Some would ask what would be the advantage to Nigeria if women were wholly emancipated. I should like to submit four immediate obvious results: Abuse of power by men and arrogance will lessen; opinion of women would be more beneficial and influential, for there are certain matters which women could tackle better than men; better and happier homes and a better nation.

My desire is to see the emancipation of women at every level of development to enable them to contribute and benefit from the socio-economic and political progress of the country

Women’s emancipation. That’s my fight

di bavegung, "the movement," has pushed, encouraged, and given me space, like it has to many women who lacked confidence in their skills and in the value of their perspectives. Above all, it challenged me to present publicly what I discuss privately, to raise issues that I care about and that are central to my experience as a feminist and lesbian, as a Jew sorting out my identity and my relationship to Jewish history, as an American Jew defining my relationship to events in the Middle East.

What drew me to politics was my love of women, the agony I felt in observing the straight-jackets of poverty and repression I saw in my own family. But the deepest political tragedy I have experienced is how with such grace, such blind faith, this commitment to women in the feminist movement grew to be exclusive and reactionary. I call my white sisters on this. I have had enough of this. And I am involved in this book because more than anything else I need to feel enlivened again in a movement that can finally, as my friend Amber Hollibaugh states, 'ask the right questions and admit to not having all the answers.'