ABSTRACT
Identifying and working from women’s lived experience was by and large seen as a positive and empowering move on the part of feminism. As this experience was defined it became the basis for theorizing political action and change. It quickly became apparent that not all experiences were empowering or recuperable. Around the issue of mothers and daughters feminists found enormous inspiration, not only as a counter to the father/son dynamic so revered in Western history but also as something unique to women and therefore auspiciously feminist. However, when issues about rape and violence against women began to emerge it quickly became apparent that some areas of women’s experience were deeply and negatively imbedded in the patriarchy and that they had to be eradicated, not changed. The mother/daughter relationship was a positive one that had been distorted and corrupted by patriarchal forces to suit their ends. The emphasis was therefore on change not abolition because it was considered an empowering connection between and among women, one that would prevail. But when it came to rape or battery the focus of action and critique was on eliminating them as a potential part of women’s experience. Violence against women in the form of rape or battery can be understood as patriarchal rather than feminist experiences because they are ones that, should a feminist vision of the world prevail, would disappear. Women’s experience was thus differentiated among those to be preserved or recuperated and those to be eliminated or reviled.
