March 30, 2017 by IdealisticRebel

Why It Matters that Pence won’t have dinner with a woman not his wife

Why It Matters That Pence Won’t Have Dinner With A Woman Who Isn’t His Wife

In Pence’s worldview, men have no self-control, and women are either temptresses or guardians of virtue.

A recent Washington Post profile of Second Lady Karen Pence, wife of Vice President Mike Pence, uncovered an interesting detail about their extremely close relationship. Pence reportedly told The Hill in 2002 that “he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side.”

This tidbit caused a small uproar on Twitter, with some praising Pence for respecting his wife and his marriage…

…and others pointing out that, perhaps there are reasons outside of a sexually or emotionally untoward encounter to go out to dinner with someone. Maybe you have a friend who isn’t the same gender as you! Or maybe you work with people of different genders, and you sometimes attend professional dinners with them!

The way Mike Pence and his wife mutually define a respectful marriage is up to them. But there are two reasons that this revelation about the Pences’ relationship set off such a firestorm online. First, the religious guidelines that govern what “respect” means to the Pences are part of a system that works to prop up male power and keep women subordinate. And second, VP Pence is not just a man with a wife, he’s the second most powerful person governing the nation ― which means that the way he views women in his personal life could have bearing on the way he sees American women writ large.

The no-eating-with-another-woman rule was first made popular by evangelical pastor Billy Graham in 1948, as part of the “Modesto Manifesto.” According to the Christian History Institute:

The most famous provision of the manifesto called for each man on the Graham team never to be alone with a woman other than his wife. Graham, from that day forward, pledged not to eat, travel, or meet with a woman other than Ruth unless other people were present. This pledge guaranteed Graham’s sexual probity and enabled him to dodge accusations that have waylaid evangelists before and since.

The provision, which came to be known as The Billy Graham Rule, allowed Graham to use his dashing looks to his advantage without cultivating an over-sexualized persona that other evangelicals might not have taken kindly to. (There are some Muslims who adhere to a similar only-dine-with-wives-and-relatives guideline, though one can assume such a disclosure would not elicit such a strong defense from the right.)

American evangelist Billy Graham and his wife Ruth. New York, New York, May 18, 1966.

This history makes it all-the-more clear that this do-not-dine-with-women rule is predicated on the idea that the company of women is always first and foremost about sex.

There is nothing disrespectful about a committed person having a meal with a friend or colleague who is not the same gender as they are ― unless one is to assume that any interaction not under the watchful eye of a spouse would inevitably lead to infidelity. In this worldview, men have no self-control, and women are either temptresses or guardians of virtue.

The underpinnings of this belief system are what allow men to view women as “other” rather than equal. They allow some to rationalize that female victims of sexual violence “asked for it” because they wore “provocative” clothing, and others (including our president) to believe that assault is a natural outcome of putting men and women together in a high-pressure environment like the military. These belief systems are what create male-dominated work environments where women are viewed as sexualized distractions or cut out of the office culture altogether.

Is the Vice President of the United States able to see any woman as his contemporary, rather than a potential threat to his marriage?

The ability to refuse to be alone with someone who is not the same gender as you and still climb the professional ladder is a privilege that is simply not afforded to women. Imagine if Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris or Nancy Pelosi refused to attend political functions where alcohol was served without their husbands in tow to supervise them. Imagine if they never took one-on-one meetings with potential campaign managers or fellow lawmakers who happened to be men. These women’s careers would have been over before they started.

To be a successful woman in an industry where men still make up the majority of power brokers means working with men. It means fighting for a spot at the table, and accepting that, sometimes, you may be the only woman there.

Perhaps VP Pence has made exceptions to his 2002 marital rule in the intervening years. But as Mother Jones Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery pointed out on Twitter, following this rule to its logical conclusion would mean that Pence’s ability to meet with and work with women would be severely limited.

Can he have a professional lunch with Kellyanne Conway or Nikki Haley or Ivanka Trump without viewing it as a marital betrayal? Is he open to hiring women into positions of power on his staff ― specifically positions that require consistent contact? Is the Vice President of the United States able to see any woman as his contemporary, rather than a potential threat to his marriage?

I don’t doubt that Pence has a deep regard for his wife. What is worrisome is the idea that the principles that govern his marriage could be used to govern the country.

