EKLE HO! ON JUJ CI O.J. New & Recent Books from NYU PRESS Feminist Nightmares: SOJOURNER SUFFRAGE Women at Odds TRUTH & BEYOND and the Problem of INrMtNATKMAI IIMIM.-I I'l HSI'BI NH Slave, Prophet Legend Sisterhood EDITED BY SUSAN WEISSER AND JENNIFER FLEISCHNER As feminism grows increasingly diverse, the time has come to ask a painful and frequently avoided question: what does it mean for women to oppress women? 384 pages •".._"-<-v.j£fii I ISBN: 0-8147-2620-8 / $18.95 paper fi.liteJ by ( .roliiic l>..kv CARLETON MABEE Ewith Subdn MabeOe Newhouse •I. 1...... Nolan • 1 ince 1988, Genders has presented inno- Sojourner Truth Suffrage and Beyond Svative theories of gender and sexuality Slave, Prophet, Legend International Feminist Perspectives in art, literature, history, music, TV, and CARLETON MABEE EDITED BY CAROLINE DALEY AND MELANIE film. As New York University Press WITH SUSAN MABEE NEWHOUSE DOLAN assumes its publication, the journal that "This first-rate biography presents us with a This political history of suffrage on a global has always been on the cutting edge of heroine considerably more interesting- more scale brings together such eminent scholars as is taking on a new shape— original, more powerful- than the personality Nancy Cott, Ellen Dubois, and Carole from triannual journal to biannual anthol- sentimentalists have often portrayed." Pateman. ogy in book form. —The New Yorker 380 pages / 10 illustrations ISBN: 0-8147-1871-X / $19.95 paper 320 pages / 20 illustrations Sexual Artifice ISBN: 0-8147-5525-9 / $16.95 paper Persons, Images, EDITED BY ANN KIBBEY, KAYANN SHORT, Forthcoming in April AND ABOUALI FARMANFARMAIAN Lesbian Erotics Collectively explores the art of construct- EDITED BY KARLA JAY ing gender in symbolic media images, poetry, photography, montage, dramatic "A very great gift: compelling, complex, coura- identity politics, and contemporary femi- geous, and stunning. Everyone interested in nism itself. love and lust, passion and power, history and Genders #19 literature, will want to read Karla Jay's timely, 312 pages / 21 illustrations arousing, important anthology." ISBN: 0-8147-4651-9 / $17.95 paper —Blanche Wiesen Cook Author of Eleanor Roosevelt, vol. I Lesbian Erotics is the first anthology to investi- Eroticism and gate the cultural production of sexually Containment charged images of lesbians in film, , litera- Notes From the Flood Plain ture, and popular culture in general. EDITED BY CAROL SIEGEL AND ANN 320 pages / 6 illustrations Will You Be ? KIBBEY ISBN: 0-8147-4225-4 / $17.95 paper Addresses social and cultural attempts to Women Who Choose to Say No contain eroticism by delineating the The of JANE BARTLETT perimeters of gender. Based on over fifty interviews with women, Genders #20 Sexuality Will You Be Mother? explores the personal and 340 pages public implications of the pressure society ISBN: 0-8147-7999-9 / $17.95 papeper "This is a brave and brilliant book—and con- puts on women to have children and offers a stitutes a quantum leap forward for global challenging critique of the prevalent belief that ." motherhood is a natural state for women and — that childless women are somehow incomplete. 352 pages 233 pages ISBN: 0-1847-1217-7 / $24.95 cloth ISBN: 0-8147-1245-2 /15.95 paper

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS 70 Washington Sq. S., New York, NY 10012 • Tel: 1-800-996-NYUP • Fax 212-995-3833 page 33

COLUMNS

J'ACCUSE! HOFFMAN FRONT LINES SPECIAL SECTION: 13 3 2 Haitian women testify WHOSE GOD IS IT Tragedy, American-Style against military rapists ANYWAY' By Laura Flanders WIN SOME/ MALE VIRGINS, RAPPING BLOOD LOSE SOME OTI DIALOGUE 9 6 DO FEMINISTS NEED COVENANTS, AND Raw Law: TO LIBERATE FAMILY VALUES Watching Court TV ANIMALS, TOO? 25 Inside America's fastest FEEDBACK 18 8 Carol Adams' holistic growing men's movement CHESLER philosophy includes By John Stcltcnberg 11 stewardship of the earth Rape in High Places THE SECOND BOOK REVIEWS 45 PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY'S COMING OF ANCESTORS JOAN OF ARC 30 TALKING 22 FEMINIST CUTTING A revealing look at An irreverent re-visioning by 40 SOME SLACK anti-suffragist propaganda 60 By Patricia Riley Dunlap playwright Carolyn Gage Hair Daze: To Shave or Not to Shave? Bitch, Bitch, Bitch POLAND'S MORNING RE-IMAGINING By Olivia James By Ellen Snortland AFTER GOD 36 33 The fight to regain Are we made in Her image? ON THE COVER By Lou Ann Matossian By Peggy Simpson Photograph of playwright Carolyn Gage OVERWORKED? by Linda J. Russell OVERWHELMED? 42 These artists understand By Arlene Raven

contentON THE ISSUES • SPRING 1995 ^VOLUME IV NUMBER sTWO FRONT LIMES ISSUES VOL. IV • NO. 2 SPRING 1995

Publisher/ Editor in Chief Editor ROIUnil SANDROFF RONNI SANDROFF Executive Editors JULIA KACAN Silver Lining Editor at Large Special Projects Advisors ANNE MOLLECEN SMITH Department JOY SILVER Book. Review Editor NINA MEHTA

Assistant Editors KAREN AISENBERC SUZANNE LEVINE Contributing Editors JILL BENDERLY ositive thinking is my trademark, so CHARLOTTE BUNCH VINIE BURROWS quite a number of folks who haven't called in years rang up after IRENE DAVALL the November elections hoping to hear a few encouraging words. Could I put a positive spin on the Republican sweep of federal and state gov- FLO KENNEDY P FRED PELKA ernments? Is there any hope for protecting (no less advancing) women's gains ELAYNE RAPPING in a climate in which inflammatory anti- rhetoric encourages and HELEN M. STUMMER exonerates terrorist at women's health clinics? Art Director JOY TOLTZIS MAKON In searching for something upbeat to say (if these colleagues wanted to be Advertising and Sales Director more depressed they would have called someone else), I found myself talking CAROLYN HANDEL

about "J' Accuse!", Laura Flanders' stirring piece on women in who had Circulation/Business Consultant the courage to testify about political rape in the days following Aristide's return ANNE S. KEATING to power. The force of speaking truth against injustice should not be underesti- mated. (For more proof, read Phyllis Chesler's personal account, "Rape in High Places.") ON THE ISSUES The Progressive 's I was also able to point to several other pieces in this issue that document the Quarterly: a feminist, humanist magazine of critical extraordinary influence feminist thinking continues to wield. It has reached thinking, dedicated to fostering collective responsibility for positive social change. and breached the fortress of mainstream religious institutions, which Lou Ann ON THE ISSUES The Progressive Woman's Quarterly Matossian describes in "Re-Imagining God." It has gained a foothold in the (ISSN 0895-6014) is published quarterly as an justice system (see Elayne Rapping's "Raw Law: Watching Court TV"). And it informational and educational service of CHOICES Women's Medical Center, Inc., 97-77 Queens is bubbling to the surface in Eastern Europe (read Peggy Simpson's "Poland's Boulevard, Flushing, NY 11374-3317. Morning After"). Unsolicited Manuscripts: All material will be read by the editors. For return, enclose a self-addressed, But there is no denying that today's conservatives and the religious right are stamped envelope with proper postage. Articles should highly effective in mobilizing a constituency and in both coopting and demo- not be more than 2,000 words. All editing decisions mzing feminist ideas. We think it important to see what we can learn from are at the discretion of the editors. Feminist cartoons are also acceptable under the same provisions. ON THE their successes. John Stoltenberg analyzes the appeal of Promise Keepers, ISSUES does not accept fiction or poetry. America's fastest-growing men's movement, in "Male Virgins, Blood Advertising accepted at the discretion of the Covenants, and Family Values." And, in "Phyllis Schlafly's Ancestors," historian publisher. Acceptance does not imply endorsements. Publisher's Note: The opinions expressed by Patricia Riley Dunlap looks at the anti-women's suffrage propaganda of the contributors and by those we interview are not early 20th century: of interest because so many of the techniques (romanticiza- necessarily those of the editors. ON THE ISSUES The tion of woman's role; ridicule of feminists) are still used today, and inspiring Progressive Woman's Quarterly is a forum where women may have their voices heard without censure because the well-financed conservatives did, finally, fail to stem the movement or censorship. for female suffrage. Subscription Information: 1 year $14.95; 2 years $24.95; 3 years $34.95. Institutional rate: Add $10 first We hope our readers will find ON THE ISSUES a source of personal inspira- year, S5 each additional year. Add $4 per year for tion in these difficult times. I find that I feel most discouraged about the state Canadian orders; S7 per year foreign (surface mail) or of the nation when I let the mainstream media define my picture of what's $20 per year foreign (air mail). Send to ON THE ISSUES The Progressive Woman's Quarterly, P.O. Box 3000, going on. But when I read the views of like-minded souls, when I get out and Dept. OTI, Denville. NJ 07834. Second-Class Postage meet with activists, I am always reinspired by our collective spirit and hopeful- Paid at Flushing, NY and additional mailing office. ness. This seems to be a good time to regroup, gather together, plan feminism's Postmaster: Send address changes to ON THE ISSUES The Progressive Woman's Quarterly, next moves, and knit ourselves some silver linings. • P.O. Box 3000, Dept. OTI, Denville, NJ 07834.

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 Our Medea has destroyed her children. MERLE HOFFMAN —William F. Buckley Jr., 1994 ON THE ISSUES Television described it as a "great human drama," but in the end I found the surreal progression of the white Ford Bronco with OJ. Simpson in the passenger seat holding a gun to his head anticli- mactic. I marveled at the citizens lined up along the roadside holding handwritten signs proclaim- Tragedy, ing "OJ. We Love You" and "Go, Juice, Go." But I found myself longing for the natural denoue- ment of great tragedy, the catharsis, which, according to Aristotle, comes from a purification American-Style of the emotions of terror and pity that leads to an experience of rebirth. Unlike that roadside post-modern Greek chorus, I yearned for what I considered appropriate closure in this situation— a confession expressing guilt and profound remorse. In a way I wanted, indeed needed, to see OJ. Simpson blow his brains out, preferably at the gravesite of his murdered wife. But Simpson would not deliver. Simpson is no Othello. Just as Susan Smith, whose own person- al Greek chorus greeted her with "baby-killing or in other ways, a woman bitch" and "hold your head up, you're a baby murderer" is no Medea. And therein lies a value Is full of fear, defenseless, dreads the sight of cold shift worth contemplating. I was 15 when I first read Euripides' Medea Steel; but, when once she is wronged in the matter and remember being deeply moved by the story of this barbarian princess who falls in love with of love, No other soul can hold so many thoughts Jason, leader of the Argonauts, and murders both her own brother and Jason's uncle to help him. of blood. —Medea, 431 B. C. Exiled to Corinth with their two sons, Jason casts her aside to wed the daughter of the King of Corinth. While pretending to submit, Medea horribly murders father and daughter through the gift of a magically poisoned robe. Then, fear- ing for the safety of her sons and in an act of vengeful honor and radical insurrection, she slays them with her own hands and escapes with their bodies to safe exile in a chariot drawn by drag- ons. Queen, goddess, sorceress, and then mother, Medea denies Jason even the touch of his dead children's flesh. I was struck by the force of her character, the strength of her will—and her conscious owner- ship of her appalling deed: -$•

was in love with someone very much, but he didn't love me and never would. _ I had hurt him very much, and could Isee why he could never love me. —Susan Smith, 1994 A.D.

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 I shall kill my own children. to her children, I wondered? Did Susan David that she reportedly attempted My children, there is none who can Smith, like Medea, powerfully claim suicide twice over him: once during give them safety.... ownership of her actions as the car high school when he broke off their For it is not bearable to be mocked sank quietly into the dark waters? Was relationship, and a second time because by enemies.... she conscious and determined, moving of difficulties in their marriage. If true, For those children he had from me with the power of her own horrid the two suicide attempts reflect Smith's he will never logic, or was she in the end merely enormous need for male connection See alive again, nor will he on his swept away in the sea of her own emo- and approval. new bride tions? For Smith, the "good ," there was Beget another child, for she is to be In her confession to police on always a man and always a problem. forced November 3, Susan Smith said that she When she was seven years old, her To die a most terrible death by "wanted to end my life so bad. I did father committed suicide. At 16, she these my poisons. go part way, but I stopped. I went told police, her stepfather had molested Let no one think me a weak one, again and stopped." After she allowed her, although she never pressed feeble-spirited, the car to roll into the water with her charges. By 19 she was married, by 22 A stay-at-home, but rather just the two children strapped into the back she had taken a lover who rejected her, opposite, seat, she "took off running and scream- by 23 she had sent her two baby boys One who can hurt my enemies and ing,'Oh God. Oh, God. No!' " Smith back to Daddy, back to their "Heaven- help my friends. seems to have experienced such a loss ly Father." of self, such a dissolution of bound- From published reports it appears Medea's story and ultimate fall are aries, that the of her children that Smith was indeed distraught and truly tragic. Like Othello, blood honor appears to be a case of "suicide by suicidal over an unrequited love when is what moves her. And like him, she proxy." Wanting to kill herself, she kills she murdered her children. Tom Find- can claim she was one who loved "not her children. lay, her lover and the boss' son in the wisely, but too well." Medea-the- Unlike Medea, who is not unhinged office where she worked as a secretary queen naturally assumes the responsi- but acts out of strategic design and and earned $17,000 a year, had written bility of moving with power in the what she perceives as political necessity, her the now-infamous letter telling her world. Medea-the-woman lives within Smith is psychologically unbalanced. the of and clearly "When 1 was at John D. Long Lake I understands that her political and social had never felt so scared and unsure as I position are purely derivative of her did then," she wrote. "I was an husband's. Medea-the-mother loves absolute mental case. I couldn't believe her children, but knows that legally what I had done." While Smith sends they belong to her husband. In mur- Michael and Alex back into the hands dering them she reclaims that power of their "Heavenly Father," where she for herself. Although Medea processes knows "they never will be hurt again," her decision with the chorus over the Medea keeps her children out of all space of the play, there is no ambiva- male hands—even their bodies are lence or attempt to distance herself denied to their father. from her . She does not seek to hide. Nor does Othello. "Nothing o, Susan Smith is no Medea. extenuate," he says just before he stabs In fact, she was a classic good himself and dies on the bed where he Ngirl, the most traditional jimpson may murdered Desdemona. kind—self-limiting and self-minimiz- When I first heard about the disap- ing. Voted the "friendliest senior of the pearance of Susan Smith's children, and class of 1989" at Union High School 1 Othello's throughout the nine days of the search, and considered the "kind of student I would imagine myself standing alone you want in your class" by her school in the middle of a country road watch- principal, this member of the National iered ing the back of my car receding as Honor Society chose not to go to col- someone drove off with its precious lege or leave her small town. Instead, Lai and cargo. I caught my breath at the edge she stayed close to home, and gained of the horror, the magnitude of the definition and affiliation through a man ial slights, but faced loss, the rage, the impotence, the crush- by becoming a mother and then a ing anxiety, the struggle to believe the wife. She married David Smith when with discovery, unbelievable. Then, slowly, a gnawing she was two months pregnant. suspicion crept in, so that when at last David Smith, however, is something Simpson's first instinct her arrest was announced, I was not of a Jason. His infidelities were public overcome with shock or rage, just an knowledge, and Susan was known to was to escape. ineffable sadness. show up at the Winn-Dixie where he As for many others, Medea was my worked to check on his whereabouts. first association. Did she say goodbye Her sense of self was so enmeshed in

