OnLine With Zoe

We Are Just Getting Started

I am getting kind of excited about the LGBTQ Movement now.  Over the next few years, some shit is gonna break loose and humanity is going to advance a bit.  We go slowly.  Evolution is a slow go.  

There is a lot of hoopla with the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and Marriage Equality judged federally legal.  Seems that the conservative het world is feeling a bit threatened.  So far backlash has been as unconventional as they can create which is, by their own default position, conventional.  None of the prophesied immolations or mass exoduses have occurred.  There seems to be a few dust-ups about pro-gay Walmart and Diet Coke ads but nothing like what the future portends.

So far all we have asked to do is behave within the conventional guidelines.  “Can we be just like you, sir?” 

Now we can bear arms against the enemy if we shoehorn into the men’s and women’s uniform and barracks.  We can kill whoever Congress or a President tells us to.  We can drive tanks, throw grenades, shoot flames, fly bombers and bring democracy to the world.  We can die and our graves at Arlington can be marked with a rainbow flag.

Now we can live two by two in track houses with our kids.  We can visit one another in the hospital, file taxes jointly, leave pensions and benefits to our spouses.  We can order a cake, put same sex toys on top and file for divorce in 4 years like everybody else.  Now we can have two husbands in a house or two wives can buy a family membership at the local gym.  We are practically normal. 

Sweet relief, now that we got the simple easy things done, we can get to the real work.  Now we want to demolish all things binary.  If you see anything binary ~ it’s got to go.  No more Male/Female radio buttons on an online survey, no more longeeeerrr lines at the women’s room at the sports arena, no more embedded constitutional bias excluding half the population. 

Now we want to assure full rights for people no matter their Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation or how often it changes.  Now we want to work, live, age, thrive no matter what pronoun we choose (yes, choose, not have assigned in the first 2 seconds of the incarnation).  We want to have consensual sex without imposed social precedence. 

Here’s the REALLY scary part, we are taking hets with us because their simplistic two pronged divisions are on the way out.  Now it’s getting interesting.  Yes, today we can behave within established social structures.  We can color inside the lines.  Tomorrow we want to erase the lines. 

Oscars and Pie

Is it too soon to move from re-act to retro-spect?  I have to admit most of my insights occur in a rearview mirror but the optimal distance is usually more than a couple of weeks.  It can take years to collect succinct or defensible responses.  Nonetheless, I am going to risk it today, show my hand and hope for the best. 

If you are a feminist or interested in feminism, Oscar night 2015 was volatile, exciting, best water cooler talk in a long time. That said, it begs the question what did it mean to everyone else?

In the pie chart of American women, I live in the red slice.  Most of the people I know live in the red slice.  We are cool.  We are hot.  We are hip.  We have read Freire, Alinsky, hooks, Hill Collins, Crenshaw.  We tweet and post and follow Laurie Penny, Amanda Levitt, Roxane Gay, Ultraviolet, A is For, and hundreds of peeps or orgs who agree with us.  We retweet and use hashtags (though not as effectively as ISIS).  We work on checking our isms, our privilege, our ever-widening inclusion and our revulsion over inner circle royalty.  We are pro plus sizes, support public breast feeding and fight like hell to come out ~ as queer, having an abortion, in recovery.  We do all we can to protest inequality, demand justice and stand in solidarity.  It’s a lot but it’s who we are. 

Once a week or less I shop at a big neighborhood grocery store.  In twelve years, my favorite checker, Sue always asks me the same two questions.  “How’s Grace?”  She’s fine.  “What did you do this weekend?”  One weekend I told her about going to Dallas.  I hosted an ERA Café Conversation and Gloria Steinem was at the same table.  I asked her if she knew who Gloria Steinem was.  “No, who is she?”  I asked if she had heard of Ms. Magazine.  “No.”  I asked if she knew what the ERA is.  “No, What is it?”  But you can be sure my checker knew what fair wages means. 

Sue has no idea what is intersectionality or white privilege or why immigration is a family issue.  She does not know what the old Jim Crow is about, let alone the new Jim Crow.  She knows about a zillion morphing prices for as many products on hundreds of shelves on dozens of aisles.  She knows the mad hours she and her husband work to keep their children, grandchildren and dog, Emmie safe and well.  She knows her feet hurt and retirement is many years off. 

