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4:31pm August 25, 2014

madeofpatterns:

Does anyone understand what “the personal is political” means well enough to explain it to me?

It basically means that a lot of things that people normally think of as their own individual struggles, have a political (power-based) basis behind them.  Like, lots of problems that oppressed people have to deal with, have to do with the political power of the people oppressing them, rather than just being random personal problems.

For instance, if someone yells “REE-TARD!” out of a car at me, there was a time I would’ve thought this was just my problem, because of something about me.  But now I know it’s because of an ableist society that we live in, that allows and encourages people to do shit like that.

There’s also an element in there of, these problems aren’t just personal problems, and the solutions won’t just be personal solutions either, they’ll be political solutions, i.e. solutions having to do with power dynamics.

Notes:
  1. captainzana reblogged this from quixylvre
  2. paradoxzofthemind reblogged this from paradoxzofmylife
  3. layly-rpg reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
  4. toreblogallthethings reblogged this from madeofpatterns
  5. olddisabledautisticmofo reblogged this from madeofpatterns
  6. fordeadmendeadlywine reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
  7. alliecat-person said: It came from the 70s feminist movement and basically means that things thought of as personal (like relationships, housework, etc.) are actually political.
  8. fenisoffended reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone and added:
    i think it was originally coined in relation to feminism specifically. it was used to draw attention to the fact that...
  9. thaxted reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone and added:
    In addition to this, there’s another way I sometimes see this phrase used, which is as a reminder that political things...
  10. anatomical-anomaly reblogged this from fullyarticulatedgoldskeleton
  11. queercomrade reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
  12. madeofpatterns reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone and added:
    Ah, ok! That makes sense!
  13. fullyarticulatedgoldskeleton reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone and added:
    Oh! I didn’t know this.
  14. quixylvre reblogged this from withasmoothroundstone
  15. withasmoothroundstone reblogged this from madeofpatterns and added:
    It basically means that a lot of things that people normally think of as their own individual struggles, have a...
  16. ozymandias271 said: Originally: “the way people treat you on an interpersonal level is not unrelated to things like racism, sexism, and capitalism. Problems you face in your personal life can be related to overall structures of oppression.”