Joe Bertani, a member of the Board of the United Nations Association of Pasadena sent us the following, chilling notice. Given the fundamentalist Islamic stand on women, this is particularly frightening:
Center for Inquiry Defends Freedom of Expression at the U.N. Human Rights Council
New Report Critiques Movement at United Nations that would Prohibit "Defamation of Religions"
United Nations, Geneva (September 17, 2008)—As a coalition of Islamic states leads a movement to restrict freedom of expression that "defames" religion, the Center for Inquiry is speaking at the Ninth Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva to defend liberty to doubt, dissent, and blaspheme. At a September 17 briefing at the Council, CFI released a new position paper, which critiques an effort led by the Organization of the Islamic Conference to undermine the universality of human rights.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), an umbrella organization of 57 Islamic states, has appropriated the traditions of Islam and Islamic law to contend that so-called "Western" conceptions of universal rights do not apply to their citizens. This effort has penetrated even the Human Rights Council (HRC), the United Nations body charged with defending universal rights.
In place of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, members of the OIC have adopted rival declarations, including the 1981 Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, and the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. Despite official claims that they are "complementary," both undermine equality of persons and freedom of expression and religion by imposing restrictions on nearly every human right based on Islamic Sharia law.
In the HRC, a March 2008 resolution assigned the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression with the task of reporting abuses of free speech that offend religious belief. Non-governmental organizations have been silenced. Meanwhile, the General Assembly has passed yearly resolutions combating "the defamation of religions" and "Islamophobia." However, believers are already protected from dangerous incitement by existing human rights instruments. The new proposals seek nothing less than a blasphemy prohibition to protect belief itself.
"Rights belong to individuals, not ideas," states the Center for Inquiry report, titled "Islam and Human Rights: Defending Universality at the United Nations." It describes the efforts by the OIC and its political allies seek to create a parallel system of human rights, and how some UN agencies are considering the integration of "defamation of religions" into international human rights law. Such an outcome would be "legally indefensible, morally objectionable, and politically disastrous," according to the report.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
· Permit free discussion of religious matters at the HRC. When states use religion or culture as a justification for either human rights resolutions or transgressions, they must not be granted immunity from criticism, regardless of the sensitivities or cultural particularities involved.
· Restore the original mandate of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression. The proper limits to free expression and threats to religious liberty are addressed by existing instruments. An official who protects free speech cannot simultaneously limit it.
· Reject the concept of "the defamation of religions." Believers deserve protection. Beliefs do not. Member states must move to stop these resolutions by the General Assembly and prevent the legal entrenchment of the concept of "defamation of religions."
· Clarify the status of Islamic human rights. HRC members and UN member states generally must voice their concerns about the "Islamization" of rights discourse, and its consistency with universal standards.
On Friday, September 19, representatives of the Center for Inquiry will address the Human Rights Council main session on the topic of the defamation of religions. Past interventions by non-governmental organizations in favor of secularism have been interrupted by representatives of the OIC.
Friday, September 19, 2008
The Next Survivor Series
Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.
Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.
There is no fast food.
Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.
In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.
Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time--no emailing.
Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment.
He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care.
He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function.
Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times.
The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.
The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails polished and eyebrows groomed.
During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.
They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.
They will need to read a book to the kids each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am.
A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight,shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name.
Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.
The kids vote them off the island based on performance.
The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.
If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right To be called Mother!
After you get done laughing,
send this to as many females as you think will get a kick out of it and as many men as you think can handle it.
Just don't send it back to me.... I'm going to bed.
Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.
There is no fast food.
Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.
In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.
Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time--no emailing.
Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment.
He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care.
He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function.
Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times.
The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.
The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails polished and eyebrows groomed.
During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.
They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.
They will need to read a book to the kids each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am.
A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight,shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name.
Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.
The kids vote them off the island based on performance.
The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.
If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right To be called Mother!
After you get done laughing,
send this to as many females as you think will get a kick out of it and as many men as you think can handle it.
Just don't send it back to me.... I'm going to bed.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Now Conservatives Get A Taste of Sexism
Have Conservatives Discovered Sexism?
Below the Belt: A Column by NOW PAC Chair Kim Gandy
September 5, 2008
Hey, have you heard? Conservatives have discovered sexism in the media!
And they're learning that it's disrespectful toward women, potentially damaging to their careers, intrusive into their personal lives, and just plain unfair. That is, unless a feminist like Hillary Clinton is charging the media with sexism -- then it's called liberal whining or playing the gender card.
Read the whole story at: http://www.now.org/news/note/090508.html
Below the Belt: A Column by NOW PAC Chair Kim Gandy
September 5, 2008
Hey, have you heard? Conservatives have discovered sexism in the media!
And they're learning that it's disrespectful toward women, potentially damaging to their careers, intrusive into their personal lives, and just plain unfair. That is, unless a feminist like Hillary Clinton is charging the media with sexism -- then it's called liberal whining or playing the gender card.
Read the whole story at: http://www.now.org/news/note/090508.html
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Are We Done Yet?
Some young women think we don't need a woman president. Others think that
the whole feminist/women's movement is so over/unnecessary. Today in the
New York Times, Susan Faludi begs to differ:
the whole feminist/women's movement is so over/unnecessary. Today in the
New York Times, Susan Faludi begs to differ:
August 26, 2008
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Second-Place Citizens
By SUSAN FALUDI
San Francisco
MUCH has been made of the timing of Hillary Clinton¹s speech before the
Democratic National Convention tonight, coming as it does on the 88th
anniversary of women¹s suffrage. Convention organizers are taking advantage
of this coincidence of the calendar &lsqauo; the 19th Amendment was certified on
Aug. 26, 1920 &lsqauo; to pay homage to the women¹s vote in particular and women¹s
progress in general. By such tributes, they are slathering some sweet icing
on a bitter cake. But many of Mrs. Clinton¹s supporters are unlikely to be
partaking. They regard their candidate¹s cameo as a consolation prize. And
they are not consoled.
³I see this nation differently than I did 10 months ago,² reads a typical
posting on a Web site devoted to Clintonista discontent. ³That this travesty
was committed by the Democratic Party has forever changed my approach to
politics.² In scores of Internet forums and the conclaves of protest groups,
those sentiments are echoed, as Clinton supporters speak over and over of
feeling heartbroken and disillusioned, of being cheated and betrayed.
In one poll, 40 percent of Mrs. Clinton¹s constituency expressed
dissatisfaction; in another, more than a quarter favored the clear insanity
of voicing their feminist protest by voting for John McCain. ³This is not
the usual reaction to an election loss,² said Diane Mantouvalos, the founder
of JustSayNoDeal.com, a clearinghouse for the pro-Clinton organizations. ³I
know that is the way it is being spun, but it¹s not prototypical. Anyone who
doesn¹t take time to analyze it will do so at their own peril.²
The despondency of Mrs. Clinton¹s supporters &lsqauo; or their ³vitriolic² and
³rabid² wrath, as the punditry prefers to put it &lsqauo; has been the subject of
perplexed and often irritable news media speculation. Why don¹t these
dead-enders get over it already and exit stage right?
Shouldn¹t they be celebrating, not protesting? After all, Hillary Clinton¹s
campaign made unprecedented strides. She garnered 18 million-plus votes, and
proved by her solid showing that a woman could indeed be a viable candidate
for the nation¹s highest office. She didn¹t get the gold, but in this case
isn¹t a silver a significant triumph?
Many Clinton supporters say no, and to understand their gloom, one has to
take into account the legacy of American women¹s political struggle, in
which long yearned for transformational change always gives way before a
chorus of ³not now² and ³wait your turn,² and in which every victory turns
out to be partial or pyrrhic. Indeed, the greatest example of this is the
victory being celebrated tonight: the passage of women¹s suffrage. The 1920
benchmark commemorated as women¹s hour of glory was experienced in its era
as something more complex, and darker.
Suffrage was, like Hillary Clinton¹s candidacy, not merely a cause in
itself, but a symbolic rallying point, a color guard for a regiment of other
ideas. But while the color guard was ushered into the palace of American
law, its retinue was turned away.
In the years after the ratification of suffrage, the anticipated women¹s
voting bloc failed to emerge, progressive legislation championed by the
women¹s movement was largely thwarted, female politicians made only minor
inroads into elected office, and women¹s advocacy groups found themselves at
loggerheads. ³It was clear,² said the 1920s sociologist and reformer
Sophonisba Breckinridge, ³that the winter of discontent in politics had come
for women.²
That discontent was apparent in a multitude of letters, speeches and
articles. ³The American woman¹s movement, and her interest in great moral
and social questions, is splintered into a hundred fragments under as many
warring leaders,² despaired Frances Kellor, a women¹s advocate.
³The feminist movement is dying of partial victory and inanition,² lamented
Lillian Symes, a feminist journalist.
³Where for years there had been purpose consecrated to an immortal
principle,² observed the suffrage leader Carrie Chapman Catt, her
compatriots felt now only ³a vacancy.²
Even Florence Kelley, the tenacious progressive reformer, concluded,
³Keeping the light on is probably the best contribution that we can make
where there is now Stygian darkness.²
The grail of female franchise yielded little meaningful progress in the
years to follow. Two-thirds of the few women who served in Congress in the
1920s were filling the shoes of their dead husbands, and most of them failed
to win re-election. The one woman to ascend to the United States Senate had
a notably brief career: in 1922, Rebecca Felton, 87, was appointed to warm
the seat for a newly elected male senator until he could be sworn in. Her
term lasted a day.
