August 27, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

The War on Women Continues

National Organization of Women

A teacher raped his 14 year old student. She has committed suicide. The judge said she was ‘older than’ her chronological age so the teacher was only given thirty days. I heard the news anchor tell this story and I was stunned. This judge should be dis-barred. Think about a fourteen year old girl you might know and think of her committing suicide. Her family’s loss and grief is real and it means more than the satisfaction the teacher got. Rape is an act of power and control. Sex is the weapon used to wield that power. So this teacher gets thirty days.

This is a sexist message that the judge is sending to the community and the nation. We can’t let men get away with rape and we can’t let them get away with statutory rape. There is no turning the other cheek when a crime involves minor children.

I find this to be disgusting and I think the media needs to keep this story alive and we need to contact Senators and Representatives and tell them to protect women. Ask them to stand up for young people because this happens to boys too.

This teacher is a pedophile and needs to serve the severest of sentences. He needs to be registered as a sex offender and he needs to be locked up for a very long time. Let’s speak out for this young woman and let her parents know our society does care and grieves with them.

” My satisfaction comes from my committment to advancing a better world.” —–Faye Wattleton

Respect all women or you are a misogyist

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” –—–Mother Teresa

The War on Women

There is only one reason for rape and it is a crime.

August 23, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

The Lives of Women

A woman writes herself a life each day as she moves in the now. Virginia Woolf said that only women stirred her imagination. I would add only women have moved me to action and power. If I would write my life it would be to try to protect other women from tragedy and abuse and grief. It would be to say my complete truth without fear of consequences.

Often in literature and in every day life, women’s every day life, our friendships are belittled, and misunderstood. Yet, as women, friendships enliven us, fill us up and give us a way out of lonely grief.

” Affection…means the state of influencing, acting upon, moving, and impressing, and of being influenced by other women.”—-Janice Raymond

Audra Lorde once stated, ” I speak without concern for the accusations
that I am too much or too little woman
that I am too black or too white
or too much myself
and through my lips come the voices of the ghosts
of our ancestors
living and moving among us.”

“To justify an unorthodox life by writing about it is to re-inscribe the original violation, to re-violate masculine turf.” —Nancy K. Miller

Celebration of our lives as women

August 15, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Trafficking in People

The organization Trafficking In People, or TIP, evaluates the progress of over 175 nations; progress towards eradicating human trafficking within its borders. Nations are ranked according to Tier’s.

Tier 1 is countries whose governments fully comply with the minimum standards of the TVPA. America is ranked Tier 1.

Tier 2 is countries whose government do not fully comply with the minimum stands. But they are making significant efforts to do so.

Tier 3 is countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making any efforts to do so.

Human slaves are victims and as such they need housing, food, and clothing. They need cash assistance, protection and safety.

Mental health care is needed for the victim and the family and friends. Excellent medical care and education and jobs are needed.

Often when victims are being held they are given drugs to make them compliant, so rehab may be what is needed to get them off of drugs and alcohol.

Many victims need legal assistance, nutritional counseling, and unwavering support and care.

International victims will need help possibly with language, repatriation help or immigration assistance and reunion with their families.

These people are not criminals, but they are victims. They were owned and they were made to do the things they did. They have been used and abused and they need a lot of love, acceptance, and support.

Let’s help all victims up!

This is why I am a feminist. Equality is for everyone.

Severe Human Trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provisioning , or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act, which is induced by force, fraud, or coercion or in which the person induced to perform such an act is a minor. The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provisioning or obtaining of a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.

1-888+3737+888 is the number to call if you think someone is being held against their wishes. If you ever meet someone who has been owned by another person, give them support, acceptance and no pity. Rejoice that they got out. But remember, if they are out, someone else is in the process of being taken.

August 7, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Home Grown Taliban

Are you muttering to the television, do you yell at your TV? Are you weary from all of the assaults of the Home Grown Taliban? I know. Now you think I am crazy. No I am fine and just being realistic about the life of women.

Are you tired of hearing State Congressmen and -women and Federal Senators and Representatives saying things in public that you want to have them fired for? One of my favorites is Senator Orrin Hatch speaking this pearl: “Capital punishment is our society’s recognition of the sanctity of human life.” There are the remarks dealing with “legitimate rape”, women needing to be beaten, daughters being worth less than sons. It goes on and on ad nauseum.

Here in the United States we are no longer top in the fields of math and science. Part of the reason we have lost our place is the extreme religious right. For the first time in thirty-six years, the U.S. now educates fewer scientists each year. We import more high-tech items than we export.

The religious right fights against programs to provide condoms to the poor. Abstinence programs are failing, and teen pregnancy is on the rise.

The health of those that the religious right does not value is endangered. There have been republicans who say that if a HIV vaccine were developed, they would be against using it. Scientists have developed the human papilloma virus vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, but the religious right’s opposes funding the vaccine for those who need it.. The stem cell research is moving slowly now because the religious right opposes the research, ignoring the gain to medicines that are being lost.

