March 21, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Rape Culture

Normally I would never post this video but our society is condoning rape. I pulled this off of YouTube and it sickened me. As I have said so many times, rape has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with power and control. The young men in this video are the basest of human beings. This is important to me because it speaks to The War Against Women and it happened here in Ohio, the state where I now live.

The boys came from middle class families and had good prospects for their futures. Because of the choice they made, they aren’t even descent enough human beings to pick up garbage. This is not an isolated crime, it happens all the time in all countries around the world. A woman is not a piece of property to be used and discarded. It is clear in the video that no one taught this concept to these boys. Why? Perhaps the parents feel women are to be owned. Perhaps there is violence in their homes.

In this particular rape case are fragments of the thinking behind all of the rape cases here and around the world that it is just sex and not a crime. A woman isn’t raped because she is a whore. She is raped because, even in 2013, women are considered property. The fact that the town tried to protect the boys who committed this horrible crime is enough to make me throw up. There isn’t privilege for the high school jocks, or professional sports figures. They don’t get to rape a woman without paying a heavy price. If a guy rapes a woman, his future needs to be and will be gone.

Women who are raped don’t just get up and go on with life. They feel degraded and dirty. Some shower over and over because they no longer feel clean. This is something I can understand. Women who are raped are victims and don’t need to be revictimized by the media, friends, the judicial system, or their own families. They need support and counseling.

It is vital that their names are not put into the media. This case violated this concept that we worked on in the 70’s and 80’s. Previous sexual experience is also not allowed into court testimony. If a woman has had consensual sex and later is raped, the previous experience does not mean she can be raped without consequence. We keep going in circles about women’s issues. In 2013, we are once again in a war against women.

Now, The National Organization for Women.
stopping abuse and rape.

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

March 10, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Beautiful Image

Botanical gardens Photography copyrighted by Barbara Mattio

The Romans had a ritual of lifting nieces and nephews to the rising sun. This image bonded the sisters into the circle of family. These women shared in the fruitfulness of their sisters’ lives and symbolically took responsibility for all the children of the community.

Today, we are not bonded in our communities. There is freedom that few experienced in earlier times. But the price is the loneliness that comes from severed connections. We have lost the responsibility for ourselves and the other people around us.

Celtic woman

“This is the day when dawn
receives our saffron cakes
in her sacred temple.
This is the day which honors
the bond between sisters
and the freedom of all women.
There is no slavery today at the threshold of the temple. Today all women
are joined in the joys of motherhood:
for we hold up, not our own, but our sisters’ children to the sun.” –Ovid, Fasti

One Woman, One World, One Family, unending love.

March 1, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

We Did It !!!! Don’t Hit a Woman, Now it is a Crime Once Again

This is the Cycle of Violence. Do you see someone you know in it?

Thank you Congress for keeping all women safe

It will now go to President Obama who will sign it into law.

Never let a man slap, kick, punch, push, verbally insult or demean you. Call the police. It is a crime!

] America, stop teaching that violence against women is allowed.

The Violence Against Women that Just passed the Senate and now the House will be signed into law by President Obama.

The Violence Against Women Act that Just passed the Senate and now the House will be signed into law by President Obama.

February 26, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Women are not Legally Equal

Justice for Women

This is the year to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed. Congress needs to do much more to stop the War on Women. This is a very important issue.

The Amendment is divided into three sections and I will lay them out. Everyone needs to understand this Ammendment and to push Congress to quit playing games and roll up their sleeves and go to work for the American Woman.

Many are questioning the importance of the ERA, but here are some reasons for women and men to support the passage of the Amendment in 2013. I hope this might clear up questions people might have and make it possible to see why this Amendment is important actually vital in our country.

Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
The Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropiate legislation, the provisions of this article.
This Amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
Women are not a proteted class.I am going to discuss some ways this Amendment will benefit women.

Say yes to the ERA

First of all, the Amendment will protect women in the workplace. If a woman finds that her male coworker is earning more money and the woman sues the company, the Amendment will be cited and the company will be forced to give a reason why the woman is earning less. If there is no reason besides gender, the Constitution will protect her.

Another area where this Amendment will defend women is the charge of rape. If there is a rape and the woman presses charges and it goes to court the Constitution can prevent the woman from being victimized again. Rape is not a sexual act. It is all about power and control. Eighty year old women have been raped. Men use rape to control the woman.

