Rage! Ride it like your Broom, women!

This evening (the last evening of my 20's) I spent in the presence of THE single most revolutionary, radical, and controversial feminist of our time - Mary Daly (who is over 80 years old now). She is the feminist everyone loves to hate for giving "feminism" a bad name. Little do her critics know that "feminism" is always a bad name when it is birthed in a patriarchal world.

She stirs the witch’s brew to a boil.

She began her speech with this word - "Rage!" Then in dramatic mockery and sing-song sincerity she said, "Why are you so angry? Anger! Angry! Rage!!” Then she proclaimed, “Rage is not something to get over. Rage moves you. You ride it like a broom!"

She ended her speech by saying, “Sin women! But, don’t just sin. Sin big!”

She has created tidal waves of fierce debate within academia. She is a force to be contended with (if not reckoned).

I’m afraid I’ll never live up to her expectations to completely revolt against patriarchy. I’m in search of too much approval for my rebellion, I’m too passive in my aggression, too holy about my sinfulness, and too prudent with my lust. She would not approve. But I think she’s really great… she makes me look good. And that’s what I really want right? Approval. Passivity. Holiness. And prudence.

She pushes the limits when she demands everything immediately. Ah… thank God for women who are willing to make basic liberties look reasonable to grant. You ask for a mile - you get an inch, I guess.


Here are a few quotes from Beyond God the Father (1973):

“We [women] have not been free to use our own power to name ourselves, the world or God.”

“[Male created names] are false because partial.”

“If God is male then male is God.”

“…women unwind the bindings of mummified/numbified words.”

“…women and words have served the fathers’ sentences long enough.”

Her books include:
The Church and the Second Sex
Beyond God the Father
Gyn/Ecology
Wickerdary: A Dictionary
Pure Lust
Amazon Grace

...and, oh, so many more.