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Abortion is violence; a deep, desperate violence inflicted by a woman upon, first of all, herself.

Adrienne Rich

What would it mean to live in a city whose people were changing each other’s despair into hope?– You yourself must change it.
ADRIENNE RICH

Change Changing Cities Despair Hope Mean
We have seen over and over that white male historians in general have tended to dismiss any history they didn’t themselves write,on the grounds that it is unserious, unscholarly, a fad, too “political,” “merely” oral and thus unreliable.
ADRIENNE RICH

General History Male Merely Over Seen Themselves White Writing
Women have been driven mad, “gaslighted”, for centuries by the refutation of our experience and our instincts in a culture which validates only male experience.
ADRIENNE RICH

Centuries Culture Driven Experience Gaslight Instinct Mad Male Mind Reality Refutation Women
The women’s movement appeared at a very crucial moment in my life. There was a whole political movement asking such questions and others I had never asked.
ADRIENNE RICH

Apparated Asking Crucial Movement Political Voice Women
“Support” groups for every kind of human condition, where, in the clichés of that milieu, people “share” and “heal,” the question, “What for?”, “What now?” is no longer asked.
ADRIENNE RICH

Asked Clinch Condition Group Heal Human Kind Longer Milieu Support
I believe that words can help us move or keep us paralysed, and that our choices of language and verbal tone have something – a great deal – to do with how we live our lives and whom we end up speaking with and hearing.
ADRIENNE RICH

Believe Choice Help Keep Language Life Move Paralysed Respect
Life on the planet is born of woman.
ADRIENNE RICH

Born Inspirational Life Planet Rich Life
As a society in turmoil, we are going to see more, and more various, attempts to simulate order through repression; and art is a historical target for such efforts.
ADRIENNE RICH

Art Effort Going Historical More Order Repression Simulate Society Target Turmoil Various
To allow what you’re reading to pierce routines, safe and impermeable, in which ordinary carnal life is tracked, charted, channeled. Then, what of the right answers.
ADRIENNE RICH

Answer Carnal Charted Impermeable Ordinary Pierce Reading Right Routine Safe
The woman’s body is the terrain on which patriarchy is erected.
ADRIENNE RICH

Body Erected Patriarchy Terrain Woman
Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.
ADRIENNE RICH

Assumption Drenched Know Ourselves Until
What kind of beast would turn its life into words?
ADRIENNE RICH

Beast Kind Life Turn
Even the most angry, even the darkest, even the most grief-stricken, and even the most embittered art has that element somewhere behind it. Because how could you be so despairing, so embittered, if you had not had something you loved that you lost?
ADRIENNE RICH

Angry Darkest Embittered Grief Most Stricken
We need to imagine a world in which every woman is the presiding genius of her own body.
ADRIENNE RICH

Body Children Genius Imagine Motherhood New Relationship Woman World
What I search for continuously in my art is adequate language, language I hope can stand beyond any particular occasion.
ADRIENNE RICH

Adequate Art Dysfunction Hope Language Occasion Particular Search Stand
The revolution of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the revolving door of a politics which has liberated women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.
ADRIENNE RICH

Door Limit Male Politics Return Revolution Same Tolerance

Abortion is violence; a deep, desperate violence inflicted by a woman upon, first of all, herself.

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Abortion is violence; a deep, desperate violence inflicted by a woman upon, first of all, herself.

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