We need to imagine a world in which every woman is the presiding genius of her own body. In such a world women will truly create new life, bringing forth not only children if and as we choose but the visions, and the thinking, necessary to sustain, console and alter human existence-a new relationship to the universe. Sexuality, politics, intelligence, power, motherhood, work, community, intimacy will develop new meanings; thinking itself will be transformed. This is where we have to begin.
Interpretation
Every woman should have control over her own body and life, leading to a transformative society.
In this quote, Adrienne Rich emphasizes the importance of women having autonomy over their bodies and lives, suggesting that such empowerment would result in profound societal change. She envisions a world where women's roles are not confined to societal norms, allowing them to redefine relationships, creativity, and the essence of existence itself. This change would catalyze a reimagining of interconnected domains such as motherhood, sexuality, and community, ultimately altering how humanity perceives itself and interacts with the universe.
In practice
In a women's conference discussing personal agency and empowerment.
My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.
The word revolution itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.
A president cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored.'”
There is no 'the truth','a truth' - truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. the pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet
It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness
It's as if, in the mother's eyes, her smile, her stroking touch, the child first reads the message:'You are there!'
In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change, lies our happiness and freedom.
New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing.
Denying women the right to drive has imposed huge costs on Saudi citizens.
Not so many years ago there was no simpler or more intelligible notion than that of going on a journey. Travel -movement through space -provided the universal metaphor for change. One of the subtle confusions -perhaps one of the secret terrors -of modern life is that we have lost this refuge. No longer do we move through space as we once did.
Conversations create change. It's easy to call someone 'enemy,' but there's more to it, right?
Women process stress differently. If we can change the workplace culture to make it more welcoming for women, we're also going to improve behavior, and we're going to improve outcomes.
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