Monthly Archives: May 2012

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A Woman Can Speak


Unlearning To Not Speak
—Marge Piercy

Blizzards of paper
in slow motion
sift through her
In nightmares she suddenly recalls
a class she signed up for
but forgot to attend.
Now it is to late.
Now it is time for finals:
losers will be shot.
Phrases of men who lectured her
drift and rustle in piles:
Why don’t you speak up?
Why are you shouting?
You have the wrong answer,
wrong line, wrong face.
They tell her she is womb-man,
babymachine, mirror image, toy,
earth mother and penis-poor,
a dish of synthetic strawberry ice cream
rapidly melting.
She grunts to a halt.
She must learn again to speak
starting with I
Starting with We
starting as the infant does
with her own true hunger
and pleasure
and rage.

My choice of photo and poem might seem to be confusing. While we women here in America are struggling today to retain the rights we already have, many women around the world are trying to emerge from lives of servitude, illiteracy and fear. They are our sisters and we must recognize all of the strength and courage it takes to make baby steps to speak.

They face acid in their faces, beatings, children taken away, being isolated in their homes and being an object a man owns. We must recognize how difficult their attempts are for them to make. We must look at them, different, yet our sisters and applaud them for each step and gesture which enables them to begin speaking.

There are many women here in America who were taught not to speak. They didn’t know what they were taking about, they needed to shut up and take care of the children, they needed to “stifle” like Edith Bunker. Thanks to books such as the Feminine Mystic by Betty Friedan, Ms magazine and the work of Gloria Steinem, we can speak…we can speak out and up. What we have to say as women is as valuable as anything a man has to say.

Here is to total equality for all the people, male and female, all colors, and all religions and forms of spirituality.

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I Am Woman


The Suffrage Movement began in the 1890’s and essentially lasted for seventy-two long hard years. Historically, women have been owned, controlled, restricted, opposed, quieted, and had no rights over their property, money or bodies.

Jewish lend says that in Eden God created a woman, Lilith equally with Adam. She was his equal partner. A man and woman to rule over the Garden. Adam protested to God that he didn’t want an equal partner. He asked for a new one and in response God created Eve from his rib not as his equal but to be subservient. Consistently, through history, women have not been equal. but have been regulated to the home, to have babies, to cook, make food and to be the pretty trophy.

In the 1800’s, the Nineteenth Amendment was proposed to give American women the vote. Tennessee was the state holding passage back from a yes vote. But opposition came also from men, and other women who were afraid of losing the special protection they enjoyed as the “weaker sex”.

Thousands of women marched, picketed and protested to gain the right to vote-the Nineteenth Amendment. A young woman Inez Milholland Boissevian died while campaigning and became a martyr to the movement. Her death triggered embarrassing protests for President Wilson and mass arrests ensued. The Media took up the cause of the hundreds of women who had been arrested and were suffering in very horrible prison conditions. They refused to eat and again the media brought it to the public’s attention. The result was the signing of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Their suffering, work, sacrifice got the American woman the right to vote. Thank you to all of them..

The 1970’s arrived and we women who called ourselves feminists began to once again march and protest for more rights. The right to stay home and raise a child or children, the right to earn equal pay for equal work, the right of child care for our children while we worked, and to be protected from Domestic Violence. We had success and I worked hard with thousand of other women for these improvements to our lives.

It is now 2012, and the political rhetoric has gotten louder and the gap between parties has widened. Political games ensue but what I see is a new war. We are now engaged in a War Against Women. There are many who wish to take away our hard gained rights. Many women and men are taking up the battle of women’s rights and are working to save what we have accomplished.

It is never wise to take our rights for granted. They will take them away. So I encourage people to take, speak up, find out what is really happening and to remember the words of Helen Reddy,   “I am Woman, hear me roar”. !!!href=”https://idealisticrebel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/fighting-womens-rights1.jpg”>

 

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May Day Festival


 

 

 

 

May Day, or in Pagan religions Beltane, is a holiday historically celebrated for thousands of years as the point of fertility and beauty of the flowering earth. I have never had the opportunity to dance around a May Pole. It is still celebrated in many countries in the world. You may live in one of them. Through hundreds of years, this day was celebrated by the Celts as the feast of the renewal of earth’s reproductive energy in springtime. With the advent of Christianity, the old festival was changed and it became a quiet processional to honor the virgin mother. I feel that she represents the female aspect of God in our modern day. The original festival was not completely eradicated as the virgin was crowned with wreaths of flowers to celebrate the renewal of Mother Earth. The outer meaning has changed, but the inner meaning remains. May Day is also a reminder of the natural cycle of the earth. So we celebrate the end of the dark winter and the coming of the life giving sun.

So raise your face to the sun today, pick flowers, start seeds, and know that whatever it is called, this is a day of celebration.

Irish May Day Song

“Summer! Summer! The cow’s mild milk
and the goddess with summer within her,
and the yellow summer, and the white daisies,
and the goddess with summer within her.”

I am grateful for the return of light!