So In court, if the defense attorney brings up that she has had alcohol or was wearing a short skirt or went out on a date with a man, the Constitution will protect the woman from gender discrimination. Men are not blamed when they are victimized if they have had a drink or if they look sexy.

Insurance companies discriminate on gender to determine how much a person’s premium will be. The Amendment will protect women from having to pay higher premium rates. A Constitutional Amendment will ensure equal treatment and it is necessary to protect women’s rights for all time.

Women are now able to serve in the military if they wish. Unfortunately, many have been raped (power and control). The officers have been turning their heads and allowing men to get away with this horrible act. This is gender bias.
Women can now be drafted into the military and they must be treated the same as their male counterparts.

The organization UniteWoman.org is leading the effort to get this Amendment passed by Congress. A White House petition has recently received the number of signatures to be addressed by President Obama. Another organization working towards the huge job of getting this Amendment passed is NOW. NOW stands for the National Organization of Women. It has been working for decades to promote equality for women. I have been a member for many years. Most cities have a branch of NOW and like Unite Women, they always need volunteers. Whatever you feel comfortable doing would be deeply appreciated.

With the GOP working so hard to stop legal equality for women, we all need to pull together and make sure yhat not only we are protected but also the younger women coming up behind us .Our daughters and granddaughters will benefit as well as all of us. Feminist men are also needed in the effort to stop gender discrimination.

February 21, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Women’s words

Women’s place in the world.

S M

I tell you, Chickadee
I am afraid of people
who cannot cry
Tears left unshed
turn to poison
in the ducts
Ask the next soldier you see
enjoying a massacre
if this is not so.
People who do not cry
are victims
of soul mutilation
Paid for in Marlboros
and trucks

Resist

Violence does not work
except for the man
who pays your salary
Who knows
if you could still weep
you would not take the job.
Alice Walker

Alice Walker, author and feminist

The Friend

We sat across the table
he said, cut off your hands.
they are always poking at things
they might touch me.
I said yes.

Food grew cold on the table
he said, burn your body
it is not clean and smells like sex
it rubs my mind sore
I said yes.

I love you, I said,
that’s very nice, he said
I like to be loved,
that makes me very happy,
Have you cut off your hands,yet?

———————Marge Piercy

It is important for women to have a voice in their herstory.

The Second Sex

Men have vied with one another in proclaiming that love is a woman’s supreme accomplishment. ” A woman who loves as a woman becomes only the more feminine,” says Nietsche, and Balzec; “Among the first-rate, man’s life is fame, woman’s life is love. Woman is man’w equal only when she makes her life a perpetual offering, as that of man is perpetual action.” But therein, again, is cruel deception, since what she offers, men are in no wise anxious to accept.Man had no need of the unconditional devotion he claims, nor of the idolatrous love that flatters his vanity; he accepts them only on condition that he need not satisfy the reciprocal demands these attitudes imply. He preaches to woman that she shoule give—and her gifts bore him to distraction, she is left in embarrassment with her useless offerings, her empty life. On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weekness but in her strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself—on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger.”
excerpted, Simone de Beauvoir

The continual education of women is necessary

Homes of Single women

If women will not accept mariage with subjection, not men proffer it without, there is, there can be, no alternative. The woman who will not be ruled must live without marriage. And during this transition period, wherever, for the maintenance of self-respect on the side, and education into recognition of equality on the other,single women make comfortable and attractive homes for themselves, they furnish the best and most efficient object lessons for men. -Susan B. Anthony

January 8, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

I am not Ashamed to be a Woman

What Women Want

I feel that I have to apologize to all of my followers. I want to be writing about my love for The One. I want to talk about the passion of creativity and peace. I am going to continue to write about these subjects but I have to draw attention to what is happening to women in the world. Forty years ago, I thought it was pretty much a finished subject, and I was wrong. I have to begin to assist in our cause because it is the way I am made. I probably can’t march and picket like the old days. I intend to hopefully be one of the voices that inspire younger women to action.

I have been reading articles about the young woman, Jyoli Singh, who was raped and tortured for two and a half hours. I will not get graphic here but this was a beautiful and intelligent medical school grad. She and a male friend got on a bus to go home. For two and a half hours, the driver. his assistant and four passengers used a rod on her and her male friend. They were dumped out onto the side of the road.

She was in and out of consciousness, spoke to her father and the police. They had to remove her intestines. When her Father speaks of his grief it is almost unbearable.

