Just yesterday I was adding a quote from Adrienne Rich to a chapter in Writing the Diaphragm Blues regarding women's rights and birth control. I sought out her book because I remembered there was an interesting passage regarding the death at the midwife, and the rise of the doctor in Western civilization.  She has been a go to resource of mine for much of my life. 

For me personally, Adrienne Rich encouraged my voice as a feminist. She encouraged me to go out and write about those things that most of us keep behind closed doors. She showed me how it was okay to be uncomfortable by my confessions, by my feelings, and with my anger. She encouraged me with her words and her actions, to share my own subjective experiences about being a woman, about sexuality in order to share and reach out to a larger imagined community. I shudder to think of a world without Adrienne Rich in it. But possibly, my hope is this: that she encouraged other women to follow in her footsteps, to expose their souls for the world's benefit.