Within the political establishment, women could exact little change, and the
parties gave scant support to female politicians. In 1920, Emily Newell
Blair, the Democratic vice chairwoman, noted that the roster of women
serving on national party committees looked like a ³Who¹s Who² of American
women; by 1929, they¹d been shown the door and replaced with the compliant.
The suffragist Anne Martin bitterly remarked that women in politics were
³exactly where men political leaders wanted them: bound, gagged, divided and
delivered to the Republican and Democratic Parties.²
Male politicians offered a few sops to feminists: a ³maternity and infancy²
bill to educate expectant mothers, a law permitting women who married
foreigners to remain American citizens, and financing for the first federal
prison for women. But by the mid ¹20s, Congress had quit feigning interest,
and women¹s concerns received a cold shoulder. In 1929, the maternity
education bill was killed.
Meanwhile, male cultural guardians were giving vent to what Symes termed
³the new masculinism² &lsqauo; diatribes against the ³effeminization² that had
supposedly been unleashed on the American arts. The news media proclaimed
feminism a dead letter and showcased young women who preferred gin parties
to political caucuses.
During the presidential race of 1924, newspapers ran headlines like ³Woman
Suffrage Declared a Failure.² ³Ex-feminists² proclaimed their boredom with
³feminist pother² and their enthusiasm for cosmetics, shopping and
matrimony. The daughters of the suffrage generation were so beyond the
³zealotry² of their elders, Harper¹s declared in its 1927 article ³Feminist
&lsqauo; New Style,² that they could only pity those ranting women who were ³still
throwing hand grenades² and making an issue of ³little things.²
Those ³little things² included employment equity, as a steady increase in
the proportion of women in the labor force ground to a halt and stagnated
throughout the ¹20s. Women barely improved their representation in male
professions; the number of female doctors actually declined.
³The feminist crash of the ¹20s came as a painful shock, so painful that it
took history several decades to face up to it,² the literary critic Elaine
Showalter wrote in 1978. Facing it now is like peering into a painful
mirror. For all the talk of Hillary Clinton¹s ³breakthrough² candidacy and
other recent successes for women, progress on important fronts has stalled.
Today, the United States ranks 22nd among the 30 developed nations in its
proportion of female federal lawmakers. The proportion of female state
legislators has been stuck in the low 20 percent range for 15 years; women¹s
share of state elective executive offices has fallen consistently since
2000, and is now under 25 percent. The American political pipeline is 86
percent male.
Women¹s real annual earnings have fallen for the last four years. Progress
in narrowing the wage gap between men and women has slowed considerably
since 1990, yet last year the Supreme Court established onerous restrictions
on women¹s ability to sue for pay discrimination. The salaries of women in
managerial positions are on average lower today than in 1983.
Women¹s numbers are stalled or falling in fields ranging from executive
management to journalism, from computer science to the directing of major
motion pictures. The 20 top occupations of women last year were the same as
half a century ago: secretary, nurse, grade school teacher, sales clerk,
maid, hairdresser, cook and so on. And just as Congress cut funds in 1929
for maternity education, it recently slashed child support enforcement by 20
percent, a decision expected to leave billions of dollars owed to mothers
and their children uncollected.
Again, male politicians and pundits indulge in outbursts of ³new
masculinist² misogyny (witness Mrs. Clinton¹s campaign coverage). Again, the
news media showcase young women¹s ³feminist &lsqauo; new style² pseudo-liberation &lsqauo;
the flapper is now a girl-gone-wild. Again, many daughters of a feminist
generation seem pleased to proclaim themselves so ³beyond gender² that they
don¹t need a female president.
As it turns out, they won¹t have one. But they will still have all the
abiding inequalities that Hillary Clinton, especially in defeat, symbolized.
Without a coalescing cause to focus their forces, how will women fight a foe
that remains insidious, amorphous, relentless and pervasive?
³I am sorry for you young women who have to carry on the work in the next 10
years, for suffrage was a symbol, and you have lost your symbol,² the
suffragist Anna Howard Shaw said in 1920. ³There is nothing for women to
rally around.² As they rally around their candidate tonight, Mrs. Clinton¹s
supporters will have to decide if they are mollified &lsqauo; or even more
aggrieved &lsqauo; by the history she evokes.
Susan Faludi is the author, most recently, of ³The Terror Dream: Myth and
Misogyny in an Insecure America.²
------ End of Forwarded Message
Friday, August 15, 2008
Great Theater - Don't miss it!
Leonard Jacobs, Theater Critic for Backstage.com went to the Inernational Fringe Festival this week and had this to say about Ellen Snortland's play, Now That She's Gone
Barbro Snortland was an enigma, mostly an infuriating one, to her youngest daughter, Ellen, from the time Ellen was born, we learn, until Barbro's death in 2002. Now That She's Gone, however, is considerably more than a poignant and insightful recounting of the lives of a mother and daughter who never connected well.
Directed by John Mitchell, author-actor Ellen Snortland's script examines her tumultuous personal history as an attorney, a journalist, a recovering cocaine addict, and a stage practitioner, set against the backdrop of the American feminist movement of the 1970s and '80s — she is a baby boomer, after all. She also weaves in dramatic material regarding the one gift her mother gave her: an abiding appreciation for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Eleanor Roosevelt persuaded the United Nations, against all geopolitical odds, to approve.
At precisely 90 minutes, there are moments when you wonder if Snortland will succeed in knitting together the threads of her tapestry. When she does, it's a moment that's thrilling in its simplicity. Yes, Snortland does learn why her mother was the cold, laconic creature she was. No, it wasn't because the elder Snortland didn't want a third child — or three girls, for that matter. Detective work and intuition pay off for this performer in a family story beautifully brought to the stage.
Presented by EMP Theatricals as part of the New York International Fringe Festival at the SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam St., NYC. Aug. 12-22. Remaining performances: Fri., Aug. 15, 3 p.m.; Mon., Aug. 18, 7 p.m.; Fri., Aug. 22, 5:30 p.m. (212) 279-4488 or (866) 468-7619 or www.fringenyc.org.
http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003839288
Barbro Snortland was an enigma, mostly an infuriating one, to her youngest daughter, Ellen, from the time Ellen was born, we learn, until Barbro's death in 2002. Now That She's Gone, however, is considerably more than a poignant and insightful recounting of the lives of a mother and daughter who never connected well.
Directed by John Mitchell, author-actor Ellen Snortland's script examines her tumultuous personal history as an attorney, a journalist, a recovering cocaine addict, and a stage practitioner, set against the backdrop of the American feminist movement of the 1970s and '80s — she is a baby boomer, after all. She also weaves in dramatic material regarding the one gift her mother gave her: an abiding appreciation for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Eleanor Roosevelt persuaded the United Nations, against all geopolitical odds, to approve.
At precisely 90 minutes, there are moments when you wonder if Snortland will succeed in knitting together the threads of her tapestry. When she does, it's a moment that's thrilling in its simplicity. Yes, Snortland does learn why her mother was the cold, laconic creature she was. No, it wasn't because the elder Snortland didn't want a third child — or three girls, for that matter. Detective work and intuition pay off for this performer in a family story beautifully brought to the stage.
Presented by EMP Theatricals as part of the New York International Fringe Festival at the SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam St., NYC. Aug. 12-22. Remaining performances: Fri., Aug. 15, 3 p.m.; Mon., Aug. 18, 7 p.m.; Fri., Aug. 22, 5:30 p.m. (212) 279-4488 or (866) 468-7619 or www.fringenyc.org.
http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003839288
Monday, August 11, 2008
Nerd Girls
Math. Science. Girls. Sexy. Its not very often that those four words are used together. There is, after all, a stereotype about math and science that that's for boys and men. And if a girl is interested in math or science they must be ugly and gross.
On July 18th the Today Show had a group of the Nerd Girls on the show - watch the clip here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/25736678/
Spread it around. Nerd Girls are Hot!!!
On July 18th the Today Show had a group of the Nerd Girls on the show - watch the clip here: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/25736678/
Spread it around. Nerd Girls are Hot!!!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Your 2 minutes is worth $1.5 million for the Women of Somalia
The Somali Women’s Scholarship Fund sends Somali women to college in Somalia for one full year for only $1,000 each (including tuition and other expenses). The project is a partnership between the UN Development Program and 7 Somali Universities. Please learn more at www.undp-usa.org/somalia.
The Fund is currently participating in the American Express Members project. Now in its second year, the Members Project allows individuals to vote on which of the participating programs, like the Somali Women's Scholarship Fund, get $2.5 million in American Express® funding. Last year, Members Project participants helped provide clean drinking water to children all across Africa. This year lets support women in Somalia as they work to rebuild their nation and in the process make the world a safer place for all of us!
We need your help!
Please vote for the Somali Women's Scholarship Fund before August 31st by visiting: www.membersproject.com/project/view/RKUOAS.
You don’t need to be an American Express card holder; you can participate as a "guest user" to vote for this project.
