Feminist essayist (and Redstockings cofounder) Ellen Willis has died. Bitch | Lab has a post with dozens of links to pieces both by and about Ellen Willis – check it out. (And then look through B|L’s other recent posts for more about Willis, including Willis’ NY Times obit).
From Willis’ 1998 essay “We Need A Radical Left”:
No mass left-wing movement has ever been built on a majoritarian strategy. On the contrary, every such movement- socialism, populism, labor, civil rights, feminism, gay rights, ecology-has begun with a visionary minority whose ideas were at first decried as impractical, ridiculous, crazy, dangerous and/or immoral. By definition, the conventional wisdom of the day is widely accepted, continually reiterated and regarded not as ideology but as reality itself. Rebelling against “reality,” even when its limitations are clearly perceived, is always difficult. It means deciding things can be different and ought to be different; that your own perceptions are right and the experts and authorities wrong; that your discontent is legitimate and not merely evidence of selfishness, failure or refusal to grow up.
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That’s not fair — I still — or especially after having observed them in action — decry some of these (*cough* socialism *cough*) as impractical, ridiculous, crazy, dangerous and immoral.
But I have something good to say about her:
I liked
(sorry, accidentally submitted)
Here’s the piece I liked (pdf): “Is There Still a Jewish Question? Why I’m an Anti-Anti-Zionist,”
R.I.P