Sue is not in the red section of the pie chart.  She doesn’t know that there is a matrix of domination, an inseparable intersection of all oppressions, a few men own dam near everything, black water is coming out of California faucets and abortion rights are the lynchpin of female autonomy.  She doesn’t know that I live and love in the red section of the pie chart.  She doesn’t know about the chart, the pie or the red slice.

Sue didn’t see Boyhood.  She has no idea who the Arquette Family is but she did see the Oscars.  She saw a best actress winner say something about her own life; about equal wages.  She saw a woman over 40, in a nice, relatively kind of plain dress, wearing glasses, talk about her life.  She saw women in the audience leap to their feet in support.  I am certain Sue knows they are all rich beyond belief.  They have more money than they could ever need and she saw one of them spent her sliver of time to talk about equal wages.  And, now she knows that even among well paid Americans, men and women are paid unequally. 

Sue doesn’t know what was said backstage, about the call for Gays and Blacks to back the fair wage movement.  The phrase, Equal means Equal is all new.  It was an outrage to those who live in the red slice.  It was a slap in the face for all those who work in the red slice.  It set the social justice movement back decades as tweeted and posted by the red slice residents.  But that night, someone at the Oscars said, women should be paid equally.  And that’s enough for Sue.  And I am grateful to Patricia because Sue’s feet hurt and she rings up my groceries and always asks, “How’s Grace?” 

I love writing, thinking and living in the red slice.  It is home to me.  And one of my concerns is full equality for all the pie people.  I want fair wages and don’t need everyone to convert to the red slice.  Forgive me if I don’t say it well.  I know better. 

 

My Fifth Book, Miss Alice Paul ~ The Heart of an Activist

My fifth book.  I am thinking my last book.  Not because of a time element but that I have chosen a different literary device and delivery system.  It took me years to build confidence about this content and another year to really suffer over the method. 

Of course, it is about Miss Alice Paul.  She is my primary muse.  I have invested forty years in knowing her, understanding her and, sometimes, unintentionally emulating her.  I mean much more than fasting.  She was a force of nature.  She was single minded, unrelenting, often rude and always challenging.  Miss Paul was not at the front of the march but in the office drawing maps, listing components, assigning tasks.  She was the brains of the operation and if it did not go her way, she was not happy.

On the other hand, she had her reasons as most often when things went off the rails it was because people did not listen or, worse yet, did not ask.  She was not a diva.  She did not attend final votes or bill signings.  She was arrested, fasted, was force-fed and served the longest prison sentence.  She was prosecuted by the Department of Justice and labeled as mentally ill by the jail psychologist.  She was not austere but deeply intentional.  She was privately conservative but publically the most radical.   Well known to be unappreciative, however she would say that the work is for equality not for her, so she did not have to say thank you.  To know her, you have to face a lot of facts. 

I have read over fifty books now and have another fifty on the table.  I have learned that many authors have no idea who she was.  I would hit a story and think – whoa – wait, that isn’t right.  Much of the best information was in articles or footnotes or the outstanding phone interviews with women who knew Miss Paul.  Can I even say that one included my fast pointing out that it was in the lineage of Miss Paul.  FLIP ME OUT!

The Challenge,

• to write about Miss Paul as an activist.  She was an activist and I am an activist
• to compare and apply Miss Paul’s methods into current day activist practice 
• to write this without an end, a deadline, a coda
• to not spend a year writing and then be broken hearted that there is so much more to say

The Solution

• write it in serial format
• publish it online as I go
• keep this open ended and see where it goes

BOOM   I just got to thinking – why stop there?  Just keep adding more 

• My speaking information – PowerPoint and youtube
• Bibliography – the most comprehensive I have ever seen
• Guest page for you to submit something
• Miss Alice Paul Shop with contemporary designs

I hope you enjoy my every expanding universe.  The introduction and first chapter are up now.  The second chapter will be up in a few days.  Come by often as it is constantly growing.  I love showing Americans that Miss Paul is our very own Non-Violent Direct Action expert.  She has a lot to teach us. 

http://MissAlicePaul.com

 