Thanks so much for your help!!!
The Fund is currently participating in the American Express Members project. Now in its second year, the Members Project allows individuals to vote on which of the participating programs, like the Somali Women's Scholarship Fund, get $2.5 million in American Express® funding. Last year, Members Project participants helped provide clean drinking water to children all across Africa. This year lets support women in Somalia as they work to rebuild their nation and in the process make the world a safer place for all of us!
We need your help!
Please vote for the Somali Women's Scholarship Fund before August 31st by visiting: www.membersproject.com/project/view/RKUOAS.
You don’t need to be an American Express card holder; you can participate as a "guest user" to vote for this project.
Thanks so much for your help!!!
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Tolerance - We sure need more of it
Carolyn Howard-Johnson was featured in the Pasadena Weekly last week. Her topic: tolerance. Here's some excerpts from the article:
Perhaps known best for her novel “This is the Place,” about the struggles of Mormon women in 1950s Utah, Howard-Johnson is faced with a barrage of questions every time the Mormon community surfaces in the public eye. Given the current American fascination with this enigmatic and often misunderstood Christian sect, Howard-Johnson answers a lot of questions.
“There is great misunderstanding about Mormons,” Howard-Johnson said. “And my book is about mainstream Mormon culture. It’s meant to promote tolerance rather than to disparage.”
In addition to “This is the Place,” Howard-Johnson has written “Harkening,” a collection of short stories from out-takes from her novel, and two how-to manuals on promoting books: “The Frugal Book Promoter” and “The Frugal Editor,” from which she teaches a UCLA extension class.
Growing up in Salt Lake City, Howard-Johnson said she did not always see the potential for her own literary success.
“My Dad was Mormon and my Mom was Protestant,” she said. “I came up with the idea for a book about Mormons when I was 18, but didn’t write it until I was 60. Back then, I didn’t realize that women could have both a family and a career.”
“In Utah there’s a lot of prejudice coming from both the Mormons and non-Mormons. And because of my parents’ different backgrounds, I could see both perspectives,” she said.
Rather than denounce any specific group, Howard–Johnson has forged a less specific — and less bloody — battle. She has declared her war on intolerance.
“Americans are generally bad at accepting people for who they are,” she said. “They constantly want to change people. I think that intolerance is what’s causing most of the problems in the world.” Always one to see both sides of an issue, Howard-Johnson added that even though Mormons have faced multifarious injustices from uninformed media, they are not blameless.
“When I was a child, one of my best friends, who was Mormon, said to me, ‘I can’t wait until you die so that you’ll know that what Mormons believe is true,’” she recalled.
Howard-Johnson was diagnosed with cancer when she was 55. At that time, she had not published any books. Before her illness, the only writing she had done was for magazines and promotional work for her family’s small, independent retail chain. “I think that one of the reasons that I got sick was that I wasn’t following my own star,” she said.
Within two years, Howard-Johnson wrote both “This is the Place” and “Harkening.”
But Howard-Johnson faced great difficulty in getting her books published. So, naturally, once she had succeeded in selling them, Howard-Johnson’s next pursuit was to write a how-to book about publishing.
Through her writing, Howard-Johnson strives for unity by pointing out the similarities among people.
“Combating intolerance has always been my biggest motivating factor,” she said. “I really think that we’d all be so much happier if we just got over it.”
You can read the whole article, Life's little banquets by clicking on the link:
http://www.pasadenaweekly.comcms_story_detail_life_s_little_banquets_6098
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Watch Women Fighting Back!
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-mexwomen2-2008aug02,0,5341947.story
From today's the
Latin American audiences are glued to episodes of a TV show about abuses no longer endured.
It's the hit Latin American TV series "Mujeres Asesinas" (Women Assassins), a high-gloss revenge fantasy about the fury of women scorned that has become a major TV hit and a minor pop-culture phenomenon in certain Spanish-speaking parts of this hemisphere.
Loosely adapted from real-life crime stories, "Mujeres Asesinas" follows a fairly simple formula. In
Each of the segments builds to a gruesome climax, in which the crime is reenacted. Every episode also concludes with a moral coda stating what just deserts were reaped by their homicidal protagonists.
Predictably, "Mujeres Asesinas" has stirred talk in the Latin American media about whether it might incite women to commit more acts of revenge-fueled violence. What do you think? Let us know. Should men be afraid?
Male and female fans of "Mujeres Asesinas" from as far away as
"In the end, violence within families or sexual abuse could be in all the world," said Leo Marker, the Mexican series' press director. "It's on all sides, not only in
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Fuzzy math: Contraception = Abortion
Yes, that's right, the Bush administration is currently considering a ruling that lumps contraception in with abortions. So it is not enough that our right to choose whether or not to give birth after conception, now we are being told that we can't even do what's necessary to ensure we will not get pregnant.
Health and Human Services chair, Michael Leavitt, is looking at a ruling that says, "any of the various procedures--including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action--that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation."
It is bad enough that more and more states have made or are making abortions illegal, but now whether you have been raped, are a child yourself, have an abusive husband or boyfriend, or you have health issues that would make pregnancy and birth life-threatening to you, you now not only will be "implanted" but you have no say in what happens thereafter.
If this angers you as much as it does me, then here's some ideas for action.
Contact one of the main organizations such as Planned Parenthood - www.plannedparenthood.org or NARAL - www.naral.org or NOW www.now.org and get on their email list for alerts on what they are planning to respond to this.
Contact Michael Leavitt at Health and Human Services mlo.5@hhs.gov or call him at 202-619-0257 or toll free at 877-696-6775 and let him know this is completely unacceptable.
So please, take action now.
Health and Human Services chair, Michael Leavitt, is looking at a ruling that says, "any of the various procedures--including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action--that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation."
It is bad enough that more and more states have made or are making abortions illegal, but now whether you have been raped, are a child yourself, have an abusive husband or boyfriend, or you have health issues that would make pregnancy and birth life-threatening to you, you now not only will be "implanted" but you have no say in what happens thereafter.
If this angers you as much as it does me, then here's some ideas for action.
Contact one of the main organizations such as Planned Parenthood - www.plannedparenthood.org or NARAL - www.naral.org or NOW www.now.org and get on their email list for alerts on what they are planning to respond to this.
Contact Michael Leavitt at Health and Human Services mlo.5@hhs.gov or call him at 202-619-0257 or toll free at 877-696-6775 and let him know this is completely unacceptable.
So please, take action now.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Ideas for dealing with angry white women...
Check out Ellen Snortland's column in the Pasadena Weekly with some tongue-in-cheek ideas for how to deal with the likes of me - an often angry white woman. She sums it up in her last sentence: Name one white middle-aged, overweight, average-looking female counter-balance to pissy Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. See? To quote the late, great George Carlin, “The status quo sucks.”
http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/rage_management/6124/
http://pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/rage_management/6124/
What Effect has Hillary's run had?
What Effect has Hillary's run had?
By Britteny Elrick
As we look back on the past century, we must take a moment to pause and be grateful for the tremendous sacrifices that have brought American women to where we are today.
Eighty-nine years ago, the courage and persistence of the Suffragists was instrumental in the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment. Since that pivotal year, women have gone from being considered “unqualified to vote,” to having the first female Presidential candidate appear on ballots.
Hillary Clinton’s run for President was a historical milestone and an enormous breakthrough. Regardless of your political preference, it must be acknowledged that a door has not only been opened for us, but we have been led through it. As Hilary stated in her resignation speech, “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.”
That being said, what are your thoughts about Hillary’s run?
What effect do you think it has had on this country, and furthermore, the world?
What impact will this have on future generations?
Ready, set, discuss
By Britteny Elrick
As we look back on the past century, we must take a moment to pause and be grateful for the tremendous sacrifices that have brought American women to where we are today.
Eighty-nine years ago, the courage and persistence of the Suffragists was instrumental in the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment. Since that pivotal year, women have gone from being considered “unqualified to vote,” to having the first female Presidential candidate appear on ballots.
Hillary Clinton’s run for President was a historical milestone and an enormous breakthrough. Regardless of your political preference, it must be acknowledged that a door has not only been opened for us, but we have been led through it. As Hilary stated in her resignation speech, “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.”
That being said, what are your thoughts about Hillary’s run?
What effect do you think it has had on this country, and furthermore, the world?
What impact will this have on future generations?
Ready, set, discuss
Monday, July 14, 2008
Poem: Habitation
Habitation by Margaret Atwood
Marriage is not a house or even a tent
it is before that, and colder:
the edge of the forest, the edge of the desert
the unpainted stairs at the back where we squat outside,
eating popcorn
the edge of the receding glacier
where painfully and with wonder at having survived even this far
we are learning to make fire
Sent to us by Joan Krieger Hoffman
Marriage is not a house or even a tent
it is before that, and colder:
the edge of the forest, the edge of the desert
the unpainted stairs at the back where we squat outside,
eating popcorn
the edge of the receding glacier
where painfully and with wonder at having survived even this far
we are learning to make fire
Sent to us by Joan Krieger Hoffman
Africa Prize - Call for Nominations
In October, The Hunger Project will award its coveted Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger to honor Civil Society Leadership for the Empowerment of Women. We will celebrate community leaders, either individuals or organizations, who work tirelessly and selflessly to organize, advocate for, and provide opportunities to African women.
