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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971

1970-11-20 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 8

MORE ABOUT GRINNELL

[hand drawing of girl on chair]

   Though the conference as a whole was disappointing to me, I met a lot of women who I felt an immediate closeness with. In workshops on Saturday I began to realize just how a right-on sister was relating to the group; I recognized women who were struggling, questioning, changing. And I recognized those who were still relating in old untrusting structures, who were reacting as "liberals" but not really ready to change their minds. 

Confrontation
   Late Saturday night, after your all-women party, two sisters were just outside the dorm, rapping, feeling intense, hugging each other. Four men walking together hassled them -- and they reacted with vocal enough rage that five more of us came outside and screamed at them, told them to move on and FAST. They moved. We moved, kept yelling, stayed together. They shut up too; some of the women dropped back and TWO of us marched four of them as far away as we wanted them to be, before we ran laughing back to the door where our sisters were watching. This is written with love to my beautiful sisters from Bloomington, Indiana who took that walk with me and in the cold air awoke to a feeling of strength I'd never known..

   I feel a new confidence now in my perception, in relating to other women and in working in a group. We have all learned defenses and there are so many women with the same defenses against the same oppression. There are a lot of things to make us feel threatened anyway; we must struggle not to threaten each other. Only if I am really honest with  myself can others trust me to be honest with them. If I say I'm relating to you and I'm actually relating to a category, I have categorized you and that is a racist-sexist-classist kind of structure. If I say "you" when I mean "what you represent in my eyes" I am being unfair to you the individual. We have grown up accustomed to wearing blinders like this. When we tear 'em all down we can maybe see each other as whole people.

   The thing I liked best about Grinnell was the apple juice, the stew, the bread, and most of all the solidarity of the gay women.
  The first night we all stayed in the same place and talked late. On Saturday we held two Lesbianism Workshops--one for gay women only and one for straight women. Although an hour and a half is hardly time for gay women to cover all that they have to say to each other, we began a discussion that we have continued intensely in Iowa City. In the first workshop a woman from Bloomington, Ind. acknowledged the importance of Women's Liberation in the final elimination of her guilt at being gay, but with some bitterness said she had been messed over by Women's Liberation seeing gay relationships in heterosexual ways. Women who had become gay through Women's Liberation were asked not to say anything so that women with a common gay experience could think about their relation to Women's Liberation. This moratorium on Women's Liberation gay women talking came at an unfortunate time for one of the sisters from Iowa City who had just realized that gay women were the only people in Women's Liberation who she felt could understand her experience and from whom she felt she needed support. I don't think there needs to be a split between old and new gay women, but just that each get a chance to understand their different experience and the inter-relationships between the two.
   During the first part of the workshop for straight women another moratorium was put on straight women talking. They listened while we talked and interestingly enough instead of being defensive we dwelt on the little cultural things that being gay we have and draw us together. I felt a real strength and solidarity that came out in a way surprising to me. I was prouder and more free to be myself without fear of judgement. I felt so free that I danced.

[hand drawing of girl on couch]

   Before the conference I often didn't understand my sisters when they were offended by things to which I didn't react strongly. Now I have a clearer idea of what does rip off women. People who are making a new society, people who say they are revolutionary, cannot be excused for taking one single gain at the expense of other oppressed people; if they do they're not changing anything, just jockeying for position within the old cruddy structure. I won't make excuses for the male-identified movements that depend on the subservience of women to get their shitwork done and make their "gains."

[hand drawing of girl holding sign saying AIN'T I A WOMAN?]

Collectivity is a Process
   Being collective in this society is against everything we've been conditioned for. Collectivity is only a process right now. Ideally it will be honest sharing, gut-level trust of others, sincerely felt responsibility for the well-being of others. Presently, those intentions must stem from humanitarian instincts that our religious up-bringing cultivated rather than based on any experience, since they are contrary to the sexist, imperialistic, capitalistic, racist, fascist, all-competitive societal standards that are permeating our minds every minute of our lives. I haven't yet felt collectivity, but I can still differentiate between my intellectual, and paritally gut-level belief in its rightness and the trustingness I think it's going to become. 
   Collective living is a means to raising our consciousness (es?) to a collective consciousness, which is not, in my opinion, completely possible within this antagonistic society. It influences everything in our personal lives even though we attempt to shut it out of our dwelling places and meetings. In relation to our society, the atmosphere in and intentions of our living collective are true collectivity. Yet, we have not been truly collective, nor can we be, as long as we are only a microcosm in an alien environment, that environment having nurtured us and not failed in fucking up our heads.
   I don't mean we can't act collectively or think collectively or possibly even feel sincerely in that direction. I maintain, however, that our attitudes are in the process of changing --  the living collective is definitely a positive, necessary influence but we are not capable of total rejection of life-long influence of values and methods while functioning within the society that propagates the oppressive system we're undermining.
   We can build our need for collectivity by practicing it. We explore its meaning by practicing it. We can start to know how it feels (as opposed to intellectually knowing it) by practicing it. We can practice it. Practice. Practice and practice. It's all we can do within this system.
   And when many, many women have come to understand as much as is possible about collectivity, and these women collectively feel the need to experience true sisterhood within a collective society (I believe it is called socialism), the oppressive system which has kept collectives functioning as microcosms will be overturned. In order to accomplish this, the collective living, collective acting, collective thinking process will have to go on...and on...and on...toward the revolution we feel coming.