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 he was not ready to be a father. And mother. There is no known pattern of of how individual responsibility has she had begun divorce proceedings Susan Smith ever abusing her children, given way to theories of victimization against David because of his infidelities, not the situation in the majority of and system error. which, according to her best friend cases of female infanticide. Her crime Donna Greer, sent her into deep seems to have appeared full-blown out ragedy requires its main charac- depressions. Like Medea, Smith may of nowhere. "I guess she just wanted to ters to fall, but fall consciously— well have thought to herself... be with Findlay," Rebecca Smith, sister Tto take ultimate responsibility ot her estranged husband David, told for their and to come to some It was everything to me to think the Tribune. "He had money and he level of understanding about them- well of one man, didn't want to have kids around." selves and their motivations. Simpson And he, my own husband, has Had her two young sons come to and Smith fall far short. They are turned out wholly vile.... represent all that was male, all that was merely piteous, not tragic. A man, when he's tired of the com- powerful, all that stood in her way, all Simpson may have shared Othello's pany in his home, that she tried to please but never great rage and jealousy, suffered similar Goes out of the house and puts an could? Were they symbols of male social and racial slights, and held his end to his boredom... power, as Nicole Brown Simpson was view of women as property—Nicole of white power? was a "trophy wife." But in his pathet- According to the Chicago Tribune, Smith's Greek chorus, unlike Simp- ic, but non-prophetic, suicide note, secretaries in the office called Findlay a son's, offered no comfort or pity. There Simpson could only claim that "at "catch." Perhaps Smith saw him as her were no handwritten signs of support times, I have felt like a battered hus- ticket out of what she experienced as or T-shirts or 400 fan letters a day. After band or boyfriend, but I loved her," the draining monotony of a lower-class she was arrested, one Houston man and add a plaintive, "I've always tried existence. Without David and the hope told the Houston Post that she should to be up and helpful. So why is this of a new life with Findlay, she lost all be driven into a lake and drowned like happening?" Simpson has no center, sense of self. her children. And a woman from her no moorings and no moral compass. Who, if not herself, was she killing? town, a mother of two, was overheard He floats amorphously in a sea of self- By all reports she had been a good to suggest Smith be taken off suicide pity. "Please think of the real OJ. and watch so that nature could take its not this lost soul." course. Maybe it's because Simpson is a This splitting off of Simpson the celebrity who has fallen far from his Good from Simpson the (alleged) role-model status and Smith is a small- vengeful murderer is symptomatic of a town nobody who managed to manip- far deeper societal disassociation—the ulate a whole nation into aching for disconnection between cause and her and her plight. Maybe it's because effect, the rupture of action from con- Smith killed two innocent children and sequence. Whatever great passions may Simpson's target was his sensual ex- have driven the murders he is charged wife. Or maybe it's because, as Cheryl with is lost in a series of endless media McCarthy wrote in Ncwsday, "At a manipulations and legal maneuvers. time when marriage is crumbling, "Getting away with it" becomes the careers are being aborted in mid-life, ultimate achievement, and melodrama and priests are revealed to be child replaces what should have been molesters, the Mother Love Myth is all tragedy. we have," and Smith has shattered it, As for Susan Smith, whatever we just as Medea did. And that scares us. learn and eventually come to under- " don't like to admit it, but for stand about the motivations behind her many there have been times when they horrible crime, she will always remain felt like killing their children," ultimately mysterious and ultimately McCarthy noted. Or as Frank Rich alien. She, too, claims no conscious postulated in the NewYork Times, "We ownership of her deeds, although she feel the horror of Susan's crime not admits to them. This is not to say that because it's unimaginable but precisely it would be better if Susan Smith had because we can imagine it." truly mirrored Medea and deliberately But in the end, both Susan Smith set out to kill her boys. However, and OJ. Simpson have much less to Medea's crime does imply a distinct tell us about themselves than about choice. Smith is merely one more the world in which we now live, a voice in the chorus of "victim" crimi- world more profoundly removed from nals who fill our papers and our air- that of Euripides and Shakespeare than waves with their claims of being mere technology can tell. Their stories moved by forces beyond themselves. speak of how very far we have gone We are left once again with a rupture from holding our heroes and anti- of action from consequence. There's no heroes accountable for their acts, and catharsis, merely a tragedy by proxy. •

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 I the times: The "L" word that I

Mural with Memory DM13 QOOHTH A "Clinic Escort" t-shirt, a U.S. metric blocks of traditional pat- marshal's badge, and the white terns created by the ancestors ribbon worn by many mourn- of populations served by the ers were some of the items clinic: the Creek Nation, colo- incorporated in Choices: The nial Americans, African-Ameri- Pensacola Mural after input cans, and Southeast Asians. The from local residents. The 5-by- creation of the mural was spon- 20-foot mural created for the sored by the artists' nonprofit laboratory walls at the Ladies' community mural organization Flowers in Center in Pensacola, Florida, is Artmakers Inc., and the Clini- memory of meant to serve as both encour- cian Initiative of Planned Parent- Shannon agement to those in the com- hood of New York City. Lowney fill munity who refuse to be intimi- "One of the most disturbing the doorway dated and as a memorial for Dr. things we observed in Pensaco- of the |ohn Britton and clinic volun- la is how isolated people at the Planned teer James Barrett, who were clinic feel," says Shicoff. "But Parenthood murdered at the Ladies' Center after they saw all the names of clinic in in July, and Dr. David Cunn, the people who had given us Brookline, slain last March at another Pen- money [painted on the bottom Mass. sacola women's health facility. of the mural], they began to The mural, by artists Rochelle understand how much support Spontaneous Memorial Shicoff and Janet Braun-Reinitz, they have; that people are Only hours after the Brookline The actress Kathleen Turner features prominent portraits of interested and concerned." murders on December 30, peo- read a poem by Edna St. Vin- the slain men and vivid geo- —SUZANNE LEVINE ple began to leave flowers out- cent Millay at the memori- side both the Planned Parent- al service for Shannon. hood and Preterm clinics in Referring to those who die memory of receptionists Shan- untimely deaths, the non Lowney and Leanne poem concludes: "I do Nichols. When I visited the sites not approve and I am one evening a few days later, not resigned." How the bright glow of dozens of appropriate, I thought. candles illuminated scores of No, we must not be bouquets outside both loca- resigned to these mur- tions. Handwritten messages ders or any future expressed love and appre- attacks against those ciation for the work of the who serve women's murdered women and grief at needs. We must work having lost them. As I stood on to turn our grief and the sidewalk in front of the anger into strength by entrance to Preterm, several rededicating ourselves cars pulled up and women got to the struggle for out to pay their respects and women's reproductive leave still more flowers. freedom, and doing Whether friends of those killed all we can, actively and injured in the attacks or and militantly, to strangers, we shared a com- defend and protect mon sorrow and common our clinics. desire to honor them. —MARY LOU CREENBERC

I ">N THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 A Doctor from St. Paul the conference's final docu- The American Medical ment reflected the reality of Women's Associations (AMWA) women's lives. Bella is now presented its annual National "leading the charge" for the Reproductive Health Award to UN's Fourth World Conference lane Hodgson, MD, from St. on Women, to be held in Bei- Paul, Minnesota. In 1971, Dr. jing in September. Said )acqui Hodgson became Ceballos at the medical director medal of honor of the Preterm J* presentation: "Stir Clinic in Washing- ' up Bella and she ton, DC, one of stirs up the world." the first and most influential abor- And One of tion clinics in the Our Own! U.S. She has since ON THE ISSUES was founded several the winner of a abortion clinics in 1994 Community Minnesota and, at age 79, is Action Network Media award still providing to for the OTI dialogue, "Get women. Tough on Rape," with former rape prosecutors Liz Holtzman A Fighter from The Bronx and Alice Vachss (Summer , "the Bronx's gift 1994). The award cited the arti- to the nation, and now the cle for making the points "that world," was awarded the 1994 it is necessary to deal with Veteran Feminists of America men's attitudes toward Medal of Honor. The former and manhood, that most rape Female Mall congresswoman, now 74, was victims are terrified that they Italian Renaissance artist Elisa- By age 17, Sirani, a preco- the U.S. delegate to the recent will be victimized again by the betta Si rani's Virgin and Child cious talent, was professional- population conference, court system, that victims of (1663) was chosen as the offi- ly active and, after her father's where she helped organize the spousal abuse often feel (and cial 1994 Christmas stamp by illness, her family's main sup- daily women's caucus to ensure are told) that it is their fault, the U.S. Postal Service—the port. Although she lived only first to feature the historical 27 years, she produced at work of a woman artist. least 150 works, developing a Though little known today, dark, rich palette and Sirani was extraordinarily well excelling in "mezze figure," known during her lifetime. or half-length, portraits of religious and allegorical sub- jects. Streams of visitors jour- Flicker of Hope in neyed to Bologna to watch Former Yugoslavia the young artist at work on a A women-led private voluntary public commission for the organization has signed a three- city's main cemetery. Sirani year, $2.2 million cooperative attracted royal patrons, agreement with the U.S. Agency including the Grand Duke for International Development Cosimo III de'Medici, and to aid women's peace initiatives taught other . Bella Abzug (right) with OTI publisher Merle Hoffman (left) and in the Yugoslav successor states. When Sirani died under Phyllis Chester at the Veteran Feminists of America dinner. STAR—Strategies, Training and mysterious circumstances in and that the justice system Advocacy for Reconciliation—of her native city of Bologna, needs tougher laws about rape Delphi International, will help her death was elaborately and more sensitive prosecu- encourage women leaders in mourned with commissioned tors." Community Action Net- Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, funerary music, oratory, and work, founded by advertising and Macedonia who have a commemorative catafalque industry leaders, is a volunteer, emerged as new and coura- featuring a life-size effigy of nonprofit group dedicated to geous voices for peace and the artist. As a final gesture collecting and sharing practical development in the area. The of esteem, she was buried solutions to community social project grew out of a meeting next to Cuido Reni, one of the most influential Bolog- problems. ON THE ISSUES was early last year between women nese painters of the 1 7th one of 66 winners from a field leaders in the former Yugoslav century. —SL of over 2000 entries. republics and the U.S.

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995

KA i Bokat writes, "every woman should be free to make her own choices about and motherhood without being judged." How true, simple and Feedback straightforward, and refreshingly feminist this is. Send letters to the editor to: ON THE ISSUES, Choices Women's Medical Robin Skeil Center, Inc., 97-77 Queens Boulevard, Flushing, NY 11374-3317 St. Paul, MN ELDERS' RESIGNATION DAVIDIANS DEFENDED nists should be joking about. Your Next Door Neighbor Is the he firing of Joycelyn El- was shocked by your short Carol Moore Next Waco Wacko," by Carol ders leaves me with a feature "How to Tell if Your Washington, DC Vinzant, or Ronni Sandroffs edi- Tcold lump of fear in the INext-Door Neighbor Is the torial on the FBI presence at pit of my stomach. It is one Next Waco Wacko" (Winter THE HILLARY THREAT Choices Women's Medical Cen- more indication that this admin- 1995). It attacked David Koresh f the White middle-aged ter in the Winter 1995 issue. istration is no different from the solely on religious and lifestyle male is threatened by Hillary Having recently completed a 10- ones it purported to replace. Bill grounds, ignoring possible con-IRodham Clinton, so be it. If week training course to be a vol- Clinton is selling out on women cerns to feminists. And it over- you are threatened by her, then unteer at the local women's and children. looked the awful reality. shame on you. shelter, I realize that the immedi- Elders spoke up for sex edu- On February 28, 1993, when Virginia B. McKinney ate reaction that most women cation in the schools and talked Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Bremerton, WA have to the violence and terror openly about masturbation as a Firearms (BATF) agents in Na- that surrounds them is to "lock healthy alternative to inter- tional Guard helicopters zoomed here must have been the abusive men up and throw course for teens and at-risk in on the Branch Davidians' some kind of electronic away the key." adults. The President himself church and home, they did so Tglitz in cyberspace! How Relying on the legal system of may agree with this point of with guns blazing, like Ameri- did Rush Limbaugh "take over" the most brutal country in the view, but his cowardly position cans raiding a Vietnam village. Elayne Rapping's column in the world to protect us from male dictates that he denounce this Davidians claim such firing killed Winter 1995 issue? I started out violence doesn't make sense. fine brave woman because "she three unarmed people. reading about Susan Cheever's What makes anyone think that is a flashpoint for conservative BATF—and FBI agents who New York Times review of the the government will support, attack" against his administra- took over for them—knew that autobiography of Norma Mc- protect, and defend the right of tion. Mount Carmel's roofs and walls Corvey. I thought Elayne Rap- women to control their own I believe that without women contained evidence of the illegal ping's anger was directed at bodies? in power our country has little helicopter attack. If it was left Susan Cheever. Suddenly, like a Although the fight for abor- chance of surviving very far into standing, the Davidians proba- bad connection on a mobile tion rights is an essential one, the twenty-first century, for the bly would be acquitted of mur- phone, a lot of garbled stuff while we are fighting for control bastion of white male suprema- der of federal agents by a sym- spewed forth about "hair," of our reproductive systems, we cist chauvinists will ultimately pathetic jury—in fact, those who "womanizing," and "sordid fi- are losing more control over our destroy us all. survived were acquitted of mur- nancial and moral wheelings working conditions, over our Karin E. Weiss der! Moreover, BATF agents and dealings." I immediately children's futures, and over our Annandale, MN could face prosecution and im- recognized this as possible Lim- too short lives. We must remem- baugh material. Then this prisonment for negligent or in- ber that no matter on what issue CANCER-PREVENTING PILL tentional homicide in the deaths bizarre transmission continued we choose to make our stand, our article on ovarian of the unarmed Davidians. with "[Hillary] even could have we are ultimately fighting for cancer (Fall 1994) over- Therefore, it is likely that FBI chosen to take another inde- freedom for all people. looks one important agents in Waco deliberately sab- pendent position in Washing- Y Diana Balot Frank issue. Oral contraceptive pills otaged negotiations with the ton... and been in a position to Allentown, PA (" pills") have been Davidians to prevent their exit- really fight for something shown over and over again to ing Mount Carmel. worthwhile; something that RELAXED CHILDBIRTH protect against ovarian cancer. would help women and chil- Unfortunately, religious big- found "Natural Childbirth: Women who use birth control dren...." Yeah! Like healthcare! otry has prevented millions of From Option to Orthodoxy" pills for even a few years have a Damn, just like that Hillary not people from recognizing that (Winter 1995) by Nicole to think of that!! I substantial reduction in ovarian what we saw in Waco was the Bokat to be a truly excellent, if (and also in endometrial) can- greatest massacre of civilians on Jan W. Evans long overdue, article. Over the cer, and women who use pills American soil since the 1890 Cincinnati, OH past few years I've indeed had for over five years have less than massacre of 200 native Ameri- friends complain to me about half as much ovarian cancer as cans at Wounded Knee. Of the BEYOND ABORTION pressure being exerted upon women who never use the pill 82 people massacred by the FBI, was not surprised to read them to forgo anesthetics dur- at all. 61 were women and children. "Busting Mr. Short Eyes," by ing labor and childbirth as "it's Bruce Ferguson, MD This is not something that femi- , "How to Tell if I better for the baby." Albuquerque, NM •

8 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 COLUMNIST and "crimes," while some—you know who—get off scot-free through the hidden loopholes that the lawmakers, still mostly pale and male and rich, provide for their own. It's hard to see this, though, through the medi- ated versions of justice most of us grow up on. In the past, the courts themselves were largely inaccessible to the public. And movies, TV dra- mas, and heavily edited and sound-bitten news ELAYNE RAPPING reports, served only to bolster and glorify the myth of gender- ( and race- and class-) neutral justice by making it seem that each individual woman's fate merely reflects her essentially Raw Law: '"good" or "bad" nature and, therefore, must be "just" and "fair." Just think about the images of gender justice WATCHING we've been raised on. In the courtrooms where Perry Mason and Ben Matlock worked their miracles, women were mostly seen in one of two roles. There was the sweet young thing, falsely COURT TV accused, who came quivering and desperate to the Great Man who alone among men could solve the unsolvable and finger—in the last dra- matic moments—the real culprit, sleazy and "With liberty and justice for all," they told us in shifty-eyed, sitting hunched in the back row of the courtroom. And there was the bitch-villain- school. But oh boy, I've often thought, who do you ess, heartless and brilliantly manipulative, who finally crumbled into confession under the steely have to pay off, or sleep with, to get some of it? As questioning of Our Hero. Until recently, the movies mostly favored the a woman, I've been denied services I had a right to; second version—remember Marlene Dietrich in Witness for the Prosecution? But since feminism has charged for things I didn't want or need, subjected sent so many of us into the legal profession as players, they've had to create a new stereotype. to "treatments" that could have killed me; kept Glenn Close in Jagged Edge was the perfect pro- out of places I deserved to get into; and pushed totype for future heroines of the courtroom into places I had to fight my way out of. When I drama genre. In that clever film she played a could afford to pay a lawyer for "justice," more high-powered, successful legal eagle who fell in often than not, I have been told there was noth- love with her sociopathic wife-murder- ing I could do. Haven't you? Haven'i client and nearly lost her case, your friends? Haven't we all? her mind, and her life because of Although you'd never know it him. The theme of the "Girl from the textbooks, news reports, Lawyer Not Quite Good movies, or TV dramas, American Enough to Make It in the Man's justice is not the lovely blindfolded World After All" has since been lady who holds the scales of justice done to death, with a raft of so fairly and objectively in her mar- classy actresses—most recently bled white hands. As most Cher, Barbara Hershey, and women—and people of color and Rebecca De Mornay—in the the poor—find out sooner or later, lead role. In each case, of course, the legal system has a set of built-in there is a proverbial Good Man biases which were put in place by (where was he when I was look- ing for legal help?) who sees what the Founding Fathers, and mostly] the love-blind heroine can't and kept there by subsequent genera- saves her. Lately, with the debut tions of legislators. And these biases of the TV series Sweet Justice, the tend to stack the deck so that some model has been transferred, quite of us—most certainly women—are smoothly, to the small screen, with judged more harshly for our "'sins' Melissa Gilbert playing the smart but vulnerable attorney who falls prey Court TV fans know exactly why the to one villain after another. "Well," say jury awarded legal secretary Rena Weeks the media, "who told you to get into $7 million in a case.

