We have a double standard, which is to say, a man can show how much he cares by being violent-see, he's jealous, he cares-a woman shows how much she cares by how much she's willing to be hurt; by how much she will take; how much she will endure; how suicidal she's prepared to be.

Could women's liberation ever be a revolutionary movement, not rhetorically but on the ground?

Under patriarchy, no woman is safe to live her life, or to love, or to mother children. Under patriarchy, every woman is a victim, past, present, and future. Under patriarchy, every woman's daughter is a victim, past, present, and future. Under patriarchy, every woman's son is her potential betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman.

Men are distinguished from women by their commitment to do violence rather than to be victimized by it.

I love, cherish, and respect women in my mind, in my heart, and in my soul. This love of women is the soil in which my life is rooted. It is the soil of our common life together. My life grows out of this soil. In any other soil, I would die. In whatever ways I am strong, I am strong because of the power and passion of this nurturant love.

I have been asked, politely and not so politely, why I am myself. This is an accounting any woman will be called on to give if she asserts her will.

Families make possible the super-exploitation of women by training them to look upon their work outside the home as peripheral to their 'true' role.