i can't find "the second coming of joan of arc" and i've not read much of "like there's no tommorrow: meditations for women leaving patriarchy" but thats the one i've got. so, here's some carolyn gage for you.

Fighting

"I found that it is always better to figh than not to fight, always no matter what."
-Andrea Dworkin

These are the words of Andrea Dworkin, the courageous feminist philosopher, activist, and author who has fought so many long and frequently lonely battles against prostitution and pornography.

Fighting does not necessarily mean being out of control, losing, counter-attacking, or giving energy to a hopelss cause. In the martial art of Aikido, women learn to "get off the line" -- to move to the sidde, out of line of the attacker, and to use the attacker's own momentum to throw him off balance. Just because one is being attacked does not mean that the attacker will have control over the speed, direction, or outcome of the interaction.

In patriarchy, fighting has been made to seem very disempoering to women--disruptive and sidetracking at best and suicidal at worst. In fact, fighting can be invigorating, a strengthening and stretching excercise. Fighting, like Aikido, can be practiced as a spiritual discipline, and one that integrates mind, body, and soul.

And, just as fighting back has been characterized as an undesierable option, so capitulation has been disguised to look like some kind of victory. Failure to confront or to defend oneself can be called "picking one's battles," "taking care of oneself," or "accepting the things I cannont change." The woman who fails to stand up for herself may justify herself by saying that she is choosing to "rise above it," choost to " "not take the bait," or choosing to "deteach." She may, infact, be fragamenting , numbing out, or practicing denial. These may be so second nature to her that she is not even awarethat she is reinforcing her own toxic conditioning.

The docterine of "choosing one's battles" is a dangerous one for the radical feminist. Ther is no form of collaboration, no matter how heinous, that cannot come under that banner. Fighting back is often the way to give the least energy to a situation.

posted by brooke at July 27, 2002 10:28:45 PM