August 23, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

The ERA Rally

My sister and I went to an ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) Rally, which is coming up again for a vote in Congress, soon.

Back in the 1970’s we tried, and failed, to get this important Amendment passed. In the United States, no woman of any color or culture or religion is legally equal to any man of any many of any color, culture or religion.

This is the 21st Century, and it is time to remedy this. It will bring justice to women who have had to struggle without the support of the law on their side.

The below lyrics were written by Helen Reddy and Ray Burton, and I’ve included a video of the song as well.

The Equal Rights Amendment would not mean that women and men are “the same”. It does not require shared toilets, or ignore the physical differences between the sexes. It means equal protection and responsibility under the law.

Let’s make 2015 the year that every American Citizen is truly, legally equally for the first time in American History. I think our forefathers would be please.

Photograph and Copyright by Barbara Mattio 2015

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I Am Woman

–Helen Reddy and Ray Burton

I am woman, hear me roar

In numbers too big to ignore

And I know too much to go back an’ pretend

‘Cause I’ve heard it all before

And I’ve been down there on the floor

No one’s ever gonna keep me down again

Oh yes, I am wise

But it’s wisdom born of pain

Yes, I’ve paid the price

But look how much I’ve gained

If I have to, I can do anything

I am strong

(Strong)

I am invincible

(Invincible)

I am woman

You can bend but never break me

‘Cause it only serves to make me

More determined to achieve my final goal

And I come back even stronger

Not a novice any longer

‘Cause you’ve deepened the conviction in my soul

Oh yes, I am wise

But it’s wisdom born of pain

Yes, I’ve paid the price

But look how much I’ve gained

If I have to, I can do anything

I am strong

(Strong)

I am invincible

(Invincible)

I am woman

I am woman watch me grow

See me standing toe to toe

As I spread my lovin’ arms across the land

But I’m still an embryo

With a long, long way to go

Until I make my brother understand

Oh yes, I am wise

But it’s wisdom born of pain

Yes, I’ve paid the price

But look how much I’ve gained

If I have to, I can face anything

I am strong

(Strong)

I am invincible

(Invincible)

I am woman

I am invincible

I am strong

I am woman

I am invincible

I am strong

I am woman

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Yes, I was there. I remember the marches and the picketing. I remember men and some women calling us foul names and throwing things at us. I remember the feminist men who marched with us in solidarity. We marched for all women, for rich and poor, steel workers and housewives, college professors and college professors. We marched for ourselves and for our children and their children. Girls and boys, because inequality is unfair even to those it favors. It is taking a long time to make people understand that equality whether between the sexes or nationalities or religions or any other imaginary divider is necessary. We will not stop until we succeed. Let your mothers, grandmothers, sisters, girlfriends and wives be your legal equal. You have nothing to lose and the strength of millions to gain.

Namaste,

Barbara, the Idealisticrebel

February 7, 2015 by IdealisticRebel

Men Learn What Feminism Means and What That Makes Them

Watch Men Learn What Feminism Means And Then Realize Something Obvious

Curator: Adam Mordecai (from Upworthy.com)

In 1986, Marie Shear wrote: “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” I’ve been a feminist unknowingly since I was born and knowingly for the last eight years or so. It wasn’t until a feminist friend pointed out the definition to me that I realized I actually was one.

According to Webster’s dictionary, Feminism is “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.” If you think women and men are humans and believe that they should be treated equally, congratulations, you are a feminist.

To prove this, Upworthy hit the streets of New Orleans and asked several men if they believe in equal rights for women. Unsurprisingly, they all said yes.

Initially, when we asked them if they were feminists, one-third said yes and two-thirds no. But once we explained what feminism actually is, the majority of them agreed that they just might be feminists too.

It’s really not that hard to be a feminist.

Yep, I’m a dude. I’m also a feminist (and a humanist too, though they are different things.) What does that mean? It means I think men and women should have equal rights and equal opportunity. What doesn’t it mean? It doesn’t mean I think women should have more rights than men. It doesn’t mean I think men don’t struggle too, in different ways. It doesn’t mean that I want to force everyone else to think or act a certain way. It doesn’t mean I want to create a feminist army riding velociraptors feasting upon the men who disagree with me.