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 this man's game anyway?" sensational elements of a trial for full smugly prejudiced press. And then there's the news industry, coverage, returning to regular pro- But what the jurors—and Court TV supposedly "factual" in its reporting of gramming when the drier, but usually watchers—heard and saw was very dif- women and the law. But when you more important and informative ses- ferent from what the rest of the media look closely, this "objective" informa- sions take place, Court TV just reported: an intelligent and impas- tion source is as filled with stereotypes sioned argument, by two powerful and cliches as the entertainment forms. keeps chugging along, female attorneys. Their arguments— Most of the recent well-publicized tri- which dramatically turned the pro- als involving women and/or family and through dry and juicy ceedings around—were based on the gender issues—the Rachel Kingsley days, carefully and feminist-inspired "battered woman" child divorce case, the Aileen Wuornos defense that freed Francine Hughes, serial killer case, the William Kennedy patiently explaining it all the long-abused wife who set her hus- Smith rape trial, the Menendez broth- band's bed on fire. Of course, lots of ers parricide case, and the Amy Fisher to viewers — assumed to jurors and viewers and legal experts attempted murder case—were so sav- have brains as well as didn't buy it. This business of domestic agely edited, framed, sound-bitten and violence as a crime, after all, is hotly (mis)interpreted by the network pro- emotions-—• so that things that contested territory, a frontal attack on ducers and their legal "experts" that it may seem boring are seen, quite often, the sanctity and stability of the patriar- was impossible to glean the hidden to make all the difference. chal family and its power structure. But gender and family assumptions that When Court TV chooses a case, it a lot of people did buy it, thanks to worked, in every case, to render real shows everything the law allows. And Court TV. And those who only justice nearly impossible. it offers a surprisingly diverse range of watched Nightline, CNN and Hard How do I know this? Because I legal commentators who not only Copy, and think we all must be crazy watch Court TV, a godsend for those explain the law but also, indirectly and or stupid, only know their side of it. who want to actually understand how often explicitly, reveal its biases. In the But it's not just information and the legal system works, and a friend to Smith case, for example, we saw inter- political context that Court TV offers. women and other misused and mis- views with experts on date rape who Quite often it presents dramatic and treated souls everywhere. My first were excluded from testifying and got inspiring documentation of political encounter with this low-rent "narrow- to hear their outraged stories of how cases in which women, gays, minorities, cast" network was during the William date rape victims are treated by the and children have been horribly vic- Kennedy Smith trial, in which a young courts. We also got commentary from timized and, in seeking and sometimes woman charged the Kennedy heir with •women lawyers about the rationale for even winning justice, empower us all. It date rape. I quickly gave up on the such exclusions and the historic strug- has given detailed, graphic narratives of New York Times reports, which were gles—some won, some lost—by femi- women like Rena Weeks, the legal sec- unusually and overtly nasty and sexist. nist attorneys to fight such bias. retary who sued her bigshot boss for The businesslike female prosecutor was Many other cases reported in highly sexual harassment and won $7 million. described as stereotypically "shrill," biased terms by most media—the Of men like John Doe, fired from his "cold," and too sexually "naive" and Rachel Kingsley "divorce" case and corporate law firm when he contracted inexperienced to understand seduc- the Aileen Wuornos serial murder case, the HIV virus, who also sued and won. tresses like the plaintiff. The plaintiff for example—were similarly presented Of women like Hedda Nussbaum, herself, the designated "Bad Girl," was on Court TV in ways which revealed appearing whole and feisty after years treated even more harshly. Among the hidden gender biases. Both women of physical and emotional mutilation, many sins which, to the Times, cast were poor, abused, desperate and— to sue her ex-"lover," Joel Steinberg. doubt on her credibility, were her when allowed to speak for themselves, Of women like Vernell Louder, poor, friendship with a bartender, her occa- or through their attorneys—far from black, and undereducated, who was sional attendance at late-night clubs the degenerate, imbecilic miscreants tragically misdiagnosed as HIV-positive and—gasp!—her habit of buying lin- the rest of the country met. by her medical clinic and also sued and gerie at Victoria's Secret. Then I tried Most fascinating, perhaps, was the won. To watch such trials play them- CNN, which was no better. Their trial of the Menendez brothers, two selves out is quite often to witness "expert" commentator, well-known wealthy young men who admittedly heroic role models, in dignified, deter- attorney F. Lee Bailey, was an old white killed their parents after, they alleged, mined struggles against powerful white male whose own sexist biases were as years of physical, sexual, and mental bad as the Times'. Nor did the clips male opponents for the kind of justice abuse by their powerful, successful we are all guaranteed, but few of us— chosen for primetime emphasis on father. Limited only to sound bites and CNN—the passing around of the for an endless list of reasons and causes commentaries from the traditional which only Court TV ever manages to alleged victim's underwear and "size media, one could easily have been 10, $100 Ann Taylor black shift" was reveal—ever get. misled into thinking that the 24 mem- Of course Court TV is not perfect. typical—help my blood pressure or add bers of the two hung juries, who to my legal knowledge. It is, after all, television, commercial could not agree to a guilty verdict in television. Thus, its view of reality, But Court TV is different. First of either case, were either feeble-minded while far more thorough and progres- or terminally manipulable, so demo- all, the gavel-to-gavel coverage really is. sive than the rest of the media, is still nized were the defendants by the Where CNN chooses only the most mediated, still slanted (continued on page 59)

10 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 COLUMNIST In the early 1970s, another professor arrived to rate my college's curriculum for a national review board. I admit it, I did it again, I accepted his invitation to a dinner party with Very Famous White Male Intellectuals and their wives. (My equally ambitious heterosexual male counterparts also accepted dinner invitations, without having to face sexual harassment at the hands of their heterosexual mentors). However, I had the PHYLLIS CHESLER audacity not to be impressed by the company this professor kept, and to reject his every subse- quent social and sexual advance. He retaliated. He arranged for a scathing review of Women and Rape Madness to be published in Partisan Review. He got a woman to write it—a woman who, years later, apologized to me about it. in High Places These two professors did not see me as their heir, as a future member of their team; nor were they overcome with love for me. They treated me as they did because I was a woman. It was nothing personal. This is ike most women, I've been what makes it poignant, utterly heartbreaking—the sexually harassed by my inexorable lead-weight impersonality of prejudice. professors, employers, boy- These professors were friends, and husbands— not unusual. Back then and by utter strangers on (not now, heaven forbid, street corners too. Like not now), most men others of my generation, I viewed women as pussy: was bred to accept and wife-pussy, girlfriend- enjoy it; above all, to keep pussy, whore-pussy. This quiet about it, forget it, harassment and lack of and to blame myself if mentoring didn't stop something about these me—here I am—but it peculiar arrangements certainly didn't help me. bothered me. For years, in And, over a lifetime, it isolation, I did so, until mounts up, it mounts up. Sexual harassment and movement in the late six- Justice dawns—albeit slowly—at ties allowed me to analyze the . In December 1994 rape was so common, so my fate in feminist terms. the world group settled a 1988 sexual pervasive, so accepted, that I think it's crucial for us harassment suit in favor of staff it was virtually invisible. to know what each of us member Catherine Claxton, who sued The shame, the stench, has faced—simply because Luis Maria Gomez, a high-ranking stuck to the victim or to U.N. official from Argentina, we're women; what's been the whistle-blower. The done, routinely, to destroy for assaulting her in his office. Gomez resigned as a result of the charges. victimizer never experi- our capacity to hope, and enced the consequences of to resist. his actions, he was never named, and when he Like most women, I've always had to fend off was, all ranks closed to protect him and to destroy 'unwanted advances.' One pays a price for doing his accuser. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Great so. As every woman knows, hell hath no fury like Men (and Token Women) of the Academy neither a man spurned. Two examples, among thousands: named nor studied sexual violence; ultimately, In the late 1960s, after dinner, the head of a their contribution would be to characterize the department at a prestigious medical school tried 1970s grassroots feminist claims as exaggerated to rape me. I was a graduate student and we'd and unscientific, as proof of man-hating, unworthy met, at his suggestion (I'm guilty, I confess, 1 of further discussion. Or funding. went, I ate), to discuss how he could assist me in In 1978, Lin Farley published the first full- getting my research funded. In the decidedly length book on the subject: Sexual Shakedown: non-amorous scuffle that ensued, I broke his ribs, The Sexual Harassment of Women on the Job. and although I helped him to a nearby hospital Women launched lawsuits, and feminist media (only women actually do things like this), this published their first stories on the subject. How- professor never did mentor my research. ever, in my view, despite some noteworthy

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 11 exceptions, the most often quoted had been hired by the Shah's sister, "I'm ready, let's go," said the third and (white) feminists still had a hard time Princess Ashraf, as one of her chief youngest woman Nicol had harassed. acknowledging their own powerless- advisors on a Women's Institute: "I had A Portuguese diplomat was at the ness, their own complicity, in the face no money, I couldn't get them to give meeting, counting her rosary beads of male sexual violence, both on and me a salary check, I was actually starv- rather frantically. "I always knew some- off the job. Or in their own backyards. ing. And then, this. I was so ashamed!" thing like this could happen." In 1979-1980, I was hired by the At the time this woman was the high- "The man's disgusting," said a United Nations to coordinate an inter- est ranking international feminist civil woman from South Africa. "Let's go national feminist conference that I'd servant, at least whom I knew. talk to him." "pitched" to them. Shortly after I "They've raped our Foreign Minister," "Okay," said a woman from Zambia. signed my employment contract, my I said, "and we have no army to "But it's so upsetting." employer, Dr. Davidson Nicol, under- avenge you!" Two of the white radical (and les- secretary-general of the United bian) feminists whom I'd invited took Nations and the executive director of hat was unique, at least to the following approach: With passion, the UN Institute for Training and me, was the way in which and in tears, A. begged me/us not to Research (UNITAR), raped me. Yes Wmy own feminist comrades confront Nicol. "If (white) feminists (there I go again), I'd had dinner a few behaved when I tried to confront my were to accuse a black man of rape, it times with him too, to discuss my pro- rapist. In July 1980, in Oslo, Norway, would expose our movement as a racist posal, but that didn't mean I wanted to Nicol, who was intoxicated most of the movement." White feminists were fuck him/have an affair/be raped. time, began sexually harassing women racists; A.'s concern was, perhaps, with I absolutely refused to quit. UNI- at the conference, myself included. public exposure. The black African TAR was paying me a great deal of "Phyllis, come be with me. You've women were ready to confront Nicol. money to do something I passionately made me wait long enough. You've got (Nicol, by the way, blocked my every wanted to do; I was a single mother, your conference. I need you. I want move to subsidize and/or invite more and I needed the money desperately. you. I will have you." than one African-American woman to ("Famous" women still have to work, I called a midnight meeting, revealed Oslo; he wanted white blondes, he paid fame doesn't equal wealth; this can't be that Nicol had just sexually harassed for them, and he got them.) said too often). I wanted to shepherd three women at the conference, and B., the second white feminist, and an this first-of-its-kind conference, and me, and that he'd sexually harassed me internationally well-known feminist my idea, into being. I'd be damned if before, in New York, where he'd raped too, was equally persuasive; she I'd let a rapist force me off the field of me to smoothly managed to delay our con- battle, interfere with my feminist ° I cried "rape" as fronting Nicol. "Let's handle this back dreams. soon as I could, when I in New York, let's not destroy this con- No, I didn't "cry rape," at least, not ference, the rape happened on Ameri- out loud. I immediately told some thought I'd be heard and can soil, maybe Phyllis can pursue it trusted friends and my UN assistants better there." what Nicol had done—and why I was get some kind of justice. Back in New York, to my amaze- staying on anyway. My friends were "Maybe I was wrong not ment, B. ended up collaborating with outraged, and compassionate. Neither Nicol. B. wrote the foreword to the they nor I could "do" anything about to quit right away/' i admit- conference proceedings in my place, it. As a diplomat from Sierra Leone, ted. "This conference has my blood all and the UN published it as a book in and a UN official, Nicol had immuni- over it. I'm ready to confront him. Are 1983, without a single line from me. ty—and I had a conference to create. you? A private confrontation is the Yes, I had been asked to write the fore- After Nicol raped me, I made sure I only justice I'll ever get. Nicol has word; I said I would. Nicol wrote, and was never alone with him again. Of diplomatic immunity. I don't think I'll called, several times, to say that the course, Nicol kept harassing me, but I get anywhere trying to sue him book was "once more a little delayed, paid one of my female assistants out of through the UN, or through the D.A.'s no hurry with that foreword of yours." my own pocket to accompany me at office in New York, or in his home My feminist "sister," B., also went on all times. I evaded Nicol's every country, where he tells me he's a prince to solicit many of the women I'd advance. He retaliated, packed my of his tribe." At least ten women were found, and invited to Oslo, as contribu- steering committee with every anti- listening intently. tors to her own international feminist feminist, anti-western, anti-white, anti- One Nicol-harassed feminist said she (!) anthology. American, anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist, couldn't afford to jeopardize her con- When I first saw B.'s foreword, I said UN female employee he could find, nection to the UN. "Anyway, that's I'd sue both B., Nicol, and the UN. and there were many to choose from. I how men are. I guess I feel flattered Ironically, B. had been sued in the early endured. My conference endured too. that men still find me attractive, even at 1970s by another feminist, allegedly for What was happening to me was not my age.'' Another of Nicol's victims plagiarism; too late, B. had asked me (!) unique. In the mid-1970s, I was hav- was terrified, but willing to confront to intercede on her behalf. This time, ing dinner with an Australian-born him. "This has brought back memories in pain, in rage, I was confronting my diplomat when, suddenly, she began to of my rape when I was four years old. I formerly beloved comrade. I did not weep. She told me she'd been raped by don't know if I have the strength to do understand why she'd done this and I an Iranian diplomat in Teheran. She this. I'll try though," she bravely said. wanted to. I pro- (continued on page 57)

12 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 EYEWITNESS REPORT

One -week after Aristide's return to Haiti, ON THE ISSUES sent journalist Laura Flanders to Port-au-Prince to hear Haitian women testify against military rapists. Her special report is moving, inspiring, and, surprisingly, full of joy.

