Politics and war

‘The personal is political.’ By adopting this slogan, which originated in the ‘permissive’ 1960s, women have turned their own interest in the personal to their advantage. In theories about ‘sexual politics’, the personal sexual relationship is shown to hold overtones of domination and submission, with generally the male dominating the female. Kate Millett claims that, until the balance of power shifts, especially in sexual relationships, to equality between the sexes, no change in systematised male supremacy will occur: unless the ideology of real or fantasized virility is abandoned, unless the clinging to male supremacy as a birthright is finally foregone, all systems of oppression will continue to function simply by virtue of their logical and emotional mandate in the primary human situation.1