It just means I think women and men are humans who should have equal rights and opportunities. If you disagree with that, then I can’t help you. You can be a feminist and want good things for men. In fact, I don’t know any feminists who want men to suffer at the expense of women. Because as I mentioned three times already, feminism is about equal rights and opportunity for everyone, regardless of gender or skin tone or age or ability or anything else.

Are you a feminist?

August 5, 2014 by IdealisticRebel

The Women’s Revolution

Gloria Steinem was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom last November. It is America’s highest honor for a civilian. Her work on behalf of women in the areas of equality and empowerment were the reasons for this prominent award. In her acceptance speech, she spoke about what remains to be done for women. She declared that there are still goals which need to be met. Ms. Steinem discussed equal valuing of women’s work, ending violence against women, recognizing reproductive freedom as a basic human right, and uprooting racism and sexism. This is a hefty list of goals. Comments of the GOP flow through my mind and I realize the enormity of this undertaking.

We also have some myths about feminism that we need to straighten out. One is that this movement, also called women’s liberation. womanism, mujerista, GRRLS, is only for white middle-class women. This is not true. I have black women friends who are feminists and women with less money, who are on fixed incomes and are involved with stopping this War on Women. A poll was conducted in 1972 by Louis Harris and Associates that revealed black women were almost twice as likely as white women to support these issues. Now I read Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique and became committed to the issues. Black women read Shirley Chisholm, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou. These women inspired the dream in black women. The idea that feminism was designed only for white middle-class claim was invented to turn off women. It negated their need for change.

The second myth is that those of us who worked, protested, marched, demonstrated, and lobbied in the 70’s and beyond have accomplished all that can be done for women. Young women felt that our work was done. Women could now relax.

The reality is, we still have much to do. We need to be legally equal. We are the only citizens who are not legally equal. Once we survived the backlash against equality, we still need to work to be socially and legally equal. President Obama has signed an equal pay for equal work legislation. While this was huge and we are grateful, women still do not receive equal pay for equal work. Please note we do not want more pay than men earn for the same work, we just want equitable pay.

We are also dealing with the fact that many women and children in the work are living in violent situations. Women are still being battered at about every nine seconds. I repeat, every nine seconds. Battering can be mental,emotional or physical abuse. Physical abuse can include slapping, kicking , pinching, punching, pulling hair, punching where clothes will cover the evidence. Being pushed and shoved is battering. Being threatened with a knife or gun is abuse. The numbers of women and children who are living in violence is staggering.

In the modern world, most other democratic nations have more women in government positions than America. It is still unusual for American women to be elected. The United States is a modern democracy, and yet, almost alone among such nations, we don’t have some form of a national child-care system. The average cost of child care here has surpassed the average cost of college tuition. If this continues, people will have to have less children in order to give them a chance in life.

A woman’s ability to decide when and whether to bear a child is not a “social issue”. It is a human right, like the right to free speech For the female half of the world reproductive freedom is the biggest economic issue. Women who have children to raise, are less likely to get hired and and to be well paid. Nothing else is going to be equal until men spend as much time performing child care as women do.

As women, we often raise our girls the same as we do our sons. We seldom raise our sons the same as our daughters. To allow a son to play with “girl toys” or to go “girl things” like helping to clean or care for younger children, takes a lot of courage.

Being a woman today take a great deal of courage. There is a book out called Sex and World Peace, which proves that the biggest indicator of whether a country is violent within itself, or will use military violence against another country, is not poverty, natural resources, or even a countries’ degree of democracy. It is violence against women.

Only if each of us has a torch will there be enough light to create World Peace.

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Motivation

Domestic Violence Stats

January 10, 2014 by IdealisticRebel

Feminism and Art

Judy Chicago The Dinner Party 1979.

Mixed media 48’x42’X3′.

Triangular table on white tile floor.

Photograph by Donald Woodman (2010)

From Prebles’ Artforms , Tenth Edition

Patrick Frank

published by Prentice Hall

In the late 1960’s, many women artists began to speak out against the misogyny that always blocked them in their careers. It has always been difficult for women to be taken seriously. Our patriarchal society has always looked at what was produced by women as less than. For women artists it has been difficult to have their work shown in galleries, in artists’ groups. Galleries have been and continue to be more willing to accept the art made by men than by women. This has long been a problem for women artists and women in general. If a woman is entering a jar of preserves or a pie in the county fair, fine. But real creation has been considered the product of men. Women in the 60’s were afraid to allow their art to reflect their problems producing artwork in the male dominated world.

