DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971

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

1971-01-29 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 3

[hand drawing of woman firing pistol saying SISTERHOOD IS]

SISTERHOOD IS
   My physics teacher told me that Women't Liberation would pass as an issue in two years when enough people were put out of work. I got mad and told him I didn't care about the University community and its layoff problems, (mostly men anyway). He said I was a middle-class woman who had "the time" to worry about women's rights, (as opposed to women on farms who are laboring from morning till night, not noticing their oppression he says) - I was going to hit him then. He is subtle, chauvinistic, he makes me fall apart because he is totally oblivious to the issue.
   A feminist perspective is unreal to me in the university community because everything here is male-identified. My teacher believes it's the wife's fault since she lets her husband support her and where do I go from there- he doesn't understand statistics and why defend myself to him- except that he gets me into a rage, by his naivete about my power, which seems non-existent until I take his wife from him.
    I am so mad at men who leave their wives after draining all their beauty, and leave their daughters deserted. Men who call homosexuals pansies for fear of their manhood and how much "fucking" you can do in one evening or whether you can "make it" with your friend's woman. The world of men is disgusting and I have no sympathy for any man, for any reason.
    I am a woman. I have no desire to be a man. I want a revolution of women leaving their men, of women loving other women, of women really castrating their men (since manhood seems to be determined by sexual prowess). Of beautiful women. I want to be strong enough to believe I can leave the man I live with. That the woman I love will stop laying with her ideals of love determined by a male relationship on me. I want to eliminate men, because they are murderers and destructive and fucked up. I want to eliminate me because of how misused and misguided my self-conception was, due to my definition of myself as a woman in a man's world. I hate men for making my friend want to leave WL because we women are not yet strong enough as a group to give her the strength and support she needs, to stand with her, to not want reform but revolution, to be willing to change our life-styles.
  I'm mad because every time I become a person (woman) some man tries to make me, like I was something to conquer (I suppose dreaming of the days when the white man conquered the world). I'm mad   because men rape women all the time yet call something "prostitution" and make it punishable by jail. My revolution is one where women rise up and kill me, for all the murders they have perpetrated, for every insult, for every hurt.
   My problem in making an objective analysis is that I excuse some men for their piggishness, when they are all responsible. I see women being treated as a class, and I must make myself see men that way. Of what possible use are men? We can reproduce without them and can achieve sexual pleasure without them. 
   History is man and his misuse. Future is woman and her power. I think my sisters are tired of the phrase "sisterhood is powerful' because they haven't see it demonstrated. I think the time has come for each of us to take a part in the destruction of our oppressors, thereby destroying the system that keeps us there. The time has come to be really powerful- by destroying the fathers who are fucking up their children, the husband their wives, the brothers their sisters.
   Sisterhood is not just a social gathering, but a political force, that we are willing to use our bodies to free ourselves, to free our sisters from the prisons where men put them. Women's Liberation means the destruction of the power of men. Women's Liberation is the only revolution that is meaningful to me because only in the world of women can I exist as a whole person.


"Diary of a Mad Housewife" seems to be another example of a genre of movie-making where men try to show what it's really like to be a woman. I realize that a woman had something to do with the adaptation, but she must have been trying to please the male audience which backs the film. After all, to see Carrie Snodgrass up there on the screen, suffering so, in her chores of being a slave to her husband and children, crying out to be loved, yet not once did the film-makers ever show the politics behind her enslavement. That they never did portray her as a person I object to, as a person by herself, for herself. I object to film-makers using women (though it should not be surprising since they are men, and the art world is no different than the real world). What this film was about, in fact, was the subtle reaffirmation that there is such a thing as an ordinary housewife, who is content or discontent with her role as a  housewife, but is really not suited to be anything more than an extension of a man. I objected to every insinuation that this movie, which defines women in masculine terms was to be taken seriously by me. What it seemed to be saying was - yes, women are difficult to handle but if you play to their prince-in-shining-armour- mystique or their sadistic-male-fantasy hang-up, they can be satisfied. I resent that they played upon that part of myself that is idealistic and made it into something that is petty and stupid (as all real emotions are, defined by men). 
  I think I also felt betrayed, because I was led to believe that this was a movie about women and though I should have known better, I let myself believe that this one was different. I'm sick of all this pseudo-serious understanding by men of "our problem" in the form of art, of the misinformation it offers, and that it gives women the image of a Carrie Snodgrass to identify with so that they will think that their problems are not politically motivated but personally caused.

