They are The Old Agenda

A slave is defined as a person who is seen as a commodity to obtain unfree labor.  Slaves build, produce and serve those in power.  They can be any gender and are found in every history on every continent.  Let there be no mistake, each society progresses and evolves to an epiphany that slavery is no longer moral in their advancing consciousness.

My particular interest is the “slavery” that spans centuries, across cultures, deeply embedded and in many occasions honored as proper; women in slavery to men.  I am NOT stating that this is more or less important than any other.  I am simply stating that this one is my lifelong interest.  In fact, I am refining it even further to be North Americans though I find Gutierrez and Freire of Latin America particularly inspiring in their influence. 

The bottom line, the most fundamental precept in the elimination of slavery is total physical autonomy.  A female who can be held in place by her biology is not in charge of her own destiny.  No one said it better than Simone de Beauvoir.   CEDAW and the UN understand this fully in working to eliminate what is hideously trivialized in its name; ethnic cleansing.  Biology as destiny is unacceptable by any advanced society.

Knowing this unwavering truth has led me to join, with pride, NOW and NWPC.  I have contributed to Planned Parenthood, worked as an Assistant Director of The Orange County Free Clinic and supported only candidates who are pro-choice.  This is not about abortion though abortion is a component.  This is about women owning their bodies, interpreting their consciences, defining their faith, knowing their mind.  This is about equality under the law, within the health system, in the workplace and in all forms of finance and opportunity. 

This current election has been a brilliant moment in the history of the American Women’s Movement.  The women, who have been educated in the last 25 years, seem to really grasp the difference between patriarchal power structures which flow from the top ~ down, power to powerless, privilege to poor; and organic, bottom ~ up, center ~ out, natural leadership.  bell hooks teaches us, Paulo Freire writes for us, Margaret Wheatley tells us about this form of leadership in which the leader and the led are all advancing the community at no individuated loss – only communal gain.

Senator Obama speaks to the people who understand this.  Some women’s prized loyalty was given to Senator Clinton despite their understanding of the new science of leadership and, when Senator Clinton lost the nomination, made the switch in varying levels of ease.  (I am one of these who went with great reluctance.)  But it is absolute ~ if you believe in choice, in women owning their destiny ~ and you are voting in the national presidential election ~ you will be voting for Obama/Biden; just on the concern for the Supreme Court alone. 

Something very odd is happening in the women’s movement.  I first saw it in The Eagle Forum working tirelessly to defeat the ERA.  It drove me crazy again when some anti-choice women bought Susan B. Anthony’s house and are attempting to write history to suit their position – proposing that Anthony was anti-choice (which is preposterous).   And yesterday five women who have been public champions of the American Women’s Movement, stood on a stage behind an anti-choice politician and gave their endorsement invoking the idea of feminism. 

I spent a lot of time this AM researching their organization The New Agenda.    There is nothing NEW.  You could just as easily be reading the site for The Eagle’s Forum extolling the ideas of Phyllis Schlafly.  Women oppressing women.  Women standing on the work of other women.  Women denying women their civil rights, their freedom of choice, their biological autonomy.  These women would not be on that stage were it not for Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, NOW, NWPC and every man or woman working for freedom, for liberation, for equality. 

They are the old agenda.  They represent the old science of power and money and oppression. 

Comments

[Anne Grant]

Thank you, Zoe. The Bush-Cheney Administration that campaigned on promises to unite this country has created divisions we never dreamed of.

We are seeing it also in custody scams, like the one we documented here:

http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/therapeutic-jurisprudence-in-Rhode-Island.pdf

and here:

http://littlehostages.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#882428878041183778

The guardian ad litem in this case removed two little girls from their mother, home, and each other (eventually giving the younger one to the father who had been indicated for molesting her).

I once respected that lawyer as a champion of reproductive freedom and gay rights. She was honored by NOW. She is president of a domestic violence resource center and vice president of the state's bar association.

Paid thousands of dollars by the girls' father, she demanded thousands more from their mother a few days before removing the girls from her. That was thirty months ago.

Despite letters from scores of neighbors, teachers, and community leaders, the girls now see their mother and each other only two hours a week. Most of the lawyers and clinicians who have devastated these two sisters are women, intent on pursuing their professions.