Women have had the power of naming stolen from us.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the struggle for women to reclaim their voice and identity in a patriarchal society.
Mary Daly's quote signifies the historical oppression of women, particularly in the realm of language and identity. By stating that women have had the power of naming stolen from them, Daly emphasizes the need for women to reclaim their narratives and assert their own identities in a world that has often silenced them. This reflects a broader issue of empowerment and the importance of women finding their voices in society.
In practice
In a speech advocating for women's rights.
I urge you to sin. But not against these itty-bitty religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism-or their secular derivatives, Marxism, Maoism, Freudianism and Jungianism-whic h are all derivatives of the big religion of patriarchy. Sin against the infrastructure itself!
Patriarchy has stolen our cosmos and returned it in the form of 'Cosmopolitan' magazine and cosmetics.
Courage to be is the key to revelatory power of the feminist revolution.
Every woman who has come to consciousness can recall an almost endless series of oppressive, violating, insulting, assaulting acts against her Self. Every woman is battered by such assaults - is on a psychic level, a battered woman.
Patriarchy appears to be everywhere. Even outer space and the future have been colonized. As a rule, even the more imaginative science-fiction writers (allegedly the most foretelling futurists) cannot/will not create a space and time in which women get far beyond the role of space stewardess.
Within a culture possessed by the myth of feminine evil, the naming, describing, and theorizing about good and evil has constituted a maze/haze of deception. The journey of women becoming is breaking through this maze - springing into free space, which is an a-mazing process.
It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. Their support is lukewarm ... partly because men are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience.
We have modified our environment so radically that we must now modify ourselves to exist in this new environment.
Our aim is not to die. It is to carry out the revolution, to make a reality of our ideas. We must live, to get them accepted by the people.
To seek visions, to dream dreams, is essential, and it is also essential to try new ways of living, to make room for serious experimentation, to respect the effort even where it fails.
... the spring, the summer, The chilling autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world By their increase, now knows not which is which.
For one cannot change, that is to say become another person, while continuing to acquiesce to the feelings of the person one no longer is.
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