For instance, my younger sister has a genetic liver disease that will inevitably kill her. She doesn’t drink, this is totally genetic. She needs a new liver, but cannot get a normal transplant because she cannot take the medicine that prevents rejection. The only hope for her and others like her is that scientists develop a method for growing a new liver from her own cells . It won’t happen now unless it happens from stem cells. So the religious right has decided, essentially, that my sister and thousands like her will have to die.

James Dobson’s War on America is the first book written by a religious right organization. All women, men of color, Jews, Muslims, homosexual people and others are harmed by the actions and attitudes on the part of the Christian Right.

The extreme religious right operates behind the scenes, urging opposition to what people in American need.

The great Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote, “Those who won our independence believed…that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people…that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope, and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government…(Fear) can’t alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly.”

Therefore, there is much that is similar between the religious right and the Taliban. They both agree on women and want to disenfranchise women, keep women from education, and keep women silent in the background, possessions of their men.

The state of our Union has been corrupted, and the women of the U.S. have been disenfranchised the way the Taliban has disenfranchised Middle Eastern women. The three largest Christian-right organizations call for “crusaders” to pray that certain U.S. Supreme Court justices whose voting records they dislike will die, An emotional war of hatred. The televangelist Pat Robertson has blamed Ellen Degeneres for Hurricane Katrina, because she’s gay.

If the religious right is not stopped, as time goes on, we women will lose more and more of our rights and equality. The Religious Right is beginning to sound and act like the Taliban. This is terrible for women everywhere. Speak up and speak out before you use this right. Sign petitions, volunteer at a women’s shelter or a women’s clinic. We can all light our candles and not look away. Face those who denigrate women.

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!

July 23, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Meet a Child Soldier

Child soldiers forced to fight and kill

You may have guessed, I am taking an online course on Human Trafficking. I have known about this terrible crime for a long time. I haven’t known anyone personally that has gone through this. Of course, when women and children disappear, they might be dead or sold into slavery.

In my research I found a book. It is called, “To live and to Tell, written by a young man named Francis Duworko. This boy was taken from Liberia. This country was founded in 1816, as a place of settlement for freed North American slaves. There were many issues that centered around the different groups of people. 1980 was the date for its first bloody coup d’ tat.

The first Liberian Civil War was 1987-1989. Then there was a second Civil War which lasted until 2003. Many people were wounded, killed, raped and tortured.

Francis was born in 1982 in Monrovia, Liberia. He was abducted to be a child soldier when he was eleven years old. What happens to these children? Francis tells about children being made to kill their parents, or die themselves. Children are forced to rape sisters and other female family members.

Frances got out and surprisingly he came out of it an optimist. My sense from reading his book is that is rare. He wanted to make a difference in life and help other children get away. Many of these children are still suffering from what they experienced.

” Never let people suffer what you suffered, when you can help them improve their situation.”
—–Frances Duworko

Somalian boy soldier

Frances puts everything in a positive light. He now lives in Canada with his family. He advocates that if we think we can change the present situation, it can be changed for the better. Francis encourages everyone to have a goal, a dream and to write it down and focus on your dream.

This is a small book, with a heart that is open and filled with compassion. He even encourages people to meditate on their dreams. Learn to dwell on the goal and not on the past. The past is gone, and can’t be changed. Live in the present moment to make your dreams come to fruition.

Save children from hell on earth. Stop the wars. Then these children won’t be at risk.

July 20, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Congress Needs to Work Together for America

Our American Congress

Our congress needs to rethink why they are in Washington D.C. We the people, elected President Barak Obama and the people in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Are they focused on our wishes and needs? No. No. No.

“I don’t know what would have happened if a public opinion poll was taken when Moses left Egypt! My impression is that he may not have enjoyed a majority. Shall we go after the Golden Calf because it’s the will of the majority, or should we go for the Promised Land because that is our destiny.” —Shimon Peres

Our society has become expert in opinion polling. In fact, it has become a science used widely by marketers, politicians, and the media. There are leaders in our country who don’t make a move without a poll. These polls they use are very sophisticated techniques. The men and women who run for congress that are visionary and progressive are few and far between. These polls have us looking at everything except ourselves. We look at others to discover what is within ourselves, deep within ourselves.

Can congress hear all of us or just the rich?

For our elected leaders to really lead in this country, it can mean choosing the path that the majority does not favor. Real leaders know ethically and morally what is needed to make this country strong again. They lead from vision not from polls. Moses did not take any polls of the Egyptian people who were slaves in Egypt. Instead he followed the vision and the words Adonai spoke to his heart. He took risks and pushed people to go forward. Many of them wanted to go back to the land of their slavery where they knew what to expect and what was coming. He looked inside to his spiritual self and led the people to the Promised Land. Even the ones who complained and whined the entire time it took them to get to the Promised Land.