Alice Paul ~ Claiming Power, new book reviewed

I began making serious inquiry about Miss Paul in 1980.  She was my touchstone for my 37 day fast for the ERA in 1982.  It was because of her, we drafted legal papers making certain the state could not force feed us.  Her friend, Doris Stevens’ book, Jailed for Freedom was our primary reference.  My interest in Miss Paul never waned and, in 2012, I set out to read contiguously everything I had access to - calling it AP immersion.  Since that time, I have read 40+ books, 100+ articles and interviewed 10 women who knew her.  The most enchanting source was the November, 1972 taped interview by Amelia Fry.  I carefully read every word in the 664 page transcript.  I bought CDs of the first two hours of the interview just so I could hear her voice and I grieved that Amelia Fry passed on before completing her book on Alice Paul.

One day I got wind that the work was going to be completed by American / Women’s Studies scholar, J.D. Zahniser.  I pre-ordered it instantly and waited six months.  It was published Tuesday, June 3, 2014.  It arrived Wednesday, June 4, 2014.  I collected my favorite reading tools; felt tip pens, color tabs, magnifying glass and notebook.  The scripted order of my adventure; copyright, index, footnotes, bibliography, acknowledgements, introduction, chapter one. FORCE FIELD - DO NOT INTERRUPT ME.

Page after page, line after line.  Sheer perfection.  The backstory, the reason, the lineage, the culture.  Her letters, her family, her home, her schools.  Even her hats!  It was all there, explained as no other book came near.  Her first friendships that lasted a lifetime; Lavinia Dock, Rheta Dorr, Maud Younger, Elsie Hill.  I knew each and every one mentioned but never embraced with this depth.  Every question filled in as never before.  Miss Paul’s letters lavishly quoted, letting us all inside her thinking.  Bicycle through France, study in Germany, first apartment, encountering her icon - Christabel and the portentous meeting of Miss Lucy Burns.  From Gandhi to all the Pankhursts.  From Alva Belmont to Doris Stevens to Dorothy Day to Rose Winslow to Jeanette Rankin and the squirrely Mr. Wilson.  From biology to economics to social work to quintessential leadership – disappearing just when the applause begins.  From WSPU to NAWSA to CC to CU to NWP.  From Paulsdale to Lafayette Square.  And the steadfast architecture of Hicksite Quakers; Forward Into Light. 

If you want to know Miss Alice Stokes Paul, the Quaker genius who masterminded the American Suffrage victory, this is the book. Finally you can follow the unfolding of her inspiration, her deep understanding of power and get inside of the political complexity of the “First Wave.”  So much here to find for the first time and find familiar.  Within it all; Miss Alice one step ahead, widening her domain, examining her motivations but always the Equality of Women.            

Of course I have to rate 5 stars.  It is the best and I have read them all. 

 There are three things I wish were different. 

1)     I wish for 100 more photos. There are a few, some I have never seen, but it is not enough. 

2)     I wish more was said about Miss Paul or AP (as Miss Paul often signed) believing the vote was one of many steps on the path to full, global equality.  Her vision was for all women, for all time. 

3)     I am bereft that this book ends in 1923.  Alice Paul Claiming Power is more than worthy and brilliant which is why I wanted it to cover more than 35 of her 92 years.  Her last 57 years is distilled in a four page epilogue.  I will always long for such a wonderful book to include Miss Paul going to Geneva, founding the World Women’s Party, her resistance efforts during the war, the maddening journey with the ERA, her closing years with her greedy nephew and her rescue by the Jews she hid 30 years before.   

 Let there be no mistake, I will always look for that full life biography.  Miss Paul did not vaporize with the success of the suffrage campaign.  She cannot be reduced to this ten year segment.  In fact, to the activist, her longevity with sustained purpose is her greatest legacy.  I love Miss Paul.  I am so grateful for this book.  I have to stop now and read it all over again.

ERA in Simple Terms

Miss Paul chatting with Mrs. Ford

I spent much of the day thinking about the Equal Rights Amendment and the genius of Miss Alice Paul.  Today the ERA would solve so many problems for every person who lives under the U.S. Constitution. 

