OnLine With Zoe

ERA, the Possibility of Victory

The MSNBC ERA program did a terrible disservice. Aside from only mentioning one of the two strategies, the dozen omissions and ridiculous misappropriations of influence on both sides, it misidentified the opponent.

This is the MOST fundamental problem with the amendment itself. Alice Paul saw it the very day it was voted on in the subcommittee on constitutional amendments. (which the show said was OBSCURE!!).

If you study anything from chess to martial arts, the number one requirement is to know your opponent;

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.                             Sun Tzu, The Art of War

It is not to scare you.  It is not to immobilize you.  It is to empower you to build an effective strategy.  Not knowing who the actual opponent is, entirely disarms you.  Every successful campaign manager, leader, director knows this.  From Schlafly to trump. From Pope Francis to Jeff Bezos.  From good parents to starred generals. 

Phyllis, CPAC, draft, bathrooms, homosexuality, abortion; NONE of these were the opponent then and none of them are the opponent today.  Eleanor Smeal stated it clearly in July of 1982, apparently forgot.  Alice Paul stated it clearly in 1971 to Bernice Sandler on the very day Bunny testified, as Bunny repeated it to me 2012.  The whole of the insurance industry understands it clearly.   The lobby against single-payer healthcare understands it. 

Take a look at what the 27^th Amendment turned out to be, which would have been the ERA.  Take a hard look at the guile of an imposed deadline.  Look at the fact that the 27^th Amendment had NO deadline and it took 202 years, 7 months, and 10 days to pass:  1789 – 1992.    This is not a coincidence. 

Frankly, as we stand on the precipice of a 38th state ratifying, thanks to the unmentioned(!) strategy to remove the deadline, I ask that you do no dismiss me.  Do not toss my advisement.  This is your tool.  This is our tool.  This is the path to women ascending to leadership.  And WOMEN WILL SAVE THE WORLD.  I know it. YOU KNOW IT. 

The opponent is the patriarchal structure that profits from the oppression (ownership) of women.  The explicit inclusion of women in the United States Constitution will disassemble this inequity, case by case, over time.  It is not a piece of paper.  It is not 24 words. It is that the cornerstone of this country will be unable to sustain gender oppression under the law and women will have legal standing to demand rights. 

Baubles distract us.  Myths divert us.  Women supporting the patriarchy obscure the mission. 

Give yourself the winning hand, the leg up, the true possibility of victory.

KNOW the opponent, see its size, know its history, focus on its weakness. 
TAKE THEM OUT.

A Patchwork in Search of a Quilt

As the Women's March is fast approaching, I spent some time reading about the breakups, spats, legitimate arguments, the oppression olympics, the misuse of the word intersectional, the single river splintering into tributaries of self-importance.  All of it is right on time.  Entropy does not only apply to taking a car off the lot or putting a brand-new couch in the living room.  The visionary’s image is clear at inception, the founders embody it and. as it spreads out into more people's consciousnesses, it dilutes rather than reducing into something stronger. 

When I began devouring American Women’s History, it was because I was in the middle of a profound fight for women’s rights.  I wanted to know more about the ERA’s Visionary and understand the obvious entropic degradation to its, then, current status.  What I learned is still unfolding.  Thirty-six years of reading and six of which are dogged, heads-down study is still not enough to fully understand but, certainly, gives me some particular insight.  It also gives me a lot more questions than answers as answers are deeply perishable, dependent on their ineffable environment.   Maybe historians can tell us about life a hundred years ago but never can they measure heart.

The Visionary is all heart, often ignited by an epiphany; as was the case for Alice Paul, Gerda Lerner, Oscar Romero, Mohandas Gandhi and Francis of Assisi. It was not a low boil as was the case with Theresa of Avila or John of the Cross or Robert Greenleaf or Bill W.  The poet slowly peels.  The Visionary is thrown off the horse, stuck by lightening which makes it impossible to measure or ignore.  They are lit up and, regardless of its solitary revelation, must proceed. 

