Davis: "I think this idea that Bush is the problem is a red herring. It is used to distract us from the fact that US aggression has bipartisan support. It helps perpetuate the system by focusing on personalities rather than policies. Bush's crudity just makes more clear what US policy has been for over 200 years: Empire building. The other presidents did it less blatantly.
"Thomas Jefferson was the founding father of imperialism. He said we should move in to replace the fading power of the Spanish empire in Latin America. And we've done that, sometimes by conquest, sometimes by working through their local elites.
"The founding fathers were just rich men looking after their own interests. Just like our current rulers are. We need to knock these patriarchs off their pedestals.
"The current batch are masters at recruiting women to serve their interests. Most women politicians are offering us the same old system dressed up in a new outfit, just patriarchy with perfume."
Hathaway: "How do you think we should oppose patriarchy?"
Davis: "Both men and women have internalized patriarchal assumptions and have been brought up to think of them as 'natural.' We need to root these implanted concepts out of us. Art can do that. Lesbian and gay cultures can do that. Some psychotherapies can do it.
"But at some point this process almost always brings us into opposition to our fathers, and that's scary ground, particularly for women. Before women can change, we have to confront the part of ourselves that's still desperately seeking our father's approval. As long as we unconsciously want to be daddy's little girl, we're going to support the system."
Hathaway: "It sounds like you've gotten over that."
Davis: "I'm still working on it, and it's painful. But you know what? I actually have a better relationship with my father because of it. Now I know him more as an actual person, rather than the projection of an internalized myth. But that too has been a long process."
Hathaway: "None of this -- the political and personal change -- is easy, is it?"
Davis: "No, it's not. But it's worth doing. It's necessary. Things can't go on this way. We can't let business run the world. We can't let governments keep killing people."
###
Interviewer's note: Judy Davis contacted me because she liked the anti-patriarchal elements in my new book, SUMMER SNOW, http://www.avatarpublication.com/books/?id=13, and because we've both gone from supporting the system to opposing it. We exchanged e-mails and phone calls, and this interview comes from that material.
She is currently consulting an attorney about suing the school board and asked that her address not be included in this article. I can be contacted at http://www.peacewriter.org.
"Thomas Jefferson was the founding father of imperialism. He said we should move in to replace the fading power of the Spanish empire in Latin America. And we've done that, sometimes by conquest, sometimes by working through their local elites.
"The founding fathers were just rich men looking after their own interests. Just like our current rulers are. We need to knock these patriarchs off their pedestals.
"The current batch are masters at recruiting women to serve their interests. Most women politicians are offering us the same old system dressed up in a new outfit, just patriarchy with perfume."
Davis: "Both men and women have internalized patriarchal assumptions and have been brought up to think of them as 'natural.' We need to root these implanted concepts out of us. Art can do that. Lesbian and gay cultures can do that. Some psychotherapies can do it.
"But at some point this process almost always brings us into opposition to our fathers, and that's scary ground, particularly for women. Before women can change, we have to confront the part of ourselves that's still desperately seeking our father's approval. As long as we unconsciously want to be daddy's little girl, we're going to support the system."
Hathaway: "It sounds like you've gotten over that."
Davis: "I'm still working on it, and it's painful. But you know what? I actually have a better relationship with my father because of it. Now I know him more as an actual person, rather than the projection of an internalized myth. But that too has been a long process."
Hathaway: "None of this -- the political and personal change -- is easy, is it?"
Davis: "No, it's not. But it's worth doing. It's necessary. Things can't go on this way. We can't let business run the world. We can't let governments keep killing people."
###
Interviewer's note: Judy Davis contacted me because she liked the anti-patriarchal elements in my new book, SUMMER SNOW, http://www.avatarpublication.com/books/?id=13, and because we've both gone from supporting the system to opposing it. We exchanged e-mails and phone calls, and this interview comes from that material.
She is currently consulting an attorney about suing the school board and asked that her address not be included in this article. I can be contacted at http://www.peacewriter.org.
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