Miss Paul knew more about the unfolding of the ERA than anyone understood over the years.  In fact, one of the people I interviewed told me that Miss Paul knew immediately that the added line about the deadline was a death knell.  Imagine, she knew it would fail before it even made it out of Congress.  She watched thousands of women and men work to get it passed, knowing full well that the only thing that mattered was that final state.  All opponents had to do was hold the barricade at the deadline and the supermajority.  (June 30, 1982 + 38^th state)  

It is easy to see that Miss Paul had an unparalleled tenacity and strident resolve.  What so few understand about her, maybe confounded those who did see it, Miss Paul had a single epiphany – EQUALITY, nothing less.  Everything from that moment forward was merely a step, never a full stop.  I bothers me that people think she was happy with the vote, that there was some relief with the vote.  Maybe it is because people themselves would have been happy with the vote alone; like so many today who think that the Equality Movement is about marriage law. 

I am asked about the ERA often; about the various current campaigns, what can teachers do, what anyone can do, to finally ratify the ERA.  The question baffles me.  I suppose it means that people just don’t know the Congressional process.  All four of the ERA bills are sitting in 113^th Congressional Subcommittees.  No committee has held hearings, called it to a vote and sent it to the congressional floor. 

Here is the short list of what you, your organization or your class can do. 

1. Lobby the current subcommittees/committees to hold hearings and send it to the floor.
2. Ask every person running for the Senate or House where they stand on the ERA.  Democratic control of both chambers is optimal if not minimal. 
3. After January 3, 2015, when the 114^th sits, lobby them to introduce the ERA immediately.  Time is of the essence in this long ratification process.
4. Educate every American that the ERA did not pass.
5. Live as if it did.

for more information, see http://www.eraonceandforall.com

The Shore of Change

I went to a meeting last night of many groups discussing immigration issues with specific focus on LGBTQ people.  Speakers were an Attorney, organization leaders and community organizers (a meaningful distinction).  I went, not just to support some very special people in my life, to learn about the deportations locally and express my support for a fast path to citizenship.  Hell, I just would like to change the entire border to a welcoming platform for people going in any direction.  More specifically I want to encourage protests, demonstrations and NVDA here in the O.C.

A young man who reminded me of many in GetEqual spoke.  “There is a short window for action as Congress will only be in session about 25 more days in 2013.”  At the Q&A, I said I would really like to meet him and made the observation that it means that these uber conservative men will be in their home offices here in the OC, prime for protests and I mentioned Dana Rohrabacher.  The Atty on the panel said, “He is a waste of time.”  I suppose that is his POV but it sure isn’t mine.  (and I don’t appreciate being dismissed like flicking an insect.  He might have asked, what would that achieve?).

Changing the mind of a blind conservative is never the point of protesting at their home office.  Gov. Brewer, Gov. Walker, Rep. Campbell, Rep. Hunt, Senator Cruz are never the mission.  They are used on one side of the tension between change-makers and conserve-atives.  It irked me to no end that an atty would just dismiss this fundamental in the Civil Rights, Human Rights movement. 

I waited for the meeting to end and approached the org leader who made the original comment and said, I am very interested in your work, the congressional vacations are great time to protest and how can I help.  He proceeded to tell me his org facebook page and said I could check him out there.  I continued asking about NVDA and protests and he said, “you can check me out here, while he was checking out the guys in the room.”

I thought, dude you should check me out.  I could not stop thinking about it.  I woke up today thinking how much could be gained if we integrated the shore of change – where the progressives in each group on the matrix of oppression stand.  There is so much to be gained by integrating the minorities who have the very same opponent – SAMENESS.   And, obviously it would be the progressives who would go first.  I hope most understand the crackling splendor of watching Representative John Lewis being arrested at an immigration demonstration last week. 

One thing that was truly new news for me last night was how much the repeal of DOMA assists in immigration rights.  It is an intersection to be proud of.  A little old white lady, Mrs Edie Windsor did that. 

Miss Paul and the 113th Congress

If you divided the entire country into people who know the ERA is in play and those who do not, it would be two very uneven groups.  And within the group who knows it is and has always been in play you can find a tenacious sub-group who are half crazy from telling people that it 1) did not pass and 2) it is always, ALWAYS, introduced into Congress.  ALWAYS.  It is surprising that I have not lost my mind answering that in these many years, since 1972 when Nixon signed it. 

