OnLine With Zoe

25 years ago today.

Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.     R.I.P. June 30, 1982

It does occur to me that some people might think that my relentless harping on the Equal Rights Amendment is tedious, boring or even a character flaw on my part, unable to let it go. 

In my personal defense let me say, I am an extraordinarly loyal person (good news for friends).  On a political and social level, the exclusion of women from the U.S. Constitution is a terrible fissure in the fabric of the country.  On a spiritual plane, any union suffers when liberation and opportunity are not equally shared,  In fact, it is the oppressor who is in the greatest jeopardy. 

Today is the 25th anniversary of the deadline to pass the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  This is not a WEA, which Rep. Maloney is pejoratively calling it.  Every time you hear it referred to as The Women's Equality Amendment, do not miss the opportunity to say, no it is not for either gender; it does not mention gender at all.  Naming it the WEA is an erosion of the true intent, meant to diminish its strength and plausibility.   It was not written to single out anyone, any segment of society; female or male. 

What difference would it make?  The truth of the matter is that we have no idea as it has never been the law but I am willing to find out.  I am interested to discover if men and women were equally represented in the Constitution; would our national spending agenda shift; would our prioritization of education and health, war and defense reorganize; would our prison system change from fear and revenge to reform and treatment; would the lifting of the oppressor holding the line, replace fists with open arms. 

So I, unapologetically, harp (nice verb).  Because it is right.  Because it is just.  Because the Supreme Court has lost its moral compass.  Because the exclusion of anyone from the document which defines citizen's fundamental equality of rights is unacceptable.  Let the harping gain in volume, in harmony, in numbers, in effect.  Let its absence indicate imbalance, indifference, injustice.  Let the harping begin. 

The very best of Sicko

I loved Sicko, but then I love Michael Moore.  This little clip is my most favorite moment.

It is one of my dearest dreams that everyone who has not voted, VOTES.  Can you imagine if all of the poor, the hopeless, the disenfranchised voted?  What would happen if everyone 18 - 29 voted or all women?  Just seizing power, which is rightfully theirs, would scare the power brokers out of their minds.   

Well Done Howard University!

Did you watch the debate tonight on PBS?  Well done Black Americans.  You have so much to be proud of ~ Black University, Black moderator, Black journalists, Black leaders present, Black kids.  Questions about issues that truly impact the lives of Black Americans; HIV, prison reform, taxation, poverty, education, war on drugs, the war in Iraq and, most importantly, the ruling this very day gutting Brown v. Board of Education.  (Gee, Barack, lighten up on being tested for AIDS - we don't care if you did that with Michelle or not). 

Many people stood and cheered Senator Clinton who said "If HIV/AIDS was the leading cause of death of White women 18 - 34, there would be an outrage, an outcry in this country."  What?  What is the leading cause of death of White women 18 - 34?  There's an outcry about anything in regards to women on any front? 

Congratulations to Black America for this terrific debate.  You deserve this attention, this respect, this great accomplishment.  You worked so hard for this.  The very fact that Barnard or Smith is not having a debate by women, for women, about women's issues is just pathetic.  Reproductive health, education, family law, safety, peace, day care, pay equity, etc.  A girl's gotta dream!   

Great Book, Sista!

Deborah Siegel must be reading my blogs (in my dreams).  She has written THE book I have been looking for about the Second and Third Waves of American feminism; the ideas, the women, the politics inside and out, and, most insightfully, their relationship to one another.  This book is never fluffy, never stuffy, never sloppy, never arrogant, never a put-down, never a let-down.  Okay, I got carried away with the "nevers," but I am excited about this book.  This woman really did her homework and captured the WAVES.

Sisterhood, Interrupted ~ from Radical Women to GRRLS Gone Wild is divided into Mothers and Daughters with a Conclusion.  That would not have been my choice, as I prefer "sisters in the family of feminists" as the Mother and Daughter relationship is fraught with too many problems but it works for her and her book.  With one my very large feet in each Wave, I love both sections, in fact I never stopped grinning and cheering through the entire book.

SECOND WAVE ~ Bunnies, Steinem, stewardesses, classified ads, AH and for the brains of the operation - Millett.  Our Millett ~ messing with Mailer and Miller ~ that was fun.  The cover of Time and Sexual Politics predicted exponential success.  For those of you who were not in the movement then, the big failures had not ruined the parade (yet).  "Sisterhood was proving itself not merely contagious, but powerful." At this point the parade was just thrilling with something for everyone.  Sex - we were all talking (and doing) sex.  Lets teach it, lets make it safe, lets make it fun, lets do it naturally ~ Take off the heels, the bras, the crowns, the artifice and get to school, study, get a job, make money, get credit, buy a house and get me my orgasm.  Oh you girls ~ lets coalesce and knock 'em out.  We wrote, we got published, we opened bookstores, we met and talked and it was wicked good fun because it was working. 

