SallyDarity - Movement

"It is women who now hold the key to new conceptions of revolution, women who realize that revolution can no longer mean the seizure of power or the domination of one group by another–under any circumstances, for any length of time. It is domination itself that must be abolished."

-Peggy Kornegger

"All radical feminists and all social anarchist feminists are concerned with a set of common issues: control over one's own body; alternatives to the nuclear family and to heterosexuality; new methods of child care that will liberate parents and children; economic self-determination; ending sex stereotyping in education, in the media, and in the workplace; the abolition of repressive laws; an end to male authority, ownership, and control over women; providing women with the means to develop skills and positive self-attitudes; an end to oppressive emotional relationships; and what the Situationists have called "the reinvention of everyday life".

There are, then, many issues on which radical feminists and anarchist feminists agree. But anarchist feminists are concerned with something more. Because they are anarchists, they work to end all power relationships, all situations in which people can oppress each other. Unlike some radical feminists who are not anarchists, they do not believe that power in the hands of women could possibly lead to a non-coercive society. And unlike most socialist feminists, they do not believe that anything good can come out of a mass movement with a leadership elite. In short, neither a workers' state nor a matriarchy will end the oppression of everyone. The goal, then, is not to "seize" power, as the socialists are fond of urging, but to abolish power."

-Carol Erlich

"While some comply, some rebel, and some withdraw, there are some who figure out the system and how to best it. When we manipulate the system, we have the illusion of being in control. We can keep the rewards of the system while believing that we are not really complying. But we are still accepting the system's terms, unspoken rules, and values, including the lack of value it accords to us. Women in traditional roles supposedly achieve power, money, and status through manipulating men, but such achievements do not challenge the low value placed on women... For in order to manipulate, we cannot be ourselves, express our true feelings, or share our real perceptions... Manipulation may garner for us some of the system's rewards, or it may drag at the system's wheels as they turn, but it neither liberates us individually nor changes the collective reality the system creates. Resistance challenges the system's terms and categories, counters its assumptions, and communicates other values. Resistance speaks its own truth to power, and shifts the ground of struggle to its own terrain."

-Starhawk