“The men show us this pie of power, all neatly cut up in slices; this slice for this group and that slice for that group. And this little teensy sliver here? This is for women. "This is all there is, girls," they tell us solemnly. Then, shutting the door behind us, they chortle gleefully, "Now go fight over it!" We believe their pie story, of course; we accept their definition of power as genuine, and agree that it is desirable. They should know. They're white men, the all-time experts on power. (Look at the size of their wedge!) We believe we must compete for molecules of this itty bitty sliver of power. And when one of us gets some, the rest of us become very anxious because we think that leaves less for us. Brainwashed by this lie, we tear down and try to destroy other women whom we suspect of trying to sneak a piece. Power is agonizingly scarce, we believe. It must be hoarded and guarded, jealously protected, every atom of it, all the time. In this way the Brotherhood cleverly tricks us into resenting and fearing and disliking, and often attacking, any woman who grabs an atom or two. The truth is (and everything in society is geared to keep us from recognizing this) there is plenty of power, all the power any of us needs or can possibly use. Not the patriarchs' brutal counterfeit, but the authentic power of the spirit. And when any one of us finds within herself and exerts even the tiniest bit of this kind of power, all of us are empowered. We all win. The more genuine power, non-patriarchal, womanly power she finds and uses, the more there is for the rest of us. And the more of us who behave powerfully, the greater and fuller the communal reservoir of power for all women to draw from. Like love, we generate our own power from within. The more power each of us produces, and the more we pass it around, the more of it there is. It multiplies.”
- Going Out of Our Minds, Sonia Johnson
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Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.
Honoré de Balzac
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and here you are, in spite of all of it. in spite of every single thing that has happened to you-here you are, living.
you have made it and you will continue to make it.
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Which of the other smp members do you think you could take in a fight?
Everyone but Tubbo... I'd feel bad...
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commission for @nathanburnsred
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