Following the provenance of the idea of liberating American women, there were a handful of spiritual women, mostly Quaker, inspired by the Iroquois, who coalesced a vision over a cup of tea.  Importantly, one essential question remains, liberating from what?  Simply put; invisibility, unpaid labor, non-citizenship, living a relative existence with zero agency.  They were either unrealized or holding varying degrees of realization with proportionate agony.  Let this be stated squarely, the Visionary suffers with seeing full possibility while painfully trying to pare it down to fit the, “conscience of the day,” in hopes of sharing it.

My expertise is studying and testing the heart of Miss Alice Paul.  She was struck with one single insight that never diluted in her 92 years.  She saw that American women will never realize the possibility of society’s equality without explicit, absolute equality in the US Constitution.  She was smart enough to know that the vote was a required stop on the road but never the destination. 

Miss Paul had something that no one today has, no one.  She was absolutely absolute.  Not only was she single-focused but it was irresistible.  Women, old and young, took her direction as orders.  Moreover, they wanted to be trusted with those orders.  Women who had barely spoken in their own parlors, stepped onto truck beds with flyers in hand to speak in open air about their rights, all because Miss Paul’s “violet eyes,” asked them to. 

Perhaps the first woman who posted on Facebook, in November of 2016 calling for a Women’s March, was inspired but it was never a sole vision, with a sole purpose.  Within days it was diluted, distributed, dissected, and the suffocation of entropy was in full swing.  Millions of women with their specific ideas of liberation, of resistance, of protest took the street.  2017 and 2018 held banner marches and 2019 will as well but banners will have many colors, many causes, many agendas.  Each will indicate a fissure, a separate understanding of liberation based on an interpretation and assignment of oppression.

I believe Miss Paul would advise that all of those tributaries would have a more prosperous future if one single item was won; full explicit irrevocable inclusion in the US Constitution.  Her vision assigned a wise priority.  Without that we are but a patchwork in search of a quilt.

As William Carlos Williams wrote,

so much depends
upon
the red wheel barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

 

Secrets I Long to Tell

Clearly I can keep a secret.  I was not clear on any other component though.  Oddly, what really threw me was the crew constantly asking me, “Are you prepared for her to be dead?”  At first it was shocking.  Why would we be doing all of this if she had passed?  Then it was annoying and I wanted to say, yes I hear you.  Yes, I am prepared.

The time it really threw me was when Ann Curry asked me.  The question must be real if Ann Curry is asking me on camera.  My answer to Ann was, I think you will understand more than the crew.  I am a Buddhist.  We are always aware of impermanence, of age, of death.  I do know she is a bit older than I am.  The fact was, I had no idea where she is or what she is doing. The shoot continued which could only mean that no matter the circumstances, it was not going to impede us. 

The question I kept asking was, Can I tell people?  OH NO.  No, you cannot share your photos.  You can not talk about this on social media.  You cannot say who you are looking for.  You cannot tell people if you find her.  Heck, most of the time they didn’t even tell me where we were going.  I got a text the night before.  (virgo, cap rising - steadfast, premeditated, strategic).  My mantra for all 14 days was ~ surrender.

When can I tell people?  The funny thing here is that everyone I asked, anyone I asked, had a very different answer.  The possibility of error was maddening.  The PBS USA office said, I could reveal anything five minutes after they did.  The sole caveat was that the photos I shared could not include the crew.  So that’s what I did.  Remember, I have not seen the show.  It was all like describing a gift before you open it.  In tiny increments, PBS USA revealed this and that.  I followed their lead.

Breathe.  Show and Tell.  I was hoping to meet Sonia Johnson again.  I had not seen her for 36 years.  We parted in the Springfield airport and neither of us was well.  Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was not just saying goodbye to my sister fasters but also our standing guard.  AND goodbye to the ERA.

Finally, Day 14.  There she was.  – you will have to watch to get the whole story as I traveled to 5 states, recapitulated my summer of 1982, and met up with my Mentor.