In the early 70’s, feminist artists, in New York and California began to take action. They wanted the art world to be a more balanced world where their work wouldn’t languish in obscurity. Lucy Lippard, an art critic and feminist wrote, “The overwhelming fact remains that a woman’s experience in this society—social and biological—is simply not like that of a man. If art comes from the inside, as it must, then the art of men and women must be different, too.”

The work of some women artists is definitely influenced by their gender and their interests in feminist issues. The two groups worked differently. California feminists tended to work together in collaborations. They tended to make use of media that had been used traditionally in “craft work” and with women: ceramics and textiles. The upper photograph, The Dinner Party, was a collaboration of many women and a few feminist men. Judy Chicago organized this work over a period of five years.

“A large triangular table contains place settings for thirty-nine women who made important contributions to world history. They run a wide gamut, from Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut to Georgia O’Keefe. The names of 999 additional women of achievement are inscribed on ceramic tiles below the tables. Each place setting includes a hand-embroidered fabric runner and a porcelain plate designed in honor of that woman. Some of the plates are painted with flat designs, others have modeled and painted relief motifs, many are explicitly sexual, embellished with flower-like female genitalia.” (Description from Prebles’ Artforms)

New York feminists were more pointed in their protests. Some of them formed the group Women Artists in Revolution (WAR), which picketed museums. In response to dealers who were reluctant to exhibiting female artists, they formed their own collaborative gallery, Artists in Residence (AIR). Nancy Spero, a leader in feminist circles on the East Coast participated in both groups. Her work used uncommon media such as paper scrolls, stencils and printing to document subjects such as the torture and abuse of women.

The bottom photograph is of a work by Nancy Spero. It is called the Rebirth of Venus. Venus is the ancient goddess of love. And in this art piece the goddess is split open to reveal a woman sprinter who runs directly towards the viewer. The contrast is strong, women as love object releases a woman who is strong and a achiever.

Women still have to fight for recognition in the art world. Women still have to fight for everything including equality. But women will never give up and go back to being subjected quietly by society. We will never be quiet again.

Nancy Spero Rebirth of Venus detail 1984

Handprinting on paper. 12″ x 62′

Photograph David Reynalds

From Prebles’ Artforms , Tenth Edition

Patrick Frank

Published by Prentice Hall

July 27, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Why I Remain a Feminist

Quote from Maya Angelou

I initially became a feminist because of books. I was taking some continuing education classes in nursing. One book I had to read discussed the “The Burning Times.” These were in the good old days when women were midwives. Men felt that taking care of sick people was beneath them. Midwives got paid in a pie, some vegetables, some homemade bread. They were also more than expert in herbs and healing plants. Because of the nature of such a woman, she often enjoyed gentle relationships with the animals around her cabin or home.

There were a few men who exhibited the same gifts. Today we would call them feminist men. I am sure everyone knows some. The Church, in those days found it hard to handle midwives and healing women.

We are looking at the time in history of the Spanish Inquisition. Protestants had to confess after torture, Jews fled to present-day Europe and the Ottoman empire. Special priests were sent out to root out and to kill the blasphemers who said they could heal. As time went on, village after village suffered through “witch trials.” Many good and caring women went to their deaths because they were deemed witches. Children had no protection from these accusations. They often would be tortured and would speak the name of someone they knew. They would call someone a witch, just to get the pain to end.

It is said that over 2 million women were murdered for being witches. This was also a holocaust. At this time, midwives went underground and men began to look to medicine as a way to make a living. So men suddenly had good reason to ensure that no healing women or witches were in their communities. Much information about the healing effects of herbs was lost for a very long time.

I was interested in what I was reading and took more books out of the library. I couldn’t stop reading and thinking about these women. There is an article you might be interested in reading called “Witches, Midwives and Nurses”, by B. Ehrenreich and D English.. It can be found at .www.blancmange.net/tmh/articles/witches.html.

