culture” of no-strings-attached sex, often under the influence of alcohol, unfortunately makes it much more difficult to prove a rape case.

“It can look in a lot of cases like a man is taking advantage of an inebriated woman. She is a state in which it may look like she can consent, but she really shouldn’t be held capable of giving consent,” stated Ms. Estrich. “I used to joke, only half in jest, that since everyone should be using condoms anyway to protect themselves, the condom container should have a space for two initials, and you should initial the condom the way you would for any other contract or agreement to show that you’re doing this voluntarily. And people would laugh, because it was, I quote, unromantic. I mean what’s so romantic about a woman who can’t see straight?”

When we asked all three interviewees what was the most critical issue for women since getting the vote, the control over one’s body was considered to be of the utmost importance.

“Until women have control over their reproductive freedom, they are not going to have full control over their lives,” reiterated Ms. Estrich. “We have won the battle in the courts but lost the war in many states and communities, because there is no access to abortion, or that access to abortion is so laden with punishment that many women are effectively denied safe, free access to abortion.”

Lieberman. (Jessica Shiraz)

“Turn around. Don’t move. I want to show you something.” The Observer was standing in horror film writer/director Jeff Lieberman’s office. Relics from film sets poked out of the wooden shelves, smiling photos of A-listers and even Bob Dylan peppered the walls, and one Emmy Award rested precariously on a ledge.

Then, without warning, a worm—the last surviving worm—from the film Squirm was flung at our head.

“Everything’s normal [at home], except my office,” Mr. Lieberman said through a boyish grin. Welcome to Tarrytown: thick with blue mist rolling out from the Hudson River, it’s the historic village that inspired the legend of the Headless Horseman.

It’s no mere coincidence that Mr. Lieberman decided to drop anchor here.

Mr. Lieberman’s quirky and inventive films, in line with his idiosyncratic personality and imaginative way with words, have newly acquired a cult status with younger fans. When he gave a talk in Switzerland, to his great surprise, most of the attendees wouldn’t have been born when his first movie, Squirm, was made.

“If a Rumpelstiltskin sort of figure said you’ll be speaking about Squirm to a packed audience of people not born yet in 37 years time, I’d have said, ‘What are you smoking, and where can I get some?’”

One of the older Swiss fans, a man in his 40s with long hair, was even sporting “a tattoo from his wrist to his bicep” with the original Squirm logo inked in. We asked Mr. Lieberman if he had been flattered by this bodily homage. He shook his head fervently.

“It’s so wrong on so many levels.”

It was Mr. Lieberman’s cult status as a horror film director that compelled David Savage of Cinema Retro magazine to reach out to him.

“Horror movies have taken center-stage in contemporary pop culture, so it's natural to look back at the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of the genre and the filmmakers who had such a great influence on today's movies and moviemakers,” explained Mr. Lieberman.

Starting tomorrow, Cinema Retro is paying tribute to Mr. Lieberman at the Anthology Film Archives, screening his first three movies—Squirm (1976), Blue Sunshine (1978) and Just Before Dawn (1981)—from August 17 to 19.

Mr. Lieberman’s movies perhaps appeal to younger generations thanks to their originality, especially considering how much generic zombie and vampire rubbish is swamping the world of cinema. In Squirm, we are presented with an unlikely monster: worms.

“Squirm is based on a scientific reality,” insisted Mr. Lieberman. “Electricity really does make worms shoot out of the ground. We did it as kids—I magnified the source idea times ridiculous.”

Mr. Lieberman knew he had succeeded when one of the crew—“this guy we called Mango, he was about 300 pounds”—staggered off to throw up after filming one ghastly scene. “If Mango’s puking, we’re gonna have a hit movie.”

The second film, Blue Sunshine, a satirical time capsule of the ’70s hysteria surrounding drugs, will engage a wider audience, not merely horror fanatics.

“It pokes fun at the older generation in the ’70s fearful of their kids taking drugs,” said Mr. Lieberman. The effects of a new form of LSD suddenly kick in 10 years later, causing its users to lose their hair and become homicidal maniacs. Upon its release, several critics surprisingly thought that the movie was based on scientific truth, and one reviewer at The New York Post even believed the movie “chronicled” a true event. Parents and critics alike labeled the movie “a cautionary tale.”

“You’re talking about a generation that’s defined by long hair. So I thought to myself, what’s the opposite of that?” Each psychopath whips off his or her hair—or has it yanked off—in dramatic fashion before embarking on their rampages. Mr. Lieberman began to hum the tune to a Neil Young song. (“Almost cut my hair/ It happened just the other day …”)

The last of the three, Just Before Dawn, is Mr Lieberman’s favorite. The film's final struggle between protagonist Connie and her persecutor, with her iconic punch, a kind of reverse rape, is a must-see for anyone interested in filmmaking. It will chill you to the bone without resorting to the gory splattering of blood and guts.

A more recent homage left Mr. Lieberman disapproving of unoriginal imitations. “That film [Wrong Turn] made me the most angry,” Mr. Lieberman muttered bitterly. “It’s stealing … The only recent things that I thought were fresh and effective were the Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity.”

But how about his original screenplays that never made their way onto the silver screen? Mr. Lieberman openly admitted that he has earned more from these than movies he actually made.

“I pitched one to Dustin Hoffman called Us about a nursing home in the future,” Mr. Lieberman told us. Even though he was disappointed when the movie was never produced, the script proved to be a turning point in his career. “That script opened up Hollywood to me.”

But now he has a script that he won’t let simply fall by the wayside.

“I have the movie I want to make,” Mr Lieberman declared. Producers and friends alike have said that this semi-autobiographical screenplay is his masterpiece. It’s about a film director who meets a young couple from Morocco, but The Observer is forbidden from divulging any more than that.

“Everything leads up to this movie.”