The Hunger Project has awarded the Africa Prize for Leadership since 1987. The Africa Prize is designed as a strategic intervention to honor and shine a spotlight on the African leadership that is essential for the continent’s development
The Africa Prize is awarded to Africans who exhibit exceptional leadership, exemplifying courage, vision and commitment to the well-being of the African people. These effective and dynamic leaders work in areas including science, agriculture, education, health and public policy. Their actions reflect initiative, creativity and, in some cases, personal sacrifice.
The 2008 laureate will join the ranks of previous laureates, which include, among many others, the first elected woman president in Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; human rights leader Nelson Mandela; environmental activist Wangari Maathai; and champion for children’s education, Graça Machel.
The 2008 Africa Prize will be presented at a gala award ceremony on Saturday, October 18, at the Hilton Hotel in New York City. For the first time ever, The Hunger Project will not announce the winner until the night of the event. Do not miss this opportunity!
Your attendance will send powerful messages to the world, that:
civil society has a critical role to play in the empowerment of Africa’s women
women’s empowerment must be central to international development approaches worldwide
civil society is the very embodiment of self-reliance in action
Through your attendance and visible support, civil society will obtain greater clout, prominence and empowerment. Moreover, you will deepen your commitment and feel the inspiration of being part of The Hunger Project. We are producing incredible results, but more must be done. Bring your friends and family to this event, and let us celebrate together!
Purchase your tickets now at www.thp.org/fallevent08!
We invite you to submit nominations for the 2008 Africa Prize!
Nominations may be submitted online in English, French or Portuguese at www.africaprize.org. Any individual may nominate. Eligibility criteria and more details about the Africa Prize can also be found on this website.
The Africa Prize includes a cash award of US$100,000 to further the laureate’s work for the empowerment of women, and will be presented at The Hunger Project’s annual gala dinner on Saturday, October 18, in New York.
The deadline for nominations is August 1, 2008.
The Hunger Project has awarded the Africa Prize for Leadership since 1987. The Africa Prize is designed as a strategic intervention to honor and shine a spotlight on the African leadership that is essential for the continent’s development
The Africa Prize is awarded to Africans who exhibit exceptional leadership, exemplifying courage, vision and commitment to the well-being of the African people. These effective and dynamic leaders work in areas including science, agriculture, education, health and public policy. Their actions reflect initiative, creativity and, in some cases, personal sacrifice.
The 2008 laureate will join the ranks of previous laureates, which include, among many others, the first elected woman president in Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; human rights leader Nelson Mandela; environmental activist Wangari Maathai; and champion for children’s education, Graça Machel.
The 2008 Africa Prize will be presented at a gala award ceremony on Saturday, October 18, at the Hilton Hotel in New York City. For the first time ever, The Hunger Project will not announce the winner until the night of the event. Do not miss this opportunity!
Your attendance will send powerful messages to the world, that:
civil society has a critical role to play in the empowerment of Africa’s women
women’s empowerment must be central to international development approaches worldwide
civil society is the very embodiment of self-reliance in action
Through your attendance and visible support, civil society will obtain greater clout, prominence and empowerment. Moreover, you will deepen your commitment and feel the inspiration of being part of The Hunger Project. We are producing incredible results, but more must be done. Bring your friends and family to this event, and let us celebrate together!
Purchase your tickets now at www.thp.org/fallevent08!
We invite you to submit nominations for the 2008 Africa Prize!
Nominations may be submitted online in English, French or Portuguese at www.africaprize.org. Any individual may nominate. Eligibility criteria and more details about the Africa Prize can also be found on this website.
The Africa Prize includes a cash award of US$100,000 to further the laureate’s work for the empowerment of women, and will be presented at The Hunger Project’s annual gala dinner on Saturday, October 18, in New York.
The deadline for nominations is August 1, 2008.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Is there really any need for feminism or a woman's movement?
At a business networking meeting recently I sat around the table with a group of professionals - lawyers, doctors, non-profit directors, etc. As we went around the table to introduce ourselves, not just our businesses but also a little about ourselves personally, I was shocked by what I heard from one of the women lawyers. After talking about her specialty in her legal practice she talked about several things in her personal life and then looked across at the table at me - I had introduced myself earlier - and talked about the damage that feminism has caused and continues to cause. She said some more but at this point my mind was doing cartwheels.
If the setting had been appropriate, I would have reminded her of a couple of things that she seems to have lost track of:
That she has the freedom to go to school
She has the freedom to practice law
She can vote
She gets to come and go as she pleases
She can own land
She can have credit in her own name
...I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The women of the '70's women's movement, the Suffragists, the feminists (including the male feminists) who are writing, teaching, lobbying, speaking and standing up for our rights have paved the way for us - and continue to do so.
So is there really a need for Fifty-Fifty Leadership, Beauty Bites Beast, etc. etc. etc. Unfortunately the answer is still a resounding YES! So I proudly wave the feminist flag so mothers who want to stay home and raise children can; leaders who want to run major corporations, states and countries can; and so that men and women alike are dealt with as people and on our individual merits.
Your thoughts?
Pauline
If the setting had been appropriate, I would have reminded her of a couple of things that she seems to have lost track of:
That she has the freedom to go to school
She has the freedom to practice law
She can vote
She gets to come and go as she pleases
She can own land
She can have credit in her own name
...I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The women of the '70's women's movement, the Suffragists, the feminists (including the male feminists) who are writing, teaching, lobbying, speaking and standing up for our rights have paved the way for us - and continue to do so.
So is there really a need for Fifty-Fifty Leadership, Beauty Bites Beast, etc. etc. etc. Unfortunately the answer is still a resounding YES! So I proudly wave the feminist flag so mothers who want to stay home and raise children can; leaders who want to run major corporations, states and countries can; and so that men and women alike are dealt with as people and on our individual merits.
Your thoughts?
Pauline
Monday, March 31, 2008
UN Resolution regarding the Elimination of violence against women
The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms, and reaffirming also that discrimination on the basis of sex is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, CEDAW and other international human rights instruments, and that its elimination is an integral part of efforts towards the elimination of violence against women and girls.
Passed March, 2008
Passed March, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
A few minutes with Isabel Allende
Need a break? Turn up your speakers and listen to Isabel Allende. She is funny, inspiring and motivational:
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/204
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/204
"We're A Gang for Justice"
India’s Pink Posse
Neeta Lal
18 January 2008
“We’re a gang for justice,” says the leader of a crew of sari-wearing vigilantes
Banda is one of the country’s poorest and most regressive districts. Located in the heart of the populous northern state of Uttar Pradesh, this region infested by dacoits, or bandits, invariably makes headlines for all the wrong reasons – drought, starvation, domestic violence, land-grabbing, killings and a thoroughly corrupt administration.
However, lately, the area’s Pink Gang, about 200 self-styled female Robin Hoods, is taking on dowry deaths, wife beating and even cases of government apathy and corruption, often fighting violence with violence.
A rambunctious and fearless posse recognizable by their pink-colored saris, the Pink Gang is the nemesis of violent husbands and inept government officials. Having personally suffered abuse, members of the vigilante club thrash abusive men, wife beaters and rapists, confront and shame wrongdoers and storm local police stations to accost lackadaisical cops.
"Nobody comes to our help in these parts. The officials and the police are corrupt and anti-poor. So sometimes we have to take the law into our own hands. At other times, we prefer to shame the wrongdoers. But we’re not a gang in the usual sense of the term. We’re a gang for justice."
Sometimes, the gang’s bravado has a happy ending. They restored 11 girls –thrown out of their homes due to dowry demands – to their respective spouses. Usually the gang’s activities range from bashing abusive men who torture their wives for not bearing sons to shaming officials who have profiteered by selling subsidized grain intended for the poor in the black market.
Broadly, however, the gang protects the powerless by mustering public support to engineer social change.
“If elected representatives refuse to heed the voices of ordinary citizens,” says New Delhi-based sociologist Dr Prerna Purohit, “then people have no choice but to take the matter in their own hands. It’s a wake-up call for the government in the world’s largest democracy.”
BBC News Clip
"Village society in India is loaded against women. It refuses to educate them, marries them off too early, barters them for money. Village women need to study and become independent to sort it out themselves," she says.
Neeta Lal
18 January 2008
“We’re a gang for justice,” says the leader of a crew of sari-wearing vigilantes
Banda is one of the country’s poorest and most regressive districts. Located in the heart of the populous northern state of Uttar Pradesh, this region infested by dacoits, or bandits, invariably makes headlines for all the wrong reasons – drought, starvation, domestic violence, land-grabbing, killings and a thoroughly corrupt administration.
However, lately, the area’s Pink Gang, about 200 self-styled female Robin Hoods, is taking on dowry deaths, wife beating and even cases of government apathy and corruption, often fighting violence with violence.
A rambunctious and fearless posse recognizable by their pink-colored saris, the Pink Gang is the nemesis of violent husbands and inept government officials. Having personally suffered abuse, members of the vigilante club thrash abusive men, wife beaters and rapists, confront and shame wrongdoers and storm local police stations to accost lackadaisical cops.
