wow, did i seriously write this? cause it's totally, totally true.

This dissertation links these two diverging paths, proposing that working on the wounds of patriarchy can be an effective activist function as long as we return to the essential component of these groundbreaking women’s work: the accountability that was the declared next step of women advocating for self-healing and discovery.

As Gay Wilentz argues, The Salt Eaters “takes individual healing beyond personal well-being, so that healing also becomes a responsibility for those who have gone through the cure” (62). It is refusing the responsibility that often becomes the issue, the moment at which the burdens of being responsible for the community become too much to bear, when the pull of individual choice becomes tempting. In the texts I explore, however, individual choice without cultural responsibility becomes disease. This is the future recommendation, the prescription that the women who have gone through the cure provide.