And, if you were in the thick of things, you recall, instead of moving the circle out, we turned to the middle and got lost wanting to be right, to be understood, to be uniform (looks ridiculous now - doesn't it?).  You should do this or that, you should be this or that.  You should be pure - with the personal and the political; one in the same.  Chapter 3, The Battle of Betty.  She needs and deserves an entire chapter, tho the play on Peoria was too much for me.  If you want to understand Feminism of the Twentieth Century, you have to know the evolution of Betty and Siegel captures it entirely.  The Feminine Mystique has been so pivotal, it is renamed, reformed and refashioned, (see The Feminine Mistake).   And if you are old enough, you know what the term "Lavender Menace" can do to a room of feminists.  As Rita Mae Brown said, "Lesbian is the one word that can cause the Executive Committee [of NOW] a collective heart attack."  Oh those were the days!

On to the Third Wave and, oops, my older sisters seemed to have lost their sense of humor somewhere between Barbie and blame.  "To this brazen new wave of reclaimers, the feminist cult of victimology was the new evil."  These smart, educated, liberated younger sisters proclaimed that the personal was no longer political - personal is F'ING PERSONAL!  Marches, classes, politics won the right to wear lipstick and heels and NO MEANS NO.  Oh, oh, and they don't like the f-word.  Man, that's gotta hurt.

It seems to me that all of the conversation about how we don't need feminism anymore is that the Third Wave doesn't know how big the dreams were that the Second Wave had in mind.  The Second Wave rode a gigantic tsunami of the '60s.  The Third Wave, "grew up in the cynical 1970s, came of age in the conservative 1980s and came to activism under Clinton which may have felt less hopeful than their foremothers about their ability to effect lasting outside change." 

All in all, I love this book.  I love Siegel's work.  There were points I don't agree with (BTW - the ERA's deadline was 06/30/82) but this is exactly what I WANT - I want us to see that we are not the enemy and we can disagree and still get on with it.  I want it all.  I want the parade to include Steinem's legs, Dwokin's overall's, the academy and workers in the field, the moms and child-free, Bust & Bitch, glam and safe, walking, running, competing, marching, voting, teaching, laughing.  GREEN LIGHT is my motto.  Green Light them all.

Here is my favorite from the book ~ "... members of the younger generation who think they are rebelling are instead treading well-worn ground and that older women don't recognize their own progeny.  The Result is nothing short of tragic: Instead of making tidal waves together, we splash about in separate pools." (emphasis mine)

For Immediate Release ~ June 23, 1982

PRESS RELEASE 

Wednesday, June 23, 1982

Women's Fast for Justice

Springfield, Illinois

     Many of you have asked if we would consider the fast successful if the ERA was not ratified before June 30. Today we conclude 37 days of fasting; we announce that, yes, we do consider the fast a success.

     We seven women, representing millions of women across this country, have demonstrated that ordinary women can do extraordinary things and that women can be more than they dream they could be. If nothing else, this message of courage that has gone out acoss this country has made this fast successful. The fast has empowered and unified women and strengthened feelings of sisterhood.

     Having succeeded in these ways we have invited you here to announce that our fast and this particular witness is at an end. We also invite you to witness the beginning of a new era - an era of women moving towards their own agenda and putting it first in their lives, their laws, their economics, their electoral politics and their spirituality.

(raise a glass)

Here's to this new era of women.

Anniversary (not happy)

This is my blog and the wonder of a blog is that you get to say whatever you want to say.  For those of us with entirely too much to say - they serve a great purpose - I don't carry the threat of exploding with words at the market - embarrassing.  I am gonna do what I try to resist in my blog - which is just throw open the window on my private mind. 

This week was not supposed to happen.  There was not supposed to be a 25th anniversary of the deadline for not including women in the US Constitution.  Possibly the ladies of the Eagles Forum are celebrating?  You can be sure that the health insurance industry is, pharmaceuticals, Wal-Mart.     Here is what I had to say 25 years ago ~

Dear God,                                                                                         June 18, 1982

Please help me.  Please help me figure out what I am supposed to do.  Please help me understand who I am in this. I am lost.  The ERA is lost.  I have lost it.

I tried.  I tried my very best.  Is it my fault?  I realize that I am only one woman and I never could have done it alone.  I know that I am not solely responsible, but has Woman failed?  Was it really not Her time? 

          In the avalanche of letters, dollars, lobbying, votes and intentions, sit seven women.  Why did we come here and what purpose have we served?  People parade by and throw their feelings at us.  We are like a Rodin in a gallery of living art.  There are no personalities here.  Who knows the heart or soul of an artist’s model?  Who knows the heart of the artist?  And in the end, does it matter?  Caravaggio was accused of murdering several people -- were his paintings less inspired, less inspiring?  Were our hearts not pure enough to turn the hearts of the opponents? 

I remember going to the Wisconsin State Fair and paying to see the biggest woman in the world.  Admission was a dollar.  Behind a curtain was a long house trailer with one entire wall of two way glass.  When I walked behind the curtain, I found her sitting in on a couch.  She was so sad.  I was so sad.  I wanted the glass to be lifted up.  I wanted to sit on the couch with her and she with me.  I wanted all of the differences that I had paid to see to go away.  "I am big, too," I wanted to tell her. 

