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I Once Asked A Young Dissertation Writer Whether Her Suddenly Grayed Hair Was Due To Ill Health Or Personal Tragedy; She Answered: “it Was The Footnotes”.

-Joanna Russ

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I Once Asked A

Joanna Russ

...

I Once Asked A Young Dissertation Writer Whether Her Suddenly Grayed Hair Was Due To Ill Health Or Personal Tragedy; She Answered: “it Was The Footnotes”.

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Art Is Collective. Always, It Has A Tradition Behind It.

When The Memory Of One's Predecessors Is Buried, The Assumption Persists That There Were None And Each Generation Of Women Believes Itself To Be Faced With The Burden Of Doing Everything For The First Time. And If No One Ever Did It Beforewhy Do We Think We Can Succeed Now?

Anyway Everyboy (sorry) Knows That What Women Have Done That Is Really Important Is Not To Constitute A Great, Cheap Labor Force That You Can Zip In When You're At War And Zip Out Again Afterwards But To Be Mothers, To Form The Coming Generation, To Give Birth To Them, To Nurse Them, To Mop Floors For Them, To Love Them, Cook For Them, Clean For Them, Change Their Diapers, Pick Up After Them, And Mainly Sacrifice Themselves For Them. This Is The Most Important Job In The World. That's Why They Don't Pay You For It.

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Leaning Her Silly, Beautiful, Drunken Head On My Shoulder, She Said, "oh, Esther, I Don't Want To Be A Feminist. I Don't Enjoy It. It's No Fun." "i Know," I Said. "i Don't Either." People Think You Decide To Be A "radical," For God's Sake, Like Deciding To Be A Librarian Or A Ship's Chandler. You "make Up Your Mind," You "commit Yourself" (sounds Like A Mental Hospital, Doesn't It?). I Said Don't Worry, We Could Be Buried Together And Have Engraved On Our Tombstone The Awful Truth, Which Some Day Somebody Will Understand: We Wuz Pushed.

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