PBS, We'll Meet Again
Tuesday, January, 8,  9/8c

2016 Platform Hearing Testimony

Zoe Nicholson
@onlinewithzoe
http://ERAOnceandForAll.com

2016 Democratic Party Platform Hearing
US Constitution

It is unimaginable that I have been writing to the US Congress about the Equal Rights Amendment for 36 years.  It is really nothing compared to the primary author, Alice Paul, who lobbied to her dying day at age 92.  She lobbied for the ERA for 54 years.  And, now, we are on a new precipice of electing a President who is not going to be included in the US Constitution which means she is not required to serve jury duty, pay taxes or allowed to run for president.  Obviously, she had better address this astounding discrepancy January 22, 2017.

As you can see from the extended footnote below¹  I am well aware that my party, the Democratic Party, has been including a call for both the ERA & CEDAW for many years. 

The point is not to INCLUDE it.  The point is to ENACT it.

Now that it is well documented that 94% of Americans believe women should be included in the US Constitution, the questions are

1. How many Americans believe Women are already included in the Constitution?
2. What is the course of action needed to ratify the Amendment?

Strategy ONE

• Introduce it early (Sen. Kennedy used to on March 22.)
• Hold Hearings in the Committee before it gets sent down the pipeline of subcommittees
• Bring the bill to the floor(s)
• Send to the states for ratification
• Push it through state legislations for a super-majority

Strategy TWO

• Introduce bill to delete section 3 of the 1972 ERA applying an artificial deadline
• Pass bill
• Ratify in 3 of the remaining 15 unratified states

Obviously this entire plan rests on these two cornerstones:

• DO MORE THAN ENDORSE THE ERA IN THE 2016 PLATFORM
• TURN CONGRESS BLUE and ELECT the Democratic nominee for President.

As Mrs Burn told her son Harry, August 18, 1920

Dear Son:
Hurrah and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt! I notice some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs Cattt put the "rat" in ratification.
Your mother

In your Service,

Zoe Nicholson

Founder ERA Once and For All
June 17, 2016

   ^1.2012 Democratic Party Platform

Moving America Forward
Protecting Rights and Freedoms

Civil Rights. We believe in an America where everybody gets a fair shot and everybody plays by the same set of rules. At the core of the Democratic Party is the principle that no one should face discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability status. Democrats support our civil rights statutes and we have stepped up enforcement of laws that prohibit discrimination in the workplace and other settings. We are committed to protecting all communities from violence. We are committed to ending racial, ethnic, and religious profiling and requiring federal, state, and local enforcement agencies to take steps to eliminate the practice, and we continue to support enforcement of Title VI. We are committed to equal opportunity for all Americans and to making sure that every American is treated equally under the law.

"Because of ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' each time I went off to war, no one was at the armory to say goodbye. No one was waiting at the airport when I returned. My partner, George Di Salvo, and I started a family five years ago by adopting two wonderful boys. But I kept their existence secret, because that's what the law required. Not anymore, however. Thanks to the unyielding efforts of President Obama, I can serve my country openly and proudly with my family by my side."—Dr. Vito Imbasciani, Colonel, California National Guard, Medical Service Corps

We are committed to ensuring full equality for women: we reaffirm our support for the Equal Rights Amendment, recommit to enforcing Title IX, support the Paycheck Fairness Act, and will urge ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. We know that putting America back to work is Job One, and we are committed to ensuring that Americans do not face employment discrimination. We support the Employment Non- Discrimination Act because people should not be fired based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

President Obama and the Democratic Party are committed to ensuring all Americans are treated fairly. This administration hosted the first-ever White House Conference on Bullying Prevention and we must continue our work to prevent vicious bullying of young people and support LGBT youth. The President's record, from ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in full cooperation with our military leadership, to passing the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, to ensuring same-sex couples can visit each other in the hospital, reflects Democrats' belief that all Americans deserve the same chance to pursue happiness, earn a living, be safe in their communities, serve their country, and take care of the ones they love. The Administration has said that the word ‘family' in immigration includes LGBT relationships in order to protect bi-national families threatened with deportation.