THE WOMAN IN THE TIGHT, red kerchief opens her eyes wide and spreads her palms across the kneecaps of the women sitting by her side. "Since the Thursday before the arrival, I didn't sleep," she says. In the days after the restoration of ousted president Jean Bertrand Aristide, Haitians talk of "the arrival" like the Second Coming: no need to clarify who has arrived. "I didn't expect to eat better or be healthier suddenly, BY LAURA but he'd be back," the kerchiefed woman explains. "It's like my dead brother, or my dead father or a whole deaci generation returning." FLANDERS Another woman describes the arrival of president Aristide as a birthing: "As I watched TV and waited, I put a belt around my stomach to stop my Wearing a photo of Jean insides coming out. It felt like labor." Bertrand Aristide around The women are speaking with U.S. visitors in a bright yellow-tiled her neck, a Haitian woman gives testimony to U.S. room in northern Port-au-Prince. Brought together by one ot Haiti's women from MADRE. largest women's groups, Solidante Fanm Ayisyen (SOFA), they are talking

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 13 my neart ' stopped • ' and I was ••• /; &* \ afraid that ?M r CarLc something 0 ttlfrti -Jt&«**'c&8&I* would happen to

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JL Murals like the one above appeared on the walls in Port-au-Prince, in triumphant rebuttal of a coup official's comment that Aristide could no more return to Haiti than a laid egg could be put back inside a chicken. about the future for but you can't scare me because my husband is coming." women in wake of The impossible has happened in Haiti: President Hie arrival. Their Aristide has come home. And like the tiny, wrinkled Bvisitors, myself in- photos of the ousted president that people here have cluded, are here somehow perilously preserved, the dream of justice I with MADRE, a that successive military regimes have tried to eradicate | 20,000-strong U.S. is back and, miraculously, alive. women's group "Our first goal is to bring the men who attacked us that has been to trial," said one of the raped women. "The next is sending aid to to make sure it never happens again." SOFA for the SOFA was founded eight years ago. At their last 1£? past 12 months. public meeting, they estimate that 3,000 women from MADRE's mis- all over Haiti were represented. Since the coup, they've sion is to gath r information for their had to work more discreetly, but they've worked. I continued collaboration. Together for the first time SOFA members in Port-au-Prince help market ven- since the end of military rule, they talk about human dors establish credit collectives. In the countryside, the duty. . . rights, the U.S. intervention, poverty, politics, and rape. group tries to offer health care and literacy and politi- The Haitians are old and young, from fifteen years cal education sessions in the of people's houses, He pulled of age to over sixty; political activists and friends of out of sight. For MADRE, the stories of women activists, market traders, domestic workers, peasants, working in repressive circumstances are familiar. For out his professionals, daughters, wives; they are fifty of the eleven years, MADRE has been sharing skills and hundreds of women who were raped by anti-Aristide expertise, as well as aid, with women in Nicaragua and gun and terrorists in the last months of their country's most and throughout Central America, the Mid- recent military regime. It wouldn't be unreasonable to dle East, the former Yugoslavia, and the Caribbean. measure the success of the U.S. intervention by the shot it MADRE's Vivian Stromberg never believed the extent to which these women's abusers are brought to U.S. media's message that popular organizations, espe- justice. But right now, the woman in the kerchief and up... One cially the women's organizations, in Haiti had been her friends are celebrating. destroyed. "We've found sister organizations in every of them A young market trader in a blue-check dress country that we've been in, and Haiti is no excep- describes taunting an anti-Aristide thug who lives in tion," she says. "Part of our work is to correct the said, her neighborhood on the day of the president's return. message that there's nothing that U.S. people can do." She dug out of hiding all the photographs of Aristide Among the gifts the MADRE women brought "I'm not never found by the Macoutes [a generic term for the were 2,000 long-embargoed latex condoms. To every- agents of the dictators]. "I was surprised I was still one's relaxed amusement, several of the SOFA women leaving alive," she said. "But now I told him: You can kill me and Vicki Alexander, M.D. (the health director of New

here xgry, ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 with this SUBSCRIBE NOW AND SAVE JSSUETHE PROGRESSIVE WOMAN'S QUARTERLSY A strong feminist voice that's reasoned, literate, highly readable, and tackles topics of concern to women. Here is top-notch journalism with eye-opening reports and a keen analysis of what's really going on in America and throughout the world. Please enter my subscription for the number of issues indicated below: IJ 1 year (4 issues) only $11.75 Name (please print) (save 26% off cover price) (if applicable) • 2 years (8 issues) only $22.00 Institution (save 30% off cover price) Address Apt# Payment enclosed Bill

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III...I...11..I...II..I..11.1..I..I...II.I...I,..III York's Community Council and a old niece, a guest, who scrambled out a window when the MADRE board member), demonstrated how to roll a con- gang arrived. The young woman's body turned up three dom onto a phallic plantain. Then Alexander noted soberly, weeks later in a common dumping ground. Geraldine's hus- "The death squads are deadly; AIDS is just as deadly." The band has been disabled ever since that night. The beating he women from MADRJE offered medical examinations, taught received caused permanent damage to his kidneys. But group massage and shared messages of encouragement from Geraldine is talking about the need for justice. So is the women's groups in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Palestine. woman in the red kerchief, and the woman in the blue- "Obviously the perfect thing would be for there to be check dress. Along with the other women of SOFA, the peace in Haiti without a foreign army on its soil," says women in the rape group are clear that individual empower- Stromberg, who was last in Haiti in April 1994. "Equally ment needs to be followed by social change. obvious, there's more peace in Haiti now than there was "We feel better, but we're not actually better off," one before. The question is, what happens next?" woman said. "Aristide is a leader and an inspiration," says Yes, there is more peace. The last time I was in Haiti was another. "But he cannot be everywhere. We need to be our in early 1993. Then, the streets were hushed and atypically own Aristides." empty. From my bed, I could hear shooting. Twice in a week the morning revealed dead bodies in the hotel drive. Achieving Justice On this trip, things are different. Just one week to the day ^ ne of the priorities for the women in the room after Aristide flew into Port-au-Prince, the streets of the capi- \ is bringing their abusers to trial. Another is tal are teeming with recent returnees. Beneath almost every I changing Haitian law. At present, explained tree, skinny street vendors hawk fruit, fish, shoe leather, or • Evelyn, a third-year law school student and sugar cane. Exiles from the city are gradually reappearing, ' one of SOFA's coordinators, "We have no and after dark, where recently there were only gunshots and structure for justice for rape." By current law, the their results, now there are young people laughing and bent- punishment for rape is compensation: Offenders are over women walking slowly hand in hand. usually required to pay a fine. An alternative is an offer of There's a sense of the extraordinary having happened, aemarriage to their victims. "Rape is still treated as an honor sort of suspension of disbelief. But as the days pass, reality crime," said Evelyn. re-emerges. In a reference to a coup official's comment that In the wake of recent history, it was hoped that Haitian the ousted president could no more return to Haiti than a offenders could be tried under an international code. A few laid egg could be put back inside a chicken, the city walls years ago the world's attention was drawn to Bosnia, where have paintings of large eggs being inserted into chickens; horrific tales of systematic rape inspired some women sometimes the hand doing the inserting is covered with stars (including MADRE) to call for war crimes tribunals. At that and stripes. It's not an image many women would have time, the commander of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karad- come up with, but it's a statement about the restoration. jic, was charged with international offenses including mass Everyone knows the egg can't go back into the chicken, but rape because, it was argued, the crimes were committed people are clear there's been a miracle. under his authority and with his implicit consent. More In his first public address, delivered from behind a three- recently, Korean so-called comfort women won compensa- inch-thick bullet-proof shield on the steps of the presidential tion from the Japanese government, whom they charged palace, Aristide called the women of Haiti "real women," with responsibility for the mass rape and and "queens." "Given all the tribulations of life," said Aris- of Korean women during World War II. tide, "the women of Haiti are always there." The crowd— Nancy Kelly, part of the MADRE delegation, is a lawyer those crushed against the palace gates to hear, and those with the Immigration and Refugee program at Harvard Law watching on TVs dragged into dusty neighborhood streets— School. "If we can get an international body to recognize sent up a cheer. One of those cheering was a powerful, rape as an act of torture, that could change things for dark-skinned woman in a brilliant blue shiny dress who women all over the world." So far, there has been no action attended our meeting. In her enthusiasm, she says, she in the Bosnian case. In the case of Haiti, a new initiative has picked up a neighbor and twirled her in the air. "When I been launched. heard Aristide talk about the Haitian women, I felt huge In May 1994 MADRE held a high-level press conference inside. I said to myself, yes, we are the Haitian women. We in Washington, D.C. to draw attention to the campaign of are beautiful and we are strong." violence being waged against Haitian women. Susan Taylor The woman in blue, we'll call her Geraldine, also knows of Essence magazine, Bianca Jagger, Marie St. Cyr, the direc- about tribulation. Early in the morning of February 4, 1994, tor of New York's Iris House, Ninaj Raoul of the Brooklyn- when she was sleeping with her husband, seven men based Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, and others knocked on the door. Two of the raiders appeared to be spoke out forcefully about the needs of Haitian women. civilians, but three were dressed in army uniform, and two On September 26, a formal "Country Conditions Com- more wore the blue outfits of the Haitian police. In front of plaint" about Haiti was presented to the Inter-American her husband and four of her kids, the soldiers raped her and Commission of Human Rights of the Organization of Amer- then raped her daughters. "They put guns to their ears and ican States (OAS) by MADRE, the International Women's forced them to lie down...." Among the weapons the men Human Rights Law Clinic at the City University of New were carrying, she remembers an Israeli Uzi, several U.S. York Law School, the Haitian Women's Advocacy Network, AK47 rifles and some 45's. "My tongue was filling up my the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Immigration mouth. I was spitting blood, mute." and Refugee Program at Harvard Law School, among others. Geraldine is not mute now. She talks about her 31-year- "What we found, compiling the research of very many

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 15 young lady. I'm not leav- groups," said Nancy Kelly, "is a consistent pattern of explained. "We're just here to keep the peace, not to abuse by members of the Haitian military, the police get involved. Unless we see someone committing a ing here and armed auxiliaries." Women of all sorts were tar- crime in front of us, or doing something to threaten geted "because they were politically involved them- U.S. security, we've been told to leave them alone." dry." I selves, or because members of their family were, or When women from MADRE and SOFA were because they were working with women, sustaining lunching in a restaurant in Petionville, the wealthy dis- said, civilian life. Others were attacked simply because they trict of Port-Au-Prince, we witnessed a crowd grow- were women." ing in front of a nearby police station. An American . . . "Don'tBetween February and July of 1994, UN-OAS military police lieutenant, sitting patiently in the cab human rights monitors reported 77 cases of rape, 55 of of a dusty armored transport vehicle, explained that tie me which involved female activists or close relatives of his unit was choosing policemen who were considered male activists. Some women's organizations in Haiti eligible for retraining. Under the U.S. plan, the cur- reported counting as many as 18 rapes in a single day. rent Haitian army, which includes the police, is to be up. Don ' tThe OAS complaint contains the testimony of over replaced by an armed force of about 1,500 and a 100 women, some of whom were forced to witness police corps of 7,000 to 10,000. But many men will force me the rape or murder of their children before being be the same. A new academy has been established for raped themselves. In one case, a fifteen-year-old boy retraining the "old" police, "professionalizing" them to sleep was forced to rape his mother. through the U.S. International Criminal Investigations A favorable decision at the OAS regarding rape in Training Assistance Program (a project funded by the with the case of Haiti could have tremendous repercussions FBI). The "new" police will then be returned to their in the legal world. Unfortunately for the women of old neighborhoods. you. " ... Haiti, it seems unlikely the OAS will consider the case How many of the Petionville police had been anytime soon. selected for retraining? "Them all," according to the One after But there are, as we go to press, approximately lieutenant. "It will be easy enough to re-integrate the 20,000 U.S. troops in Haiti. It wasn't totally unrealistic rest," he said. "I've seen them walking in their neigh- the other for some women to expect that the armed forces borhoods, smiling and shaking hands with people. I would be used to apprehend abusers. After all, Presi- don't think there'll be any trouble." they each dent Clinton did emphasize rape when he addressed The SOFA women were not as surprised by this as the public in a televised speech intended to convince their friends from MADRE. On the day of Aristide's said as Americans of the need for U.S. military action, after return, a young boy spotted the thug who had forced months in which his administration downplayed him to rape his mother and, with the help of a crowd, they fin- human rights reports. turned the accused man over to U.S. troops, SOFA's "Haiti's dictators, led by General Raoul Cedras, Anne Marie Coriolon remembered. There is no guar- control the most violent regime in our hemisphere," antee that man will be held. "If he's released, then ished, "I declared the president. "International observers dis- what?" asks Coriolon. "That little boy's life is in dan- covered a terrifying pattern of soldiers and policemen ger." So far, none of the women in the rape support got raping the wives and daughters of suspected political group coordinated by SOFA has dared come forward dissidents." to identify their assailants to the U.S. troops. mine. ' Another option is to hold the leaders of the anti- The "New" Old Police Aristide regime accountable for the actions of their . . .1 ut a month after U.S. troops descended men. According to the women who met with on Haiti, the women of SOFA see no MADRE, most of the assailants came masked, but the swear if evidence that the young GIs are intent on thugs usually wore recognizable uniforms, or they bringing murderers and rapists to trial. announced they were with the Front for Haitian it wasn't When the troops first arrived, "the peo- Progress and Advancement (FRAPH), a right-wing ple were very brave and the Macoutes paramilitary group. "They wanted us to know who for my were running scared," explained Anne they were," one woman explained. "That was part of Marie Coriolon, one of SOFA's directors. the point." children, "Gradually though, there's been a change. But the likelihood of any of the paramilitary leaders People are beginning to realize that the being brought to trial in connection with the rapes is that day Macoutes still have arms and they're not about slim. On October 5, the U.S. forces organized a press to be disbanded." conference for FRAPH's leader, Emmanual Constant. this hap- "The people turn criminals over to the U.S. troops, "They gave him the sound system, brought him in a and then we see them back on the streets in three days U.S. vehicle, protected him while he spoke and drove pened to or less," said another woman. "We were told the U.S. him away at the end," said Coriolon. A reporter from troops were here to disarm the criminals, but that's not Haiti Info, a Port-au-Prince-based newsletter, asked me I what's going on." U.S. embassy spokesman Stanley Schrager how he (and Spokespeople for the U.S. armed forces acknowl- Clinton) could call FRAPH "terrorist" and "anti- would edge holding only between 30 and 40 men in deten- democratic" one day and protect their leader the next? tion during the period immediately following the "Life's bizarre...things change all the time," said have Aristide restoration. "It's not our responsibility to Schrager, explaining that the U.S. now considers judge who's guilty," one young GI from California FRAPH a legitimate political party. The October 24

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 myself. Among those who spoke out: a 15-year-old girl (right), accompanied by her mother. Lawyer Nancy Kelly (above, with ponytail), recorded testimony for the MADRE delegation. issue of Ttie Nation was more enlightening: It revealed that the CIA had been instru- mental in setting up the paramilitary grou and that Constant was on their payroll at the time of the coup. Business As Usual? As the news crews started leaving Haiti, businessmen began arriving. At the air- port on October 21, an English engineer was heard explaining to a customs offi- cial that his company had plans for him to stay six months. "Haiti's open for business," announced the Miami Herald less than a month after October 15. Haitian commerce minister Louis Dejoie assured U.S. executives that "Haiti is goi jrams," writes Regan, "is to counte out the red carpet," at a conference in Miami. the democratic and popular movements demands for radical To the women of SOFA, the revival of business as usual in economic change and social justice." Haiti means a return for women (the majority of industrial "It's our responsibility," says Vivian Stromberg, "to not let workers) to the sub-poverty Haitian wage ($.14/hr.). Plans the U.S. presence redirect Haitian democracy. If we're seri- from Aristide's first term in office to double the minimum ous about meeting the needs of people, we have to be seri- wage have been abandoned. According to the Multinational ous about supporting the organizations they themselves have Monitor, Aristide's administration gave in to pressure from the set up to respond to those needs. We have to listen to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on that Haitians." issue before August of 1994. Now an estimated $800 million in multilateral (mostly U.S.) aid has been promised to Haiti, Listening Up and local people suspect there are some strings attached. To The day before the MADRE group returned to New York, Jane Regan of Haiti Info, the massive influx of money slated they listened. At the appointed site for testimony collection, for "elections assistance" and "stability"' is tantamount to an a kindergarten in a popular neighborhood called Martissant, "invisible invasion." "The intent of many of these pro- MADRE workers were greeted by (continued cm page 55)

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 17 JSSUES DIALOGUE Do Feminists Need to Liberate Animals, Too?

Over the years, ON THE ISSUES has been com- MH: Historically, women mitted to expanding the vision and definition have been in the leadership of progressive politics. Acting on her concern of the animal rights move- for the exploitation and suffering of animals and ment, but feminists haven't. her interest in exploring the role of compassion Why do you think femi- in progressive politics, publisher Merle Hoffman nists have not embraced the interviewed Carol J. Adams about the relation- animal rights issue with the ship between animal rights and feminism. In Carol Adams sees same political and philo- this interview, they discuss the reasons why sophical fervor as they have people—feminists, in particular—should care feminism as a visionary antiracism and anticlassism? about how we treat animals. Hoffman and CA: Several reasons. Over Adams are both on the advisory board of Femi- philosophy that the years, many feminists nists for Animal Rights. Carol Adams is the have perceived that the author of The of Meat: A Feminist- includes stewardship of equation of women Vegetarian Critical Theory (which won the first with animals was a way Continuum Women's Studies Award in 1989) the earth. to dehumanize women. and Neither Man nor Beast: Feminism and the Their response was to Defense of Animals. She has also co-edited, with Josephine say, "We are a part of the human species too. We are rational, Donovan, two books on feminism and animal rights that thinking beings just like men." Also, in terms of the kind of will be released later this year. In the 1970s, Adams started a antiracist progressive feminism we all aspire to, there is a hotline for battered women. She has since served on nation- worry that we lessen human victims if we argue for animals. al commissions on domestic violence and has been involved While we have the notion that the personal is political, what in combatting racism in housing practices. we eat or wear is seen as private. The response is, "I want my eating of animals to be a private decision." MERLE HOFFMAN: Carol, do you think animal rights activism has a natural home in progressive politics? MH: But eating is an extremely public action. CAROL ADAMS: Not a natural home, but a logical one. CA: Right, but there's a drive to keep it privatized. Though When you look back at the nineteenth century, there it's completely anomalous within feminist theory, many were instances of unification among suffragists, workers, say, "this is a part of my life I don't want to scrutinize." and antivivisectionists in protests against vivisection. But liberal politics is not generous about animal rights because MH: Perhaps they don't want to be enlightened because that liberal philosophy is premised on a separation of humans would necessitate a change in behavior. Feminists always rail from animals. Progressive politics is about changing con- against being treated like pieces of meat and yet they say this as sciousness, changing the structures of oppression. Because they eat a hamburger or steak. there's a basic sense that animals don't have consciousness, CA: We all have to come to an awareness on our own. But structures of oppression are not seen as something animals because of the cultural pressure of meat-eating, as well as can experience. I'm not sure animal rights per se—the the denial that meat actually comes from animals, there's strictly philosophical concept of animal rights—has a a linguistic dance done around butchered flesh. We don't home in progressive politics. But animal advocacy does. say a lamb's leg, we say leg of lamb. We take away the Until we recognize how people who have no power— possessive relationship between a lamb and his or her leg. whether it's women or people of color or the working Animals are not mass terms. Water is a mass term. You class—are positioned as being closer to animals, the can add or take away water, but you can't change what human/animal barrier will retain its power and influence. water is. We falsely perpetuate the idea that meat is a

18 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 A cherished relationship. Carol Adams with her companion, Holly.