Every Congress for decades has introduced the standard ERA, however modern day editions do not include any deadline.  March 5, 2013, Senator Menendez (D-NJ) introduced it into the 113th Congress; S.J. Res. 10.  The concern associated with this version is that setting the process back to zero, even without a deadline, could be a net loss as some of the original ratified states may not ratify now.  To bypass that danger, there is a new effort to simply remove the deadline from the 1972 bill.  Therefore the 35 ratified states would not be able to rescind, requiring only three more states to ratify and seal the deal. 

You can argue all day about half a dozen serious unknowns.  Believe me I know them all and have spent a lot of time over the last 30 years ruminating about it.  I have found smart people on both sides of each strategy.  In fact, it is the disagreement that has made me step away from the heated debate.  Fact is no one knows if the deadline is constitutional or if removing the deadline is constitutional.  No one will know until something happens, until the deadlock is broken and there is some motion in some direction.  It will have to be tested one way or another. 

Here is what I do know for sure:

• There is absolutely no reason to work to stop either strategy.  I have refused to spend a single second arguing against either strategy.
• Any conversation on the ERA passing is time well spent.
• Until the deadline is removed or the start over is in play, the 15 non-ratified states are in a stalemate.  The last 30 years have validated that.  There is no reason for one of the 15 to make a move before the move has any possible application.
• Any and all speculation on how the ERA would be applied once ratified is total waste of time.  No one knows.  What we do know is that the 14th Amendment is not the guarantee the United States needs for constitutional equality.  

Here is what I believe:

• The US Constitution is a dynamic document that determines the destiny of the people, the country, and, in some ways, the world.  It is fundamentally incomplete and always will be until all genders are explicitly included.
• It does not matter which strategy gets this done.  After one of the most painful nights of my life, several years ago, I came to the conclusion ~ ALL HANDS ON DECK.  Support them BOTH and settle for no loss.  NO LOSS. 

This last December I began one of my marathon inquiries.  I decided to find Miss Alice Paul*.  I turned off the TV and radio.  I put aside all other interests.  I read around 30 books, 50 articles and interviewed six women who knew Miss Paul for varying amounts of time. 

Here are two pertinent astounding things I discovered:

First, Miss Paul was not called to testify at the ERA hearings in the 92nd Congress.  She asked the women who did testify to come to her home for a talk.  They arrived with an idea that she would be pleased and grateful.  In fact, she was furious.  Miss Paul knew that 1972 H.J. Res 208’s inclusion of a deadline was certain death for the 24 words she had labored over for close to 50 years.  She told the misguided young testifiers that now, with the deadline, the anti-ERA people had to stall the process in only one state to stop it DOA and, as history confirmed, she was right.   I was beside myself when told this story.  I asked emphatically, Why did you not include Miss Paul?  Why didn’t you heed her concerns?!  And she said they thought she was just an old lady who didn’t understand the great victory of passing H.J. Res 208.  On the phone that day in January 2013 two women cried.  Both of us older women now, we know the young ignorance and tragedy of ageism.  Miss Paul knew everything but she was, “just an old lady in a chair.”  In fact, Miss Paul was so upset and knew it had no chance of passing with the attached deadline, she did not accept the invitation to join in at the signing. 

Second, Miss Paul, with three law degrees, did not know how the ERA would impact the law.  She did not waste a precious moment on speculation or even on trying to control it.  From her interview with Miss Amelia Fry, Miss Paul said, “I think if we get freedom for women, then they are probably going to do a lot of things that I wish they wouldn’t do, but it seems to me that isn’t our business to say what they should do with it.  It is our business to see that they are free.”

I feel confident that Miss Paul would be very happy that Senator Cardin (D-MD) and Senator Kirk (R-IL) are going to introduce a bill into the 113th Congress to remove the deadline.  I also feel she would never waste a moment speculating on the interpretation of the amendment.  All Miss Paul would want is for 38 states to ratify the ERA and the United State Constitution to explicitly state, Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. 

As she so famously said, “There is nothing complicated about Equality.”

*in my reading and interviews I came to know that her preference was to be addressed as Miss Paul.                      

