The Vancouver Women’s Library has withstood the siege of entitled males. The need for female only spaces in our society cannot be understated. Women need a place to share their stories and communicate with each other away from male expectations and the male gaze. When I speak with younger women, I despair because they often know nothing about their revolutionary sisters in history, and sadly even less about feminist theory and praxis. This dearth of knowledge and, more importantly, the transfer of knowledge is not a bug in our society, but rather a feature.

Standing on the shoulders of those that came before you, is how any set of ideas progresses and evolves through time. Females are denied this key step in building their awareness and raising their consciousness and must start their discovery of their history and feminism alone and from scratch almost every time (and generation). This process slows the progress of civilization and retards the moral arc that feminism brings to society, and it is a travesty.

I think it should be an obligation of radical feminists to support their local women’s library, and if one doesn’t exist, start one because education and the sharing of values and experiences is what will reignite the feminist revolution that we are in such dire need of.