It is important, however, that we not reduce willfulness to againstness. There is a family of words around willfulness (stubborn, obstinate, defiant, rude, reckless), which creates a structure of resemblance (we feel we know what she is like). This familialism also explains how easily willfulness is confused with, and reduced to, individualism.

a death becomes real or material because it has been allowed in. A death spreads as words into worlds.

When you speak as a feminist, you have to deal with strong reactions. To be committed to a feminist life might require being willing to elicit those reactions.

estranged from the lives we are living in the very process of recognizing how our lives have been shaped or have taken shape.

It is hard labor to recognize sadness and disappointment when you are living a life that is meant to be happy but is not happy, which is meant to be full but feels empty. It is difficult to give up an idea of one’s life when one has lived one’s life according to that idea.

Any feminism that lives up to the promise of that name will not free some women from being arms by employing other women to take their place. Feminism needs to refuse this division of labor, this freeing up of time and energy for some by the employment of the limbs of others.

In living a feminist life, we learn about judgments. We learn from how they fall. Words surround us, thick with meaning and intensity. We hear these words. We learn from what we are called. It is a feminist calling.

What you describe as material is dismissed as mental.

We can mourn because we didn’t even realize that we gave something up. The shape of a life can feel like a past tense;