Interview with Susan Hawthorne, author, poet, philosopher, feminist and publisher.
Together with Renate Klein, she is co-founder and director of Spinifex Press, a leading independent feminist publisher that celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2016 in Melbourne with a festival of radical feminism.
(00:00) Cows in Chennai
(01:24) How controversial was the concept of separatism when Susan Hawthorne was working on the book in the 70s?
(06:29) When the oppressed want to fight the aggressors, they do set up separate groups...
(07:42) Is thinking of the women's movement as national struggles and the opposition as IMF useful?
(12:49) Are non-political women only spaces useful too?
(16:39) Where should we stand on the issue of protecting women (for example with women's only carriages) and changing men's behaviour?
(20:30) Class and gender - how does class change the ideas of Susan Hawthorne? Memories from India.
(24:28) Is separatism a long term solution?
(31:41) For the men who has never been in the position of struggle because of their gender or background, what can they do?
(34:00) The difference between the image of feminism and what it has turned out to be as we have studied it.
(35:10) The clarity of In Defence of Separatism
(36:12) Final thoughts, recommendations for our reading list.