quote · Legacy record

I think as feminists we have a way of looking at problems that other people appear not to understand. To name names, the right and theleft appear not to understand what it is that feminists are trying to do. Feminists are trying to destroy a sex hierarchy, a race hierarchy, aneconomic hierarchy, in which women are hurt, are disempowered, and in which society celebrates cruelty over us and refuses us the integrity of our own bodies and the dignity of our own lives.... So feminists look at the society we live in and try to understand how we are going to fight male power. And in order to try to figure outhow we're going to fight it, we have to figure out how it's organized, how it works. How does it survive? How does it work itself out? Howdoes it maintain itself as a system of power?... So feminists come along, and we say: Well, we are going to understand how it is that these people do what they do. We are going toapproach the problem politically. That means that we are going to try to isolate and describe systems of exploitation as they work on us, from our point of view as the people who are being hurt by them. It means that even though we're on the bottom and they're on the top, we are examining them for points of vulnerability. And as we find those points of vulnerability—and you might locate them anatomically, as well as any other way—we are going to move whatever muscles we have, from whatever positions we are in, and we are going to get that bastard in his collective manifestation off of us.And that means we are politically organizing a resistance to male supremacy.

I think as feminists we have a way of looking at problems that other people appear not to understand. To name names, the right and theleft appear not to understand what it is that feminists are trying to do. Feminists are trying to destroy a sex hierarchy, a race hierarchy, aneconomic hierarchy, in which women are hurt, are disempowered, and in which society celebrates cruelty over us and refuses us the integrity of our own bodies and the dignity of our own lives.... So feminists look at the society we live in and try to understand how we are going to fight male power. And in order to try to figure outhow we're going to fight it, we have to figure out how it's organized, how it works. How does it survive? How does it work itself out? Howdoes it maintain itself as a system of power?... So feminists come along, and we say: Well, we are going to understand how it is that these people do what they do. We are going toapproach the problem politically. That means that we are going to try to isolate and describe systems of exploitation as they work on us, from our point of view as the people who are being hurt by them. It means that even though we're on the bottom and they're on the top, we are examining them for points of vulnerability. And as we find those points of vulnerability—and you might locate them anatomically, as well as any other way—we are going to move whatever muscles we have, from whatever positions we are in, and we are going to get that bastard in his collective manifestation off of us.And that means we are politically organizing a resistance to male supremacy.

Approximate author period: c. 1966 AD · modern