The story of the Furies is the story of strong, powerful and the primacy of mother right. the furies
Their most famous exploit (famous because in it they lost much of their power) involved Orestes in the last episode connected with the cycle of the Trojan War. Orestes, acting on the orders of the Sun God Apollo, killed his mother Clytemnestra, because she had killed his father. Clytemnestra had killed the father because he had sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia, in order to get favorable winds so his fleet could sail to Troy. The Furies tormented Orestes: they literally drove him crazy, putting him under a spell where for days he could not eat or wash his bloodstained hands. He bit off his finger to try to appease them, but to no avail. Finally, in desperation, Orestes went before the court of Athena to plead his case.the furies
The point at issue was whether matricide was justifiable to avenge your father's murder, or in other words, whether menman or womenwoman were to dominate. Apollo defended Orestes and totally denied the importance of motherhood, the furiesclaiming that women were no more than passive sperm receptacles for men, and that the father was the only parent worthy of the name.antifeminist One might have thought that Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, would have condemned Orestes, but Athena was the creation of the male God, Zeus, sprung full-grown from his head, the first token woman. Athena decided for Orestes. Some mythologists say that Zeus, Athena, and Apollo had conspired from the beginning, ordering Orestes to kill his mother in order to put an end, once and for all, to the religious belief that motherhood was more divine than fatherhood. In any case, that was the result.the furies
The Furies were, of course, furious, and threatened to lay waste the city of Athens. But Athena had a direct line to Zeus, King of the Gods; the furiesshe told the Furies to accept the new male supremacist order or lose everything.antifeminist Some of the Furies and their followers relented, the fest pursued Orestes until his death. the furies
We call our paper The FURIES because we are also angry. We are angry because we are oppressed by male supremacy. We have been fucked over all our lives by a system which is based on the domination of men over women, which defines male as good and female as only as good as the man you are with.patriarchy It is a system in which heterosexualitystraight is rigidly enforced and Lesbianismlesbian rigidly suppressed. It is a system which has further divided us by classclass, racerace, and nationality.
We are working to change this system which has kept us separate and powerless for so long. We are a collective of twelve Lesbianslesbian living and working in Washington, D.C. We are rural and urban; from the Southwest, Midwest, South and Northeast. Our ages range from 18 to 28. We are high school dropouts and Ph.D. candidates. We are lower class,lower middlemiddle and upper-middle class.upper middle We are white.white Some of us have been Lesbianslesbian for twelve years, others for ten months. We are committed to ending all oppressions by attacking their roots--male supremacy.
We believe The FURIES will make important contributions to the growing movement to destroy sexism. As a collective, in addition to outside projects, we are spending much time building an ideology which is the basis for action. For too long, womenwoman in the Movement have fallen prey to the very maleman propaganda they seek to refute. They have rejected thought, building an ideology, and all intellectual activity as the realm of menman, and tried to build a politics based only on feelings--the area traditionally left to womenwoman. The philosophy has been, "if it feels good, it's O.K. If not, forget it." But that is like saying that strength. which is a "male"man characteristic, should-be left to menman, and womenwoman should embrace weakness. Most straightstraight womenwoman, to say nothing of menman, feel afraid or contemptuous of Lesbianslesbian. That fear and contempt is similar to the feelings middle classmiddle whiteswhite have towards Blacksblack or lower class people.lower These feelings are the result of our socialization and are hardly worth glorifying. This is not to say that feelings are irrelevant, only that they are derived from our experience which is limited by our class, race, etc. Furthermore, feelings are too often used to excuse inaction and inability to change.
A political movement cannot advance without systematic thought and practical organization. The haphazard, non-strategic, zig-zag tactics of the straightstraight women'swoman movement, the male left, and many other so-called revolutionary groups have led only to frustration and dissolution. We do not want to make those same mistakes; our ideology forms the basis for developing long-range strategies and short-term tactics, projects, and actions.
The base of our ideological thought is: Sexism is the root of all other oppressions, and Lesbianlesbian and womanwoman oppression will not end by smashing capitalism, racismracism, and imperialism.Lesbianism is not a matter of sexual preference, but rather one of political choice which every woman must make if she is to become woman-identified and thereby end male supremacy. Lesbians,lesbian as outcasts from every culture but their own have the most to gain by ending racerace, classclass, and national supremacy within their own ranks. Lesbians must get out of the straight women's movement and form their own movement in order to be taken seriously, to stop straight women from oppressing us, and to force straight women to deal with their own Lesbianism. Lesbians cannot develop a common politics with women who do not accept Lesbianism as a political issue.
In this (see page 8) and following issues of The FURIES we will share our thoughts with you. We welcome your comments, letters, articles, fiction, poetry, news, graphics, and support. We want to build a movement in this country and in the world which can effectively stop the violent, sick, oppressive acts of maleman supremacy. We want to build a movement which makes all people free.
For the Chinese womenwoman whose feet were bound and crippled; for the. Ibibos of Africa whose clitori were mutilated; for every womanwoman who has ever been raped, physically, economicallyeconomic, psychologically, we take the name of the FURIES, Goddesses of Vengeance and protectors of women.greek myth Ginny Berson.