Rape is not a crime of sexual lust or passion. It is an act of power and humiliation. They did everything possible to humiliate and demean her.Why? Because she was a woman. In the hospital, she spoke a little of the events using mostly gestures. Her friend has filled in the details. He was just a friend and was also beaten with a rod, but is alive.

Activists and caring Inkian citizen protest the rape and death of “India’s Daughter”

Women speak out against the rape of Ms. Singh

I have tears running down my cheeks and yet I must address this awful crime. In India, if the six men are found guilty, they will be hung. People in India are now calling Ms. Singh “India’s Daughter.” She has been marytred and she will inspire change in India. Yet in hospital she whispered to her father that she wanted to live. She was called home.

So, life goes on, and in the world women are raped and abused every day. Sexism encourages men to reduce the status of women to objects or possessions to own and use whenever the man wants to use them.

Indians express anger at rape and death of a young medical grad.

So, I feel that I have to write and let men and women know what is really going on and how women are being treated like they were lamps or chairs instead of human beings and children of the Universe. I pray for Ms. Singh and I know she is one woman who will never suffer again. Blessings to all of the women who are survivors of rape or abuse.

In memory

Ms. Singh whispered to her Father in hospital that she wanted to live.

January 7, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

The Quiet but Worsening War on Women

Betty Freiden wrote the Feminine Mystic

Every day I hear another story about women and what is quietly happening to the rights we already have, after a great deal of work. I also hear about what is happening to prevent our legal equality. Congress did not pass the Violence Against Women Act. It is a law that must be renewed every five years. Congress just decided not to renew the law. This law protects women from Domestic Violence, slapping, punching, kicking, pushing, being burned, having a jaw broken and worse. A woman is battered every 11 seconds. Congress, those guys who love their constituents so much voted no.

Some of them may be batterers, some may have come from families where violence was common in the home. Some think women need to be controlled and punished when they don’t do what the man in their lives. Violence will increase against women. Sexism and misogyny worsen every day. The answer is to have laws to protect us. Men need to treat us as equal partners. We need Congress to pass the law to make us legally equal.

I suggest you write, email, call your congress people and the White House. I do it. More women and feminist men need to let these people know how we feel and that we won’t settle for being second class citizens. Raise your voice with pride. “We are women, hear us roar.” –Helen Reddy

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Often abuse begins when a woman becomes pregnant.

Often the abuse begins when a woman becomes pregnant.

January 2, 2013 by IdealisticRebel

Gandhi had the Right Idea

New thoughts For Some People In 2013

Gandhi was a very spiritual man and he taught the concept of passive resistance. Historically, he showed the Indian people how to be free from injustice and oppression. They received their freedom from the United Kingdom without a big, serious, bloody war.

We, the women in the world, have a war to fight. The War Against Women. We need to win this war without bloodshed and violence. But we need to win it. For ourselves and our future generations of men and women.

What is the War on Women? It is the oft-held notion that women are second class citizens here in America, in India, in China, in Russian and every country on this planet. Are we? No. Why do so many men and some women think we are? Because we live in Patriachries, where men rule by means of a hierarchy. Women have been at the bottom of that pyramid for so long, some don’t understand that this is where they are. Some believe what they have been told over and over in life: that they don’t deserve anything better. Their life is to consist of housework, sex on demand and having as many babies as possible.

Education is an enemy to the Patriarchy, because the more the women who become literate learn, the more they want for themselves and their children; and the more danger they are to the patriarchy. Women are divided into two categories: the trophy women, the beautiful and young women that men like to have on their arm to show their success and power; and the others, there to perform menial labor and have children.

Popular thinking says women can’t take care of themselves and need a man.

The War on Women includes the fact that we do not receive equal pay for equal work. It includes the idea that we, as women, need to be taken care of; that we can’t make our own decisions. It’s the idea that we, as women, really can’t run a company; that is the job of men who are better suited to leading.

The War on Women includes rape. All rape is” legitimate rape.” There is no instance of rape which is the will of the Divine. Women are victims and not enticing sirens that men can’t possibly control themselves around. Rape is not an act of passion but of power and control. Gang rape is the worst kind of rape. Male after male entering a woman’s body and using a woman and then finishing with her so another can take a turn.