"Nobody comes to our help in these parts. The officials and the police are corrupt and anti-poor. So sometimes we have to take the law into our own hands. At other times, we prefer to shame the wrongdoers. But we’re not a gang in the usual sense of the term. We’re a gang for justice."
Sometimes, the gang’s bravado has a happy ending. They restored 11 girls –thrown out of their homes due to dowry demands – to their respective spouses. Usually the gang’s activities range from bashing abusive men who torture their wives for not bearing sons to shaming officials who have profiteered by selling subsidized grain intended for the poor in the black market.
Broadly, however, the gang protects the powerless by mustering public support to engineer social change.
“If elected representatives refuse to heed the voices of ordinary citizens,” says New Delhi-based sociologist Dr Prerna Purohit, “then people have no choice but to take the matter in their own hands. It’s a wake-up call for the government in the world’s largest democracy.”
BBC News Clip
"Village society in India is loaded against women. It refuses to educate them, marries them off too early, barters them for money. Village women need to study and become independent to sort it out themselves," she says.
Horizontal Hostility by Ellen Snortland
Fifty-Fifty Leadership Co-Chair, Ellen Snortland is, among other things, a writer and columnist for the Pasadena Weekly newspaper. Her wit is often trained on misogynistic men but this week she takes aims at us (and yes, that includes me): women who fight against women - particularly where they wouldn't fight men over the same issue. Do you recognize yourself here? If not, then read Robin Morgan's article - you'll find yourself there.
Unite and conquer
Time to turn off the horizontal hostility in the Clinton-Obama race
By Ellen Snortland
“Horizontal hostility” is a term that I first saw in Robin Morgan’s book “Sisterhood is Powerful,” an anthology of feminist essays that turned my life upside down. The late and great lawyer and political activist Florynce Kennedy, whom I first heard on a lecture tour with Gloria Steinem in the 1970s, discussed horizontal hostility in her essay “Institutionalized Oppression vs. the Female” in the “Sisterhood is Powerful” collection. She coined the term to describe the often bitter fighting that occurs between women about gender issues, or between people of the same minority or ethnic group about so-called minority issues. Now we see it happening between race and gender in the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns.
I can’t claim to have direct experience of racism, although I certainly have witnessed racially oriented ugliness. I have my gender creds just from walking around in a female body and reading, writing and thinking about misogyny and sexism for most of my life. Kennedy had loads of both gender- and race-issue credibility because she was an African-American woman.
Simply put, horizontal hostility happens because the frustration of breaking barriers makes it easier to fight each other horizontally than it is to fight The Man vertically. You know that famous glass ceiling? It’s called that because ceilings are up, and glass because you can see what’s happening. Women, gays and people of color can see clearly what’s above them, staring at the shoe bottoms of straight white men. If you’re in the “out” groups, you’re pissed off, not getting very far, and it’s really convenient to start socking each other on your own level. At least you feel like you’re doing SOMETHING.
While it’s a mistake to compare suffering, it’s almost unavoidable when discussing race and gender. Being the wrong race at the wrong time can get you killed, harassed or underemployed. So can gender. The rape and murder statistics for women attacked by their “intimates” are staggering. Most thinking people can understand the pain that comes along with being judged for attributes that come with birth, such as sexual organs or skin color.
What many of the same people do not factor in, however, is the horizontal hostility dynamic. Next time you hear a woman dissing Clinton for not being “feminine” enough, or another African American criticizing Obama for not being “African American” enough, think, “Aha, horizontal hostility at play!” By the same token (the word “token” used here advisedly), when you hear someone say, “It’s the turn of a black man to be in the Oval Office; women can wait,” it’s likely that we’re dealing with horizontal hostility because gender and race are the biggest factors that have kept the power structure in white straight male hands. How handy it is for the white patriarchy — which includes some women — when feminists and black men fight each other.
Who benefits from horizontal hostility? The establishment does. Make no mistake about it. The mainstream press loves this tit-for-tat between Clinton and Obama. Divide and conquer is a strategy that’s as old as any game, war or campaign. The status quo can just sit back and watch other people duke it out.
Very few people know that there was a political party called the Equal Rights Party after the Civil War. In 1872 the presidential ticket had a white woman and black man running for president and vice president: Victoria Woodhull for president and Frederick Douglass for vice president.
They, of course, knew they would not win. Maybe that’s why Douglass never acknowledged his nomination and did not campaign.
However, they remained a ticket for the disenfranchised. While black men had “won” the vote through the passage of the 15th Amendment, they were effectively denied the vote in real life; they could barely survive let alone exercise the right to vote after Reconstruction.
Women, including black women, wouldn’t win the vote until 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. We have a history of heartache because of “rights” competition between women of all colors and men of color.
Thus, my greatest hope is that Clinton and Obama stop their bickering and keep their eye on the prize: the White House. My dream ticket — and I believe this is true for many people — is Clinton for president with Obama as her running mate. I believe that she’s simply more prepared to be commander in chief. He’ll be great as president after her terms. Let’s see some horizontal unity.
Finally, I want to leave with you some quotes by Flo Kennedy. How I miss her.
· “The biggest sin is sitting on your ass.”
· “There are very few jobs that actually require a penis or vagina. All other jobs should be open to everybody.”
· “Freedom is like taking a bath — you have to keep doing it every day!”
· “You’ve got to rattle your cage door. You’ve got to let them know that you’re in there, and that you want out. Make noise. Cause trouble. You may not win right away, but you’ll sure have a lot more fun.”
Unite and conquer
Time to turn off the horizontal hostility in the Clinton-Obama race
By Ellen Snortland
“Horizontal hostility” is a term that I first saw in Robin Morgan’s book “Sisterhood is Powerful,” an anthology of feminist essays that turned my life upside down. The late and great lawyer and political activist Florynce Kennedy, whom I first heard on a lecture tour with Gloria Steinem in the 1970s, discussed horizontal hostility in her essay “Institutionalized Oppression vs. the Female” in the “Sisterhood is Powerful” collection. She coined the term to describe the often bitter fighting that occurs between women about gender issues, or between people of the same minority or ethnic group about so-called minority issues. Now we see it happening between race and gender in the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns.
I can’t claim to have direct experience of racism, although I certainly have witnessed racially oriented ugliness. I have my gender creds just from walking around in a female body and reading, writing and thinking about misogyny and sexism for most of my life. Kennedy had loads of both gender- and race-issue credibility because she was an African-American woman.
Simply put, horizontal hostility happens because the frustration of breaking barriers makes it easier to fight each other horizontally than it is to fight The Man vertically. You know that famous glass ceiling? It’s called that because ceilings are up, and glass because you can see what’s happening. Women, gays and people of color can see clearly what’s above them, staring at the shoe bottoms of straight white men. If you’re in the “out” groups, you’re pissed off, not getting very far, and it’s really convenient to start socking each other on your own level. At least you feel like you’re doing SOMETHING.
While it’s a mistake to compare suffering, it’s almost unavoidable when discussing race and gender. Being the wrong race at the wrong time can get you killed, harassed or underemployed. So can gender. The rape and murder statistics for women attacked by their “intimates” are staggering. Most thinking people can understand the pain that comes along with being judged for attributes that come with birth, such as sexual organs or skin color.
What many of the same people do not factor in, however, is the horizontal hostility dynamic. Next time you hear a woman dissing Clinton for not being “feminine” enough, or another African American criticizing Obama for not being “African American” enough, think, “Aha, horizontal hostility at play!” By the same token (the word “token” used here advisedly), when you hear someone say, “It’s the turn of a black man to be in the Oval Office; women can wait,” it’s likely that we’re dealing with horizontal hostility because gender and race are the biggest factors that have kept the power structure in white straight male hands. How handy it is for the white patriarchy — which includes some women — when feminists and black men fight each other.
Who benefits from horizontal hostility? The establishment does. Make no mistake about it. The mainstream press loves this tit-for-tat between Clinton and Obama. Divide and conquer is a strategy that’s as old as any game, war or campaign. The status quo can just sit back and watch other people duke it out.
Very few people know that there was a political party called the Equal Rights Party after the Civil War. In 1872 the presidential ticket had a white woman and black man running for president and vice president: Victoria Woodhull for president and Frederick Douglass for vice president.
They, of course, knew they would not win. Maybe that’s why Douglass never acknowledged his nomination and did not campaign.
However, they remained a ticket for the disenfranchised. While black men had “won” the vote through the passage of the 15th Amendment, they were effectively denied the vote in real life; they could barely survive let alone exercise the right to vote after Reconstruction.
Women, including black women, wouldn’t win the vote until 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. We have a history of heartache because of “rights” competition between women of all colors and men of color.
Thus, my greatest hope is that Clinton and Obama stop their bickering and keep their eye on the prize: the White House. My dream ticket — and I believe this is true for many people — is Clinton for president with Obama as her running mate. I believe that she’s simply more prepared to be commander in chief. He’ll be great as president after her terms. Let’s see some horizontal unity.
Finally, I want to leave with you some quotes by Flo Kennedy. How I miss her.
· “The biggest sin is sitting on your ass.”
· “There are very few jobs that actually require a penis or vagina. All other jobs should be open to everybody.”
· “Freedom is like taking a bath — you have to keep doing it every day!”