MH: But you're dealing with a paradigm structure that's reli- gious, philosophical, and politi- cal. Let's look at classical phi- losophy. In a sense, it's been the enemy of both animal rights consciousness and feminism. Particularly the philosophy of Descartes, the idea of a mind/body dualism. So how do you create a new philosoph- ical framework? CA: would say we've got a big problem with Western cul- ture because it emphasizes rationality and has dis- owned the body philosoph- ically. Since the body has not been valued, and since mass term, that it never adds up to a living animal. women and people of color and animals have been equated with the body, they have been seen as "less than." MH: You've written that you became a vegetarian in 1974. I So the question is, how do we reverse that? Do we say became one in 1986 after reading Hans Rausch's Slaughter of that rationality is important and we are rational beings the Innocents. That was a very powerful epiphany for me. and then join the other side and disown the body too? After that, I couldn't continue to eat meat because I knew what Or do we say our bodies are a source of knowledge? Can I was eating. Do you think all feminists should strive to become we then say animals are only bodies, they are never ratio- vegetarians? nal, so we're only going to extend the insights of feminist CA: Yes, but consciousness-raising is a very painful thing. philosophy about the body so far? When anyone raises these issues, we hear a lot of defenses that are very similar to defenses of from the early MH: How do you get people who "love" animals, who sometimes 1970s. If you were a "bra-burner" then, now people treat their pets a lot better than other human beings, to expand think, "You're one of those animal rights people making this monocular love to a more expansive vision? me worry about how I treat animals." But the basic CA: Generally, people are loving to specific animals with insight of the feminist animal advocate is that animals are whom they have specific relationships. It's a very privatized not ours to exploit, animals are beings that exist in com- notion of love, so we have to start by having them munity with us. Our goals are to not have them on our acknowledge that the relationship they cherish need not be backs or on our plates. limited just to the cat or dog they are fond of. We have to

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 19 understand how it can be a model for other kinds of rela- tionships, how love must work in partnership with justice.

MH: So love is a political act in this sense. CA: That's right. Love involves an ethical stance, as my friend Marie Fortune says in her forthcoming book. Does love cause harm? Does love benefit from harm to others?

MH: But the reality we live in has been reinforced through the ages by traditional , where humans are seen as the "stew- ards" of the earth. So you don't only have a collective, assumptive reality—you have one that has the bona fide Divine Word. CA: Well, we always know that the minute God is brought into something it's because somebody is trying to express some power over something else. One of the problems with Christianity is that it has a kind of male/female, human/animal hierarchy. God and the heavens are above us, humans are above animals, man is above woman, and God is seen as a human male.

MH: So should animal rights activists be atheists? CA: Maybe pantheists. There's a tendency BRE in to be more imma- nent. To see God as revealed through us _ rather than transcending us. £M1" CV83GAWAN

MH: In your book Neither Man nor Beast, vegetarian yew wrote that the antiracist defense of ani- mals is not sentimental but is filled with sen- cookbooks. timent. Could you explain that? CA: For white people, there's a lot of guilt around the issue of racism. Identification with disempowered people is often described or experi- counter-issue of responsibility, so then people say how can you enced as sentimental. We see this notion at work when talk of animal rights because that implies responsibility. the "voiceless" are spoken for in the anti-abortion move- CA: Feminism completely changes the dialogue. I am not ment. I'm saying that an antiracist defense of animals looking to take basic animal rights philosophy and fit begins with the recognition that we must act in solidarity women in. I am trying to take feminism, which I think with the oppressed. We cannot just speak "for" them. inherently extends to animals, and start in a different We're not saving or protecting or bestowing something place. I look and say many of the basic insights of femi- on animals, but recognizing who has privilege and power nism—about how patriarchy works—shed light on how over them and challenging that. we see animals. Patriarchy is a gender system that is implicit in human/animal relationships. MH: Peter Singer and Tom Regan are the movement's main theo- rists. They have postulated a theory of animal "rights" and ani- MH: Women have traditionally been intimidated by men's poten- mal "liberation." Are there philosophical problems with these tial for anger, or actual anger. This anger has functioned as a lim- theories? iting factor in women's political activism. Wliat is your response CA: I don't think we can speak about animal "liberation." to critics who say that, for women, becoming a vegetarian is a Liberation movements are all movements that arise from relatively low-risk way to protest? within repressed groups. I also don't like to use the word CA: I don't think anything is a low-risk way to protest for "rights" when we're talking about animal advocacy. women. I think that there are very few places in the Rights language is a legacy of the Enlightenment—the world where women are safe. And any act of self-actual- very Enlightenment that created a problematic philoso- ization can be very threatening to others in her life. Vege- phy of rational being. tarianism is not a simple decision. I have had many women over the past twenty years tell me, "I would be a MH: But it is also the language of abortion rights, women's rights, vegetarian if it wasn't for my husband." By believing they civil rights. And when you speak about rights, you have the must feed their husbands meat, they perpetuate the whole

20 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 sexual politics of meat that says men need meat to be MH: Do you find it more difficult to raise consciousness about strong. They also fear that men's reaction to the absence of feminism among animal rights activists or animal rights issues meat is greater than their ability to actualize their desire to among feminists? be vegetarians. CA: One is not easier than the other.

MH: What is it about the construction of manhood that seems to MH: Miich is a more natural progression? require the oppression of animals? CA: For feminists to recognize animals. That's my own pro- CA: Being a man is tied in to identities—what "real men" gression. My goal is not to take animal rights, add women, do and don't do. "Real men" don't eat quiche, "real and stir. I'm taking the basic concepts and ideas of second- men" hunt. It's interesting how many homophobic wave feminism—concepts about structures of oppres- insults are thrown by hunters towards antihunting activist sion—and saying that species is one of those structures. We males. It's not only an issue of privilege but an issue of cannot just stop at the human/animal barrier, because that symbolism. Manhood is constructed in our culture in barrier is part of the construction of patriarchy. part by access to meat-eating and control of other bodies, whether it's women or animals. "Man," which usually in MH: When, we were together at a recent Feminists for Animal our Euro-American culture is read as "white man," can Rights conference, you told me that you came to understand the exist as a concept and as a sexual identity only through antipornography position far more deeply by being involved in negation. Not women—not beast—not colored—that is, animal issues than in feminist politics. Can you explain that? not "other." Also, male biologists have often defended CA: Well, I always knew that I felt was wrong. male supremacy by appealing to the laws of nature. This It was part of my feminism from the 1970s on. Later, I such-and-such animal dominates his female because that's realized that this applies to animals too. Catharine Mac- what nature intended. Men reinforce this by saying you Kinnon talks about how epistemology constructs ontol- bring out the animal in me, but they themselves resent ogy. For instance, we look at a cow and say why else does being labeled animals. that cow exist except to be our dinner? It's a forced iden- tity that reveals more about us. Distancing ourselves from MH: How would you say that the defense of animals intersects animals enforces the subject/object relationship and cre- with theories of ? ates a false construction of animals as meat. Once I rec- CA: Ecofeminism basically states that an environmental per- ognized that, I also recognized how pornography con- spective without feminism is inadequate, and that a femi- structs a forced identity. nist theory that fails to analyze the way the environment has suffered because of patriarchal attitudes is also inade- MH: You write that feminists "traffic in animals. " I find this a quate. Clearly, animals are on the nature side of the provocative statement. Does it refer to trafficking in women and nature/culture dualism, but they often disappear in the pornography? environmental discourse. They're what I call the "absent CA: I think that we traffic in animals literally whenever we referent." Many ecofeminists are comfortable with them purchase products that derive from animals. I built on the remaining absent referents. They're concerned with concept that feminists have developed of trafficking in species rather than individual animals. And so the defense women because I wanted to politicize the use of animals' of animals locates itself within an ecofeminist politics, and bodies as commodities that objectifies them and denies says we cannot look at the whole without looking at the them any individuality. individual. We cannot work for justice and challenge the oppression of nature without understanding that the most MH: Pornography is a $W-billion-a-year business. In the case of frequent way we interact with nature is by eating animals. animal trafficking, it infuses every part of our lives. CA: Both of them infuse every part of our lives. When the MH: Women have traditionally cared more about other victims religious right keeps sex education out of schools, than about themselves and about what happens to women collec- teenagers learn about sex from pornography. So they de tively as a result of their simply being women. Wliat do you say facto endorse a sort of pornographic hierarchy of men to feminist critics who charge that animal activism really serves and women even though they explicitly condemn to distract women from the women's movement itself? pornography. CA: Well, I think that they are partially right. Women, who constitute at least 80 percent of the animal rights move- MH: / think they would debate that vigorously. Many on the ment, may not deal with or recognize the issue of oppres- Right excoriate the Left for creating a pornographic culture where sion in their own lives. Some women do recognize it or women have sexual liberty and freedom through birth control are the survivors of sexual violence. They realize that and abortion. They see that as making women far more accessible while there are feminists advocating positions on batter- to men's sexual needs. I believe you can make an argument that ing, rape, and other forms of institutional violence against the Left has also objectified women and has created a porno- women, there are not many feminists advocating on graphic culture. Let's talk about the Hill/Thomas hearings. behalf of animals. So these women gravitate to the place Wlien Anita Hill gave her testimony that Clarence Thomas had where they feel they have the most to offer. But I do talked to her about pornography that showed women having sex think the male hierachy within the animal rights move- with animals, what do you think was really going on there? ment makes this a problem. We do not necessarily recog- CA: Several things were going on at the same time. First of nize it as a place for enhancing one's own consciousness all, it reminds us that women's sexual violation and as a woman in a patriarchal world. exploitation are often linked with that (continued on page 54)

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 21 ood women won't vote; bad power of a nationwide, religious-like conviction that histori- women will." It was the con- an Barbara Welter christened "The Cult of True Woman- servative battle cry against the hood" in a 1966 American Quarterly article. Historians have movement to win suffrage for been using the term ever since to describe this cultural creed. women. But the same position The romanticization of women during this period grew was also embraced by many out of the new alienation of the genders. As men left the 'progressive" women. family farms and home-based businesses, where they had Noted slavery abolitionist worked alongside their wives, for factory jobs, women lost Catharine Beecher was deter- their economic positions and became secluded at home. mined to help shield women With time, men and women came to believe they had little from the "burden of the bal- in common. Americans saw man as a combative creature lot." In 1871 she said, "A driven by carnal passions and territorial rivalry to compete large majority of American women would regard the gift of for status and power—a fitting description for the business the ballot, not as a privilege conferred but as an act of op- titan. Woman's "God-given" purpose was to serve as pression." Even before Beecher spoke out, thousands of guardian of all that was good and beautiful: child rearing, re- women were organizing state and local campaigns designed ligion, , and gentility. to halt the suffrage movement before it could do irrevocable Remembering their mothers' and grandmothers' farm and harm to womanhood, the nation, and humanity. frontier drudgery, many middle- and upper-class women em- The first anti-suffrage periodical, The True Woman, began braced this new identity. But almost immediately, some publication in 1887. Among its regular contributors was women, dubbed "feminists" by the press, understood what Beecher's sister, Harriet Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. had been lost as well as what had never been gained. The By the turn of the 20th century anti-suffragists, or "antis," as met in 1848, and precipitated the they came to be known, were a highly organized, richly women's movement and the National Woman Suffrage Asso- funded force to be reckoned with. ciation (NWSA). Elizabeth Cady Stanton demanded that While doing research on women's history at the Library women be granted "imme- of Congress, I uncovered a store of five anti-suffrage period- diate admission to all the icals, all written and published by women during the late rights and privileges which The "Cult of 19th and early 20th centuries. They featured seething edito- belong to them as citizens rials, essay contests, female-oriented ads, and articles defining of the United States." The True Womanhood" the threat of female sovereignty and the ignorance, depravity, journal of the NWSA was and masculinity of women who supported it. The arguments aptly titled Revolution. Its fueled and tactics used to rebut the feminist demand for suffrage— female publishers and sup- romantic elevation of women, ridicule of feminists, false porters of both sexes meant anti-suffragist claims of being the "majority," and predictions of the end of to foment nothing less. As propaganda. family life and civilization—are strikingly similar to those of the 19th century waned, today's female anti-feminists. feminists abandoned Stan- The 1920 adoption of woman suffrage in the United ton's equal rights agenda to focus on winning the vote. The States and its eventual acceptance have long since silenced narrower spotlight electrified the opposition and its nucleus, the voices of opposition, but the anguish lives on in their the antis. writings. Their arguments had little to do with the rights of citizenship so ardently demanded by their suffragist sisters. Ridicule as a Weapon The concerns of the antis were more social than political. If pro-suffrage women could fight so bravely for the vote, They saw woman as a spiritual creature who stood above anti-suffrage women would show they could fight just as the crass concerns of government and business, and desper- bravely against it. Anti- magazines emerged as the ately wanted to preserve their idealized identity as cultural political arm of the Cult of True Womanhood, and the edi- overseer of virtue. tors proved to be clever and even underhanded in support of Two of the most popular anti-suffrage publications were their cause. The Reply printed a caustic article in 1913, enti- the Woman's Protest and The Reply. Woman's Pro test, published tled "Bills To Be Presented Before The First Woman's Legis- in New York City from 1912 to 1918 by the National Asso- lature": ciation Opposed to Woman Suffrage, •was temporarily reti- The "Sarah" Bill—Making it a misdemeanor for a man tled the Woman Patriot during World War I. The Reply was to sit in a street car.. .while any woman stands. published in New Canaan, Connecticut, from 1913 to 1915 The "Susan Jane" Bill—Making it illegal for any mar- under the editorship of Helen S. Harman. Each sold for ten ried man to employ a stenographer or female clerk...who cents a copy and offered annual subscriptions for one dollar. has not first been interviewed by [his] wife. The Reply, the smaller, more compact publication of the The "Bridget" Bill [an Irish name used at a time when two, whose funding was less stable than that of the associa- many American servants were just that]—Provides that all tion-backed Woman's Protest, lasted only two years. Helen cooks, housemaids, laundresses, and other female help, shall Kendrick Johnson was a frequent contributor of articles and have every afternoon and evening off, shall be provided funds. Her book, Woman and the Republic, was constantly with hot and cold baths, electric light, manicure, shampoo, promoted. and massage; shall have a dance once a week in a ball-room Despite subtle differences, the two magazines are strikingly exclusively their own.... Violations...are made punishable similar in content. They subscribed to the precepts and by death.

