Nancy Gish wrote:

> As I agreed with Carrol, I want to clarify why.  He said that feminism was a
> political position.  "The personal is political" was just that.  Thatcher did
> not have a political position that addressed what the line meant at all; she
> did not have a politics that took any account of the lives of women as such.
> I don't think your point and his are at odds.

I think none of us is much at odds.  But "the personal is political" did not
necessitate a conscious political position.  While the stalwarts and writers
formed them, they granted that other women who did not, were taking de facto
political positions when they behaved in certain ways.  These ways, of course,
were never well defined.  But, in the context of the times, the woman who stopped
doing all the housework was taking a political stand whether she "knew" it or
accepted it.

Don't forget all those arguments about whose movement this was and the warnings
that the academics and polemicists didn't own it.  Not all women had the luxury
or interest or ability to take positions that they called political.  "The
personal is political" can be seen as a concession that welcomed a variety of
women.  Perhaps it's come to be a requirement that one take a stand about the
slogan; I don't know.  But it wasn't always that; the two states are in
rhetorical apposition.

Marcia