— from the DARE TO BE POWERFUL choral series —

I was inspired to write "As a Woman" after having participated in the 1983 encirclement of the Boeing Cruise Missile Plant in Kent, WA sponsored by the Puget Sound Women's Peace Camp. This event had been inspired by the massive protests to a proposed American cruise missile site at Greenham Common, England.  I saw this quote by Virginia Woolf painted on a placard being carried by another participant. The quote is from Virginia Woolf's "Three Guineas" (1937), a long essay on her views about war and women, and how to prevent war.