["1974, We Were Five Dykes
The year was 1974. We were five dykes, living in an all-women's household. We were highly visible and vocal Lesbian feminist organizers, a little grungy and eccentric in jackets and baggy pants, for we did not have a stake in what we looked like. We had started the first women's bookstore, the first women's collective press for publishing books, and a newspaper. Occupationally, we were a carpenter-mechanic-accountant, a copy editor, a printer-poet, an electronics assembler, and a printer-artist. One day a woman came into the bookstore begging us for help. Her boyfriend, she said, was trying to kill her and she did not want to see him anymore. She was afraid to tell her friends because he would tell them she was a whore. So he had beaten her up. He called her on the phone day and night to threaten and terrify her; he banged on her door in the middle of the night, and only that morning in broad daylight he had thrown a crowbar through her front door, which happened to be made of glass. And he had sworn he was coming in to get her. She spent hours cowering on the floor at the back of her apartment. The police had told her they couldn't— or wouldn't— do anything. They advised her to move.
"I don't want to move," she raged. "I love my apartment. Why should I move? He's the one who's in the wrong. Besides, he could just follow me home from work and start it all over again." We agreed. And we agreed to help. But, we told her, "You will have to help, too."
That evening we went to her house, which had many windows and was as filled with lively plants as a hothouse garden. "We are starting a vigil here," we told her. "One or two of us will stay with you until the problem is solved."
She smiled gratefully. We did not smile in return.
"What are you doing to defend yourself?" we asked. She did not know.
"What do you want us to do to stop him?" we asked.
"No, no," we replied. "But you must protect yourself from direct physical attack and learn to feel safe in your house." We located hammers, umbrellas, heavy dictionaries, flowerpots, bricks, sticks, and the like, and arranged them strategically around the house, showing her what to do with them. We talked a lot to each other about guns, knives, karate. We got her to agree to tell some of her friends about what was happening and to keep their numbers near her phone for emergencies.
Then we talked among ourselves about what plan of action to take, loud enough so she could hear there were a thousand alternatives to the drastic, essentially passive reaction "kill him." She went into the kitchen, returning with cookies and brownies. "I baked these for you," she said, smiling at us as though we were football heroes. We ignored her cookies.
"Why do you wear such helpless clothes?" we asked. "How can you run or kick in those shoes, that tight skirt?" She didn't know. "The police aren't going to help you," we said. "And for the most part neither are your friends. And you can't expect us to stay with you forever. We're not your personal bodyguards. You have to learn to defend yourself." She changed her clothes and began to pay attention to our plans. We asked questions about her boyfriend's habits. What does he value, we asked, his car, his motorcycle? Where does he work, where does his wife work, where do they live? Are his parents in town? Where do you think he is most vulnerable? We made a plan, one, two, three, four. First, we would talk to him; if that didn't work then we would contact his wife, go see her if necessary, then his boss; if none of these tactics worked, we would go wreck his car."]
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