To this day women’s medical practice has thrived in the midst of rebellious lower class movements. These witch hunts for the midwives did not stop these healing and caring women,, but the midwives where often branded as superstitious and possibly malevolent.

I read all this, and another feminist was born. I got involved with other concerned women in my community and we tried to assess women’s needs in our community. What we discovered was that women were being abused in their homes. So we started a shelter for abused women. We had no money, but we got a rundown old house in a bad neighborhood and the Jewish, Protestant and Catholic women worked long and hard to save these battered women and their children. Some of the Catholic women were nuns and I remember that we all “planted” a penny in the tree lawn of that house and the nuns prayed for the women and children who would be saved. Today that shelter, started in the 1970’s has a budget of nearly a million dollars a year. I am still a feminist because they need every penny of that budget to continue to protect the women and kids.

Children are also beaten

This may be happening to someone you know…like your sister, your cousin, the neighbor, your minister’s wife, or the wife of that nice young family who always comes to church.

As our society becomes more violent, with mass shootings and other community violence, Domestic Violence is not shrinking. Nearly forty years after domestic violence shelters and programs were established in this country, we are still taking pictures of injuries, advocating for abused women in court and hiding them until they and their children can get safely away from the abuser. Oh, I must not forget to tell you that more women are killed trying to get out than at any other time in the battering relationship.

This is the number one reason I am still a feminist, however it isn’t the only reason. I am concerned that women are not legally equal, and do not get paid the same as a man for the same work. And so, I fight on.

Together we can gain our legal equality. Together we can take care of each other. Together we can become equal partners. Together we might just add some peace to the world.

You can’t beat a woman!

Please remember the extreme danger many women are in and talk to the young women and girls. It isn’t their fault. They were victims.

July 26, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Gender Bias

Sexual harrassment is a crime and it is unacceptav=ble

Sexual harrassment is a crime and it is unacceptable

Women have a lot happening these days. We are working to make sure that we become legally equal citizens for the first time in the history of America. We still earn less than a man for the same work; even though our President Obama has signed a new bill into law, laws have to be enforced. Many women are wives, mothers and often workers in the workplace. Yes, we have a choice. We get to choose to stay home with children, go to work and not have children, or to work outside the home and have children. I have 3 daughters and they have each made the choice that works best for them.

Now we have candidate Weiner sexting with women. He is not sure of how many women. So we could conclude that these relationships were so unimportant to him he can’t remember how many there were. I respect his wife and her decision. It wouldn’t be mine, but this is feminism. A woman has the right to decide what she will put up with and what she can’t take for another moment.

Then there is Mayor Filner of San Diego. Mayor Filner who has a plethora of women coming out with ugly stories of what he did to them. These are all professional women; one is a Rear Admiral. The accusations include, but are not limited to, touching the posterior, licking of the face, putting a woman into a headlock, trying to force a kiss on an unwilling woman. It makes me sick. I wonder what it takes to go from Filner’s behavior to Ariel Castro. Castro held three women here in Cleveland as slaves for a decade. There is one child who survived from his raping one of these women. Other fetuses were killed. To protect the young women from the further trauma of having to testify, the court has given Castro a life sentence plus 1000 years. It was done to save the women from more victimization.

Mayor Filner states that his behavior is in contrast to his belief i n equality, and justice. He apologized to the community and the women. Is it enough? I fear not. Years of disrespect of women doesn’t just stop.

Filner is accepting responsibility for his actions, he says. He will be entering behavioral therapy on August 5. He is not planning on stepping down as mayor. A two week stay in a rehab center isn’t learning not to be a sex offender. It is a vacation. He loudly declares this is his first step in becoming a better person…in two weeks.

These are men who are uncomfortable with women in power and need to intimidate them. It is wrong morally and criminally to use this behavior to keep women in their place.

If anything like this has ever happened to you in the workplace, report it. No man has the right to touch you in any unwanted way.

If you have been touched, licked, patted in the workplace and if it makes you feel as though your job is at risk, report it. These actions are not part of your job description and must not be tolerated. Your self-respect is being walked on and you are being used. It is scary, but there are women’s organizations who will help and the ACLU will help and possibly be your legal council. Take care of yourself and make sure male coworkers are not allowed into your personal space.

