The radical feminist Lee Lakeman has spent her life calling out patriarchy for its oppression, the left for its bankruptcy, neoliberalism for its cruelty and organizing women to fight back.
Chrs Hedges
Nov 16, 2024
I just got off the phone with the Canadian feminist and activist Lee Lakeman. She is in hospice.
The battles she has spent her life fighting -- including her advocacy for impoverished aboriginal women prostituted in desolate urban landscapes such as the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, which once had the highest HIV-infection rate in the West -- lay behind her.
When she is gone, we will be impoverished, bereft of her searing intellect and unwavering fight for justice. She will leave in her wake a sterling example of what it means to live a moral life, a life of meaning.
“Everything you and I have spent our life fighting for is worse,” she said ruefully over the phone.
Yes. Worse. But her clear, steely-eyed view of the world, her understanding of power and how it works, never dampened her commitment or passion. To fight battles in the face of almost certain defeat, to demand justice for the oppressed no matter the cost, and to know that despite all your efforts, the forces of oppression are growing stronger and crueler, is the essence of nobility.
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