[film strip]

a Woman?    19 January 1971       3

Saving...

[hand drawing of woman firing pistol saying SISTERHOOD IS] SISTERHOOD IS My physics teacher told me that Women't Liberation would pass as an issue in two years when enough people were put out of work. I got mad and told him I didn't care about the University community and its layoff problems, (mostly men anyway). He said I was a middle-class woman who had "the time" to worry about women's rights, (as opposed to women on farms who are laboring from morning till night, not noticing their oppression he says) - I was going to hit him then. He is subtle, chauvinistic, he makes me fall apart because he is totally oblivious to the issue. A feminist perspective is unreal to me in the university community because everything here is male-identified. My teacher believes it's the wife's fault since she lets her husband support her and where do I go from there- he doesn't understand statistics and why defend myself to him- except that he gets me into a rage, by his naivete about my power, which seems non-existent until I take his wife from him. I am so mad at men who leave their wives after draining all their beauty, and leave their daughters deserted. Men who call homosexuals pansies for fear of their manhood and how much "fucking" you can do in one evening or whether you can "make it" with your friend's woman. The world of men is disgusting and I have no sympathy for any man, for any reason. I am a woman. I have no desire to be a man. I want a revolution of women leaving their men, of women loving other women, of women really castrating their men (since manhood seems to be determined by sexual prowess). Of beautiful women. I want to be strong enough to believe I can leave the man I live with. That the woman I love will stop laying with her ideals of love determined by a male relationship on me. I want to eliminate men, because they are murderers and destructive and fucked up. I want to eliminate me because of how misused and misguided my self-conception was, due to my definition of myself as a woman in a man's world. I hate men for making my friend want to leave WL because we women are not yet strong enough as a group to give her the strength and support she needs, to stand with her, to not want reform but revolution, to be willing to change our life-styles. I'm mad because every time I become a person (woman) some man tries to make me, like I was something to conquer (I suppose dreaming of the days when the white man conquered the world). I'm mad because men rape women all the time yet call something "prostitution" and make it punishable by jail. My revolution is one where women rise up and kill me, for all the murders they have perpetrated, for every insult, for every hurt. My problem in making an objective analysis is that I excuse some men for their piggishness, when they are all responsible. I see women being treated as a class, and I must make myself see men that way. Of what possible use are men? We can reproduce without them and can achieve sexual pleasure without them. History is man and his misuse. Future is woman and her power. I think my sisters are tired of the phrase "sisterhood is powerful' because they haven't see it demonstrated. I think the time has come for each of us to take a part in the destruction of our oppressors, thereby destroying the system that keeps us there. The time has come to be really powerful- by destroying the fathers who are fucking up their children, the husband their wives, the brothers their sisters. Sisterhood is not just a social gathering, but a political force, that we are willing to use our bodies to free ourselves, to free our sisters from the prisons where men put them. Women's Liberation means the destruction of the power of men. Women's Liberation is the only revolution that is meaningful to me because only in the world of women can I exist as a whole person. "Diary of a Mad Housewife" seems to be another example of a genre of movie-making where men try to show what it's really like to be a woman. I realize that a woman had something to do with the adaptation, but she must have been trying to please the male audience which backs the film. After all, to see Carrie Snodgrass up there on the screen, suffering so, in her chores of being a slave to her husband and children, crying out to be loved, yet not once did the film-makers ever show the politics behind her enslavement. That they never did portray her as a person I object to, as a person by herself, for herself. I object to film-makers using women (though it should not be surprising since they are men, and the art world is no different than the real world). What this film was about, in fact, was the subtle reaffirmation that there is such a thing as an ordinary housewife, who is content or discontent with her role as a housewife, but is really not suited to be anything more than an extension of a man. I objected to every insinuation that this movie, which defines women in masculine terms was to be taken seriously by me. What it seemed to be saying was - yes, women are difficult to handle but if you play to their prince-in-shining-armour- mystique or their sadistic-male-fantasy hang-up, they can be satisfied. I resent that they played upon that part of myself that is idealistic and made it into something that is petty and stupid (as all real emotions are, defined by men). I think I also felt betrayed, because I was led to believe that this was a movie about women and though I should have known better, I let myself believe that this one was different. I'm sick of all this pseudo-serious understanding by men of "our problem" in the form of art, of the misinformation it offers, and that it gives women the image of a Carrie Snodgrass to identify with so that they will think that their problems are not politically motivated but personally caused. [film strip] a Woman? 19 January 1971 3