Can you answer the questions?

By the way, this is all part of the WAR ON WOMEN. You remember the war: the one Congress is attempting to use against every American woman. These conditions are part of the reason why we are not legally equal. And they are why we still need to fight to be equal.

Unwanted touching is against the law.
Speak up!

October 10, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

Women are Human Beings

We need to look at the lives and accomplishments of women for inspiration and understanding. Women’s lives have been written only in the last few decades. One of my passions is to read women’s diaries that they leave behind. They give us a glimpse of their heart and souls. Their dreams and passions. The cost of accomplishing a life outside of the ordinary can be steep for many women. Those who were successful have paid a dear price for the life they created.

The irony is that women follow dreams just as men do. Martin Luther King had a dream and millions of women also have dreams. Women and men need to create meaning in their lives and their communities. It is not unfeminine to reach for public power instead of settling for private power. The unfulfilled woman and man are a loss to our society because each of us has much to contribute.

Women have been conditioned to do what is expected and not what they need. Some women want to stay home and be a full-time mother. Some want careers, some want many children and some don’t want to have any children. These decisions are the ones men make every day, but women are encouraged to fit into the proper box. This is a danger for women because to deny who you are and what you are capable of accomplishing is to short change the world and ourselves

The Universe gives us all gifts and talents and I believe we are expected to use them to create meaningful lives. Women who are living in violent relationships, who are verbally humiliated and are insulted day in and day out are suffering from emotional abuse.

The abuse takes many forms. Physical and emotional and psychological abuse can wreck a woman’s self-esteem and she learns to be a victim. This is one role no living being should be in. Feminism gives voice to those who have never had a voice in their own lives and those who have lost it as they have gone through the challenges of life.

Women are not inferior and they are able to make good choices about how to live and how to follow their dreams. Women have a right to have public power and not just power in the bedroom or the kitchen. Power is the ability to take one’s place in whatever discourse is essential to action and the right to have one’s part matter.

An assertive woman who has discovered her power is not “less of a woman” than a man who has discovered and uses his own power. Many people today confuse assertiveness with aggression. They are two concepts which are not at all related. Many times assertive women are maligned by people like Rush Limbaugh when he coined the term” feminazi.”” I have never understood why men are so intimidated by an assertive woman who knows who she is and what she wants and where she is going.

Women are human and that means that we are capable, intelligent, compassionate, passionate, strong and have the right to live our lives without interference from families and government. We can choose candidates, take care of our health, make decisions about reproduction. We don’t need keepers, or a strong man guiding us. Don’t let anyone tell you anything different. You are each perfect as you are and have the right to be who you are. Don’t allow the voices around you keep you from accomplishing your dreams and touching the stars.
We are equal. And in 2013, we will make the government legalize that equality. Being different, seeing from a different perspective does not make you unfeminine, it helps you to hold your head up and straighten your back and live with the dignity that The One gave to each of us. Different is not dangerous. It is just different!

September 5, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

What Women Want

This is a subject that has inspired books and movies. It is now a huge part of our 2012 Presidential election. Now, be assured that not all women want more rights. Some are happy and content being “owned” by the significant male in their life. But for those of us who are strong. capable and passionate, we want change. We don’t want to go back to the nineteenth century and we want to move forward.

Women want to be legally equal in 2013. We are the only citizens of the United States of America who are not equal legally. We want the government and men out of our bodies. We are capable of making choices that effect our reproduction and our health.

We want people to understand that rape is not legitimate. It has nothing to do with sex. It is completely about power and control. I cite the cases of eighty-five year old women and one year old babies being raped.

We want stronger laws protecting women and men from Domestic Violence. I worked in Domestic Violence in two states for over 25 years. A women does not have to live in fear. No one has the right to verbally abuse you. No one has the right to hit, slap, punch, kick, break your jaw, threaten your life or the lives of your children. There are shelters and helplines in almost every town and in every state. Call your local police for telephone numbers to receive shelter, food, counseling, legal assistance, moral support and caring attention.
At the shelter I helped to start we had a slogan, “You can’t beat a Woman.”

We want equal pay for equal work. Women who are doing the same job as a man are currently earning $.77 for every dollar a man earns. In the 1970’s, it was $.64 for every dollar a man earned. Yes, it is an improvement but a pathetic one.

