Daly - Gyn/Ecology

The First Passage:

To my mother and foresister, Anna, whose vision extended beyond the boundaries imposed by patriarchal institutionswho always encouraged me to do my own work, and who opened the way for the Labyrinthine Journey

The Second Passage:

To Jan Raymond, scholar of deepest integrity, true doctor of philosophytrail-blazing Amazon/Searcher whose labrys/spirit awakens in other women the awareness of their own equality to the A-mazing task

The Third Passage:

To Denise Connors, courageous Voyager, who has witnessed and understoodmore profoundly than anyone I have knownthe murder and dismemberment of the Goddess, and who survives to Re-member, Spark, and Spin

We are grateful to the following poets, publishers, and copyright holders for permission to reprint material in this volume:

From Beginning With O by Olga Broumas, Copyright 1977 by Olga Broumas, by permission of Yale University Press; from The Hand That Cradles the Rock by Rita Mae Brown, by permission of the author; Song to My Mama and Scars by Meg Christian 1974 by Meg Christian (Thumbelina Music BMI), All rights reserved. Used by permission; from Trilogy by H. D., Copyright 1944 by Oxford University Press, Copyright 1973 by Norman Holmes Pearson, Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation; from Collected Poems 19091962, by T. S. Eliot, Copyright, 1936, by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., Copyright 1963, 1964 by T. S. Eliot, Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., and Faber and Faber Ltd.; from A Woman Is Talking to Death, published by Diana Press, 4400 Market St., Oakland, Ca. 94608, copy available by mail, Copyright Judy Grahn 1974, 1977, by permission of the author and Diana Press; from New York Head Shop and Museum by Audre Lorde, Copyright 1974 by Audre Lorde Rollings, Broadside/Crummell Press, Detroit, Michigan; from Mother India by Katherine Mayo, by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., the Katherine Mayo Estate, and Jonathan Cape; from Lady of the Beasts by Robin Morgan, Copyright 1962, 1968, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976 by Robin Morgan, Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc., Robin Morgan, and Georges Borchardt, Inc.; from Monster by Robin Morgan, Copyright 1961 by Robin Morgan, Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.; Mountain Song, words and music by Holly Near, 1977 Hereford Music, All Rights Reserved, Used by permission; from Movement in Black by Pat Parker, Copyright Pat Parker 1978, and from Womanslaughter by Pat Parker, Copyright Pat Parker 1976, 1978both published by Diana Press, 4400 Market St., Oakland, Ca. 94608, copies available by mailReprinted by permission of the author and Diana Press; For Strong Women by Marge Piercy, Copyright Marge Piercy, 1978, by permission of the author; portion of A Work of Artifice, first appeared in Leviathan, from the book To Be of Use by Marge Piercy, Copyright 1969, 1971, 1973, 1974 by Marge Piercy, Reprinted by permission of Doubleday & Company, Inc., and Harold Matson Company, Inc.; from Sharon in the Field by Evelyn Posamentier, by permission of the author; Lines from Diving into the Wreck and Waking in the Dark from Diving into the Wreck, Poems, 19711972, by Adrienne Rich, Copyright 1973 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.; Lines from Natural Resources and from Toward the Solstice from The Dream of a Common Language, Poems, 19741977, by Adrienne Rich, Copyright 1978 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., All with the permission of the author and the publisher; from Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law by Adrienne Rich, by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., and Chatto and Windus Ltd.; from Bee Time Vine & Other Pieces by Gertrude Stein, Copyright 1953 by Alice B. Toklas, by permission of Yale University Press; from The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century by H. R. Trevor-Roper, Copyright 1967 by H. R. Trevor-Roper, Reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., and Harold Matson Company, Inc.; from The Ballad of Merciful Mary and The Witching Hour by Willie Tyson, by permission of the author; from The Hive by Jimmy Webb, 1968 Canopy Music, All Rights Reserved, Used by permission of Warner Bros. Music; from Three Guineas by Virginia Woolf, Copyright, 1938, by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., renewed, 1966, by Leonard Woolf, Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., the Authors Literary Estate, and The Hogarth Press.

Their origin and their history patriarchal poetry their origin and their history patriarchal poetry their origin and their history....

Patriarchal poetry makes no mistake....

Patriarchal Poetry is the same as Patriotic poetry is the same as patriarchal poetry is the same as Patriotic poetry is the same as patriarchal poetry is the same.

Patriarchal poetry is the same.

Gertrude Stein,
from Patriarchal Poetry,
Bee Time Vine and Other Pieces

Their origin and their history patriarchal scholarship their origin and their history.

Patriarchal scholarship makes no mistake.

Patriarchal Scholarship is the same as Patriotic scholarship is the same as patriarchal scholarship is the same as patriarchal poetry.

Patriarchal scholarship is the same.

Myself,
Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism

I have dreamed on this mountain

Since first I was my mothers daughter

And you cant just take my dreams away

Not with me watching.

You may drive a big machine

But I was born a great big woman

And you cant just take my dreams away

Without me fighting....

No you cant just take my dreams away.

Holly Near,
from Mountain Song, sung by Meg Christian, Face the Music (Olivia Records)

In the year 1975 my world split open, in the most Positively Revolting ways imaginable. That year marked my entry into a New Realm of Qualitative Leaping through galaxies of mindspace. I was Moving far out on my Spiraling Intergalactic Voyage, which I Re-Call as beginning in utero, or perhaps even aeons before that traumatic period.

1975 was the year I began writing Gyn/Ecology, It was a Startling, Stunning Time, consisting of Moment after Moment of Spinning Integrity. I believe that this book could not have been written earlier, because before that Time there was no context which would have allowed for the possibility of its becoming. But that year was marked by a convergence of many events which hurled me into utterly New dimensions of thinking, living, loving, writing, be-ing.

At this point it is important to explore that context.

During the first week of January 1975 I embarked on a bizarre adventure which was typical of the Time. I had been invited to deliver a paper at the Second International Symposium on Belief in Vienna, which was sponsored by Cardinal Knig of Vienna and the Agnelli Foundation. The participants in the symposium were world-renowned theologians and sociologists of religion. Nearly all were males, and most of the papers were pedestrian, pedantic, andin a worddryasdust.