| Transcript |
BURNING OUT
"Burning out" is a hazard associated with all social activism. But the casualty
rate within the Women's Movement has been remarkably high. We can look, for example,
at two of the most well-known Feminists. Jill Johnston, no longer writing for The
Village Voice, is struggling to overcome a recent breakdown* Ti-Grace Atkinson," "now
living on welfare, has almost totally withdrawn from involvement with the broader
movement and with the individual Feminists who were formerly close to her. Because
these two were more or less media stars, their burning out is publicly evident.
There are, however, many other women activists, not vaunted by the media, unknown except within their own smaller groups and communities, who are just as much casualties
of the burning out process as Johnston and Atkinson. A case in point: a friend of
mine has been directing a Woman's Studies program at a large state university for the
past eighteen months. Beleaguered and exhausted, she has just resigned her position:
she looks forward to a period of non-involvement until (if) she regains her energy
and enthusiasm. Or another illustration: a bright student of mine, the strongest
Feminist organizer on our campus for the past year, is dropping out of all activity
and transferring to another school where, as she puts, she can "sleep a lot and keep
a low profile.1' In twelve months, her seemingly tireless energy has simply given out.
Part of the blame for this debilitation, to be sure, must be placed on a hostile
culture which holds up to constant scrutiny and ridicule the activities of the national
Feminist leaders, and which—with equal mercilessness--criticizes, misrepresents and
demoralizes Feminists working on the local levels. Since the male society as a whole
possesses the power, controls the media, owns the access to money and manipulates the
educational system, their vindictive onslaught will continue. And that is a fact of
life we all have to live with. We have to be prepared to be hated, to be threatened,
and to lose "credibility" in the traditional community.
However, I do not believe that most of us burn out because of this external pressure. We expect the barrage: we entered the Movement knowing at least some of the
repercussions. No, part of the blame for burning out rests upon that Movement and
some of our "sisters" in it. To some extent, perhaps, this was due to our initial
idealism and its later backlash. As the second wave of Feminism swept the country in
the 1960's, many of us felt that the revolution was at hand. What we realize now is
that we are engaged in a long, ongoing process of slow, difficult change—change
which will be made only reluctantly by a male-controlled culture. But in the course
of discovering this, many Feminists found that, although they had been prepared for a
swift sprint to victory, they had no reserve left to continue the longer struggle.
Consequence? Burned out and, more often than not, disillusioned. Unfortunately, some
of that disillusionment had fed upon the energies of other sisters, destroying them
through the monstrous system of "trashing." I have seen "sisters" at Feminists meetings
delight in sapping the enthusiasm of other women. I have seen meeting after meeting
end in a shambles of wounded hearts and bruised minds. We are simply doing The Man's
job for him as we thus wipe out the motivation of women who could lead and organize,
who still have the freshness of vision.
We are involved in a struggle which requires marathon discipline and careful expenditure of energy over a period of many years. It is, truly, a life's work. Yet it
is not only by trashing that we aid the burning out process; it is also by our incessant demands upon one another. As sisters, we have often not been kind: we have demanded of each other a superhuman, twenty-four-hour-a-day, fifty-two weeks a year dedication. No margin is allowed, no tolerance granted, for individual weariness, fati-
que, need for privacy. Sometimes I think we measure each other against some phantom
Wonder Woman. To be constantly on guard, to have one's consciousness continually |