· “You’ve got to rattle your cage door. You’ve got to let them know that you’re in there, and that you want out. Make noise. Cause trouble. You may not win right away, but you’ll sure have a lot more fun.”
Robin Morgan on Double Standards
I took the time to read this rant by Robin this morning and was delighted at how eloquently she spoke to the issue of women in leadership - and the double standards each one of us has to some degree. I recommend you take the time to read this - it is not only a validation of women as leaders, it is a checklist of why more of us are not vying for jobs such as President of the United States.
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT (#2) Feb.2, 2008 Robin Morgan "Goodbye To All That" was my (in)famous 1970 essay breaking free from apolitics of accommodation especially affecting women (for an online version,see http://blog.fair-use.org/category/chicago/). During my decades in civil-rights, anti-war, and contemporary women'smovements, I've avoided writing another specific "Goodbye . . .". But notsince the suffrage struggle have two communities--joint conscience-keepersof this country--been so set in competition, as the contest between HillaryRodham Clinton (HRC) and Barack Obama (BO) unfurls. So. Goodbye to the double standard . . . --Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who's emotional, andso much a politician as to be unfit for politics. --She's "ambitious" but he shows "fire in the belly." (Ever had laborpains? ) --When a sexist idiot screamed "Iron my shirt!" at HRC, it was consideredamusing; if a racist idiot shouted "Shine my shoes!" at BO, it would'veinspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our nationaldishonor. --Young political Kennedys--Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby Jr.--all endorsedHillary. Sen Ted, age 76, endorsed Obama. If the situation were reversed,pundits would snort "See? Ted and establishment types back her, but theforward-looking generation backs him." (Personally, I'm unimpressed withCaroline's longing for the Return of the Fathers. Unlike the rest of theworld, Americans have short memories. Me, I still recall Marilyn Monroe'ssuicide, and a dead girl named Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick.) Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . . Carl Bernstein's disgust at Hillary's "thick ankles." Nixon-trickster RogerStone's new Hillary-hating 527 group, "Citizens United Not Timid" (check thecapital letters). John McCain answering "How do we beat the bitch?" with"Excellent question!" Would he have dared reply similarly to "How do we beatthe black bastard?" For shame. Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs. Ifit was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged-andthey would not be selling it in airports. Shame. Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history,including one with the murderous slogan "If Only Hillary had married O.J.Instead!" Shame. Goodbye to Comedy Central's "Southpark" featuring a storyline in whichterrorists secrete a bomb in HRC's vagina. I refuse to wrench my brain downinto the gutter far enough to find a race-based comparison. For shame. Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny. This is not"Clinton hating," not "Hillary hating." This is sociopathic woman-hating. Ifit were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semiticpropaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic ifsuch vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense ofoutrage-as citizens, voters, Americans? Goodbye to the news-coverage target-practice . . . The women's movement and Media Matters wrung an apology from MSNBC's ChrisMatthews for relentless misogynistic comments (www.womensmediacenter.com).But what about NBC's Tim Russert's continual sexist asides and hisall-white-male panels pontificating on race and gender? Or CNN's TonyHarris chuckling at "the chromosome thing" while interviewing a woman fromThe White House Project? And that's not even mentioning Fox News. Goodbye to pretending the black community is entirely male and all womenare white . . . Surprise! Women exist in all opinions, pigmentations, ethnicities,abilities, sexual preferences, and ages--not only African American andEuropean American but Latina and Native American, Asian American and PacificIslanders, Arab American and-hey, every group, because a group wouldn'texist if we hadn't given birth to it. A few non-racist countries mayexist--but sexism is everywhere. No matter how many ways a woman breaks freefrom other discriminations, she remains a female human being in a worldstill so patriarchal that it's the "norm." So why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and thecenturies, even millennia, of struggle that got us this far, as blackAmericans, women and men, are justly proud of their struggles? Goodbye to a campaign where he has to pass as white (whichwhites-especially wealthy ones--adore), while she has to pass as male (whichboth men and women demanded of her, and then found unforgivable). If shewere black or he were female we wouldn't be having such problems, and I forone would be in heaven. But at present such a candidate wouldn't stand achance-even if she shared Condi Rice's Bush-defending politics. I was celebrating the pivotal power at last focused on African Americanwomen deciding on which of two candidates to bestow their vote--until anumber of Hillary-supporting black feminists told me they're being called"race traitors." So goodbye to conversations about this nation's deepest scar-slavery-whichfail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the US andelsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women. Women have endured sex/race/ethnic/religious hatred, rape and battery,invasion of spirit and flesh, forced pregnancy; being the majority of thepoor, the illiterate, the disabled, of refugees, caregivers, the HIV/AIDSafflicted, the powerless. We have survived invisibility, ridicule, religiousfundamentalisms, polygamy, teargas, forced feedings, jails, asylums, sati,purdah, female genital mutilation, witch burnings, stonings, and attemptedgynocides. We have tried reason, persuasion, reassurances, and beingextra-qualified, only to learn it never was about qualifications after all.We know that at this historical moment women experience the worlddifferently from men--though not all the same as one another--and can governdifferently, from Elizabeth Tudor to Michele Bachelet and Ellen JohnsonSirleaf. We remember when Shirley Chisholm and Patricia Schroeder ran for this highoffice and barely got past the gate-they showed too much passion, raised toolittle cash, were joke fodder. Goodbye to all that. (And goodbye to somefeminists so famished for a female president they were even willing toabandon women's rights in backing Elizabeth Dole.) Goodbye, goodbye to . . . --blaming anything Bill Clinton does on Hillary (even including hiswomanizing like the Kennedy guys--though unlike them, he got reported on).Let's get real. If he hadn't campaigned strongly for her everyone wouldcluck over what that meant. Enough of Bill and Teddy Kennedy locking theiralpha male horns while Hillary pays for it. --an era when parts of the populace feel so disaffected by politics that acomparative lack of knowledge, experience, and skill is actually seen asattractive, when celebrity-culture mania now infects our elections so thatit's "cooler" to glow with marquee charisma than to understand the vastglobal complexities of power on a nuclear, wounded planet. --the notion that it's fun to elect a handsome, cocky president who feelshe can learn on the job, goodbye to George W. Bush and the destructionbrought by his inexperience, ignorance, and arrogance. Goodbye to the accusation that HRC acts "entitled" when she's workedintensely at everything she's done-including being a nose-to-the-grindstone,first-rate senator from my state. Goodbye to her being exploited as a Rorschach test by women who reduce herto a blank screen on which they project their own fears, failures,fantasies. Goodbye to the phrase "polarizing figure" to describe someone who embodiesthe transitions women have made in the last century and are poised to makein this one. It was the women's movement that quipped, "We are becoming themen we wanted to marry." She heard us, and she has. Goodbye to some women letting history pass by while wringing their hands,because Hillary isn't as "likeable" as they've been warned they must be, orbecause she didn't leave him, couldn't "control" him, kept her familytogether and raised a smart, sane daughter. (Think of the blame if Chelseahad ever acted in the alcoholic, neurotic manner of the Bush twins!) Goodbyeto some women pouting because she didn't bake cookies or she did, snipingbecause she learned the rules and then bent or broke them. Grow the hell up.She is not running for Ms.-perfect-pure-queen-icon of the feministmovement. She's running to be President of the United States. Goodbye to the shocking American ignorance of our own and other countries'history. Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir rose through party ranks and war,positioning themselves as proto-male leaders. Almost all other female headsof government so far have been related to men of power-granddaughters,daughters, sisters, wives, widows: Gandhi, Bandaranike, Bhutto, Aquino,Chamorro, Wazed, Macapagal-Arroyo, Johnson Sirleaf, Bachelet, Kirchner, andmore. Even in our "land of opportunity," it's mostly the first pathway "in"permitted to women: Reps. Doris Matsui and Mary Bono and Sala Burton; Sen.Jean Carnahan . . . far too many to list here. Goodbye to a misrepresented generational divide . . . Goodbye to the so-called spontaneous "Obama Girl" flaunting her bikin-cladass online-then confessing Oh yeah it wasn't her idea after all, some guysgot her to do it and dictated the clothes, which she said "made me feel likea dork." Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they'renot feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten the status quo),who can't identify with a woman candidate because she actually is unafraidof eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them funnyif they say something good about her. Goodbye to women of any age againfeeling unworthy, sulking "what if she's not electable?" or "maybe it'spost-feminism and whoooosh we're already free." Let a statement by themagnificent Harriet Tubman stand as reply. When asked how she managed tosave hundreds of enslaved African Americans via the Underground Railroadduring the Civil War, she replied bitterly, "I could have saved thousands-ifonly I'd been able to convince them they were slaves." I'd rather say a joyful Hello to all the glorious young women who doidentify with Hillary, and all the brave, smart men-of all ethnicities andany age--who get that it's in their self-interest, too. She's betterqualified. (D'uh.) She's a high-profile candidate with an enormous grasp offoreign- and domestic-policy nuance, dedication to detail, ability to absorbstaggering insult and personal pain while retaining dignity, resolve, evenhumor, and keep on keeping on. (Also, yes, dammit, let's hear it for herconnections and funding and party-building background, too. Obama wasawfully glad about those when she raised dough and campaigned for him to getto the Senate in the first place.) I'd rather look forward to what a good president he might make in eightyears, when his vision and spirit are seasoned by practical know-how--andhe'll be all of 54. Meanwhile, goodbye to turning him into a shining knightwhen actually he's an astute, smooth pol with speechwriters who've workedwith the Kennedys' own speechwriter-courtier Ted Sorenson. If it's onlyabout ringing rhetoric, let speechwriters run. But isn't it about gettingthe policies we want enacted? And goodbye to the ageism . . How dare anyone unilaterally decide when to turn the page on history,papering over real inequities and suffering constituencies in the promise ofa