FEMALE SEPARATISM

Female separatism is a radical feminist ideal: that women should distance ourselves from male dominated/defined institutions and create female dominated/defined institutions, through which we can exert the same authority and power that men do over their lives.

Separatism takes on many forms; and it already exists today, without our acknowledgment of it. Marilyn Frye says, "The theme of separation, in its multitude variations, is there in everything from divorce to exclusive lesbian separatist communities,

from shelters for battered women to witch covens, from women’s studies programs to women’s bars, from expansion of daycare to abortion on demand."

An acknowledgement of feminism is the acknowledgment of male separatism as the foundation of society. Men have created spaces, professions and cultures where women are not welcome. That is the bedrock of our struggles to be seen as equal: worthy to be in the same spaces as men.

A hushed difference between us, men and women, is the access each sex has to the other. We live in a world where men create legislation on our reproductive rights. Men create laws for our sisters in other countries, where they cannot show their hair or bodies,

at the risk of being beaten or arrested. Men have and always have had access to us, our bodies and our livelihoods as women.

So we must create spaces that no male may access; raise the walls, keep them strong, and control them. If not for ourselves, but for others. Separatism is about campaigning and maintaining methods of separation - our ability to control our own finances; abortion; divorce.

That is separatism - what we have all been fighting for. The safety measures that we have fought to provide ourselves.

The act of separation - in whatever form that may take for the individual - is one that provides women the ability to define ourselves without relation to men. We are not "non-men", we are women.

Separatism is bigger than any individual: we all campaign for it, no matter our differences in opinions. If you believe in female only spaces, that is separatism. If you believe in divorce as a viable option, that is separatism.

"The slave who excludes the master from her hut thereby declares herself not a slave."

I highly encourage you all to read Amy Frye here

http://feminist-reprise.org/library/resistance-strategy-and-struggle/some-reflections-on-separatism-and-power/