victoria woodhull

Victoria Woodhull, the woman who spoke out and fought for the freedom to love whoever we wish outside the bonds of marriage.

Even under threat of condemnation, she went on fighting. She fought for the right to true love, to break free of the oppression to love under servitude. This is not to say that marriage is "bad" but under circumstances of extreme oppression, marital love is difficult. This is not the fault of individuals; although, in a society free from oppression, all would be able to take responsibility. Marriage under oppressive circumstances is a societal problem since our society is not set up to take care of its people.

It is set up to make profit off the backs of the poor, "wretched", and "wicked," condemned by society as "weak": its women, its communists, its blacks, its Mexicans, its queers and whores. I am here to say that I stand with those people, and I will fight for their rights until I die. Even those who stand with the rich, the 1%, are not who we are “fighting”. We are fighting a *system* that holds us under control, docile, never allowed to speak the truth of our lives and experiences without some sort of backlash.

We are under threat of violence for speaking our truth. Speak your truth and don't give up on it. Yes, it is hard at times and is risky business, and you have every right to retreat, to separate, to process. But you will find that nothing else opens up your mind, body and soul than to speak one's truth. So wear your badges of honor (and horror) held high above the self, one that can enter the other, penetrating the depths of another's being: in sex and love.

women as fetish

I do not for one second judge women who decide to do as they please with their bodies. I do, however, question how society has fetishized the female body so that women are expected to use whatever means, whether surgery, drugs, diet, exercise, cosmetics, or restrictive clothing, to find acceptance in a society that will never be able to accept them as they are. It is not vain to be a woman; under patriarchy women are a fetishized commodity. In order to find acceptance from their anti-female society that can't accept their natural bodies, they are expected to commodify their bodies into the form of a "true woman": heeled, high class, skinny, blonde, pretty, white, straight.

audre lorde

we are always off to war

Ferron. Misty Mountain.



Up the misty mountain
wild flowers bind the ground.

Down by the Russian river
force wears those boulders down.

Me, I'm underneath my covers.
Me, I'm trapped inside my brain
well up above the misty mountain
up above the Russian river
up above the bed of longing

The eagle takes the wind
The eagle takes the wind, my friend
The eagle takes the wind

It makes me think of this, my friend
Where does the eagle live in me?

Oh, I am crawling through this city
I say the city will be my home
I say, Farron, you are half-way pretty
And my you never be alone
Be it's gonna be a favor
Be it by the moment gone
But I stood before a mirror
Like an open ended cavern
Like a breathe held in holding

And I barely knew my name
I barely knew my name, my friends
I barely knew my name

It makes me think of this, my friend
Where do I live in me?

I barely knew my name, my friends
I barely knew my name

It makes me think of this, my friend
Where do I live in me?

O it's a planet of resistance
It's a whirling flame of choice
Are you my comrades in persistence
I swear they'll know us by our voice
Though we lay down in dusty corners
We are ragged as a scar
And when we rest our eyes stay open
We are always off to war
We're always off to war my friend
We're always off to war

And it makes my think of this my friend
Where can the quiet be?

O is it up the misty mountain
Where wildflowers bind the ground?

Is it down by the Russian river
Where force wears those boulders down?

Is it underneath my covers?

Is it trapped inside my brain?

Is it up above the misty mountain?
Is it up above the Russian river?
Is it up above the bed of longing
Where the eagle takes the wind.

Come on.
The eagle takes the wind.
Come on.
The eagle takes the wind.
Come on.
The eagle takes the wind.
Come on.
The eagle takes the wind.

domination

Domination does not have to be defined by malice or ill will... Oppression can come from a place of good intentions. A father can teach his son to distance himself from femininity in order to protect him from harm, to protect his manhood. A teacher can assert their knowledge and reality over her students, effectively erasing their own reality. A woman can tell a girl her femininity is what matters in order to secure a place in the world. Domination's oppressive function arises out of a need to control, a need to assert one's reality over another... And this need can come from a need to protect, to teach others the ways of patriarchal heritage.

imagine a world where being "gay" the norm & being "straight" would be the minority [short film]

women

My soul and heart is with women. If I can't love them in all the ways men have been allowed throughout our history without question, I can't grow as a person because I am a lesbian, through and through: sexually, spiritually, and in platonic friendship. Why I constantly have to stand up for my lesbianism is lost to me. Am I not equal to you?