feel-good campaign. How dare anyone claim to unify while dividing, orthink that to rouse US youth from torpor it's useful to triage the singlelargest demographic in this country's history: the boomer generation--themajority of which is female? . Old women are the one group that doesn't grow more conservative withage-and we are the generation of radicals who said "Well-behaved womenseldom make history." Goodbye to going gently into any goodnight any manprescribes for us. We are the women who changed the reality of the UnitedStates. And though we never went away, brace yourselves: we're back! We are the women who brought this country equal credit, better pay,affirmative action, the concept of a family-focused workplace; the women whoestablished rape-crisis centers and battery shelters, marital-rape anddate-rape laws; the women who defended lesbian custody rights, who foughtfor prison reform, founded the peace and environmental movements; whoinsisted that medical research include female anatomy, who inspired men tobecome more nurturing parents, who created women's studies and Title IX sowe all could cheer the WNBA stars and Mia Hamm. We are the women whoreclaimed sexuality from violent pornography, who put child care on thenational agenda, who transformed demographics, artistic expression, languageitself. We are the women who forged a worldwide movement. We are the proudsuccessors of women who, though it took more than 50 years, won us the vote. We are the women who now comprise the majority of US voters. Hillary said she found her own voice in New Hampshire. There's not a womanalive who, if she's honest, doesn't recognize what she means. Then HRC gotdrowned out by campaign experts, Bill, and media's obsession with everythingBill. So listen to her voice: "For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Eventoday, there are those who are trying to silence our words. "It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned,or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into theslavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women aredoused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriagedowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights whenindividual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands ofwomen are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violationof human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is aviolation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their ownfamilies, and that includes being forced to have abortions or beingsterilized against their will. "Women's rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speakfreely--and the right to be heard." That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the US State Department and theChinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (thefull, stunning speech:http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hillaryclintonbeijingspeech.htm). And this voice, age 22, in "Commencement Remarks of Hillary D. Rodham,President of Wellesley College Government Association, Class of 1969" (fullspeech: http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Commencement/ 1969/053169hillary.html "We are, all of us, exploring a world none of us understands. . . .searching for a more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating mode of living. .. . [for the] integrity, the courage to be whole, living in relation to oneanother in the full poetry of existence. The struggle for an integrated lifeexisting in an atmosphere of communal trust and respect is one withdesperately important political and social consequences. . . . Fear isalways with us, but we just don't have time for it." She ended with the commitment "to practice, with all the skill of ourbeing: the art of making possible." And for decades, she's been learning how. So goodbye to Hillary's second-guessing herself. The real question isdeeper than her re-finding her voice. Can we women find ours? Can we do thisfor ourselves? "Our President, Ourselves!" Time is short and the contest tightening. We need to rise in furiousenergy--as we did when Anita Hill was so vilely treated in the US Senate, aswe did when Rosie Jiminez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as we didand do for women globally who are condemned for trying to break through. Weneed to win, this time. Goodbye to supporting HRC tepidly, with ambivalentcaveats and apologetic smiles. Time to volunteer, make phone calls, sendemails, donate money, argue, rally, march, shout, vote. Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she's the best qualified of allcandidates running in both parties. I support her because she's refreshinglythoughtful, and I'm bloodied from eight years of a jolly "uniter" withejaculatory politics. I needn't agree with her on every point. I agree withthe 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama's-and the fewwhere hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like healthcare). I support her because she's already smashed the first-lady stereotypeand made history as a fine senator, because I believe she will continue tomake history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great USpresident. As for the "woman thing"? Me, I'm voting for Hillary not because she's a woman--but because I am. www.robinmorgan.us
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT (#2) Feb.2, 2008 Robin Morgan "Goodbye To All That" was my (in)famous 1970 essay breaking free from apolitics of accommodation especially affecting women (for an online version,see http://blog.fair-use.org/category/chicago/). During my decades in civil-rights, anti-war, and contemporary women'smovements, I've avoided writing another specific "Goodbye . . .". But notsince the suffrage struggle have two communities--joint conscience-keepersof this country--been so set in competition, as the contest between HillaryRodham Clinton (HRC) and Barack Obama (BO) unfurls. So. Goodbye to the double standard . . . --Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who's emotional, andso much a politician as to be unfit for politics. --She's "ambitious" but he shows "fire in the belly." (Ever had laborpains? ) --When a sexist idiot screamed "Iron my shirt!" at HRC, it was consideredamusing; if a racist idiot shouted "Shine my shoes!" at BO, it would'veinspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our nationaldishonor. --Young political Kennedys--Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby Jr.--all endorsedHillary. Sen Ted, age 76, endorsed Obama. If the situation were reversed,pundits would snort "See? Ted and establishment types back her, but theforward-looking generation backs him." (Personally, I'm unimpressed withCaroline's longing for the Return of the Fathers. Unlike the rest of theworld, Americans have short memories. Me, I still recall Marilyn Monroe'ssuicide, and a dead girl named Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick.) Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . . Carl Bernstein's disgust at Hillary's "thick ankles." Nixon-trickster RogerStone's new Hillary-hating 527 group, "Citizens United Not Timid" (check thecapital letters). John McCain answering "How do we beat the bitch?" with"Excellent question!" Would he have dared reply similarly to "How do we beatthe black bastard?" For shame. Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs. Ifit was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged-andthey would not be selling it in airports. Shame. Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history,including one with the murderous slogan "If Only Hillary had married O.J.Instead!" Shame. Goodbye to Comedy Central's "Southpark" featuring a storyline in whichterrorists secrete a bomb in HRC's vagina. I refuse to wrench my brain downinto the gutter far enough to find a race-based comparison. For shame. Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny. This is not"Clinton hating," not "Hillary hating." This is sociopathic woman-hating. Ifit were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semiticpropaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic ifsuch vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense ofoutrage-as citizens, voters, Americans? Goodbye to the news-coverage target-practice . . . The women's movement and Media Matters wrung an apology from MSNBC's ChrisMatthews for relentless misogynistic comments (www.womensmediacenter.com).But what about NBC's Tim Russert's continual sexist asides and hisall-white-male panels pontificating on race and gender? Or CNN's TonyHarris chuckling at "the chromosome thing" while interviewing a woman fromThe White House Project? And that's not even mentioning Fox News. Goodbye to pretending the black community is entirely male and all womenare white . . . Surprise! Women exist in all opinions, pigmentations, ethnicities,abilities, sexual preferences, and ages--not only African American andEuropean American but Latina and Native American, Asian American and PacificIslanders, Arab American and-hey, every group, because a group wouldn'texist if we hadn't given birth to it. A few non-racist countries mayexist--but sexism is everywhere. No matter how many ways a woman breaks freefrom other discriminations, she remains a female human being in a worldstill so patriarchal that it's the "norm." So why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and thecenturies, even millennia, of struggle that got us this far, as blackAmericans, women and men, are justly proud of their struggles? Goodbye to a campaign where he has to pass as white (whichwhites-especially wealthy ones--adore), while she has to pass as male (whichboth men and women demanded of her, and then found unforgivable). If shewere black or he were female we wouldn't be having such problems, and I forone would be in heaven. But at present such a candidate wouldn't stand achance-even if she shared Condi Rice's Bush-defending politics. I was celebrating the pivotal power at last focused on African Americanwomen deciding on which of two candidates to bestow their vote--until anumber of Hillary-supporting black feminists told me they're being called"race traitors." So goodbye to conversations about this nation's deepest scar-slavery-whichfail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the US andelsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women. Women have endured sex/race/ethnic/religious hatred, rape and battery,invasion of spirit and flesh, forced pregnancy; being the majority of thepoor, the illiterate, the disabled, of refugees, caregivers, the HIV/AIDSafflicted, the powerless. We have survived invisibility, ridicule, religiousfundamentalisms, polygamy, teargas, forced feedings, jails, asylums, sati,purdah, female genital mutilation, witch burnings, stonings, and attemptedgynocides. We have tried reason, persuasion, reassurances, and beingextra-qualified, only to learn it never was about qualifications after all.We know that at this historical moment women experience the worlddifferently from men--though not all the same as one another--and can governdifferently, from Elizabeth Tudor to Michele Bachelet and Ellen JohnsonSirleaf. We remember when Shirley Chisholm and Patricia Schroeder ran for this highoffice and barely got past the gate-they showed too much passion, raised toolittle cash, were joke fodder. Goodbye to all that. (And goodbye to somefeminists so famished for a female president they were even willing toabandon women's rights in backing Elizabeth Dole.) Goodbye, goodbye to . . . --blaming anything Bill Clinton does on Hillary (even including hiswomanizing like the Kennedy guys--though unlike them, he got reported on).Let's get real. If he hadn't campaigned strongly for her everyone wouldcluck over what that meant. Enough of Bill and Teddy Kennedy locking theiralpha male horns while Hillary pays for it. --an era when parts of the populace feel so disaffected by politics that acomparative lack of knowledge, experience, and skill is actually seen asattractive, when celebrity-culture mania now infects our elections so thatit's "cooler" to glow with marquee charisma than to understand the vastglobal complexities of power on a nuclear, wounded planet. --the notion that it's fun to elect a handsome, cocky president who feelshe can learn on the job, goodbye to George W. Bush and the destructionbrought by his inexperience, ignorance, and arrogance. Goodbye to the accusation that HRC acts "entitled" when she's workedintensely at everything she's done-including being a nose-to-the-grindstone,first-rate senator from my state. Goodbye to her being exploited as a Rorschach test by women who reduce herto a blank screen on which they project their own fears, failures,fantasies. Goodbye to the phrase "polarizing figure" to describe someone who embodiesthe transitions women have made in the last century and are poised to makein this one. It was the women's movement that quipped, "We are becoming themen we wanted to marry." She heard us, and she has. Goodbye to some women letting history pass by while wringing their hands,because Hillary isn't as "likeable" as they've been warned they must be, orbecause she didn't leave him, couldn't "control" him, kept her familytogether and raised a smart, sane daughter. (Think of the blame if Chelseahad ever acted in the alcoholic, neurotic manner of the Bush twins!) Goodbyeto some women pouting because she didn't bake cookies or she did, snipingbecause she learned the rules and then bent or broke them. Grow the hell up.She is not running for Ms.