OnLine With Zoe

Crossroads of a Lifetime

I have been studying, writing about and practicing Satyagrahi for 25 years and this may be a moment that activists hope for.  There is something rumbling out there and I am hoping we can collectively give it a good nudge to see it burst forth.  Ultimately what you want, as an activist, is for the opponent to really show their true colors and, even better, for them to righteously demonstrate their true colors exactly when the activists are awake and ready to act.

So what is lining up in this intersection?

• First Woman Speaker of the House
• A woman may be on the Democratic ticket for President
• The Equal Rights Amendment has just been introduced and may be heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee
• Roe v. Wade may be reversed, with 5 Catholic Supreme Court Judges
• AAUW reports on the wage gap and things are not improving
• The greening of the US consciousness

The best thing that can happen in a conflict is for the forces to be clearly defined.  As MK Gandhi and ML King taught, if you have to, you must push the opponent just as much as is required to illustrate their position.  It seems that we may be fast approaching these crossroads.

OK, please let me travel, yet again, down my ERA road.  I truly believe that the whole human race will change, benefit and advance when both genders are explicitly included in the US Constitution.  Money will be distributed in a whole(some) new way ~ prioritizing health, education, safety, wellness, housing all above death and war.  But now, with the AAUW report getting press, we can see that women are paid less.  We have some real evidence, real conversation, current numbers.

The Supreme Court, this last week, showed their true colors and what they said is very crystal clear ~ the fetus is a person and the pregnant woman is its incubator for development.  They could have opened Thomas Aquinas and read it word for word ~ it is the very basic belief that the female is a vessel and the fetus has a soul.  The point is not that they outlawed "partial birth abortions," but that the language identifies the personhood of the fetus and then grant it citizenship. 

Here's the good news, most Americans believe that abortions are a private matter, men and women should have equal pay, and (incorrectly that) the ERA passed.  So bring it on, bring it on fast, all you conservatives, you just may find women in the Whitehouse, running the Senate, included in the Constitution and flooding the streets, arm and arm with men who all know better, as they join forces to save Mother Earth.

Oh Sweet Trepidation

Never having won before, I am not certain how it is supposed to feel.  It is not a feeling of exclusive righteousness.  I find myself wandering around in my mind wondering how to include the people who had such different views.  And how to wipe out of my mind the images of people being truly mean or cruel.  I have some apologizing to do myself.  Winning occurred and now it is a bit like the line from Joe Vs. the Volcano, "I know you can get the job, but can you do the job?"  It must be time to get to work.

I know one of the issues that California NOW faces is attracting, addressing, including women who know Spanish only.  Since I was running for VP Membership, I wanted to demonstrate my understanding of this, so I asked a woman to deliver my speech in Spanish.  We were only given 2 minutes in total and since it took the full time, it was not given in English.  It was my intention to illustrate what it feels like to be in a room where inclusion is posited, but exclusion is demonstrated. 

The outcome was pretty interesting.  Lots of women were really mad - they wanted to hear my speech.  Well they did - it was just in a language they did not understand - sorta how life is for so many people.  I get that we live in a multi-language world, but then lets not pretend or complain that women who do not speak English should want to come and be a part of it all. 

Here is the speech that was given the night before the election ~

For me, tomorrow, nothing is going to change.

Tomorrow I will do what I do everyday.

I wake up, I get out of bed and work to advance women.

I do it with my blog.

I do it with demonstrations.

I do it hosting Feminist Cafes.

I do it promoting the ERA.

I do it protesting oppression.

Tomorrow I will do what I do everyday.

30 years ago I visited my friend Ginny Foat, at the Sybil Brand Women’s Prison.

25 years ago, Ellie Smeal came to Illinois, NOW paid my hotel bill and stepped away from the ERA.

Over the last 4 years I edited 120 biographies of Women Who Changed America 1963 – 1975.

Last year I convened a NOW chapter and spoke dozens of times.

In the next two weeks, I will be at a feminist gala in Oakland and host a feminist panel at USC.

Tomorrow I will do what I do everyday.

In the movement, I am a middle sister.

I get my older sisters.

I get my younger sisters.

I love being in service to both.

My older sisters think the younger ones have abandoned the women’s movement.

I tell them they just looking in the wrong places.

My younger sisters are crazy busy managing their lives

and tired of hearing the oldest sisters say they are not doing anything.

Tomorrow I will do what I do everyday.

I will buy and read every book I can afford on feminism.

I will crawl the web for every item that is by ~ for or about women.

I will encourage every female to be all she can be and to exceed even her own expectation.

Tomorrow you may decide that I am doing it with and for California NOW.

Tomorrow you may decide to put an end to the litigious strangle hold suffocating CANOW.

Tomorrow you may decide to continue with expansion in CANOW, as all expanding and stable non-profits do, with a paid staff and executive director.

Tomorrow you may decide to get back to the issues of our evolving feminist lives

But fundamentally, for me, tomorrow nothing is going to change.

Tomorrow I will do what I do everyday.

 

Six women + me again

    It is the week of the elections and, tho the world is still spinning, balancing tragedy with beauty as it always does, my mind is on the events of next weekend.  I suppose I am a broken record, "oh that feminist Zoe again," but no surprises there.  I have invested so much in this election, most likely too much, believing that it would be a return to grassroots, to consciousness-raising, to women's rights.   

    Almost 25 years ago I joined with six women in Springfield, Illinois and nothing then could have convinced me that it would not be a success.  It is almost impossible to imagine that women are not in the US Constitution today.  It was and it remains the lynchpin of my politics ~ believing that if women were the majority in Congress and full citizens, the lives of every person on earth would be remarkably better. 

     Now, once again I am standing with six women.  This time we are filled with hope to take California NOW to true servant leadership.  For years it has been driven by lawsuits with a long arm from Washington DC.  Board meetings are filled with contention, seething just under the surface with corruption, control, power.  Elitism rules ~ guaranteeing that classicism goes on, racism bubbles up, ageism is so ugly ~ particularly now since my hair is white as it is expected of white-haired women to disparage younger ones. 

     Treating women under 30 as children is just a nightmare.  They can vote, join the armed forces and bear much of the mistreatment and economic inequity of women.  And many of the women over 60 refuse to fully embrace their own issues, preferring to herd the younger ones, as if women under 40 are unable to manage themselves. 

     As all of the great leadership gurus explain, leadership happens from within,  As I explain when I speak, if the ship is going down and someone says they know where the lifejackets are, best to follow the ones who bought them, ordered them and put them in the cupboard; rather than form a budget and inquiry committee, elect someone who can get the most voters to show up.

     I am running with the one person whom I believe is qualified to lead – the person who has worked the field for over 5 years.  Greenleaf, Wheatley, Freire would all agree, the organic leader bubbles up from within, not from a terrible election that is unavailable to people who work on weekends, need childcare, can’t commute, have special needs. 

     So seven of us are lining up once again.  We are full of promise, full of hope, full of energy.  We need votes to carry on – but are accepting good wishes.