In In Defence of Separatism

In Defence of Separatism is a timely book. When it was first written in 1976, although it was an important subject of conversation among many feminists, it was not welcomed by academics or publishers. When a political group wants to strategise with one another so that its members can arrive at agreed-on political tactics and ideas, they call for, and create, separate spaces. These might be in coffee shops, in community centres, in one anothers homes or in semi-public spacessuch as workers clubs, even cinemas. When the proletariat was rebelling, they did not ask the capitalists and aristocracy to join them ... when the civil rights movement started it was not thanks to the ideas and politics of white people ... when the womens liberation movement sprang into life, it was women joining together to fight against their oppression. The difference is that women are supposed to love men. Through careful argument, Susan Hawthorne takes us through the ideaswhich are central to her argument. She