OnLine With Zoe

Give me a break!

When you want white people to treat African American people with justice and equality, you don't fill the room with the African American people and discuss why the inequality is their fault.  Today's Oprah show was so f'ing maddening.  I knew I was gonna get all riled up ~ maybe I should have not watched it.

The entire audience should have been MEN.  They should have been confronted with the outrageous presumption that women must keep the home, raise the kids, quit their jobs.  Go to Borders and look at the home-making magazines - they are all for women - ALL.  Ladies Home Journal?  Stand in front of the childrearing books and they all presume that the woman is the primary parent.  The men are removed/excused/invisible and never asked.  Maybe Nancy went from the "kitchen to Congress" but that would never be said about a man who entered politics after raising the kids.   

I am just beside myself that these women think the problem is, "Can I have it all?"  Sure they can if they get a wife.  Are men so removed from this conversation that they have hoodwinked women into not expecting (certainly not asking) to partner in keeping the home, raising the children, handling the losses, the gains, the pain and joy of life?   

Let me state it this way, breast feeding is not the sole indicator of who the primary parent must be.  When Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Ladies Home Journal do not presume that females are their audience, we might have made some progress.  Are we so diminished that all we have to hold on to is "maternal instinct?"  We are so much more.

Blogging for Choice

I am proud to be participating in the BLOG FOR CHOICE event sponsored by NARAL and Bush v. Choice. 

Their request ~ On January 22nd - the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade - we are asking pro-choice bloggers to join us in a day of activism for choice. Blog for Choice Day is a chance to raise the profile of reproductive rights issues in the blogosphere and the media, and to let everyone know that a woman's right to choose is nonnegotiable.  This year's topic is a simple one: tell us, and your readers, why you're pro-choice.

I am pro-choice for one simple reason, every human being owns their own body.  Oddly enough, it may be the only thing that is truly our own.  No one can tell me what I may do or may not do to my own body; ink, piercing, shaving, declining treatments, even killing.  The exact opposite is also true, no one has the right to kill another person.

So there in lies the issue doesn't it?  Some people have made a decision that what is inside of another person is theirs to protect.  They claim it is a matter of sin and hell and god and church.  It is truly impossible to change their minds.  They are warriors in an army for their god.  That is a lot of entitlement. 

It is so simple and so complex.  It is so fundamental and so ethereal.  It is a matter of insight and conscience.  But this is also where I take a VERY strong turn ~ I trust that a woman must read her own heart and if that heart says that ending a pregnancy is the right thing to do, she should have access to all of the advances that modern (and some ancient) practice can provide. 

You see, the heart and the soul and the body are a matched set.  She sits in a moment's silence, listens to her heart, consults with her soul and takes responsibility for her body.  I trust that process.  I trust her.  I trust her choice.

A Terrific Weekend

Last weekend was just so wonderful I have to write about it.  A group of women invited me to speak about being an activist and my book, The Hungry Heart.  As if that wasn't enough, they asked me to spend a couple of days leading them through a cafe-style process to harvest their values, ideas and possible futures as activists. 

Lately I have been making a tasty stew of The Servant as Leader by Robert Greenleaf, Leadership and the New Science by Margaret Wheatley, Affirmative Inquiry by David Cooperrider and The World Cafe by Juanita Brown.  It seemed the right time to take this process out for a spin.  What good are beliefs if they aren't put to the test? 

I sent questions ahead for the explicit purpose of answering them both in advance and alone.

1. List, in order of importance, 5 issues you feel feminism is facing today.
2. What 2 or 3 things would you like to see feminist organizations offer women today?
3. Do you have a vision about the advancement of women in the US?  How can you make it happen?
4. What unique understanding do you have that should be shared?

A room covered in Post-its, bottles of water, a few computers, vibrating text messages, coffee with cookies and a kitty practicing yoga ~ now that is my idea of a party.  I brought with me a box of blank matchbooks (bought on eBay) and Sharpie pens so they could write a vision statement that fits on the cover as Winston Churchill recommended.  I had considered asking them to bring a roll of quarters and every time they mentioned any moment in the past, they would have to put a quarter in a jar but I thought it might have been too hokey.  They adopted the intention and made every effort to only address the present and future ~ without the fines. 

The outcome was all that the process promised.  Agreements surfaced.  Visions came into focus.  Intentions became honed and polished.  These four books, measured and mixed, have completely revolutionized my thinking, my hopes, my expectations.  Change is organic and natural.  Thwarting it is lonely and lacks oxygen. 

Buy some Post-its and Sharpies.  Start with a blank sheet of paper.  Ask the real questions.  Talk about what matters.  Fix the problems that are in front of you.  Have a terrific weekend.    

A Wonderful Day

You can imagine that I am sitting here today listening to the swearing in of Nancy Pelosi.  Her speech is wonderful, her voice is beautiful, her journey is our victory; from "kitchen to Congress."  Little girls, daughters and granddaughters, sit throughout the House and they will only know this as a date ~ January 4, 2007 in a history book ~ as it should be.

But let us not rest as the truth of the matter is that the House is only represented by 16.3% women and the Senate 16% women.  And who is taxed?  And who suffers in minimum wages poverty?  And who is left by deadbeat dads?  And who works a job and runs the home?  and who grieves as daughters and sons go off to war?  I believe that 51% women in Congress will change the fate of humanity~ changes of reorganizing the spending of money and life.  Oh that I live so long to see my suspicion be tested. 

Congratulations Nancy!  We are all so proud of you.