October 2, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

Women’s Battles and How We Can Improve Life for Women

The issues facing women in our country are really not new or just a problem in America. We are actually in better shape than in some other countries. This doesn’t diminish our problems here. I am really tired of the excuse that this misogyny we face as women, began with Eve. My response is this, that: Adam chose the fruit, Eve didn’t twist his arm. Yet, men are not held accountable for his decision. It is all Eve’s fault. Please. Divinity would not be omniscient and infinite if he did not know what happened and what the result would be. This story which is found in the Tanach is a good story. Jews also have a legend that the first woman was actually Lilith. She was not “created” from Adam’s rib. G-d created Lilith to be his equal partner. Adam couldn’t handle a partner so he asked G-d for a new helpmate who would listen to him and obey him. In the Jewish calendar, we are in the new year of 5773. It is a different calendar than the Western one. It is a Lunar calendar and based on the moon instead of the sun.

In the years since, the exile from the garden, most societies have blamed and diminished women as the natural course of events. 2012 is no exception. Women are treated without respect or equality by the men in their lives. Most sexist men and women feel women are weak, not as intelligent and the beginning of the evils men cannot resist.

Many fundamental sects of all the religions speak of having to control women and that women should not speak. Some separate women in worship, some don’t allow them to speak, and some come up with ridiculous reasons that women are not equal. All of them use G-d as their as their right to use and punish women in unbelievable ways. Just being a woman, just having the power to create life seems to be a crime.

G-d, Adonia, The One, The Beloved, Buddha, Allah have been said to have given instructions for the deplorable treatment of women in the world. So the Divinity which resides within all of us and the fact that we are “All children of the Universe” matters not in terms of gender.

I began mentioning some of the terrible things that women were having to endure yesterday. I want to go back to the practice of polygamy in some fundamental Mormon sects. I find this to be disturbing because American children are being raised to think that this is a form of marriage that will help them into heaven. I have read the book, The True Origin of Mormon Polygamy.

This book goes back to the founding of the Mormon Church upon the revelations of one Joseph Smith. They actually started out in Kirkland, Ohio and as time went on they moved farther and farther west. My research has led me to many testimonies made under oath that tie Joseph Smith and Bringham Young to the revelations. Some were made by women that one or the other of them had tried to entice the women into plural marriages.

In the before mentioned book, you are able, if you wish, to read Joseph Smith’s revelation which he said he received on July 12, 1843. The revelation is called, “Revelation on Celestial Marriage.” Polygamy was made illegal by the Federal government in the late 1800’s.

My reading of memoirs of women and children who have “escaped” from polygamy (see yesterday’s blog for titles written by women involved in the practice of polygamy), have given me a distressing view of life for women and children in these sects. What I have discovered is that the so called “”Revelations” give Mormon men the right to have as many Celestial or Plural wives as they wish.

There are entire communities where everyone is living in polygamy. Los Molinos is one of them and is in California. These women must share their husband with ten, 20, or more sister-wives. They are raised to believe that the only way they have of getting into heaven is to become a jewel in a man’s crown. When he dies, if he has enough jewels, he will reach godhood. The wives make it in using his coat tails.

This is why educated women and girls put themselves into this situation. Polygamous families do have differences, in how the husband works out the challenges that come with more than one wife and with enough children to fill a cruise ship.

Some families live all together. the husband wives and all of the children. Try to imagine perhaps 50 people in a house trying to have meals, get ready for school/work, dealing with sick kids. The other scenario is that each wife and her children have their own home. In either scenario, the women have to deal on a regular basis watching their husband spend the night with one of the other women. This causes jealousy, envy, sadness, stress and loneliness for these women. Husbands often don’t know the children’s names or birthdays. Some wives go out to work and some stay at home to raise a scary amount of children.

The husband gives them as much money as he can, many are often working for the church so often that they aren’t available to work and generate an income all the time. Older male children often leave and go to large cities to earn money to send home for shoes, food, or additions to the family.

The fundamental sects keep this all a secret. Often women and children live in tents, or houses without running water or electricity. Most live in some of the worst poverty found in our country. The girls are prepared to take their place as a plural wife all of their lives. Some girls have been sealed into Celestial marriages as young as ten years of age.

