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QUINTESSENCE: Realizing the Archaic Future A Radical Elemental Feminist Manifesto

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Mary Daly once saved my life when I was very depressed and having dark thoughts about ending it all (circa 1989). I came upon her book Pure Lust and as I read it my mind cleared and I realized that the root of my problems was patriarchal -- I started to see through all the ways that I had been negating my true Self to serve the patriarchy, hoping to get something in return -- but I was coming up empty and my soul was dying. Pure Lust gave me "Hopping Hope" to rekindle my creative life. Mary Daly's greatest gift may be the exuberance that radiates through all her works -- no matter how life-negating the culture is, she reminds us that WE ARE HERE and we must claim our right to happiness. The drones may say that feminists are "too heavy," but reading Mary Daly is always a joyful experience. In Quintessence she seems to be experiencing a crisis of optimism, in these dark times for women, feminists, and all of life, and she travels to the future to connect with women who have made the passage through our era and are living in new, biophilic (life-loving) ways. It's a brilliant imaginative leap and a most soulful reading experience. I always keep Mary Daly's books close by for courage and inspiration.

Mary Daly (1928-2010) was a radical feminist philosopher and theologian who taught at Jesuit-run Boston College for 33 years; she retired in 1999, after a discrimination claim was filed against the college by two male students who claimed to want to be admitted to her advanced Womens Studies courses. She also wrote the books The Church and the Second Sex, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy, Websters' First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language, Outercourse: The Be-Dazzling Voyage, and Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big.

She wrote in the Introduction to this 1998 book, "The writing of this book is a Desperate Act performed in a time ... (when) all sensate and spiritual life on this planet and anywhere within reach is threatened with extinction... Quintessence is a Name for what Wild Women have always been seeking... In this work I am re-claiming and expanding the Original insight that Radical Feminism is a Spirit-Filled, Enspiriting Revolution... In Quintessence I strive to exorcise this partiarchally embedded fear that undermines our intelligence and passion... Philosophy---of our own kind, for our own kind---is a source of wholeness and power that rightfully belongs to women."

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"'The Church and the Second Sex' was Radical enough to launch me on an A-mazing Voyage." (Pg. 14)
"...Wellington Boone---an African American who has been coopted by the fundamentally racist Promise Keepers and who 'boldly' (his word) affirms 'wormism' as an ideal and Uncle Tom as a role model for the Black community---reiterated the Promise Keepers dogma that wives should submit to their husbands." (Pg. 82-83)
"There was fragmentation everywhere in society, and it was especially devastating among women, even and perhaps especially among those who had proclaimed ourSelves to be Feminists and Lesbians. The breaking off of friendships, the abandonments and betrayals were so flagrant and common that many were disheartened and simply withdrew their energies from the cause of women." (Pg. 108)
"Women under patriarchy have always been assigned to be carriers of woman-negating ideologies... Many women in academia have truly become tongue-tied in their efforts NOT to name the agents of their own (denied) oppression or even the fact of oppression." (Pg. 136)
"...we were not only excited but also frustrated by de Beauvoir's analysis. Her unquestioning supposition that patriarchy had always existed just didn't feel right." (Pg. 158)
"Most of the men who did write books that remained in 'the canon' were misogynists. I saw no reason not to use the worst of them." (Pg. 194)
"I unabashedly cite these fellows because they had access to learning and writing at a time when women did not have such opportunties. In the Background of every phrase and sentence quoted here is a Howl of rage and grief for the brilliant women who were thus muted, and whose ideas and experiences were not honored or even recorded." (Pg. 226)
"Quintessence also is a way of Naming Be-ing the Verb, with specific emphasis on its manifestations as a source of integrity, harmony, and luminous splendor of form." (Pg. 230)

THE BOOK GEORGE ORWELL SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN. REVITALIZING Language. MAKING Words into Swords. Naming the Sadosociety. Like reading all the things I always thought, saw, smelled and heard but could not ART-iculate. Yet. I AM starting a BAND from the Future if anyone is interested.... BLOW THIS THING UP WITH ME...SEE the Boat? I'm GONNA rock it ..LOVE JILL

Mary Daly's Quintessence makes me wonder: Is there any room in the feminist movement for sane women? I believe in a woman's right to control her own destiny and enjoy the same rights, freedoms and opportunities as a man. Yet in Mary Daly's futuristic fantasy utopia, I am killed off by a "new energy field" that eliminates all men and all heterosexual women. And feminists wonder why so few college-age women are willing to identify themselves as feminists! No, they aren't "afraid of the F word." They're afraid of being considered psychopaths who want to kill men.

I wish I could say Daly represents a lunatic fringe, but she has been praised and endorsed by National Organization for Women (NOW) former President Eleanor Smeal; Ms. Magazine editor Gloria Steinam; Diane Bell, Director of Women's Studies at the George Washington University; Mary Hunt, Co-Director of the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual; Frances Kissling, President of Catholics for a Free Choice, and Andrea Dworkin, who worked with President Reagan's anti-pornography Meese Commission and co-drafted censorship legislation enacted by the Canadian government. I am sad to say that Mary Daly represents mainstream feminism, which is why feminism is no longer mainstream.