“People who attack others need rationalizations for doing so. We undermine those …” — Barbara Deming

Nonviolent action does not have to get others to be nice. It can in effect force them to consult their consciences.

We learn best to listen to our own voices if we are listening at the same time to other women - whose stories, for all our differences, turn out, if we listen well, to be our stories also.

We believe, in fact, that the one act of respect has little force unless matched by the other - in balance with it... The acting out of that dual respect I would name as precisely the source of our power.

This is the heart of my argument: We can put more pressure on the antagonist for whom we show human concern.