America is a kind of a Promised Land for millions of people in the world. They think that all will be well if they can just get here. There will be education, jobs and health care. Those who immigrate here often find that the promises made are not real. We need to continue to be the melting pot we always have been. We need to cherish what people bring to this country. To do that, our Federal Government must take risks, to do what they know is right and not to take the easy way. Then the American people may learn to trust our elected officials again. It would not surprise me if less than 1/4 of Congress actually had a vision that moved them. Instead polls move them.

Progressive and visionary ideas are not anti religion. Any religion. They are not Communistic or Socialistic. Nothing in life remains static, and we need to progress in the way that benefits the American Dream. Trying to maintain the status quo means that we can’t grow as a nation. The needs of our nation and its people are constantly changing. So be visionary and progressive. Be Moses and take America to where it is the best nation it can be.

People often use signs to tell Congress what they want and need.

July 8, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Modern Slavery or Human Trafficking

reality of slavery

The reality is that in 21 centuries of recorded history, slavery has been alive and well. It is still destroying families and lives. After gun running and drugs, it is the biggest money maker for those whose hearts are as hard and cold as stone.

Who finds themselves in slavery? It can happen to anyone. Following the rules doesn’t matter. You can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Slavery or trafficking usually ends the same way…in torture, fear, disease, death. It is the worst thing a human being can do to another human being. This is one of those events on the underbelly of life that we need to allow ourselves to see and to know and then to nurture ourselves after we have seen it. Knowing about slavery and turning away is the same as committing the act. When a child, a woman or a man is bought, if you know you have to do what you can to stop it.

The horrific statistics

Trafficking has a supply side, and it is made up of victims. Most efforts go into maintaining this lucrative supply side. We need to look at victims and realize they are the victims and not criminals. Don’t judge the victims. It is easy to stand and look at someone and say, “I wouldn’t let that happen to me.” Victims felt the same way. If you ever suspect someone is being held in a form of slavery, call the victimization hotline at 888-3737-888. You can also refer someone to social services.

Twenty seven million slaves in the world in 2013.

Why is there a demand for human slaves? There are millions of consumers for slaves to perform sex acts or provide labor. The labor no one else wants to do. If you or someone you know has ever forced someone into sex acts or coerced labor, you must stop now. What you are doing is a crime not a living. If you pay for sex with adults or children, stop it now. Stop going to adult book stores now. Stop using your money for voyeuristic shows, phone sex or any type of pornography. Make an effort to do some homework and find out which businesses use slaves and/or children.

Support local businesses or local artists, buy from fair trade businesses. If demand drops, it will save the lives of people who haven”t been kidnapped or duped into slavery.

A quote

You can use social media to get the word out about slavery. Facebook, MySpace or twitter would be a good place to start. You could also volunteer your services to agencies who directly offer services or money. You can care, and let it matter in your life. Education is very important. Children without an education or a very limited one will be more easily tricked into slavery. As caring human beings, we must oppose all forms of violence against women and children. Do not trivialize the horror and don’t leave it for someone else to take care of. There are millions of souls who are being bought and sold. They are hopeless and helpless. We have to care. They were made by the same Divinity that is within us and it is within them.

There is slavery in the twenty first century. We must stop it. We must decrease the demand.

If you meet someone who is at-risk, help them to get off of the streets. Hire workers and pay them equitably. Even if you just suspect a person might be a victim, call 1-888-3737-888. You may be able to save a life. Social unrest leads to many people and families becoming refugees and often then find themselves in slavery. Because women are considered inferior or second class in almost every country, this leaves them vulnerable to being bought and used. In many countries where the poverty is so severe, children, both women and boys are sold for money to keep the rest of the family alive with food or medications. So, please don’t turn away because this is scary and disgusting and evil. If you know anyone who is at-risk, refer them for assistance. Call the hotline number. Don’t see them as damaged victims. See them as what they really are…children of the Universe.

June 29, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

The Ecological Self

Black Mountain NC. Photograph copyrighted by Barbara Mattio 2010

The United States President, Barak Obama has gone on the record that he is against the Keystone Pipeline if it will hurt the environment. I was waiting for this announcement and knew he would come out on the side of Mother Earth.

Politics right now in Washington stink. Congress was elected by their states to represent the will and wishes of the people. They aren’t. Out of 365 days, they have worked 126. They are doing this without censor from the party leaders. If you or I showed up to work a third of the days we were supposed to work, we would be fired. If you don’t believe me, try it and please let me know if your boss pats you on the back and tells you not to worry about it.

The ecological self, like any notion of selfhood, is simply a metaphor, but it is a dynamic one. It involves choice. We can choose at different moments to identify to different aspects of our interrelated existence. We each can choose whether we care about those who hunt whales or not. We can care about homeless human beings or not. We can choose to participate in the long-standing rape of Mother Earth or we can choose to care. We can choose to recycle, support politicians who care about Mother Earth and whose voting record proves it.

“Look deeply, I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone…
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up.
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.”
—–Thich Nhat Hanh