What is the revolution that we need? We need to dissolve the lie that some people have a right to think of other people as their property. And we need at last to form a circle that includes us all, in which all of us are seen as equal… We do not belong to the other, but our lives are linked; we belong in a circle of others.
We learn best to listen to our own voices if we are listening at the same time to other women-whose stories, for all our differences, turn out, if we listen well, to be our stories also.
We believe, in fact, that the one act of respect has little force unless matched by the other – in balance with it… The acting out of that dual respect I would name as precisely the source of our power.
People may find it more comfortable to listen to us if we equivocate, but in the long run only words that discomfort them are going to change our situation.
