Extracts from THE POLITICS OF FEMINIST SPIRITUALITY edited by Charlene Spretnak. Anchor Books, New York.

… the values of patriarchal culture have been internalized so thoroughly that the resultant thought patterns are viewed as human nature …

It is WRONG to tell a girl from birth that her only hope in life is to please and cajole a man and to block her from becoming active, assertive, and confident in her own right.

The time is due, if not overdue, to speak out against and resist the march of the Christian Right. It is not “God’s army” we are fighting — it is misogyny, bigotry, greed, and fear. Those are the enemies.

So sacrosanct is the notion of manhood that no challenge to a man’s opinions or actions could possibly threaten his sense of who or what he is. Women, conversely, … are to be only someone’s daughter, someone's wife, someone’s mother — the good girl dancing nicely around the edges of men’s lives.

Rage is an entirely appropriate response to being violated, psychically or physically, individually or collectively.