My understanding of it was that it arose out of the consciousness-raising groups when women started to share details of their lives and came to realize that the problems they were having weren't just their own fault, or "just the way things are (and have to continue to be)" but systemic PROBLEMS and that the system was, as you put it, stacked against them.
Domestic violence? Well, I can see that mine is not just an isolated case, and why should he have the right to hit me and nothing can be done about it? Why won't cops stop them? Why should comedians laugh about it? Hmmm. Oh, you're paid less than men doing your job? Me too! And you don't get a promotion while some male kid comes in that you have to train to do the job of being your boss? Hmmmm, me too. I work just as hard, why can't I have the same pay? Oh, the men where you work whistle at you and call you names? Hmm, me too. The men don't have to put up with that, whys should we? What's that? You had to quit work as a teacher just because you got married? And you had to quit your stewardess job when you got married? Hmmm, pilots don't have to do that. What's getting married have to do with it? Why do they only hire women to work on planes anyway? What? The boss asked you if you were on birth control when you went for a job interview? And if you had kids? And you can't leave your husband because you can't rent an apartment without some man co-signing, and can't buy a house or start the little business you want to start because you can't get credit in your name? That's ridiculous.
When we got together and began to compare notes about our lives and the myriad ways in which "the system" -- i.e., patriarchy -- quite purposefully held us down (image: boot on neck) and prevented not just our ADVANCEMENT but our basic humanity, and our basic equality, we realized we needed POLITICAL solutions, not the personal solutions that depended on our own INDIVIDUAL efforts, and talent, and luck, and money or other resources. Indivdiually we could change little, except (if we were very fortunate and very canny) for ourselves and maybe one or two others. But if we banded together as a force to be reckoned with -- and the suffragists did, we might get somewhere.
The personal is the political.
The original source -- it was the title of a little essay written in early 1969 by a woman named Carol Hanish, who still is alive and has her own website: http://www.carolhanisch.org/index.html
And her original essay is there as well: http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html
The Personal Is Political
by Carol Hanisch
February, 1969
For this paper I want to stick pretty close to an aspect of the Left debate commonly talked about—namely “therapy” vs. “therapy and politics.” Another name for it is “personal” vs. “political” and it has other names, I suspect, as it has developed across the country. I haven’t gotten over to visit the New Orleans group yet, but I have been participating in groups in New York and Gainesville for more than a year. Both of these groups have been called “therapy” and “personal” groups by women who consider themselves “more political.” So I must speak about so-called therapy groups from my own experience.
The very word “therapy” is obviously a misnomer if carried to its logical conclusion. Therapy assumes that someone is sick and that there is a cure, e.g., a personal solution. I am greatly offended that I or any other woman is thought to need therapy in the first place. Women are messed over, not messed up! We need to change the objective conditions, not adjust to them. Therapy is adjusting to your bad personal alternative.
We have not done much trying to solve immediate personal problems of women in the group. We’ve mostly picked topics by two methods: In a small group it is possible for us to take turns bringing questions to the meeting (like, Which do/did you prefer, a girl or a boy baby or no children, and why? What happens to your relationship if your man makes more money than you? Less than you?). Then we go around the room answering the questions from our personal experiences. Everybody talks that way. At the end of the meeting we try to sum up and generalize from what’s been said and make connections.
Please do yourself a favor and read not only the original essay but her explanation of how it came to be.
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