What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened.
Vivian GornickRead
Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession... The choice to serve and be protected and plan towards being a family-maker is a choice that shouldn't be. The heart of radical feminism is to change that
Interpretation
The quote challenges the perception of housewifery as a legitimate profession and advocates for women's autonomy in choosing their roles.
Vivian Gornick's quote critiques traditional gender roles that label housewives’ work as illegitimate, highlighting the need for societal change regarding women’s choices. It emphasizes that the identity of a woman should not be confined to familial roles, but rather that women should have the freedom to choose how they contribute to society, including their role as family-makers.
In practice
During a women's conference, to highlight the importance of recognizing women's choices in career and family.
What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened.
Long before I became a feminist in any explicit way, I had turned from writing love stories about women in which women were losers, and adventure stories about men in which the men were winners, to writing adventure stories about a woman in which the woman won. It was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life.
I do not subscribe to a feminism that demands perfection or super heroic nobility of women. But I do insist that putting women at the service of patriarchy is no victory for us.
Feminism's agenda is basic: it asks that women not be forced to "choose" between public justice and private happiness. It asks that women be free to define themselves-instead of having their identity defined for them, time and again, by their culture and their men.
Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.
The question of whether one has one's own political power or goes to work for someone else is not only a feminist question.
Girls are taught to sing high and pretty, like Antony, not low and from the guts like Nina Simone. But we're slowly trying to change that. There are so many things we're not told growing up, and it's our true feminist responsibility to take the truth to the people who need to hear it.
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