Women. President Obama—the son of a single mother and the father of two daughters—understands that women aren't a special interest group. They are more than half of this country, and issues that affect women also affect families. That is why the first bill he signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which helps women fight back when they are paid less than men, and why we continue to fight to overcome Republican opposition and pass the Paycheck Fairness Act to help stop gender discrimination in pay before it starts. And that is why the Justice Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, led by President Obama's appointees, have investigated and prosecuted numerous violations of the nation's civil rights laws, and obtained more than $140 million in relief for victims of gender discrimination. We Democrats will continue to support efforts to ensure that workers can combat gender discrimination in the workplace and to protect women against pregnancy discrimination. And that's why we support passing the Healthy Families Act, broadening the Family and Medical Leave Act, and partnering with states to move toward paid leave.

We understand that economic issues are women's issues, and the challenges of supporting and raising a family are often primarily a woman's responsibility. That's why putting Americans back to work is Job One. That's why the Affordable Care Act especially helps women by guaranteeing they and their families won't become uninsured when they lose their jobs. That's why this administration strengthened Medicare and Medicaid for millions of women and families. And that's why the Affordable Care Act is ending health insurance discrimination against women, and provides women with free access to preventive care, including prenatal screenings, mammograms, cervical cancer screening, breast-feeding supports, and contraception.

"I know firsthand the injustice of gender discrimination in pay: for years I was paid less than my male colleagues, and it took an anonymous note from a colleague to tip me off to the fact that I was being denied equal pay for equal work. I also know firsthand that President Obama takes these issues seriously: the first bill that he signed into law was focused on making sure that other women don't face the same injustice. While the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act won't change my story, I couldn't be prouder of the legislation that bears my name, and I know who is standing up for women and families."—Lilly Ledbetter

We understand that women's rights are civil rights. That's why we reaffirm our support for the ERA, recommit to enforcing Title IX, and will urge ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. That's why we are committed to ending violence against women, why Vice President Joe Biden originally wrote and championed the Violence Against Women Act during his time in the Senate, and why we support reauthorizing and strengthening it now.

The President and the Democratic Party believe that women have a right to control their reproductive choices. Democrats support access to affordable family planning services, and President Obama and Democrats will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers. The Affordable Care Act ensures that women have access to contraception in their health insurance plans, and the President has respected the principle of religious liberty. Democrats support evidence-based and age-appropriate sex education.

May 14, 1982 I Thought the ERA was Ours.

This is my diary entry from Friday, May 14, 1982.  It is the opening chapter of my book, The Hungry Heart, which is the actual diary of my 40 days in Springfield, Illinois.  Phyllis and Ellie, NOW v Eagles; Equality was on the line and still is.  Many of us who are working on the election of the first woman president are hoping that it will renew a bright light on Constitutional equality.  I mean after all, the president should be included in the US Constitution.  

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

La igualdad de los derechos bajo ley no sera negada ni sera abreviada por los Estados Unidos o por cualquier estado a causa de sexo.

Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. 

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

MAY 14, 1982
This is something I want so much, I am willing to die for it.  The fact that I want it for all women for all time makes it profound and suffocating.  I feel like I am being crushed inside a storm of feelings, fears and certainty.  I need some relief.  I know this is the right thing to do.  Food, cigarettes, privacy, pets, home and family -- take it.  I want this more. 

All I did was answer the phone.  It sounded like every other ring that had called me to the phone.  It rang in early May.  It was Sonia Johnson calling.  We had met in the Fall when she came to my bookstore to sign her book, “From Housewife to Heretic.”  We talked of the deadline for the Equal Rights Amendment, July 1, and promised one another that no matter what we did we would do it together.  "We are going to fast for the ERA,"  Sonia calmly explained to me.  "We are going to go to Illinois, sit in the Springfield rotunda, live on water only and win the ERA." 