Women have no control over their lives and abuse takes place and they believe they have no recourse. Of course, they do, but these marriages are secret, and they are raised to believe they accept it unless they are willing to run with their children and lose their ticket to heaven.

Having enough food is difficult. Education doesn’t usually include college. Some of the sects are built in Mexico for protection from the law. Having young girls as wives is more about the molestation of their young bodies than spirituality.

Wives often have children at home with the assistance of women who act as midwives. The man is to get anything he wants because he is a man. There are stories of girls being talked into running away from their families and marrying a man to ensure their heavenly place.

All of these conditions bring us repeatedly to women being property, owned by a man, demeaned, abused and kept in near slavery, in some cases. There is a Federal law which makes this lifestyle illegal, but it must be enforced. The Warren Jeffries case is just one of the cases happening in our country while we look away and women and children suffer. We must begin to enforce these laws without fear. We must protect these women and children. They — and all women and children — are part of the fabric of America.

October 1, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

Woman’s Battles Continue

It is now 2012 and for women there is much work to do. The plight of women and girls is still filled with issues that are harmful to women and girls in our society. Many men still feel that they own a woman and therefore can control her actions, her thoughts, her body, her money.

Women today do have more choices than we did in the seventies and much more than when the suffragettes were working to get us the vote. We can wear pants now, we can go outside the home to work now if we choose. But many women’s paychecks are not their own. They still must turn over their hard earned money to their husband. In many marriages, there is not a partnership but a situation where the man has the last say, instead of Making joint decisions. We can own property these days but divorce laws that were written to protect wives and children are often being ignored or put aside.

Domestic Violence is worsening. Partly because it is no longer the ” Silent Scream” and therefore it is reported more often, but also young women don’t understand that they have the right to live without violence and fear. Couples who are dating are often tied together by violence and pain, not love and mutual respect.

Despite all of the work in the seventies and President Obama signing into law the equal pay act, we still make $ .77 for every dollar a man makes. It is 2012 and in the seventies, we earned $ .64 to every dollar a man made. So while we do equal work we are not given equal wages. Men have more value in American society.

While more girls and young women are receiving higher education, the thought still prevails that women go to school so they can find a husband. Women who decide not to marry or not to have children continue to still face discrimination.

Government still feels it can legislate what we do with our bodies. If the government thinks it can control our bodies, no wonder the men in our lives feel the same. The argument could be made that the men feel that they can control our bodies and Congress is still made up mostly of white men.

Society wants to prevent teen pregnancy by “just saying no.” and without the education that they need to protect themselves from pregnancy and disease. I am not speaking about encouraging teens to begin to experiment with sex but since they are human teens and hormones rage, situations happen and the results can be totally devastating to the teens and the next generation.

One of the sexist things which is happening in our country and others in the world is polygamy. Here, it is found mostly in fundamental Mormon sects. Not all Mormons practice polygamy, but it is a very demeaning lifestyle for women and children.

There has recently been a television show on The Learning Channel called “Sister Wives”. I read the 19th Wife which is a memoir of Brigham Young and his “sister wives.” I just finished, Favorite Wife:/Escape from Polygamy.
What these stories do is to give us a glimpse into a lifestyle which is demeaning to women and their children. So I have decided to do more research on the subject and its beginnings and how it attempts to hide itself now.

I am shocked to find that even though polygamy is against federal law written in the late 1800’s, it exists and whole communities are filled with “sister-wives, celestial wives, or plural wives and they are not arrested. Warren Jeffries is the most recent controversial case but there are thousand of women and children living in these horrible situations.

Let me give an image to you to begin our conversation on the subject. The practice of Polygamy supposedly began in our country with visions or revelations which Joseph Smith had from God. Brigham Young had similar revelations later on confirming that this is God’s idea of what marriage should be.

The revelations showed that for a Mormon man to reach heaven he needed more than one wife as each one was a jewel in his crown. If his crown was full upon death, thanks to many sister-wives, he could attain godhood and the wives got into heaven on their husbands coat-tails. Little girls were taught that this was the only way for them to reach heaven. Boys are raised to go out and find a Gentile girl, marry her and bring her into the fold. These men hold total control over everyone of their wives and all of their children.

