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FEMINIST MOVEMENT BUILDING MONTH

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"Sometimes the sun is covered by dense layers of dark clouds. A person looking up would swear that there is no sun. But still the sun shines. At night, when there is no light, still the sun shines. During rain or hail or hurricane or tornado, still the sun shines. 

In this country in the coming years, I think that there will be a terrible storm. I think that the skies will darken beyond all recognition. Those who walk the streets will walk them in darkness. Those who are raped will see the darkness as they look up into the face of the rapist. Those who are assaulted and brutalized by madmen will stare intently into the darkness to discern who is moving toward them at every moment. It will be hard to remember, as the storm is raging, that still, even though we cannot see it, the sun shines. It will be hard to remember that still, even though we cannot see it, the sun burns. We will try to see it and we will try to feel it, and we will forget that it warms us still, that if it were not there, burning, shining, this earth would be a cold and desolate and barren place.

As long as we have life and breath, no matter how dark the earth around us, that sun still burns, still shines. There is no today without it. There is no tomorrow without it. That light is within us--constant, warm, and healing. Remember it, sisters, in the dark times to come."

                                                                 Andrea Dworkin[i]

 

This work is hard. This life is cruel and artificial. This work breaks our hearts and wears our minds it can tear the body apart and fill the material being up with patriarchal illusions.  To begin to unlearn is a terrifying journey into uncharted desolate waters; isolated, we often think we are alone or that the sun does not shine yet to keep pushing is brilliance because we, as women, can endure more than I think is humanly imaginable. We are resilient; let us listen to women and we shall see the resiliency. When I say the turning of times I truly mean it, women like Dworkin who have laid it out so vividly and courageously also offer us solace in this darkness. Women are dying and children are starving to death due to the ramifications of our stupidity and white supremacist ideologies. I have walked in and listened to the deepest and most intricate parts of this porn culture; I have seen and felt a world not dominated by sexual politics and the numbing pain of humiliation. This is why I have to fight, we have to fight; the Earth Mother has spoken to me and she has spoken to me on men violence’s against women. She has told me to stop it. She never wanted to feel hatred towards men but the imbalance they have caused is the, apex. Chaos will erupt and we will join in the streets; have we not been warned? There will be uproar, turmoil and our resistance will meet Mother Earth’s revolt, transforming our immanent power into the rebirth of a new world. Within two decades I am going to live in a post-patriarchal world where we don’t constantly think and feel the pain, the horror; a world where women do not live in fear or in silence; a world where no rape exists no pornography no racism. This future is one that delights in diversity; one where each being has all the opportunity in the world to explore each of our own fantastical inner beings and the various ways we interact and flow in the environment throughout us. I will finally be able to discover the secrets and wisdom of the forests and mountains, yes!  But in this new freedom of diversity everyone will be able to discover and explore—it will be extinct, only spoken of that people used to live under such oppressions and barriers that restricted the potentiality within us. If I don’t believe this with my whole entire sensual heart and intangible soul as if it were a form of breathing, then what else will I have? False notions of freedom and justice? More hidden lies? Covered up brutalities and iniquities? If we do not believe this then we have failed as a species; patriarchy will have won. But feminism has not failed; failure is impossible. These times are hard but each time I am cut down I grow back faster and stronger each time my heart breaks it is figuring out ways to heal and pound even louder.  So it is in me now not to give up or even consider that train of thought: doubt. This is lunatic? It could be, for a great amount of the population believes we can survive without the earth within a violent techno-Christian White Supremacy Capitalist Patriarchy [bell hooks[ii]]. It is a lie, a mean, merciless lie. Yet I will always have my faith to fall on and in the darkest of times when our bodies are aching and our hearts are tender; when the hands of sisterhood are drenched in blood we must have faith. It allows us to enter a new realm, meaning that we can create and sustain our lives with this faith. Step away from the one-dimensional position that perpetuates division and segregation and guide yourself into the multi-dimensional sphere; a sphere of interconnectedness and interdependence; as we have all said and heard it is hard work; but we cannot separate ourselves from those women who live far way or from those women who live down the street or from those women closest to us. We cannot separate ourselves from what we believe to be true, even though we do struggle with it because of convention, because of patriarchy, because of socialization. In the times to come sisterhood will be our sunshine and radical action will be the tools that remove the male masochistic muck. Liberalism has given us gradualism to keep society at bay; it has not been effective! Where is the sense of urgency? The sense of urgency will come when we no longer see the sun, only dark skies. We are removing the muck for people to see the beauty underneath; we are restoring courage to those who have lost or never had any, we are recovering the traces of our Mother while we stand in this transformative storm trying find strength to be able to enlighten our Father; trying to stand tall and brave in the dark storm until we see the sun. We are hard at work here and never at rest, I will be diminished if I rest and forget my sisters, friends and all earthly beings. We are on the dawn of this new world and now more than ever is the time to submerge into and commit to the movement; to ride the tide of the turning of times and the end of men’s violence against women. 



 

[i] Excerpts from “Our Blood” Andrea Dworkin; Lesbian Pride [Delivered at a rally for Lesbian Pride Week, Central Park, New York City, June 28, 1975.]

[ii] From: bell hooks on Video: Cultural Criticism & Transformation









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for Andrea...


and for all of us.