I met Dina at the Long Beach airport at 8 A.M.  I think we are doing awfully well considering we both stopped smoking just four days ago.  Maybe in the face of not eating, not smoking seems negligible.  At least it seems to be just another task on my ToDo list.  With an extra hour before the flight, we had breakfast.  It was the first in the continuing series of meals we ate today.  Eggs, Pancakes, Toast, O.J., Coffee.  We ate as if there is no tomorrow. 

The flight to Chicago was uneventful but we missed the connecting flight to Springfield.  It took three attempts at stand-by to actually make it.  The good news is that we were able to eat another meal; packing it away like chipmunks in Fall. 

A thoughtful woman named Marion picked us up.  She is studying to be a Methodist minister.  She made the mistake of asking us if there was anything we wanted to do before we went to the meeting place.  Fried Shrimp, Baked potatoes, Blue cheese salad, Pie, Coffee.

The mystery of where we are going to stay is solved.  We have permission to stay at Kumler Methodist Church for two weeks.   We are going to sleep on the floor of the Sunday School classrooms.  The desks and chairs are itsy bitsy.  The bathroom is down right comical as the sinks and toilets are all scaled down.  The really bad news is that there are no showers.  I am really taken back about no showers.  It is muggy May in Southern Illinois.

The classrooms are stifling.  I guess they only open the windows on Sunday mornings.  The walls are covered with posters of Jesus.  This is not the Jesus I love.  This one is fair skinned, sandy hair, manicured hands, sweet little smile.  The pictures show him surrounded with pastel covered, adoring fans.  This is not the dissident, powerful, charismatic carpenter I would like to know. 

Dina and I are the first to arrive.  The other women are due in an hour or so.  They are driving from D.C. and Virginia, where they have been stumping on the ERA trail.  This is giving me too much time to sit and stew and get really scared.  I can hear Dina in the next room; she must be recording her journal.  I am stuffed but wonder  what will happen if I don’t have food for forty-four days.  Maybe it won’t take forty-four days.  I’m hungry.

What if no one cares?  What if there is no press coverage?  If I was the opposition I would deflate this by ignoring it, trivializing it or even mocking it.  But I have to remember that there is a magnificent precedent for fasting.  Most of my favorite people have fasted.  My heart says I have no choice. 

I hear the others have arrived.  Maybe they have some food. 

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
To purchase a copy of The Hungry Heart
Lune Soleil Press

Calling Long Beach to be a CEDAW CITY

 

Good evening Mayor Garcia, Vice Mayor Lowenthal Council members, administrators, Citizens of Long Beach;  In particular, thank you Councilwoman Price for calling Long Beach to become a CEDAW CITY

I have been active in the American Women’s Movement for 50 years.  In 1982, I sat on a folding chair in the Illinois State House rotunda and publicly fasted on water for 37 days for the Equal Rights Amendment,which you know never passed and to this day women are not included in the US Constitution.I am a scholar and consultant on the ERA.

Thank you for allowing me to speak on March 1, one of 32 days in the US calendar year which is legislatively assigned to raise women out of invisibility.

 

---

 

• Women hold up more than half the sky
• Women carry water from shore to home, all over the world.
• Across the globe Women bear, feed, clothe and educate the young,
• Care for the sick, aging and dying

and Yet

• We are disposable, discarded, stoned, tortured, gutted of our sexuality and denied education
• We are forced to marry at age 12
• We die in early childbirth
• We are denied reproductive autonomy
• We are raped as a weapon of war
• We are denied mobility up the corporate ladder to driving a car

The US ranks #75 in women in leadership in the world, Behind the likes of China, Nepal, Rwanda

When you have an opportunity like this to protect women, you must throw your arms around it:

• Grab it
• Carry it
• Teach it
• Be it
• DO IT
• BEHAVE as if it is passed

It is the work of only the most advanced privileged people who have this astounding opportunity.  Because you are chambered leaders, you have the chance to bypass the uncivilized behavior of the U.S. Congress, To rise and join the cities and countries that have seen the joy in the morning of valuing women.