-perfect-pure-queen-icon of the feministmovement. She's running to be President of the United States. Goodbye to the shocking American ignorance of our own and other countries'history. Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir rose through party ranks and war,positioning themselves as proto-male leaders. Almost all other female headsof government so far have been related to men of power-granddaughters,daughters, sisters, wives, widows: Gandhi, Bandaranike, Bhutto, Aquino,Chamorro, Wazed, Macapagal-Arroyo, Johnson Sirleaf, Bachelet, Kirchner, andmore. Even in our "land of opportunity," it's mostly the first pathway "in"permitted to women: Reps. Doris Matsui and Mary Bono and Sala Burton; Sen.Jean Carnahan . . . far too many to list here. Goodbye to a misrepresented generational divide . . . Goodbye to the so-called spontaneous "Obama Girl" flaunting her bikin-cladass online-then confessing Oh yeah it wasn't her idea after all, some guysgot her to do it and dictated the clothes, which she said "made me feel likea dork." Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they'renot feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten the status quo),who can't identify with a woman candidate because she actually is unafraidof eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them funnyif they say something good about her. Goodbye to women of any age againfeeling unworthy, sulking "what if she's not electable?" or "maybe it'spost-feminism and whoooosh we're already free." Let a statement by themagnificent Harriet Tubman stand as reply. When asked how she managed tosave hundreds of enslaved African Americans via the Underground Railroadduring the Civil War, she replied bitterly, "I could have saved thousands-ifonly I'd been able to convince them they were slaves." I'd rather say a joyful Hello to all the glorious young women who doidentify with Hillary, and all the brave, smart men-of all ethnicities andany age--who get that it's in their self-interest, too. She's betterqualified. (D'uh.) She's a high-profile candidate with an enormous grasp offoreign- and domestic-policy nuance, dedication to detail, ability to absorbstaggering insult and personal pain while retaining dignity, resolve, evenhumor, and keep on keeping on. (Also, yes, dammit, let's hear it for herconnections and funding and party-building background, too. Obama wasawfully glad about those when she raised dough and campaigned for him to getto the Senate in the first place.) I'd rather look forward to what a good president he might make in eightyears, when his vision and spirit are seasoned by practical know-how--andhe'll be all of 54. Meanwhile, goodbye to turning him into a shining knightwhen actually he's an astute, smooth pol with speechwriters who've workedwith the Kennedys' own speechwriter-courtier Ted Sorenson. If it's onlyabout ringing rhetoric, let speechwriters run. But isn't it about gettingthe policies we want enacted? And goodbye to the ageism . . How dare anyone unilaterally decide when to turn the page on history,papering over real inequities and suffering constituencies in the promise ofa feel-good campaign. How dare anyone claim to unify while dividing, orthink that to rouse US youth from torpor it's useful to triage the singlelargest demographic in this country's history: the boomer generation--themajority of which is female? . Old women are the one group that doesn't grow more conservative withage-and we are the generation of radicals who said "Well-behaved womenseldom make history." Goodbye to going gently into any goodnight any manprescribes for us. We are the women who changed the reality of the UnitedStates. And though we never went away, brace yourselves: we're back! We are the women who brought this country equal credit, better pay,affirmative action, the concept of a family-focused workplace; the women whoestablished rape-crisis centers and battery shelters, marital-rape anddate-rape laws; the women who defended lesbian custody rights, who foughtfor prison reform, founded the peace and environmental movements; whoinsisted that medical research include female anatomy, who inspired men tobecome more nurturing parents, who created women's studies and Title IX sowe all could cheer the WNBA stars and Mia Hamm. We are the women whoreclaimed sexuality from violent pornography, who put child care on thenational agenda, who transformed demographics, artistic expression, languageitself. We are the women who forged a worldwide movement. We are the proudsuccessors of women who, though it took more than 50 years, won us the vote. We are the women who now comprise the majority of US voters. Hillary said she found her own voice in New Hampshire. There's not a womanalive who, if she's honest, doesn't recognize what she means. Then HRC gotdrowned out by campaign experts, Bill, and media's obsession with everythingBill. So listen to her voice: "For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Eventoday, there are those who are trying to silence our words. "It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned,or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into theslavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women aredoused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriagedowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights whenindividual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands ofwomen are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violationof human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is aviolation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their ownfamilies, and that includes being forced to have abortions or beingsterilized against their will. "Women's rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speakfreely--and the right to be heard." That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the US State Department and theChinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (thefull, stunning speech:http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hillaryclintonbeijingspeech.htm). And this voice, age 22, in "Commencement Remarks of Hillary D. Rodham,President of Wellesley College Government Association, Class of 1969" (fullspeech: http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Commencement/ 1969/053169hillary.html "We are, all of us, exploring a world none of us understands. . . .searching for a more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating mode of living. .. . [for the] integrity, the courage to be whole, living in relation to oneanother in the full poetry of existence. The struggle for an integrated lifeexisting in an atmosphere of communal trust and respect is one withdesperately important political and social consequences. . . . Fear isalways with us, but we just don't have time for it." She ended with the commitment "to practice, with all the skill of ourbeing: the art of making possible." And for decades, she's been learning how. So goodbye to Hillary's second-guessing herself. The real question isdeeper than her re-finding her voice. Can we women find ours? Can we do thisfor ourselves? "Our President, Ourselves!" Time is short and the contest tightening. We need to rise in furiousenergy--as we did when Anita Hill was so vilely treated in the US Senate, aswe did when Rosie Jiminez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as we didand do for women globally who are condemned for trying to break through. Weneed to win, this time. Goodbye to supporting HRC tepidly, with ambivalentcaveats and apologetic smiles. Time to volunteer, make phone calls, sendemails, donate money, argue, rally, march, shout, vote. Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she's the best qualified of allcandidates running in both parties. I support her because she's refreshinglythoughtful, and I'm bloodied from eight years of a jolly "uniter" withejaculatory politics. I needn't agree with her on every point. I agree withthe 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama's-and the fewwhere hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like healthcare). I support her because she's already smashed the first-lady stereotypeand made history as a fine senator, because I believe she will continue tomake history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great USpresident. As for the "woman thing"? Me, I'm voting for Hillary not because she's a woman--but because I am. www.robinmorgan.us
Friday, January 4, 2008
Rural Women in China
"She's not trying hard enought to please he master." That's the rural thinking about why a woman is beaten by her husband. Xie Lihua is a feminist and magazine publisher in China, spreading the idea that, "You are yours. You are not anybody else's."
China is the only place on earth, according to the World Health Organization, where more women commit suicide than men - over 150,000 a year, and rural suicides are triple that of the city.
Xie Luha, herself unwanted because she was a girl in a country where only boy babies are wanted, not only publishes her magazine but also founded the Cultural Development Center for Rural Women China's first nongovernmental organization focused on women living outside the city.
She runs a hotline for battered women and those unfairly laid off from their jobs. She has been at the forefront of getting the issue of domestic violence out there and talked about.
To read more, click here for article in the Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-women2jan02,1,3436981.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
China is the only place on earth, according to the World Health Organization, where more women commit suicide than men - over 150,000 a year, and rural suicides are triple that of the city.
Xie Luha, herself unwanted because she was a girl in a country where only boy babies are wanted, not only publishes her magazine but also founded the Cultural Development Center for Rural Women China's first nongovernmental organization focused on women living outside the city.
She runs a hotline for battered women and those unfairly laid off from their jobs. She has been at the forefront of getting the issue of domestic violence out there and talked about.
To read more, click here for article in the Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-women2jan02,1,3436981.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
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