This is not a movement one ‘joins’. There are no rigid structures or membership cards. The Women’s Liberation Movement exists where three or four friends or neighbours decide to meet regularly over coffee and talk about their personal lives. It also exists in the cells of women’s jails, in the welfare lines, in the supermarket, the factory, the convent, the farm, the maternity ward, the streetcorner, the old ladies’ home, the kitchen, the steno pool, the bed. It exists in your mind, and in the political and personal insights that you can contribute to change and shape and help its growth.
Robin Morgan, Sisterhood is Powerful, 1970
3 responses so far ↓
Jo Tamar // Saturday 14 November 2009 at 5:36 pm |
Great quote.
Apart from anything else, I love how “where three or four friends or neighbours decide to meet regularly over coffee and talk about their personal lives” has “woman” as the default human. I love subtle subversion of language!
Deborah // Saturday 14 November 2009 at 5:45 pm |
I loved it too. I was actually reading something written by Anne Phillips when I came across it, and thought, “Oooohhh!”
The subversion in the phrasing really is very good… did you hear the overtones of “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among you” (Matthew 18:20)? This is a sacred movement!
I will get back to Anne Phillips, who I read extensively when I was writing my thesis. I was surprised to find that I hadn’t managed to quote anything of hers yet in my Friday Feminist.
Jo Tamar // Sunday 15 November 2009 at 1:27 pm
Oh yeah, I didn’t think of that!
(Probably because I have never been a Christian, so I have only a passing familiarity with those sorts of verses – I mean, some are everywhere, and I’ve heard the one you mention a large number of times, but they don’t necessarily spring to my mind as quickly as someone who has been brought up in the Christian tradition.)