The March for Equality

There are no coincidences.  It is a phrase bandied about which seldom has applied in my life more than now.  The week of March 26 – 30 is a pivotal and profound set of days in the March for Equality.  We can only hope that the Cherry Blossoms intoxicate the whole of D.C. with the perfume of change in the direction of justice. 

March 26 and 27, SCOTUS will be hosting a Pride like no other.  It will be listening, weighing and considering if they are evolved enough to state legally and publicly that marriage is a civil right.  Should they find their higher selves, they will be able to do this.  Those of us who
already know the deep truth of it will welcome them to this 21^st Century wisdom. 

March 28 will be an amazing companion to this Equinox of change.  It will be the second time in US history that a president has engaged the DOJ to prosecute a single (singled-out) citizen for obstruction at the White House fence.  Lt. Dan Choi follows in Miss Alice Paul’s path with this unique outcome.  She was arrested, tried and sentenced in 1917 for obstruction at the White House fence.  Just as Mr. Wilson directed his staff to act and the media to ignore, Mr. Obama has pushed on with an iron fist both in the prosecution by the Department of Justice and the censorship of mainstream press.  Lt Choi stood at the fence, as have thousands of others but is the only one facing the DOJ.  Ironically, being found guilty and sentenced would result in being disqualified to re-enlist.  Certainly this is the epitome of Heller’s Catch 22.

Recently I have been investigating the temperament of President Wilson and his henchmen.  From the DOJ to the press, Mr. Wilson was vigilant to stop Miss Paul, stop the embarrassment, stop the outward demonstration of his preference to steer clear of suffrage.  Miss Paul pressed harder as the resistance mounted, creating greater tension.  She was as clever, brave and possibly more effective than Mohandas Gandhi in the practice of Non-Violent Direct Action.  Mrs. Pankhurst lit some fire in Albert Hall. 

The direct lineage is not lost on me that Miss Paul, the Mahatma, Dan Choi, Cindy Sheehan, Sonia Johnson, Mary Lee Sargent, Robin McGehee, dozens of others have stood still in the maelstrom of chaos and said, “truth is here.  I will not move as truth is here.”  Just as apt is the reverse; they moved the barriers to change to say, “this change is justice herself.  This demonstration is going to break the social stasis.”  No matter the metaphor, these are the people who move possibility.

On March 28, I will be in that courtroom.  Maybe you would like to be there too.  Please tell anyone you think would want to know about it and/or would like to be there. 

8:00 AM on Courthouse Lawn - Yoga, Meditation and Interfaith Prayer
9:00 AM in Courtroom 6, (Second Floor) - Trial
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
333 Constitution Ave. N.W.
Washington D.C.

If you or anyone you know would like to write the judge -
Judge John M. Facciola
USA v. Lt. Daniel Choi
E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse
United States District Court
333 Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20001

Full Access for Women

I don’t even like kids.  They are not my path.  I knew that from the start and had two abortions if you doubt my resolve.  Mostly I agreed with Linda Hirshman, if you want women to advance, they need to take a whole generation child-free to break through all ceilings; glass, cement, marble, stained-glass or electronic.  I also have no idea why kids are so out of control, spoken like the 64 year old child-free women that I am.  But Dolores Huerta breastfeeding at the bargaining table while Chavez was out marching for United Farmworkers would offer a different point of view.  The working poor seem to roll the kids into their lives and I saw dozens with their mothers in Mexico City, sitting on a mat in the Mercado.

About two weeks ago I got a call asking if I would support Susie Shannon, a DNC Delegate.  She had been elected, made inquiry about bringing her daughter Gracie to the DNC and was told that it would be ok.  She bought two tickets and began making arrangements only to be told that this was in error and NO ONE would be allowed into the convention without a proper credential.  Not a guest credential, not a delegate’s child pass attached to hers, not a courtesy pass.  Yes, I said yes.  All women need access to the Party.

I began connected the dots ~ big dots.  For forty years I have been talking about women, fasting for equality, marching for reproductive autonomy, presenting multi-media lectures on women.  I have talked about museums, Augusta, Congress, Take Back the Night, Slutwalk, Women and Peace.  I have stood in front of a four foot screen and pointed out that the United States ranks 80 in Women in Leadership. 

