How personal stories have changed politics

The marriage equality referendum was a master exercise in the strategy of public therapy

‘The personal is political” was a feminist rallying cry of the 1970s. Feminist writer Carol Hanisch popularised the term when her essay of the same name appeared in the anthology Notes From the Second Year: Women’s Liberation. The slogan centres on the theory that personal problems are political problems. This deliberate intersection of public life and the private domain was a method of consciousness-raising to generate discussion about issues women were suffering in ...