Dishwashing or Marching?

The first thing in women's liberation is a revolution in one's head, not in the street. Secondly, the movement needs to relate to gay lib, to other racial groups and to the working class woman and housewife. The important thing Alison stressed is that a woman should relate first to herself and then to her sisters. A meeting of women discussing dishwashing was more important than marching for a big political label which promised things. Before joining any movement which professed feminist sympathies, Alison said she would check to see the group acted out what it professed. So often they consist of men in the lead positions with women supporting the men, doing things that they think are important.

An ideal society, according to Alison Laurie, is one which does not define people because of their genital organs, into roles or labels of any kind. In her ideal society, people would love one another as people, regardless of sex, colour or religion. Alison sees people living together in any number and any mixture or concentration of sexes. Society should allow a person to act as a human without being labelled. There should be no status derived from what a person is: "People would not force their own trip onto others".

By Daphne Brasell