8         Vol. 1 No. 9        Ain't I

Saving...

MORE ABOUT GRINNELL [hand drawing of girl on chair] Though the conference as a whole was disappointing to me, I met a lot of women who I felt an immediate closeness with. In workshops on Saturday I began to realize just how a right-on sister was relating to the group; I recognized women who were struggling, questioning, changing. And I recognized those who were still relating in old untrusting structures, who were reacting as "liberals" but not really ready to change their minds. Confrontation Late Saturday night, after your all-women party, two sisters were just outside the dorm, rapping, feeling intense, hugging each other. Four men walking together hassled them -- and they reacted with vocal enough rage that five more of us came outside and screamed at them, told them to move on and FAST. They moved. We moved, kept yelling, stayed together. They shut up too; some of the women dropped back and TWO of us marched four of them as far away as we wanted them to be, before we ran laughing back to the door where our sisters were watching. This is written with love to my beautiful sisters from Bloomington, Indiana who took that walk with me and in the cold air awoke to a feeling of strength I'd never known.. I feel a new confidence now in my perception, in relating to other women and in working in a group. We have all learned defenses and there are so many women with the same defenses against the same oppression. There are a lot of things to make us feel threatened anyway; we must struggle not to threaten each other. Only if I am really honest with myself can others trust me to be honest with them. If I say I'm relating to you and I'm actually relating to a category, I have categorized you and that is a racist-sexist-classist kind of structure. If I say "you" when I mean "what you represent in my eyes" I am being unfair to you the individual. We have grown up accustomed to wearing blinders like this. When we tear 'em all down we can maybe see each other as whole people. The thing I liked best about Grinnell was the apple juice, the stew, the bread, and most of all the solidarity of the gay women. The first night we all stayed in the same place and talked late. On Saturday we held two Lesbianism Workshops--one for gay women only and one for straight women. Although an hour and a half is hardly time for gay women to cover all that they have to say to each other, we began a discussion that we have continued intensely in Iowa City. In the first workshop a woman from Bloomington, Ind. acknowledged the importance of Women's Liberation in the final elimination of her guilt at being gay, but with some bitterness said she had been messed over by Women's Liberation seeing gay relationships in heterosexual ways. Women who had become gay through Women's Liberation were asked not to say anything so that women with a common gay experience could think about their relation to Women's Liberation. This moratorium on Women's Liberation gay women talking came at an unfortunate time for one of the sisters from Iowa City who had just realized that gay women were the only people in Women's Liberation who she felt could understand her experience and from whom she felt she needed support. I don't think there needs to be a split between old and new gay women, but just that each get a chance to understand their different experience and the inter-relationships between the two. During the first part of the workshop for straight women another moratorium was put on straight women talking. They listened while we talked and interestingly enough instead of being defensive we dwelt on the little cultural things that being gay we have and draw us together. I felt a real strength and solidarity that came out in a way surprising to me. I was prouder and more free to be myself without fear of judgement. I felt so free that I danced. [hand drawing of girl on couch] Before the conference I often didn't understand my sisters when they were offended by things to which I didn't react strongly. Now I have a clearer idea of what does rip off women. People who are making a new society, people who say they are revolutionary, cannot be excused for taking one single gain at the expense of other oppressed people; if they do they're not changing anything, just jockeying for position within the old cruddy structure. I won't make excuses for the male-identified movements that depend on the subservience of women to get their shitwork done and make their "gains." [hand drawing of girl holding sign saying AIN'T I A WOMAN?] Collectivity is a Process Being collective in this society is against everything we've been conditioned for. Collectivity is only a process right now. Ideally it will be honest sharing, gut-level trust of others, sincerely felt responsibility for the well-being of others. Presently, those intentions must stem from humanitarian instincts that our religious up-bringing cultivated rather than based on any experience, since they are contrary to the sexist, imperialistic, capitalistic, racist, fascist, all-competitive societal standards that are permeating our minds every minute of our lives. I haven't yet felt collectivity, but I can still differentiate between my intellectual, and paritally gut-level belief in its rightness and the trustingness I think it's going to become. Collective living is a means to raising our consciousness (es?) to a collective consciousness, which is not, in my opinion, completely possible within this antagonistic society. It influences everything in our personal lives even though we attempt to shut it out of our dwelling places and meetings. In relation to our society, the atmosphere in and intentions of our living collective are true collectivity. Yet, we have not been truly collective, nor can we be, as long as we are only a microcosm in an alien environment, that environment having nurtured us and not failed in fucking up our heads. I don't mean we can't act collectively or think collectively or possibly even feel sincerely in that direction. I maintain, however, that our attitudes are in the process of changing -- the living collective is definitely a positive, necessary influence but we are not capable of total rejection of life-long influence of values and methods while functioning within the society that propagates the oppressive system we're undermining. We can build our need for collectivity by practicing it. We explore its meaning by practicing it. We can start to know how it feels (as opposed to intellectually knowing it) by practicing it. We can practice it. Practice. Practice and practice. It's all we can do within this system. And when many, many women have come to understand as much as is possible about collectivity, and these women collectively feel the need to experience true sisterhood within a collective society (I believe it is called socialism), the oppressive system which has kept collectives functioning as microcosms will be overturned. In order to accomplish this, the collective living, collective acting, collective thinking process will have to go on...and on...and on...toward the revolution we feel coming. 8 Vol. 1 No. 9 Ain't I