I am here to ask you,
To lift the women of Long Beach to hear this global heart beat and be a CEDAW CITY.
Your Mother wants you to do this.
The Grandmothers of all Directions want you to do this.
Stand with me at the clear light of day and say,
that you have protected their daughters worldwide and be a CEDAW CITY.

---

 

AGENDA 16 -0201            The legislation which passed unanimously ~

Recommendation to adopt resolution in support of The Convention of the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and request City Manager to identify a current City Commission such as the Human Relations Commission that will partner with California State

University, Long Beach to complete a gender analysis study of Long Beach. After the gender analysis study is completed the selected City Commission should examine policy reforms as outlined by study and consistent with CEDAW in order to make recommendations to the City Council for implementation of any policy reforms or additional programming that is consistent with goals of CEDAW.

A Tile in the Mosaic of Equality

In the streets of Chicago, 1968 I was directed by the methods and success of Gandhi.  I had read about him for years and presumed that his theories were inspiring the American Civil Rights Movement.  I grew up in devotion to the left wing of the Catholic Church, the hope of Vatican II and John XXIII.  My feminism was not really ignited yet.  In fact, I did not notice on my 15^th birthday, August 28, 1963, that no woman spoke from the podium at the Lincoln Memorial when Dr King told us of his dream. 

Many years later I heard some vague story about a woman who had led a hunger strike in jail campaigning for women’s suffrage.  At the time all I knew was Seneca, Stanton and Anthony.  Then through no direct line of influence, I found myself fasting for the Equal Rights Amendment and again I heard this woman’s name, Alice Paul.  She was the principle and most acknowledged author of the legislature.   My interested was piqued. 

Thirty-four years later, I have culled the universe for any and all information about and by Miss Paul.  I have read every book available, interviewed many people who both knew and worked for her.  I have pestered a historian friend for hundreds of articles.  I have learned to judge a book by its footnotes and to read in complete quiet.  I have been told I know more about Miss Paul than anyone.  I know her virtues, her many faults and, with humility, find me more like her with each revelation.  I have been given the honorific of Independent Scholar. 

Over the last few years one glaring truth has pierced my feminist heart.  Would it be different if I had known the first to practice Nonviolent Direct Action was a feminist woman?  Would it have different to know that the first to organize a march on the White House was a woman?  Why did my shelves have dozens of books on Gandhi’s theories and methods with application to the American Social Justice Movement and ZERO on Alice Paul’s?  Why had I read Indian Opinion and Harijan but not the Suffragist?  Why didn’t I know that both Miss Paul and M.K. Gandhi had been at suffrage rallies, spoken with Mrs Pankhurst and both left with objections to the introduction of violence.

I am devoted, I am dedicated to introduce Americans to their very own founder of Non Violent Direct Action, Miss Alice Paul.  I believe that knowing about Alice, her methods and her lifelong activism will inspire and light the way.  I base this on my own 50 years in activism.  I see how she never gave up.  She rested and moved with the ebb and flow of equality.  She did not party with the signing of the Nineteenth Amendment.  She went on to earn three law degrees to prepare for the campaign for constitutional equality.  The vote was just one tile in the mosaic of equality.   On her 92nd birthday, she spent her happy birthday phone call with First Lady Betty Ford promoting the ERA. 

We are left with a spectacular film by Sir Richard Attenborough on the life of Gandhi in which meticulous care was given to truth.  Entire scenes were recreated, dialog was taken from real life.  We need accessible accurate media to learned about, celebrate and fulfill the plans of Miss Alice Paul.  We will be better people to end the national practice of letting women age into obscurity and dismissing their legacy.  Her work of constitutional equality is now our work.

I hope you will trust me with creating a national, culturally illumined, campaign to build awareness of the infinite relevance of militant activist, Alice Paul.  There is a call for seed money on Kickstarter.  (click here) Your donation will be your tile in this particular mosaic for equality.  The goal is $9,200 which is $100 for each year of her life.  This amount is the foundation.  Once launched we will be creating both self-sustaining funding and sponsorship.  Thank you for joining this effort.  You can read about the objectives, vision and mission here.

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.