slavoj zižek

gendering women

It is critical for women to learn skills in order to gain independence. Women in our society, however, are often restricted to assuming the role of the “traditional” woman, whether it’s through social pressure or the fact that it is one of the only legitimate roles for women in our society. I think women do the best they can with what they’ve been given. Everyone is trying their best to survive and to be happy, and assuming the role of a traditional housewife or mother is one way. And I believe it to be worthy and commendable. I think people do the best they can with the gender roles they’ve been assigned. Some resist it, some accept it, and I think it’s okay either way. However, I think it’s important for us to learn that our roles as women and men are assigned. They are socially constructed. Women weren’t born wearing heals and makeup. Men weren’t born knowing how to play football. Women weren't born to be submissive and men dominant. We learn to be gendered.

queer autonomy

I think the queer movement has helped in legitimizing breaking down the gender barriers. It has become more acceptable to be something other. Yet, I know this isn't the answer, only a way of tinkering with the system (although that tinkering is critical to saving lives).

I think it is more a question of class society. No one can achieve full human status in a society that not only distributes its resources unequally, but what also has criminalized self-knowledge of what true independence looks like. Capitalism has destroyed our autonomy, destroying our ability to take care of ourselves. People need access to very basic things: food, water, shelter, support from others. In our society, corporate America has taken away our knowledge to care for ourselves and has substituted factory commodities and corporate work in order to make profit.

If women are ever to be free, we must see that our freedom is linked to others’ ability to be fully autonomous. Right now, we rely on a broken system that makes us dependent on the system (i.e. toxic industrial food, health care based in treating symptoms not causes, debt, gas to run our cars to get to our jobs, commodified housing). And because women are a stigmatized social group within this system, we are seen as incapable of taking care of ourselves unless we are linked to a man in some way (husband, boyfriend, father, boss, etc.)

As a first step towards autonomy, I think we, as women, need to unite as women, as a gender class. We also need to unite with anyone else who shares our goals. For so long, we’ve had to rely on men for our wellbeing, for our survival. To turn to other women for support is critical to seeing that we share political goals. This is not enough, however, since we ultimately need to unite with all effected by capitalism (which is everyone). I think we need to develop ways to be independent of capitalism, whatever that may be. We need to re-build our self-knowledge, creating true independence. We need to know how to grow our own food again. We need to re-learn basic medical knowledge of our bodies. We need to learn how to protect ourselves; we need to begin to refuse to rely on a system that pretends to help us but really breaks us down.

american women's oppression

Women's oppression in the United States is no less oppressive than other parts of the world. Dowry murder in India and female infanticide in China is no more or less oppressive than the epidemic rates of rape, abuse, forced prostitution, murder, and sexual objectification of women in America. When we see that women's oppression is linked to the oppression of all women of the world, we can see that we have far more in common with the rest of the world's women than we are led to believe.

separatism

Separatism is a legitimate political choice. It can be an act which refuses participation in oppressive structures. Men refusing to go to war in Vietnam is one example of political separatism. A woman leaving her abusive husband is another political survival strategy. To withdraw from a system or a particular situation is to refuse to act according to its rules. It is a political act since a system can't function without participants.

Participation in oppressive structures is a choice. We are told we are pure victims, agentless with little choice to change. It's not entirely true. We can change. We can leave, pack our bags and create new systems based in true equality. Change does not have to be a slow process. Revolution can happen overnight if we so desired.

We are agents of our actions but we are not the creators of the circumstances we face under oppression.

melissa ferrick. i don't want you to change.

collective guilt

Collective guilt isn’t a fruitful means of change.  It may alleviate our pain as victims and oppressors; it may help us cope, but it leads us into a hole of destitution and shame.... To charge someone guilty in a court of law is to strip one of their resources, strip them of their livelihood.  Collective guilt creates a space of violence, of hatred, of oppression and invisibility. Oppression does not defeat oppression.  However, we will never get anywhere if we don't enact collective responsibility to those who batter us...

We must also end this cruelty towards those who are perceived as other (as woman); stop blaming them and recognize that there is another way instead of pain and shame. 

If Steubenville has taught us anything, it is that we treat responsibility as if it were absolute criminality… as the devil itself.  No one wishes to discuss it except when it is the "victim" being blamed; no one wishes to touch it; no one wishes to think of the "perpetrator" as anything but noble…

criminality is tainted, dirty; it’s the black man himself.  And to treat a white man as a black man (that is throwing him in prison – in the gates of hell and oppression) is a sin.  It is a sin to treat white males as if they were criminals… like a woman, like a black, like a queer or whore.