Women want the world to know that women’s work counts. If a woman chooses to stay at home with her children she is just as worthy as a woman who goes out of the home to work. And if we go out to work, our work is as meaningful as a man’s work.

Women do not want to be viewed as second class citizens. We don’t want how we look, what size we wear, or how much plastic surgery we’ve had to matter more than our character, morals and intelligence.

We want the women in every country of the world to be free from honor killings, being sold into sexual slavery, from genital mutilation. We want every child, boy or girl in the world to be able to learn to read and write and to receive the medical care they require.

We want American insurance companies not to put caps on the health costs of human beings. We want every man, women, and child to receive the medical care and medication they need, even if they aren’t in the 1%. We want insurance companies to be forced not to tell doctors what medications they can prescribe and what treatments they can order.

We want the bullying that children are suffering at the hands of classmates to end. We want schools to be free of violence and hatred. Every time a child commits suicide due to bullying, we as a society, have failed them. Our hands are also bloody.

We want people to be able to love whomever they love. Love comes from the soul and souls don’t have gender. Souls just love and that love is no less beautiful than any other.

Please feel free to add things that I have not mentioned. I am happy to have your feedback. We need to create a better life for all women on this planet. If you don’t know much about feminism and would like more information, I suggest reading, Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, Gloria Steinem. Revolution from Within, Robin Morgan, The Burning Times. I also suggest Lenore Walker and Alice Walker, Marge Piercy and Toni Morrison.

Alice Walker, author and feminist

July 3, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

A Garden of Her Own

I confess the title is a twist on Virginia Woolf’s A Room of Her Own. However, times have changed a lot since the days when Woolf was writing. In Woolf’s time, there was still the concept of a woman having a room where she took care of no one else and could peruse the few things in life considered appropriate for young ladies and women. It as also a world where we were wearing corsets and breathing was a skill and swooning was the inability of the lungs to acquire the proper amount of oxygen. This also made physical exercise beyond a sedate walk quite an impossibility. So times have changed and we have changed.

The media has, of course, changed much of what happened in the 1970’s. A time came when we, who were feminists were called FemiNazis because we were expected to line up and get in our places. Being a feminist became something that some no longer wanted to admit. We had made a difference, so it was no big deal. Many people spoke up that we can accomplish everything we needed as women.

It is now the twenty-first century. With the signing of President Obama’s equal pay law, women now will make $0.77 for every dollar a man makes for equal work. In the 1970”’s, we made $0.67 for every dollar a man made.

We worked to give women choices in the 1970’s. Many women stayed home with the children then. Many thought they were slowly losing their minds. A book called The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan came out and changed the prospects of American women. It was, for me an” aha! ” moment. Women were capable and many wanted choices. To stay home with your children, to go into the workplace, or to do both. Over the years, big business has made it almost an impossibility not to have two family incomes. So we don’t really now have the choices we worked for.

The grassroots movement against Domestic Violence began in the 1970’s and many women were able to seek legal recourse, to receive counseling, have a support system that let her start again where she and her children would be safe. We used educational programs and training for educating local police departments on how to safely answer a Domestic Violence call. Historically, more officers are injured answering a Domestic call that any other type of call.
In the twenty-first century, Domestic Violence is on the rise. FBI stats document this fact. Young women don’t understand Domestic Violence and don’t realize that when they are pushed, shoved, kicked, slapped, humiliated or even called demeaning names they are victims of Domestic Violence.

We are once again fighting for the ability to control our own bodies. They are after all, ours. We and our bodies have become a pawn in national politics and this fact is so distressing. Congress wants to be able to tell us when we can go to a doctor and when we can have procedures. They even want to be able to tell us when to have procedures.

So, we all need a room or a garden of our own. I think of my daughters and I know that they are not wearing corsets but between the demands of running a home, having a career (for those who have chosen this path), and children and husbands, they need some space for themselves. I believe that we all need the room and a garden of one’s own can be a fragrant, colorful, non-political place to breathe, be true to yourself, make decisions, and give hurried, pressured lives a time of rest and relaxation. I encourage you to try it. It also is a soothing balm for the soul.

Photography by Barbara Mattio