22 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 Mocking poetry graced each issue of the The Reply. The Woman's life and work, then was to be that of 1913 "A Dream of Fair Women" begins: the world's nourisher, its food bringer, the world's One more unfortunate man of some note, beautifier, the world's teacher of righteousness. What Rashly objected to let women vote. a marvelous [sic] and glorious picture! The ideal set So, lovely woman, this man did annoy, forth in the "History of Woman Suffrage" [a six-volume Using a horse whip, nice, feminine toy. work written in part by Elizabeth Cady Stanton] is the opposite of all this.... Then a fair damsel with infinite grace, Changes in the role of women were viewed as threats to Hurled both her shoes at the Magistrate's face; the health and survival of the state and even the species. For she was held on a charge very small, Taking explosives into lecture hall. In the September 1912 Woman's Protest, an article by Max Antis weren't shy about attacking their suffragist sisters G. Schlapp argued, frighteningly: using Cult ammunition. They argued that suffrage would There are more criminals and imbeciles to each 1,000 of create masculine women and that the "new" woman would population than ever before.... When overwrought bring about the end of civilization. "Let us read and reflect women have disturbed within themselves the process of on the history of every country where women joined the nature, they impart a disturbance to their offspring, and, shouting and the tumult. It meant always blood-shed and an- instead of the development of a normal human being, archy and a rapid degeneration of the nation. The women go there is one distorted in body or mind or in both. farther because they are more extreme by nature and more Motherhood recast as sacred duty is a unique means of impressionable," cautioned the August 1912 Woman's Protest. exploitation. If convinced that her relevance lies solely in In the May 1913 issue of The Reply, Helen Kendrick her ability to give birth and nurture, a woman can lose her Johnson contemplated woman's specialness in "The World's innate sense of self. It is an old and continuing distortion Need of Women." that has transformed millions of women into walking fertili- ty icons. Whether her fruitfulness is for the greater cause of State, religion, or racial supremacy, she becomes unable to Phyllis Schlafly's satisfy even her smallest personal need without being Patricia Riley Dunlap consumed by guilt. Moral Majority? Woman suffrage was repeatedly linked to the detestable. "Suf- frage and the Liquor Traffic" and "Suf- fragism and Social- ism" appeared in the May 1912 and May 1913 issues of Woman's Protest. The unnamed editor who sought to align liquor with the bal- lot summoned up the argument so often heard from American men that women voters would close every saloon in the land. Articles smearing woman suffragists were common. A "The Age of Brass. Or the triumph of Womans rights," 1917 issue of Woman's Protest includes articles entitled "Dis- was the caption on this 1869 Currier & Ives satire of loyal Even to Their Sex" and "The Real Foes of Democra- women suffragists. cy," accusing suffragists of ignoring the war effort in favor of

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 23 This 1907 drawing pokes fun at antis. The senator holds a paper that reads: "Petition from the anti-woman's suffrage committee."

Qthcr Pictures

ing to submit to the democratic principle of the will of the majority they would be less menacing to our institutions, but the methods they employ to override the will of the peo- ple, the efforts they make to coerce the world into an acceptance of their ideas is pernicious, undemocratic and un-American. Do As I Say, Not As I Do Ironically, the editors and writers of the anti publications worked hard to protect women from the dangers of doing exactly what they themselves were doing—thinking, compet- ing, organizing, and finding meaning in non- domestic ventures. Anti-suffrage women were busy founding, promoting, and sustain- ing organizations in at least 28 states. Ida Tarbell, the muckraking journalist who exposed the ruthlessness of Standard Oil ty- coon John D. Rockefeller, was an outspoken anti-suffragist. But Tarbell's life approximated the suffragists' ideal. Never married, she be- came a nationally celebrated journalist and historian. A dogged researcher whose de- tailed biographies included little-known facts about her famous subjects, she authored well-received biographies of Napoleon "O dave tut, denatorj, from ourjelved! Bonaparte and Abraham Lincoln. Yet,Tarbell saw women as frivolous, emotional creatures, "un-American" demonstrations. and was convinced that if the suffragists succeeded, they A favorite argument of the antis was that women's votes would force women to support themselves and destroy the would merely mimic those of their husbands, doubling the family as an institution. Tarbell urged suffragists to consider work of talliers •with no resulting change in the outcome. the long-term implications of their demands. According to But from time to time, the argument went on to worry that her biographer, Kathleen Brady, "The specter of a revolution political disagreements between husbands and wives would in women's role unsettled her." She was not alone. increase the divorce rate. This extension disturbed some Former first ladies Mrs. Benjamin Harrison and Mrs. antis, as it assumed wives to be capable of something other Grover Cleveland, as well as Theodore Roosevelt's sister than obedience. Anna, were among the wealthy who supported the antis and The antis also used a their written word. While the New York and Massachusetts favorite tactic of propo- groups were the most consistently active, the Illinois Associa- Celebrating Suffrage nents of minority posi- tion Opposed to Woman Suffrage, under the leadership of 1995 marks the 75th anniversary tions: denying that the wealthy Chicago matron Caroline F. Corbin, was one of the of women winning the vote. opposition holds a ma- most outspoken. A massive parade down jority. Consider today's Echoes from the anti-suffrage past ring through American Pennsylvania Avenue in anti-abortion move- society today. Voting as an issue has been supplanted by Washington, D.C. is planned for ment's attempts to cast women's right to work outside the home for equal pay and August 26, the day the 19th itself as the voice of the without harassment, and to obtain safe, legal abortions, but Amendment was certified as part "Moral Majority." In the debate is strangely familiar, and the guilt lingers. of the U.S. Constitution. Other pre-public opinion poll As before, the battlefield is a changing economy. Howev- celebrations are planned across days, pseudo-majorities er, unlike the steel and railroad economy of the Industrial the country. For information and were even easier to Revolution, the Communication Age requires mental, not organizing kits, contact the come by. The July- physical strength. Birth control and modern appliances give National Women's History August 1917 Woman's most families homes that no longer need constant attention. Project, 7738 Bell Road, Windsor, Protest suggested: All the signs point to woman's final liberation, yet the appeal CA 95492, (707) 838-6000. If suffragists were will- and guilt of the Cult of True Womanhood, (continued on page 56)

24 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 WHOSE Male Virgins, Blood Covenants Heresy raises hell—like when Copernicus said, "The sun does not revolve around the & earth." So imagine the heat when feminists declare, "Men are not superior to women." Family The babel has begun and even God Him/Herself is up for grabs, join OTI as we "Eve"-drop on a conference of fired-up fundamentalist men, the still-hot Saint Joan, and some insurgent Christian tand up and slap high-five with 16 guys and say, 'Thank God you're a male!'" feminists (cooling their heels). The man shouting is seasoned revivalist Dr. Ed Cole. He is revving up a crowd of 45,000 men, who do as he bids. They are gathered in Texas Stadium near Dallas on a beatific morning one Saturday last October to partic- ipate in a phenomenon called Promise Keepers, a major new men's movement that has burst upon the U.S. scene, born of Christian fundamentalism. Mcin-to-inan huddl&f in the horde: Across the land, men by the tens of thousands are I'roinuc Keeper.' til TexM Stadium. flocking to such arenas, where they listen to sermons for hours, confess their sins with all their hearts, sing hymns with all their lungs, and shed tears of salvation and joy with no women around. They renew their vows to their wives if they are married, to their vir- ginity if they are not, and to "secondary virginity" (a quaintly restora- tive notion) if they need to. Above all, they reiterate their submission to a divine Father and Son and reconnect to true godhead and true manhood in one fell swoon. A hushed fervor fills the Texas Stadium stands, becoming an audi- ence reaction like none other: men weeping openly, raising their arms in an ecstasy of praise and supplication. As birds fly blithely in the sunny blue sky, soaring above the blue-tarp-covered playing Inside America's feu test field that the Dallas Cowboys call home, these men appear to growing men [1 movement be collectively experiencing a profound personal catharsis. BY JOHN Watching from the press box STOLTENBE „ at about the 50-yard line, I ask

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 25 Bill Pemberton, a fund-raiser for Promise Keepers, why he No-penalty kick: Wordhiping thinks these men feel safe to feel so deeply among so many in a dportd arena, men are other men who are complete strangers. "I think it's loca- moved to prayerful repentance tion," he says. A sports arena is "one of the few places that and the power of forgivenedd, men can ever be emotional about anything and be OK thankd to God, their Coach. without being softies." "I think it's also mass validation," Pemberton continues. tional lines. Dr. E. Glenn Wagner, vice "A man could not accept a woman telling him he needed to president of national ministries, tells the be this sort of man. But when men get out here with crowd in Texas that Promise Keepers 50,000 men, and see the consensus, it gives them the stamp expects to identify a "Point Man" vol- of approval from their peers, and from people they respect in unteer in each of the 400,000 churches the sense of 'Well, he's a man, he knows.' I think God in His in the United States, plus 40,000 sovereign grace put men in an environment where they nat- "Ambassadors" who will network with urally could relate to each other and be more open to 10 to 12 ministers in their communi- releasing emotion.'' ties. By the year 2000, according to This burgeoning religious men's movement is an unprece- Phillips, Promise Keepers is shooting to dented mass abreaction to modern feminism. It's as if within fill 50 stadiums, in each of the 50 states, the church generic (what Christians call the body of Christ), connected by simulcasting. smart new antibodies, bioengineered by men, had emerged Based on my observations and inter- to forestall a viral invasion of sexual equality. views at the Irving, Texas, conference, I The premise of Promise Keepers is "a Christ-centered see no ceiling in sight as to how far this ministry dedicated to uniting men through vital relation- "ministry to men" can go. Promise ships to be godly influences in their world." The original Keepers is a groundswell new cult of Promise Keepers gathering in 1991 (see bar graph) was masculinity. It reveals in microcosm— called by founder Bill McCartney, head football coach at the as if under laboratory conditions— University of Colorado. By 1994 Promise Keepers held exactly how patriarchy operates gatherings at seven separate sites, totaling 278,600 men. through male bonding, which simultane- But those numbers will soon pale, because Promise Keep- ously propels men's public policies and impacts on men's ers plans to amass a million men in Washington, D.C., in the private relations with women. fall of 1996. "We're going to our nation's capital," president Liberals and progressives often caricature Christian funda- Randy Phillips tells a press conference at Texas Stadium, "for mentalism and dismiss it as "antiabortion, antigay, antismut," the explicit purpose of"—and here he pauses, choosing his but this simplistic underestimation may be a political blun- words carefully—"a time of prayer and renewal, from a per- der. As the Promise Keepers phenomenon demonstrates, sonal standpoint." The elections are "not the reason why religious conservatives have actually been paying quite close we're going," he explains earnestly, "but that will probably attention to , and learning a lot. be before the elections.'' As pollsters noted after the mid-term 1994 Democratic The Sins of the Fathers and Sons debacle, 62 percent of white men voted for conservative and It is 6:30 P.M. Friday night. The conference will start soon. Republican candidates, and 33 percent of the electorate I'm driving to Irving from the Dallas/Fort Worth airport on were Evangelical Christians. This sect-and- highway 183E—passing motels, car lots, churches, and fast- gender trend piques spec- food steak houses flying Texas flags—and abruptly the car ulation as to what elec- ^H E pE „ slows to a crawl for a good half hour. It dawns on me that toral impact Promise this traffic is backed up all the way to the stadium exit. Keepers might have. Finally parked at a roadside restaurant, I follow long lines "We have a general poli- of men of all ages and sizes dressed in sneakers and colorful cy that we're not endorsing windbreakers and jogging suits. Teens and twentysomethings political candidates," trea- * m * wear hip, printed T-shirts: A REAL MAN IS A GODLY MAN and surer Sid Overton tells me. FEAR NOT KNOW GOD and HIS PAIN IS OUR GAIN (illustrated "That's not what we're with a heavy metal spike through the palm of a hand). Many about." A business lawyer, are carrying Bibles. The worn binding of at least one is held Overton helped set u together with gaffer tape. And one man's red hero jacket is Promise Keepers as a non- embroidered FISHERS OF MEN CHRISTIAN MOTORCYCLIST profit tax-exempt Colorado Tunedfor the team on CD ASSOCIATION. corporation. Its revenues Outside the stadium, a bunch of angry men are pamphle- come from registration fees ($55 to $65 each), merchandize teering and protesting. The official position of Promise (books, recordings, caps, shirts, mugs), and offerings and Keepers is that "homosexuality violates God's creative design pledges. "We're not about lobbying," he says. "We're not for a husband and a wife" and "it is a sin"; yet Promise Keep- about political party supporting." ers supports homosexuals "being included and welcomed in The Promise Keepers organization employs a staff of 120 all our events." The protesters, citing their own scriptural at its Denver headquarters and 30 at various state offices. It is authorities, are outraged by the laxness of this policy; thus led by both clergy and laity, and Promise Keepers explicitly they scream: "There are queers and homos in there!" This reaches out to all Christian men across racial and denomina- more-fundamentalist-than-thou demo is politely ignored.

26 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 I AMAZING GROWTH Attendance at men-only Promise Keepers gatheringJ: Should femin'uUbe worried?

1995

1991: 4,200 men meet in Boulder at the University of Colorado Events Center (a basketball arena). 1992: 22,000 men meet at the university's Folsom Stadium. 1993: 50,000 men fill Folsom Stadium to capacity. 1994: 278,600 men attend conferences at seven sites: Anaheim Stadium (52,800), Hawks Memorial Stadium in Boise (5,500), Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis (62,800), Civic Stadium It's nearly 8:00 P.M. and the stadium interior is still filling. in Portland (27,500), University of North Erected near one end zone is a TV-studio stage. There's a Texas Fouts Field in Denton (33,000), platform for cameras, and jumbo-tron screens hang from Folsom Stadium again (52,000), and the rafters. The video feed to these screens includes shots Texas Stadium in Irving (45,000). from the stage, hand-held candids of men in the crowd, and 1995: 600,000 men expected to hymn lyrics. register at 13 scheduled conference From the top tiers on down, the crowd sings with gusto: sites nationwide. "Rise up O men of God! / The church for you doth wait / Her strength unequal to the task." The church is she and all the guys here are he. Their voices resounding, high tenor to nia) as he takes the crowd from deep bass, they renounce en masse any taint of feminization remorse and redemption to moral that their religiosity might imply. resolve. Like all subsequent speakers, As the event begins, men are exhorted to approach the he wears a sporty purple polo front of the stage in an altar call, a public act of spiritual embroidered with the PK logo (MEN commitment that is a commonplace of Christian revivals. I OF INTEGRITY). Decrying "the spi- am reminded of a Billy Graham Crusade I attended as a raling rate of crime," Laurie identi- teenager in a baseball stadium near Minneapolis around fies "abortion" as part of it; and he 1960. Not much is different, I note, except here the repen- issues the first of several entreaties for "sexual tants are exclusively male. The worship leader elaborates on purity," urging his hearers to "get God back in the meaning of sin and confession. His line "1 have sinned!" our lives...and in our culture." brings forth astonishing applause—and the words, echoed by Next, explaining "how to let God mentor us," thousands of fathers and sons, suggest what feminists have Pastor A. Louis Patterson Jr. (lecturer, National been saying for decades: There are many, many transgressions Sunday School and B.T.U. Congress, National that are particular to the lives of men. Baptist Convention) takes as his biblical text a The audience sings softly: "Forgive me, O Lord, forgive relatively obscure story from the book of Num- me / And I will be clean." There is evidence of great grief bers. "Caleb let Moses send him," Patterson followed by unspeakable relief. A close-up of a man's face, intones, in orotund, black-church cadences. his eyes welling with tears, fills the huge stadium video "Caleb had an attitude of submission without it screens as hundreds advance toward the stage. Soulful, being a threat to his masculinity" Slowly and sure- mournful music plays under plaints of "Thank you, Jesus!" ly, Patterson's down-home homily explicates the Finally a folk-rock group sings a buoyant ballad, and the gender-specific subtext of Promise Keepers' mes- newly celebratory crowd—its built-up guilt expunged— sage: "Every man has a Coach.... Submit to returns to its seats and sings and claps along. God's divine plan for your life.... Total depen- "No more games...no more double life!" says Pastor Greg dence on God does not compromise masculini- Laurie (Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, Califor- ty.... The prerequisite for being a leader in my

