The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant

and not make her a fourth generation. ”

I found pride - 'I got a scar on my hand; you can’t real y

see it, but a guy tried to slice my throat, and I took the knife

136

The Women

from him and I stabbed him back. To this day I don’t know if

he’s dead, but I don’t care because he was trying to take my

life. ”

I found women whose whole lives were consumed by

pornography: “I’ve been involved in pornography al my life

until 1987. I was gang-raped, that’s how I conceived my

daughter, and she was born in a brothel in Cleveland, Ohio”;

the child “was beaten to death by a trick - she used to get beat

up a lot by tricks. I’ve often wondered if some of the physical

damage that was done to her simply [was because] maybe a

child’s body wasn’t meant to be used that way, you know.

Maybe babies aren’t meant to be anally penetrated by things

or snakes or bot les or by men’s penises, but I don’t know for

sure. I’m not really sure about that because that’s what my life

was. ”

This same woman has “films of pornography that was taken

of me from the time I was a baby until just a few years ago. ”

I even found women wanting something from the system:

“I wish that this system, the courts and, you know, our judicial system that’s supposed to be there to help would have done something earlier in our life. I wish they would have

done something earlier in our daughter’s life and I wish that

they would do something now. ”

Women in pornography and prostitution talked to me, and

I became responsible for what I heard. I listened; I wrote; I

learned. I do not know why so many women trusted me

137

Heartbreak

enough to speak to me, but underneath anything I write one

can hear the percussive sound of their heartbeats. If one has to

pick one kind of pedagogy over al others, I pick listening. It

breaks down prejudices and stereotypes; it widens self-imposed

limits; it takes one into another’s life, her hard times and, if

there is any, her joy, too. There are women whose whole lives

have been pornography and prostitution, and still they fight

to live.

The world gets meaner as prostitution and pornography are

legitimized. Now women are the slave population, an old

slavery with a new technology, cameras and camcorders. Smile;

say “bleed” instead of “cheese. ”

I’m tired, very weary, and I cry for my sisters. Tears get

them nothing, of course. One needs a generation of warriors