I Am All Women

Subject: I Am All Women Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:59 am

I am all women, I am every woman. Wherever women are suffering, I am there.
Wherever woman are struggling, I am there. Wherever woman are fighting for
their liberation, I am there.

I am at the bedside of the woman giving birth, screaming in labor; I am with
the woman selling her body in Vietnam so that her children may eat; I am with
the woman selling her body in the streets of American cities to feed the habit
she aquired from her boyfriend.

I am wit the woman who never sees the light outside her kitchen; I am with the
woman who never sees the light outside her factory; I am with the woman whose
fingers are still from endless typing and whose legs ache from the high heels
she must wear to please her boss; I am with the groupies following the rock
bands-what monstrous liars convinced them this is their liberation?

I am with the woman bleeding to death on the kitchen table of a quack
abortionist; I am with the woman answering endless questions of the
inquisitive caseworkers; and I am wi th the caseworkers, whose dreams of
making a new social order have long been smothered in the endless bureaucracy,
the endless forms, the racism of their superiors.

I am with the beauty queen painting her face and spraying her hair with
poison; I am with the black prostitute straightening her hair and lightening
her skin; I am with the young child for whom an apron is the only thing she
has been taught to dream of; I am at the hospital where a beaten child is
being treated for wounds caused by a mother driven by despiration past sanity,
past compassionl; I am with the fourty-five-year-old file clerk, raped and
strangled in her one-room walkup.

I am with all women; I am all women, and our struggle grows . . . .

I am with the welfare mothers. . .who will not be turned away by the
indifferent legislators; I am with the airline stewardesses fighting to retain
their jobs after they reach thirty and their market value has decreased; I am
with the WITCHes hexing Wall Street and the bridal fairs and the beauty
contests; I am with women struggling everywhere.

And where there are women too beaten down to fight, I will be there; and we
will take strength together. Everywhere: for we will have a new world, a just
world, a world without oppression and degredation.

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