I am reading a book about the history of the feminist movement in the U.S. called The World Split Open – How the modern women’s movement changed America by Ruth Rosen. I’m not all the way through it yet so I’ll reserve judgement on the whole book but this quote lept out at me.
It is from “Goodbye To All That” by Robin Morgan published on 2/9/1970.
“We are rising, powerful in our unclean bodies; bright glowing, mad in our inferior brains; wild hair flying wild eyes staring, wild voice keening; undaunted by blood we who hemorrhage every twenty-eight days; laughing at our beauty we who have lost our sense of humor; mourning for all each precious one of us might have been in this life in this time-place had she not been born a woman; stuffing fingers into our mouths to stop the scream of fear and hate and pity for men we have loved and love still; tears in our eyes and bitterness in our mouths for children we couldn’t have or couldn’t not have, or didn’t want, didn’t want yet, or wanted and had in this place this time of horror. We are rising with a fury older and potentially greater than any force in histroy, and this time we will be free or no one will survive. Power to all the people or to none. All the way down, this time.
This was written before I was born and yet it seems like something that could have been written today. So much as changed since the middle part of the 20th century but at the same time so much remains the same.