Am I in the glass trailer now?  Is the rotunda my glass trailer?  They look at me and I look at them.  Are we so separate?  They have rights and I do not.  I have a relentless desire to change things and they want things to stay the same.  Maybe all we have in common is the passion.  But even when I pause and admire their devotion, I don't feel a hint of their respect in return.

We are hostages of a movement.  We have been called from our homes and families to be a symbol.  Just as the hostages in Iran became emblems of the U.S. or astronauts became human flags hurling through space, we are the ERA to some people.  They stand in front of us and speak of their feelings about women, as if we cannot hear them, as if we have no ears connected to hearts.  My exterior has become the ERA and I am lost.  The ERA is lost.

If the ERA is my lover, I am standing over her deathbed now.  There is nothing I can do for her now.  We were mad passionate lovers.  We danced to many a tune and laughed through many a night.  You brought me true and lasting sisters.  Our family has grown so.  But now you are dying and there is nothing I can do.  We had such plans, you and I.  We were going to change the face of the earth, you and I.  Women were going to be included in the Constitution and it was just the beginning.

Please, dear God, what shall we do now?

The ERA is lost and so am I.

85 Minutes spent well

It is Friday.  It is movie day.  My favorite theater re-opened with all new seats and clean floors.  I went to see Once.  I knew zero about it, just that it ranked very high on Rotten Tomatoes.

So here's the deal, 85 minutes and no one got beheaded, no one screamed, no one drove their car into another, no one flew off a roof, no one farted or barfed, no one was made of metal, no swords no guns, no knives, no one cut off a dick and fed it to a dog.  Can you believe it?  That alone is worth the price of admission. 

I forgot what tenderness can be on a screen.  I forgot what a whisper, a glance, a moment captured looked on a screen.  And can you imagine a loving mother, grandmother, father?  Sober friends enjoying A COUPLE of beers.  Simple clothes, common streets, a dog and a sunrise and NO meant NO.  Holy Mother of God ~ NO MEANT NO.

And if that isn't enough; songs, gorgeous songs about love and life.  I began to remember what it was like to be touched lightly, kindly, deeply at the movies.  You must see Once - maybe Twice.

Truth be told ~

Last night I was lamenting the testimony of Lilly Ledbetter and the fate of the 40,000 pay equity cases that were lined up waiting for the Supreme Court decision.  That means there are 40,000 cases filed that were impacted by Roberts's court whose names we may never know.  They worked for companies that held confidentiality agreements about salaries and they did not file complaints within 6 months of being hired.  TS on Toast for them - huh? 

Lilly was hired, worked and was a peer with 16 men.  Can you hear the water cooler conversation, "Hey Bob, What do you make?"  "Oh I make 40% more than you."  "Do you want to do something about it?"  "You bet, Lilly!  I'll go in right now and tell them that isn't right!" 

And lets send a little sticky note to all 40,000 people with pending suits that the Bush administration sent a brief over to the Supreme Court in support of the employer.  Do you think Goodyear might be making a little contribution to the Grand Ol Party?  Oh yeah, and Bush appointed Roberts and Alito.  No one had EVER say that who is president doesn't really matter.  IT MATTERS TO ME! 

In 25 years the differential has moved a whopping 17 cents.  White women within one year of graduating college make 76 cents on the dollar earned by a white male with the same profile.  (for people of color ~ it only gets worse)  What could remedy this long-standing injustice?  I heard an interesting idea on TV last week by Suze Orman on The View.  She said that all salaries should be a matter of public record.  We should simply say what we make, no hemming, no hawing.

That really got me thinking about the gift of telling the truth.  It actually is giving the listener proper respect, demonstrating your expectation that they would make a just and responsible decision if they knew what's what.  If we knew no WMD's and no Al Qaeda in Iraq ~ we would have not gone to war.  If we knew women are not in the Constitution, we would change the US Constitution.  If we knew who was LGBT, the entire structure of discrimination would shatter.  If we knew the true disparity in salaries, no one would let the imbalance, the injustice, the inequity continue.   

Oh Ruth, you just gotta live forever!

Lilly Ledbetter may give us all a "Better Year"

Tonite's Debate (and I use the term loosely)

Women in the debate - 12.5%

Pay Equity discussed in the debate - 0%

Women in the US Constitution discussed in the debate - 0%

Debaters questioned about spouses - 12.5%

Women asking questions in the formal debate - 0%

Reproductive autonomy discussed in the debate - 0%

Debaters mentioning peace - 12.5%

Okay, this is ridiculous but I have to say something about China.  They poison our pets.  They poison our toothpaste.  They annihilate the most peaceful nation on earth.  They support the Darfur genocide.  And the candidates DEBATE boycotting the Olympics.  Oh no - shall we go so far as to not go to the OLYMPICS?  What about the synchronized swimming or the 100 meter freestyle?

What I really want to see is these 8 people DO something.  Texas hold'em?  Make a full Thanksgiving dinner?  How about a pick-up game of B-Ball.  Maybe Mark Burnett can come up with something.  Okay, that's not gonna happen.  But I am stunned that they don't say who they want as all their secretaries - the attorney general - the judicial appointees - the head of the World Bank  - delegate to the U.N.  I WANT TO KNOW.  Don't you?