Epiphany, those countries where women have greater access to leadership have consistently provided childcare to those women who want to pursue a career in politics. The USA has built systems, organized politics and, even, erected buildings for men.  Maybe we got the vote in 1920 but we did not get full access to the political process.  Bathrooms, money, statues, portraits, textbooks – it is all part of a narrowly paved road which only offers second-class citizenship.

Four Southern California (The Sisterhood) NOW Chapters joined in support with Delegate Susie Shannon to say that this must change.  The DNC needs to widen the road, create access through on-site childcare, provide lounge style lactation rooms (not a designated toilet).  Gloria Steinem contributed a supportive quote.  We wrote a press release and invited the media into the information loop. We made our request to Debbie Wasserman Schultz and several more of the leaders in the Democratic Party.  We created a petition, distributed through our email and social media outlets.  Printed copies will be distributed at the convention.  You may know that FOX News wrote about it, Limbaugh talked about it, lots of articles were published.  

We contacted all of the deciders and finally were given a conference call on Sunday morning with the two deciders with the convention, a representative from Women for Obama and Peter Gaspard, Executive Director of the DNC.  In regards to 2012, two things where made very clear; all extra credentials are reserved for VIPs – not for children and should a delegate with a child, be turned away at the door ~ it would not be a pr problem.  We were offered a single seat on an ad hoc committee which would discuss a rules change to be brought to the late January meeting for consideration. 

I have learned so much these last two weeks. Did you see all the kids at the RNC?  Romney stop and shake their hands on the way to the podium.   I am a lifelong Democrat but I still can see that women who are who are religious, who are male-defined, who are anti-birth control are welcome at the RNC. They cherish that. Ann Romney speaks to them, for them.  I can judge all of it, you can dismiss is as wrongly placed allegiance but I am offering that it is wiser to seek to understand. We Democrats need to make our party women centric; women-friendly is not enough. 

The second thing which has been such a surprise is the comments from women who are both mothers and Democrats.  Through facebook and twitter I have been reading remarks that the convention floor is no place for children – it would be chaos, too loud, just a circus.  That is not what we are lobbying for.  We are talking about infants to be held by their primary parent which is done all over the world.  We are talking about a woman who declines even running for election as a delegate because she cannot leave her child, cannot afford childcare or is the food source for her child.

So you can go to Ariana Huffington’s Oasis to get a massage or do yoga, you can get to a strip club, you can go to non-union hotel but if you are a working mother, don’t even dream of a life in politics until the kids are weaned and you make enough money to hire a care-provider.  I just want to tell you, WE NEED YOU. 

Welcome to the Intersection of Equality and Liberation

Urgency, I am feeling urgency.  Not like time is running out but that the time is now.  My friend, Lowell told me the time is now.  We are standing on a field of possibility, like hatching eggs that are carefully cracking from the inside.  Thoughts are breaking through, fools are speaking loudly - announcing their addlepated brains are at wit’s end, wise ones are finding one another and, most importantly, we cannot go back.  New activists are sitting in classrooms, in circles in community rooms, on pavement at the intersection of Equality & Liberation.  I need to tell them something. 

There are people who just need to know that the time is now.  They need to know that the stirring of activism is real and how to foster it.  There are students who are so overwhelmed with the enormity of possibilities, have no idea where to start.  They need some direction on how change occurs. 

There are people of all ages who see what is going on but are stalled.  They sit in uncertainty.  They wonder about the next step, their step, the sure step.  Or they see only those already down the track and think, “Why start now?”  “I could never do that.”  And all they need to know is to take THEIR next brave step.  In fact, that step is the only one that matters.

There are people who have lost their fire.  They don’t know that rest and pause and a time-out is right, is a component to success.  The pilot light is still lit.  They just need to know how to boost the flame.  They need to find their way back into the political arena.

There are activists who have forgotten to change with the times and now the tools of 2012 appear out of reach.  I meet people all the time who think activism ended in the 70’s and they are just looking in the wrong direction.  Not only is it a loss for them but a terrible loss for current day movements.  I need to find these people.  I have something to say.   

I woke up on June 6, bought some urls*, collected my courage, threw out doubt, built some websites, started a facebook page and am facing down 64.  I am taking it on the road with one mission, to welcome you to the intersection of Equality & Liberation.     

http://www.zoenicholson.com
http://www.lanternmentoring.com