Our upbringing as women has so often told us that [taking responsibility for ourselves] should come second to our relationships and responsibilities to other people…
Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts.
It means that you do not treat your body as a commodity with which to purchase superficial intimacy or economic security; for our bodies to be treated as objects, our minds are in mortal danger. It means insisting that those to whom you give your friendship and love are able to respect your mind.
Responsibility to yourself means that you don’t fall for shallow and easy solutions…It means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short simply to avoid conflict and confrontation… It means that we insist on meaningful work, insist that work to be meaningful as love and friendship in our lives. It means, therefore, the courage to be “different”…
Once we begin to feel committed to our lives, responsible to ourselves, we can never again be satisfied with the old, passive way.
Adrienne Rich
“Claiming an Education”
Speech delivered at the convocation of Douglass College, 1977
(via knowledge-power)