There are two colonies, Colinia LeBaron and Los Molinos which are active fundamental Mormon groups which practice polygamy today. There are hundreds of other sites around the country and in Mexico.

September 25, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

My Favorite Seagull

My home town

My first seagull was Johnathan Livingston Seagull. He really is a book by Richard Bach and my copy is from 1970 and is barely holding together. So I have read it, over and over. Johnathan is a seagull who doesn’t always fit in with the flock. He also questions things and he thinks.

Here in America, we have been victims of a dumbing down of the masses. We are not supposed to think or question what the government or society is doing. We are to believe what we are told. This concept never sat well with me. I am the kind of person who, to this day, likes to question, contemplate and find out the ‘real” truth.

Johnathan was a part of his flock and sailed on the wind currents as he had been taught to do. He and his friends would soar and play and life was good, except that he wondered if there might not be something more to life. He made the decision to see is he could fly higher than what the flock usually flew. So he made the decision to start off as usual but to attempt to fly higher and higher. He had separated from the rest of the flock and decided to try to fly higher in the moonlight. He flew to a thousand feet at full power and went into a vertical dive straight down. It wasn’t perfect the first time and he had to put in a lot of hard work and use all of his strength. He would soar downward at seventy miles an hour and end up soaking wet in the ocean. He continued to climb higher and higher and to descend faster. Then he crashed and was unconsciousness.

He had hit the water at ninety miles an hour. When he awoke he was floating on the surface of the ocean. As he floated he heard an inner voice that told him he was a limited seagull. If he had been meant to fly higher and faster, he wouldn’t be a mere seagull. He heard a voice telling him to go back to the flock and make himself fit in and stop trying to be better.

As he took off, he went to five thousand feet and he forgot his vow to himself to go back to the flock. He practiced non-stop until later in the day and he had developed his style and he was proud he had conquered his fear.

The Gull Council called for a meeting and Johnathan was called to the middle of the Council to face charges and he realized someone must have seen him practicing this morning. He was told to stand in the center for Shame. He was devastated and he was told that he was facing charges of irresponsibility and violating the dignity and tradition of the Gull family.

He improved himself and could teach the others, but his defense fell on deaf and judgmental ears. How often in life, does someone have a dream, and works, sacrifices and accomplishes his/her dream. They fight family and society and friends but make themselves and the world better.

Johnathan sadly accepted his punishment. He was Outcast. He went out a ways gliding just as a seagull is supposed to do. He was then joined by two gulls and he began to fly level and then to fly higher. They kept up with him and he asks them who they were. He was told, ” You have learned. One school is finished, and the time has come for another to begin.”

Johnathan looked around and said, ” I’m ready.” Johnathan rose with the other two gulls and flew up into a dark sky. Johnathan found himself in heaven and his outward glowing with light just like his companions.

When he asked about Heaven they told him, “Heaven was not a place, or a time. It is being perfect.” “You will begin to touch heaven, Johnathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed.” They further explained that flying at a certain speed was a limit. They told him that perfect speed was just being there. Being there.

What a wonderful thought for me. A woman who never was satisfied with what I was told to think and to feel. So many times my questions and realizations that events or considerations made no logical sense. There were times I thought that if I heard, ‘Just do as I say,” I would scream and I knew I would never stop. So I tried to live my life as fully as I could. I worked to make a better place and chose not to live my life according to “the rules.” I could do more and learn more and I , like Johnathan, could soar. Has it been easy? No, it hasn’t. But the inner voice of Divinity guided me every time and no, I didn’t always listen but as I grew in maturity and inner strength, I almost always do now.

“Each of us is in truth an idea of the Great Gull, and unlimited idea of freedom.”
This sentence made me realize that we are all meant to be free. We are to be free and soar to meet with Divinity and to become all that we were meant to be. With Divinity inside, nothing can stop us but ourselves. I am not talking about doing unethical or immoral things, but the things that help us to become more and live fuller than most people can even conceive of. Johnathan was told he was a thousand years ahead of his time. This is okay. We will bring the rest of humanity kicking and screaming behind us and the world will have a jump in consciousness. Perhaps, one day we can bring everyone to a life of freedom, forgiveness, joy, compassion and love for all of our fellow sentient beings.

So I share my favorite seagull whenever I can and now I share him with you. I hope you will find him as inspiring as I did.