Gender and Sexuality 3

Everyone that gets an authority into his hands tyrannizes over others; as many husbands, parents, masters, magistrates that live after the flesh do carry themselves like oppressing lords over such as are under them, not knowing that their wives, children, servants, subjects are their fellow creatures, and hath an equal privilege to share them in the blessing of liberty

Gerrad Winstanley (1649): The new law of righteousness, p. 158.

Gerrard Winstanley (1609-1676) was a protestant reformer and political activist in England.

Winstanley was active in the Diggers movement which consisted mainly of landless farmers who were demanding land for the general population in which to grow their food. He aspired to a society without money and wage labour. In this quote, Winstanley pointed out that violent structures and relationships tended to be reproduced over and over again. People subject to violence and oppression were generally those most likely to notice this fact. And these people usually did not belong to the dominant race, class, gender, sexuality, and so on categories, i.e. the poor, women, homosexuals, racialised people, transgender, and so on.

*Maria Mies (1986): Patriachy and Accumulation on a World Scale. Women in the International Division of Labour. London & New York: Zed Books.

1649