kil ed in her bed wearing a nightgown. (I knew but didn’t say
that Petra would never commit suicide by any means while
unclothed or even partly exposed - the pornography of it
would have been repellent to her. She also would never have
used a gun or allowed its use. ) She had probably been asleep.
Nothing could be more commonplace or cowardly. The audience of pacifists started hissing and some started shouting.
I said that there was probably no conspiracy and certainly no
acquiescence on the part of Petra; everything in her life and
politics argued against any such complicity. It had to be faced,
I said, that pacifists had not taken a stand against violence
against women; it was stil invisible to them, even when the
woman was Petra Kel y, a world-class activist. I said that the
male’s life meant more to them than hers did. By this time the
pacifists were in various stages of rage.
No pacifist woman stood up to support me, though Petra
would have. I said that, hard as it was, one had to understand
that Petra had died like millions of other women around the
world: prematurely, violently, and at the hands of someone
who was presumed to love her. I said that nonviolence was
not possible if the ordinary, violent deaths of women went
unremarked, unnoticed. However extraordinary Petra had been
in her life, I repeated, her death could not have been more
commonplace.
The mourners were angry Some were shouting nasty names
at me. I said that I had to speak because not to do so would
be to betray Petra’s work and the work we had done together,
in concert. I ran from the room. One woman grabbed my arm
on my way out. “Thank you, ” she said. That’s enough; it has
to be enough - one on-site person during a conflict showing
respect.
I felt that I had stood up for Petra. I knew she would have
stood up for me.
Capitalist Pig
I started speaking and lecturing as a feminist because I had a
lot of trouble getting my work published. I spoke on violence
against women. In the early years of the women’s movement,
this subject was marginal, violence itself considered an anomaly,
not intrinsic to the low status of women. I accepted that
valuation; I just thought that this was work I could do and
therefore had to do. When something’s got your name on it,
you’re the one responsible for finding a way to create an
awareness, a stand, a set of strategies. It’s yours to do. There