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 home is to have followed leadership in my Father's house." Then Patterson leads the mostly white crowd in a rousing call-and-response: "Somebody oughta say amen!" "Amen!" Not only does the jock-friendly venue reduce these men's gender anxiety; so does Promise Keepers' cock-friendly the- ology, a familiar theory of gender identity through patriar- chal prerogative: God commands man, and man submits— but lo and behold, man is not thereby feminized, because man in turn commands wife. This "role definition" channels a guy's divinely ordained masculinity, which trickles down from God. But the next two preachers take this gender legend to a visceral level that I've never heard plumbed before. The Roots of Carnal Knowledge Saturday morning, Pastor Jack Hayford (Church On The Way, Van Nuys, California) explains how the Old Testament God entered into a "covenant" with Abraham through cir- cumcision, because "the cutting of the flesh of that organ of Abraham's body was God's way of saying,'Sir, I want to cut to the core of your identity as a man. I want to cut to the core of your creativity.'There is nothing more dynamic or incredible," Hayford jubilates, than the fact that he and his hearers "have the capacity to literally—in partnership with our spouse—create a human being by the gift power of God in our bodies." Then Dr. Ed Cole (founder and president, Christian Men's Network) propounds his own paean to procreation: "God gave us creatures power in our loins When a man and woman who are married engage in an intimate physical relationship, they are actually celebrating the covenant of marriage Why does God want a man and a woman to be virgins at the time of marriage?" The crowd hangs on Cole's every syllable as he graphical- ly describes how a virginal young man and woman "consummate their marriage with sexual intimacy, and in that act, when she is a virgin, applause: "There is no such thing as safe sex with a condom!" when her hymen is broken, Drama is palpable in this topless silver dome as the balding and it causes the shedding of Cole begins exhorting teenage men to stand and vow virgin- blood, when that blood flows ity. "What a thing for a man on his wedding night!—to take over the man's part, in that act his wife in his arms, standing in that hotel room, she in her of , when that blood white satin nightgown, he in his blue silk pajamas...and say, flows over the man's part, to 'Darlin', I love you, you're God's gift to me; tonight I want to God that is a sign that they have give you something no other woman in the whole world will entered into the sacred have. Tonight I want to give you the gift of my manhood. covenant " Tonight I want to give you the sign of the covenant relation- The heady mix of patriarchal ship so that until death do us part you will know that I love social contract and carnality rarely Hpu and you alone. Tonight I give gets more pulse-pounding than you the glory of my virginity.' What this mental gang-bang: a sixtyish a way to start a marriage!" The A bible on balL man of the cloth inviting 45,000 crowd goes wild with cheering and (above) and mudic other men to picture the coital whistling, not so much at a hearts- ofthe jphered (right). puncturing of a woman's hymen in and-fiowers evocation of romance their mind's eye simultaneously. as at a spectacular reassurance of Evidently feeling flush, Cole goes on to his big finish: gender hierarchy. "Marriage was meant to be a blood covenant! We're not try- "Surely in this building, there's ing to put young people in bondage by teaching them virgini- gotta be one young single man, ty; we're trying to keep them from killing themselves!" Expli- one young teenager, that'll say,'I cating the diameter of pores in latex vis-a-vis the size of want to be a part of a new gen- spermatozoa versus deadly HIV, Cole gets another round of eration to bring back what

28 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 another generation threw The Blessings of the Wives away.' Can I find even one sin- "We have literally thousands of letters, boxes and boxes, from gle man in this building that men, from their wives, from their children, from their par- will say, 'Brother Cole, I heard ents, describing profound life changes," president Phillips what you said, and I want to tells reporters mid-day. "We're seeing that men are making a shrine stand up and be one of those profound decisions and are following through with them." men.' Let me see them today!" One such letter, quoted in a promotional brochure, is to machismo, There are peals of applause and from Judy in Iowa: "I knew that all of the spiritual benefits cheers as hundreds of young my husband received at Promise Keepers would overflow to men rise from their seats and me. How could they not? Is not his honor my honor? His Promise stand and see how many hun- integrity my integrity? Are not his blessings my blessings?" dreds of other young men have When Promise Keepers leaders claim that what they are Keepers creates done the same. doing is "for women" not "against women," they say so with And therein lies a high-volt- reasonable accuracy, because from the point of view of any safe public age power line in Promise married woman in their social universe, neither men's talk Keepers' electromagnetic ap- nor men's walk ever gets much better than this: Keep your peal: no threat of other men's promises to your wife and kids, be a man of your word. space for sexual prowess. Here there are The entire stock of Strategies for a Successful Marriage, a no comparisons to be made, handbook by Dr. E. Glenn Wagner, sells out in the PROMISE males to feel no goading standards of sexual KEEPERS PRODUCT tent by mid-afternoon. Another motiva- conquest that a man might not tional tome, Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper, published by like real men. measure up to. Focus on the Family, has sold over 200,000 copies at previ- "Peer affirmation from Joe ous Promise Keepers gatherings. It contains, among other Black that tickle: Men vow to Camel on down has been preachments, practical strategies for avoiding the temptation purjiu "vital relatiotwbipj 'Real men do it and do it a of pornography while traveling alone, as on in-room TV. with a few other men "and to lot.' And if not then you're The passage is not anti-smut; it's pro-loyalty: It calls men's practice "sexual purity." probably a wimp," fund-raiser pornography use "emotional adultery." Pemberton tells me. "If 50,000 A woman's trade-off for this modicum of respect is to guys tell you as a 15-year-old accept her husband's unilateral authority, just as he submits guy, 'We think you're a man's man if you wait till you're to God's. Dr. Tony Evans spells this out in Seven Promises married,' that may be the first time that kid's heard that, and under the rubric "ReclaimingYour Manhood": since he's been 12 he's been under all this pressure to get a girl pregnant or to show that he's a stud." I'm not suggesting that you ask [your wife] for your During a lunch break I talk in the stands to a 13-year-old role back, I'm urging you to take it back. If you simply who traveled here from a small town in Texas with a church ask for it, your wife is likely to say, "Look, for the last group that includes his father. "He's been to Promise Keep- ten years, I've had to raise these kids, look after the ers more than I have," says the youth, a gangly fawn among house, and pay the bills. I've had to get a job and still stags. "He was thinking of not bringing me this time, but I keep up my duties in the home. I've had to do my job kept on begging him and begging him to bring me." Then and yours. You think I'm just going to turn everything he says, in a quavering voice with tears in his eyes: "Here back over to you?" you see kids your age. You don't have to act like you're all Your wife's concerns may be justified. Unfortunate- macho and everything. You can act like yourself, 'cause you ly, however, there can be no compromise here. If have your brothers here with you." you're going to lead, you must lead. Be sensitive. Lis- Promise Keepers has created safe public space for males to ten. Treat the lady gently and lovingly. But lead\ feel like real men within a veritable shrine to machismo— but stripped of incessant comparisons to other men's judg- I interview at random about two dozen attenders, and few ment on their sexual performance, orientation, and identity. can describe the personal meaning of this event without Promise Keepers has fundamentally transformed genderizing slightly choking up, tears visibly brimming. When I ask the peer pressure—away from the relativistic world's to that of men who are married what their wives think of Promise an absolutist religion (or, as they might put it, away from Keepers, or what their wives told them as they left home to "Sodom and Gomorrah" to "Bible-based Christian values"). attend, I hear only testimonials and stories of well-wishing. This predictably safe social cohesion is based on each man's Two twentyish women employees of Promise Keepers tell promise (to his God and to his brethren) to be strictly non- me that they themselves would sure like to meet and marry sexual with one another and to have sex solely with his own a man of Promise Keepers caliber someday. wife in private. There are in fact many women at this gathering—several These guys have discovered that conservative "sexual hundred young female volunteers, not in the stadium proper purity" is a better basis for male bonding than the "sexual but staffing cash registers in the merchandize tents, serving revolution" could ever be (what with liberals fronting for soft drinks to press, and so forth. Also present are the wives of pornographers and extolling hot sex with virtually anything dozens of donors, board members, presenters, and officers— that moves). And these guys have discovered that unless in restricted VIP areas where they are not visible to ordinary males are reliably in league as men, male supremacy can no male registrants. longer claim credible authority over females one-on-one. In the press room I ask president Randy (continued on page 51)

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 29 ANYWAY

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IIV, ,y voices jweren't all that special. Everybody hears voices. Everybody's got somebody leafiing over their shoulder, whispering in their ear what they should do*tffia what they shouldn't do. You know, "Get the hair out of your face! Put your knees together!" That's what civiliza- tion's all about, isn't it, listening to the voices of ,

SAINT' \% JUST ANOTHER WORP Fj >f &ORNED." decides to invent her own // • hear a lot of talk about women forgiving all three at the same time. voices and then believe in men. I don't believe it. I have experi- And if that wasn't bad them. See, that's almost like enough, I was also illiterate, thinking for yourself. Ienced almost every form of cruelty men outspoken, and dressed like a can inflict on women, and I am here to tell you man! I mean, we're talking Ouberty. The beginning of about somebody so far out in I periods, which means you that no woman can forgive it or ignore it, and left field, they're beyond the can have babies. The begin- bleachers! But, all the same, ning of breasts, which means furthermore, no woman should ever try." there I was, right up there you can nurse babies. The The author, next to the king. beginning of feeling self- shown in conscious around boys, be- performance at et me tell you something cause you have this opening left, revisits the about men. They can't 500-year-old L between your legs they all stand to lose face. It's difficult want to stick themselves into. biographical record and for us women to understand Puberty is about loss of pri- speaks Joan's how very, very important this vacy. It's about living in a modern mind. is to men, because we have body which has become pub- never been allowed to have lic property. It's about foreign enough face to lose, We tend invasion, about occupied ter- to be more concerned with ritory. One by one, my girl- things like the justice of an friends surrendered them- it would make me feel light- the bells are all chiming, and issue, or finding a peaceful selves. I watched them go off headed. Or sometimes we the air is sweet with the smell solution. It's difficult for us to with boys and turn them- would pretend that she had of incense. And the pews are understand how the most selves into foreigners. found me wounded in the for- all full of soldiers, and offi- important thing, even in the est and had taken me to her cers, and counts, and dukes, case of war, is to find some he year I was seventeen, cottage, where she would and knights—and their way for all the men involved Tmy whole family turned bandage my wounds and women, all dressed in satins, to save face. It would almost against me and the town cover me with kisses. and lace, and velvet. be funny how childish they where I had lived all my life Hauviette and I were more And here are the priests, are, except that these children was bumed to the ground. than best friends. We were and the abbots, and the bish- are running the world—and But these were just brush fires one soul. We knew this, and ops. And the Archbishop of they have almost ruined it. compared to the real catastro- we had always planned to live Reims is here, wearing this And these rules of face-saving phe. That same year—Hauvi- together after we grew up. But, beautiful robe made out of are hard on women. When a ette, my best friend—she got like I said, there was this terri- gold cloth. And here's woman challenges a man, it's engaged. That did it. France's ble thing, puberty. Charles, standing in the front not enough for him to prove hour of glory had struck. I ran of the church, dressed like a she's wrong. To save face, he away from home. he other hard part of run- king, waiting to be crowned has to annihilate her. Tning away was leaving according to the ancient tradi- auviette and I had been my mother. It was like in bat- tions handed down by gener- he fear of rape, as men Hvery, very close. We had tle, when the soldier next to ation after generation of Thave known for years, is grown up together, which was you gets his legs blown off by French kings. And here, just as effective as the real a very special thing. See, it a cannon. You don't want to standing next to him, in the thing. The woman is scared was a custom in my village leave him, but there's nothing place of highest honor, is a to live alone, scared to go for the girls who shared their you can do for him, and if seventeen-year-old peasant places by herself, scared of first communion to sleep with you stay behind, they'll just girl in full armor.... Now, can the dark, always looking over you tell me what's wrong each other. She would come get you too. So you leave. her shoulder, waking up at with this picture! over to my house, or I would Like I left my mother. But it the least sound in the middle go over to hers. We would tore my heart out. See, what everyone else of the night. She is perpetual- sleep in the same bed together. knew and I didn't, was that I ly distracted, self-conscious, Sometimes we would kay. Here it is. It's the had broken all the rules, Here subverted, terrorized. She pretend we were on a very Oinside of the cathedral at I was: a peasant, strike one. A might just as well have been small boat in the ocean, and I Reims, Coronation Day. It's a child, strike two. And a raped, which of course is the female, strike three big time. had rescued her. I would hold beautiful July day, and the sun whole point. Actually any one of those is her in my arms, and my heart is streaming through the In my little cell in Rouen, an automatic out, but I was would be so full of tenderness, stained glass windows, and surrounded by my five

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 .51 guards, the atmosphere of when we finally do break— rape was suffocating, And it which is usually after almost Spotlight on had nothing to do with sex. It superhuman suffering! Do we the Playwright get a reprieve! Are we had to do with degradation. "This Joan of Arc is a far cry from the eroticized and ideal- released, forgiven! Does the They wanted to make me ized Joan of Anouihl or Shaw," writes Carolyn Qage in an despise myself. I chose to torture stop, the pressure let introduction to her award-winning play. "This Joan, like despise them instead. up! I have seen all kinds of women give in in all kinds of the historical one, is a teenager, a runaway from an alco- et me tell you about my ways: to harassment, to guilt, holic home with an incestuous father, a girl with severe Ltrial. I had two judges, to sex, to drugs, to alcohol, to eating disorders, and a lesbian." Replacing "the myth of a two officers of the court, three mental illness. And in every feminine, simple-minded peasant girl," Qage portrays Joan notaries, and an usher to single instance—listen to as "the cross-dressing butch with the smart mouth"—"a escort me back and forth from me!—the abuse increases. character conspicuous in her absence from heteropatriarchal my cell...and thirty-two doc- There is no mercy for women, theatre: the angry young woman." because our crime is our gen- tors of theology, sixteen bach- Qage is a radical lesbian-feminist playwright and direc- der. We have to fight. elors of theology, four doctors tor and the recipient of numerous literary fellowships, most of civil rights, seven men So I confessed. And, like notably the Oregon Book Awards, the state's most presti- with special licenses, five doc- most women, I expected some gious. From 1989 to 1991 she was artistic director of No tors of canon law, fifteen men reward for surrendering To Men, a radical lesbian theater company in Ashland, with licenses in canon law, myself, for betraying my voic- seven medical doctors, seven es, for denying my purpose, Oregon. In two years it produced 19 plays, including ten masters of arts, sixteen assis- for selling out every single one-acts, two musicals, and a one-woman show—all by tants and expert witnesses, scrap of my integrity. I expect- Qage. In addition to running the theater, Qage performed twenty-three priests, five bish- ed to be moved to a church The Second Coming of loan of Arc on national tour. ops, three abbots—and a car- prison where there would be In person, the 42-year-old Qage dashes off rough drafts dinal, in a pear tree. After all, other women prisoners and of thoughts that sometimes whiz past brains not as quick as you can't be too careful with women attendants. But that hers. Like other writers who tweak heteropatriarchal cul- these teenage girls. didn't happen. They took me ture through theater—such as Tony Kushner (Angels in back to my old cell, back to America) and Caryl Churchill (Top Qirls)—Qage often my five guards. Only now I hile they were reading throws historical and invented characters together into a my sentence, I broke had to wear a dress. W politically charged face-off. Her theatrics are as daring and down and confessed. I her characters as richly imagined (if not more so), but her renounced my voices and ied to that stake, watch- promised to wear a dress. Ting the fire come closer unsentimental radical feminism sets her apart. What happens to women and closer, I realized that Qod It takes a 25-page catalog to summarize the stunning the Father was a lie. range of scripts that Qage, a Dramatists Quild member, has He's an invention of written over the past 12 years. A new collection, The Sec- the good old boys to ond Coming of loan of Arc and Other Plays ($11.50), and cover their tracks and an audiocassette of Qage as Joan ($10) are available from their asses. I realized HerBooks, PO Box 7467, Santa Cruz, CA 95061. that the closest I had ever come to any real sense of spirituality worshiped themselves and the hierarchies modeled after was alone with my each other. I realized what a him—the governments, the voices, or in the com- fool I had been to lead one armies, the churches, the cor- pany of other women. army of men out against porations, the families!—are I realized what a another, as if it could make illegitimate. We will not con- fool I had been to any possible difference which vert them. They will martyr waste my time side won. And I realized us. We will not convert them. crowning some man what a fool I had been to We must fight for our own king, as if he had believe I would be saved causes, women's causes. We some divine right to from the actions of men by a must clothe ourselves in self- rule. I realized what god they had created in their respect, arm ourselves with a fool I had been for own image. our finely tempered rage, and trusting a church run Qod the Father was a lie obey only those voices that by men who only then and is a lie now, and all we women alone can hear. •

32 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 WHOSE GOD IS IT 1 RE-IMAGINING ANYWAY \

"We do not believe the patriarchal model is by women (government, business, and academia come the only way to do church. We believe that the to mind). But Re-Imagining stands for more than Christian church contains within its history and token inclusion in existing hierarchies—and far more possibilities the threads of inclusion and than a patriarchal God in drag. reconciliation, wholeness and mutuality." Emphatically a grassroots movement, Re-Imagining —The Re-Imagining Steering Committee, fosters emerging Christian theologies—call them fem- memorandum, 1994 inist, womanist, or mujerista—grounded in lived expe- rience as well as innovative readings of traditional E APPROACH THE DOORWAY one by sources such as the Bible. Fundamentally, Re-Imagin- one, drawn by the slow, steady beat of a ing insists on the equal authority of men and Wdrum and the tidal whoosh of a rainstick. I women—many kinds of women—to shape and inter- enter, passing between two lines of women and men, pret religious symbols and texts in a spirit of liberation. their hands uplifted in benediction, their voices raised This creative process, the making of theologies, is in song: not merely an esoteric exercise, as antifeminist Chris- Bless Sophia/Dream the vision/ tians are well aware. The imagery and rituals, social Share the wisdom/dwelling deep within organization, and political agenda of the insti- Sophia, or Wisdom, is one of many names "No comparable tutional church depend, at least in part, on for the divine, echoing down the centuries foundational beliefs that all too often relegate from Hellenistic sources to the Bible. "Arti- hereby had women to second-class status. At issue, on a san, artificer, master builder," the book of appeared in the visceral level, are the hierarchy of gender, the Proverbs calls her, "ever at play everywhere in implicit masculinity of God, and the normative the world"(8:30-31). Said to have been pre- church in the lajt status of masculinity itself. sent when the world was made, Sophia also fifteen centuries" The immediate origins of this insurgent animates the Re-Imagining Community, an movement go back at least to 1985, when independent, ecumenical organization of —RETIRED BISHOP EARL HUNT, feminists from around the world met in Nairo- Christian feminists whose stated mission is "to referring to "Sophia," United bi to celebrate the United Nations Decade for seek justice, honor creation, and call the Methodist Congress on Evangelism, Women. Continuing the unfinished work of Church into solidarity with all people of January 1994 that conference, the World Council of God." Churches initiated its own "Ecumenical What's at stake in Re-Imagining goes deep- Decade: Churches in Solidarity with Women" er than the ordination of women and the use (1988-98) to eliminate discriminatory teach- of nonsexist language in church services ings and practices. At the halfway point, in (although many a congregation is still strug- by November 1993, the first Re-Imagining con- gling with those very issues). Cracking the ference brought to Minneapolis about 2,200 Lou Ann participants, members of 32 Christian denomi- stained glass ceiling is arduous enough, just as nations, from 49 states and 27 countries. in other institutions run by men and served

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 33 According to Rev. Sally L. Hill, the conference coordinator, more than 65,000 brochures were distributed worldwide—three fourths of them upon request—as news of the gath- ering spread by word of mouth.

