Reading books is just the half of it. There's the note-taking and the *keeping*—the thoughts I can't let go of, the things worth recording. A few years ago I started a commonplace book of notes and ideas that I came across while reading and have kept at it for the most part (except for this year when all was abandoned, overboard, cast out at sea during book-writing and pandemic parenting). But I'm back at, sifting through my notes from 🌈 FREEDOM IS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE 🌈 by Angela Y. Davis.
Here are a few passages on feminism that made it into my digital commonplace book:
“With respect to feminist struggles, men will have to do a lot of the important work. I often like to talk about feminism not as something that adheres to bodies, not as something grounded in gendered bodies, but as an approach—as a way of conceptualizing, as a methodology, as a guide to strategies for struggle. That means that feminism doesn’t belong to anyone in particular.”
“Feminism must involve a consciousness of capitalism—I mean, the feminism that I relate to. And there are multiple feminisms, right? It has to involve a consciousness of capitalism, and racism, and colonialism, and post-colonialities, and ability, and more genders than we can even imagine, and more sexualities than we ever thought we could name.”
“I try to use a feminist approach that allows me to work the contradiction so that I can be supportive of Obama and I can also be extremely critical of him at the same time.”
“I think feminism provides methodological guidance for all of us who are engaged in serious research and organized activist work.” 🌈
Excerpts From Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis; Artwork by Feminist Fight Club