I am writing this today in memory of the young woman who was gang raped on a bus in India. I have no idea who she was, what her voice sounded like, what made her smile, what made her happy, how much her friends and family loved her. What I do know is that she is my sister and yours also. Whether you are male or female, she was part of you. She was a Divine child of the Universe made of stardust, the same as you and I. Now, she is gone. Six men remain on this planet, six men who brutally raped and used her. Beat and kicked her until the breath of life was forced to leave her body.

This year I am focusing on the needs and rights of women. Yes, I am aware that there are feminist men everywhere. So, I am writing for you also. But I am writing to the misogynist, battering, abusive, and cruel men. You do not have to act the way you are doing. You weren’t created to behave like this. You were not created to destroy lives, tear away young innocence or to beat the heart and soul of a woman to the point she wishes she would just die..

So, this year 2013 is the year of the woman. The year we look at every way men injure or kill women. We will look at why we feel fists and slaps and kicks. Why we aren’t making the same money that men are earning. In America, we will work for legal equality for women. We are the only American citizens who are not legally equal.

I hope you will stay with me on this journey. I will continue to talk about peace and spirituality and creativity also. My priorities are women and our spiritual journey. .

We Can All be a Light to Others and Work for Freedom for Women From Oppression.

November 25, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

The Need for Women’s Voices in the World

Galveston Island, TX ; Photo by Barbara Mattio

” This is how love is: So what if your head must roll,

What is there to cry about?” —-Kabir

“In proportion as one simplifies one’s life,

the laws of the Universe will appear less

complex, and solitude will not be solitude,

nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. —Thoreau

If we were to remove all mention of women from the history of the world’s major religions, the history of these religions would not undergo the slightest change. Removing all male’s names would destroy religion. The presence of feminine mystics and holy women has never altered the course of religious history or changed its direction at all.

Most people assume that our religions were equally representative of the feminine psyche is an assumption that finds no footing in our religious histories. To change religions and spiritual paths to be inclusive of the female energy and spirit. Women need to continue to take the forefront of spiritual experience in our modern world. We need to take the lead in making spiritual paths more accepting of women and protective of women and children.

Gulf of Mexico, Photo by Barbara Mattio

Women at the head of spiritual paths and walking along their own spiritual journey can begin to change some of the horrors women and children find themselves living in. I am speaking of Human Traffeting in children, genital mutilation, marrying 10 year old children. We as women need to teach more about love and acceptance and less about hatred and violence. Women have the ability to look at the big picture of what is happening in our world and to make the needed changes.

Things like micro loans, education, feeding a village buy buying the villagers a goat or seeds to plant to grow their own food. Women need to take the lead in the global climate control. It is our time to step forward and speak up. It is our time to make the haters, the greedy, the ones’s who take advantage of the poor, elderly and homeless pay for their crimes. We need to step forward to show that our priorities are more than monetary. They are people, peace and the end of wars.

The Beauty of Mother Earth

October 15, 2012 by IdealisticRebel

Thanks to Feminist Men

Dalai Lama is a Feminist

One’s – Self I Sing

“One’s self I sing, a simple separate person,
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.

Of Physiology from top to toe I sing,
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the
Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far,
The Female equally with the Male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.

————–One’s-Self I Sing, Walt Whitman

While many of us women have been working to prevent the loss of rights, I believe it is important to thank all of the men, who over the last 40 years have believed in this cause and have become feminists. Men can pay a price for caring about the equality of the genders. A feminist man is a man who is very sure of his manhood and can rejoice in a strong assertive woman. He treats his female family members and friends as equals and partners.

The Feminist man is a man of quality in the eyes of Feminist women. They are still fairly rare in 2012, however they mean so much to women who have worked for decades to right injustices and speak out for the rights of women. 2013 brings us the next opportunity to win equal rights legally. Just as every woman needs to stand up and say she wants to be equal, we need our friends, the Feminist Men to stand by us in the coming fight.

I have had conversations with men who have actually laughed-deep belly laughs-when I mentioned legal equality for women. Why would we want to be legally equal? The simplest answer is because it would be much harder to take rights away from us and future generations of women. If we would take away men’s legal equality, we would see how important it feels to them.

So, to every great man who believes in equality for all, including women, thanks for caring. Thanks for standing shoulder to shoulder with us, and thanks for having the courage to stand up and speak out despite how your male friends react. The bottom line to this entire question is that all human beings are equal. All humans should be treated with the same respect and justice. May we accomplish that ultimate goal.