ODAY, AS I DID a year ago, I find myself inside a large Tconference room at the Min- neapolis Convention Center, a sleek, low-lying complex on the southern edge of downtown. At the center of our sanctuary is a raised circular dais, accessible by ramp; there is no altar, no cross, no pictures on the bare, neutral walls. The mood is warm and lively as the participants—most- ly white women over thirty—greet one another. We find our way to the round banquet tables, choosing women-only, mixed-gender, artists', or fragrance-free. There are no bad seats in this house. At once like the Michigan music festival and a Min- nesota church basement, it feels like familiar territory: women's space. A few opening chords on the piano and we begin with a familiar African-American spiritual: Like a tree planted by the water We shall not be moved How many times and places have I sung these strengthening words, as a union organizer, at prochoice rallies, at Take Back the Night. I reach back down the years to my grandmother, a blacklisted Christian socialist and feminist, who first told me about the civil rights movement and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And I remember, as a One casualty of the witch-hunt was Mary Ann child in Washington, D.C., singing hymns next to my Lundy, the former U.S. cochair of the World Council of mother at St. Stephen and the Incarnation, a political- Churches Ecumenical Decade and, until last year, the ly progressive Episcopal church that stood for black associate director of the Presbyterian General Assembly. civil rights and peace in Vietnam. Lundy was forced out of that post because she had On this Saturday morning, October 29, pride and served as director of the Presbyterian Women's Unit more than a hint of defiance stay with me as cochairs when it recommended that funds be granted to launch Mary Kay Sauter and Rev. Kathi Austin Mahle wel- Re-Imagining (which subsequently received more than come the 470 participants to this anniversary event, the $70,000 from Presbyterian church sources). first regional conference sponsored by the Minneapo- Lesbians openly took part in Re-Imagining, in lis-based Re-Imagining Community. "We believe the keeping with the organizers' wish "to create a safe Spirit is with us today," Rev. Mahle announces, "and space where [all] people... could engage freely in dia- that God has no problem with our re-imagining." logue." Predictably, the presence of lesbians was used Laughter and applause ripple through the room. as a divide-and-conquer political strategy. The women Considering the severity of antifeminist backlash of Re-Imagining were also charged with "goddess against the Re-Imagining movement, it is something worship" and "destroying the Church." Incensed, The of a miracle to be here at all. During the past year, Presbyterian Layman railed in its January/February amid debate characterized as "murderous" by the Min- 1994 issue: neapolis Star Tribune, conservative Christians in politi- Declaring their allegiance to the goddess "Sophia," cally moderate denominations have attacked their own participants catapulted their rhetoric well beyond com- clergywomen and leaders who supported the original, monplace themes ojwomen's equality. Instead, they international Re-Imagining conference in 1993. heralded a more radical agenda.... Destroying tradi-

34 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 tional Christian faith, adopting pagan beliefs, rejecting tuality, a lesbian-feminist—"the devil incarnate," I sum Jesus' divinity and his atonement on the cross, creating up with a self-conscious laugh. a god(dess) in their own image, and affirming lesbian On this day, as a year ago, we don't just talk at Re- love-making were recurring conference themes. Imagining. Circle-dancing around the tables feels In the United Methodist Church, meanwhile, Joyce good after intense conversation. At the artists' table, D. Sohl, deputy general secretary of the Women's drawings take shape. Breaking bread together, we Division, was targeted by a postcard campaign because honor the women whose daily labor feeds the world. members of the Women's Division had received finan- Between presentations we sing: cial aid to attend Re-Imagining in 1993. Distributed From my mother's womb and grandmother's tongue by Good News, a conservative Methodist publication, I have heard my name, been given my song the preprinted postcards addressed to Sohl called on With their blood and their beauty 1 have grown strong the Women's Division to "repudiate the conference's With the fire of love and rage I will sing on radical teachings, make a public apology to the These words bring tears to my eyes. When I look church, and promise no further involvement in similar up again, there to my surprise is one of the fundamen- womanist/feminist/lesbian gatherings." talist women, offering comfort. We talk for a while about homophobia and families. I tell her I'm CCORDING TO Hamline University reli- impressed by her determination to find out about Re- gion professor Rita Nakashima Brock, author Imagining for herself. Aof Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic She responds with a sidelong grin. At home, she Power (Crossroad, 1988), attacks on feminist theolo- says, both her Methodist pastor and the bishop, a gians are nothing new. In recent years, "one scholar woman, had tried to curb discussion about the 1993 had her car firebombed, and others have had threats conference, though both were in sympathy with its on their lives," she told the Star Tribune. After Brock Jl aims. Loose talk about Re-Imagining by people who appeared on ABC-TV's Nightline to discuss Re-Imag- weren't there would cause dissension, they told her. ining, telephone harassment against her was so severe But why not talk about it? she wonders. "We weren't that the university began screening her calls. at the Sermon on the Mount either!" she points out, Today, from the central dais, Brock lectures and how many times had they talked about on God and gender, pivoting slowly so as to that? address all corners of the room. She tells of a ^Weare I ask her what she thinks of feminism. "To minister's wife, a feminist, who was disturbed me, feminism means women are important, by the phrase "God the Mother." Would a women in your and issues related to women are important," divine mother have allowed her child to be she replies. "I'm not anti-male.' crucified? the woman wondered. And what image: With the When the last presentation has ended, and did that suggest about fatherhood? tired participants are filing out in twos and In blocking women's ordination, Brock hot blood of our threes, Lucille Goodwyne, 55, a national Pres- argues, it is church authorities, not feminists, byterian advocate of lesbian and gay ordina- who have made Jesus' masculinity "a symbol wombs we give tion, puts the conference in perspective. Like of power and exclusion." Candidates for the form to new life. the fundamentalist woman, Goodwyne sees priesthood need not share any other of Jesus' Re-Imagining as an opportunity to affirm characteristics—his race, his language, even ... With nectar "that women are good," while asking "forbid- his religion (Judaism), Brock points out dryly. den questions" about Christianity and its rele- "It's sort of like my friend Maureen used to between our thighs vance to women's lives. say:'You don't have to be like Jesus; you just "This is political activism in the Church," have to pee like Jesus to get ordained.' " The we invite a lover. she explains. "Some people don't think of the audience roars. Church as political. It's as political as anything Christology—beliefs about Jesus—is at the ... With our warm else." center of today's program, beginning with body fluids we For the future, organizers say, the work of Jesus' own question "Who do you say that I Re-Imagining will continue in locally based am?" (Matthew 16:15, Mark 8:29, Luke remind the world study and support groups connected by a 9:20). Inflecting the question with emphasis newsletter, bringing together women of on you, participants suggest their own of its pleasures diverse views to explore common questions. answers in small-group discussions, called Modest as these grassroots efforts may appear, "talking circles," at each table. Personal and sensations." they are no less significant than the public reflection is encouraged, but agreement is not —A PRAYER TO SOPHIA, Re-Imagining gathering that provoked such expected. from the 1993 Re-Imagining outrage and condemnation. They may well be The ten women in my table group include Conference, text by Hilda Kuester the spiritual kin of the consciousness-raising a Presbyterian minister, a Christian member groups through which, a generation ago, U.S. feminism was born again. • of the Society of Friends (Quakers), and two At left, "Christ Sophia" by Robert Lentz. Methodist fundamentalists who drove clear Artwork provided by Bridge Building across the state to "observe" the conference. Images, Burlington,Vermont Lou Ann Matossian is a poet, freelance writer, and I introduce myself as a Unitarian-Universal- editor whose work has appeared most recently in off ist, a sometime practitioner of goddess spiri- our backs. She lives in Minneapolis.

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 35 Activist Wanda Nowicka worries Poland's new constitution will require "protection for the unborn."

Feminists fight to Poland's regain reproductive rights Morning After by PEGGY SIMPSON The scaffolding covering the Chopin Palace in Warsaw did- In honoring Nowicka, the jurors—who come from acad- n't hide the electricity inside, as reproductive rights activist emia, the media, and political parties—validated Poland's Wanda Nowicka was nominated as Poland's Woman of besieged and marginalized women's rights activists as credi- Europe, contending for a Brussels-based European Commu- ble political players. That's a sea change. nity prize. The moderator, Krystyna Kofta, a novelist and It has been a wipeout four years for women, at least on magazine writer, professed amazement: "You have a husband reproductive rights issues, since shortly after communism fell and three sons and yet you call yourself a feminist.... Isn't in Poland in 1989. The church has won everything it want- this inconsistent?" ed, from regaining property to putting religion back in Nowicka, cofounder and executive director of the three- school to moving against legal abortion and raising political year-old Federation for Women and Family Planning, and professional risks for doctors who perform them. Its brought cheers from the standing-room crowd when she current crusade is to get "life begins at conception" lan- said, "I hope this stereotype about feminism is not the only guage into the new constitution, as proposed by the Solidar- one that is shattered by my selection. I'm a living example ity Union. Solidarity, meantime, has worked closely with the of that stereotype not being true." church; in 1990, the union muzzled members who defied

36 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 the union's crusade to make abortion illegal. sion on reproductive rights (see The Handmaid's Tale, Polish- Nowicka, a former language teacher, is a leader of the Style, p. 39): More women now realize that "what was easily grassroots movement to fight back. Until last summer's UN given can be easily taken away, so now is the time to struggle, Population and Development Conference in Cairo, when to strengthen ourselves, to mobilize. I truly believe that even- she made news in Poland and abroad by warning delegates tually we will win. But I'm afraid it may take years." not to expect the Vatican to compromise on reproductive issues such as contraception and abortion, she was known An Unlikely Revolutionary mostly to insiders. Deputy Barbara Labuda, head of the Par- owicka doesn't look the part of a liamentary Caucus on Women's Issues and the nation's most revolutionary. She has a radiant smile visible abortion-rights defender, says she "fought like a and dresses with simple elegance. tiger" for Nowicka to get the award. She overcame shyness to become a One juror who was persuaded was Rychard Holzer, a top strong public speaker, but still ducks editor at a Warsaw daily newspaper, Super Express: "Family her head when praised. Originally planning and abortion are crucial issues in Poland. The polls she was studying to be a Greek and show that the majority of people oppose the anti-abortion Latin scholar when, at 22, to her par- law. What we did was show the public this person who is ents' dismay, she married philosopher Swiatoslaw Nowicki. fighting that law. This is not an anti-church or pro-church She became a Latin teacher instead and spent most of the position. We didn't talk about the church. We said this is a 1980s rearing three sons, not as a Solidarity activist risking good woman." jail or worse in the tumultuous confrontation with the Communists. Consciousness-Raising Nowicka dates her first political action to poll-watching Can't Begin at the Top in the 1984 elections that Solidarity boycotted to make sure •I he struggles are voter turnout figures weren't inflated. Taking her son Florian having are a lesson in the dangers of in a stroller, she watched a mostly deserted election center for hours—then bolted when a Party official began to ask why she was there and to demand her ID. When the Solidarity government took over in mid-1989, Nowicka was focused on parents' moves to improve educa- tion. She wasn't political in the larger sense. That changed T top-down equal rights. In the past, when the first Solidarity government announced in August munism with minimal "equalitypolitical clou" wat isn a eithen officiar thle policCommuy of- 1990, when most people were on vacation, that religion nist parties or the Solidaritthe Communisy partiest , partywher, ealthoug womeh nman hady classes would be put back into public schools weeks later. At played a pivotal part noinw keepin say igt waundergrouns more rhetorid Solidaritc thany the time, she had just begun three years of teaching English afloat. Women also emergerealitdy saddle and dneve withr thgave esam womee formidan rea-l in a parent-controlled high school. ble work/family burdenpowers they'. Womed wrestlen emerged withd before—anfrom comd- Nowicka helped start Neutrum, a group advocating sepa- with no conversations among themselves (let alone with ration of church and state, which monitored complaints their husbands or as public debates) about burden-sharing. both from parents whose children were ostracized if they In 1990 and 1991, few Polish women wanted anything to weren't in religion school, and from those who were manip- do with anything connected with the "women's movement." ulated if their children were. For example, the Friday before Like women in many parts of Eastern Europe and the former the first free parliamentary elections in 1991, some priests Soviet Union, they associated it with communist manipula- sent home names of approved candidates and told first- tion of the people, and they knew it didn't bring equality. graders they wouldn't get First Communion if their parents It was an awful time for a learning curve. But there was didn't back the church ticket. Earlier that year Neutrum had no way to jump-start a grassroots women's movement from expanded its agenda when anti-abortion laws were pro- the top. Nor could it be done by outsiders, although their posed. That's when Nowicka met women from the Polish help can be valuable. It has to be done by insiders who Feminist Association (PFA). It was a turning point for her. know what is viable and when. That foundation is being laid The PFA proposed her, rather than one of their own, for a today, brick by brick. summer 1991 political training workshop in Washington, "What we have been going through is the necessary DC, sponsored by Catholics for a Free Choice. Nowicka, process of getting consciousness about women's issues in who had been baptized as a Catholic, wanted to act on her general," Nowicka says. Western feminists fought for their anger—and wasn't as exhausted as the PFA veterans, recalls equality, but "we took it for granted," Nowicka explains. "If ex-PFA activist Barbara Pomorska, now New Zealand's you forget about communism—and forget how limiting it honorary counsel and trade representative in Warsaw. was—the fact that we got so much, so easily, had a paralyzing She came back energized, and in late 1991 Neutrum effect: that there is no need to fight for anything more, that helped found the nine-group Federation for Women and we are equal." She grew up in the late 1970s, never doubting Family Planning. Nowicka became its president in 1992. that she was equal to her brother. "There were so many The next year, she left teaching to work part-time at the appearances of equality, like the possibility of work, access to Federation. In 1994, she resigned from its board to take the the university, being a professional. Many women around newly created job of executive director. me made careers. It was only very recently that I realized Unlike many Polish women, Nowicka has had her family very few women could get far in terms of their career." strongly behind her growing involvement. Her husband The wake-up call for Polish women, she says, was the colli- works out of their home, translating the German philoso-

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 37 pher Hegel into Polish, and does much of the shopping and rather than the operative premise for grassroots organizing: cooking. "My husband is not a traditional Polish man with that "information is power, so share it." these patriarchal expectations. He understands because I'm Nowicka has shown that sharing information can outside doing this sort of job and he works at home, that strengthen an organization. One early Federation activity somebody must do this work. He's really very supportive, that has paid off is a hotline set up in 1992 to get and give now that he realizes I'm really busy and tired, and he takes information. That helps the network monitor on-the- on more than he used to," she says. All three sons—Florian, ground realities of every aspect of legal and illegal abortions. now 14, Michal, 12, andTimoteusz, 10—cook, with special- New services include sex education programs in two dozen ties such as soups or baking. "And we cook together. We're or so schools outside of Warsaw, begun late this summer, also not fussy about this," says Nowicka. Her husband and and training programs for their teachers. sons have given her a secure emotional base from which to Early support—both financial and in workshops where tackle the extraordinarily difficult job of tying together experts from Ireland or the United States were brought in as Poland's polarized and fragmented women's community. political-training resources—came from Catholics for a Free Choice and IPPF. The Federation also cosponsored a work- Building Coalitions out of Mistrust ing conference with Norway's Equal Status Council on inding common ground after decades shaping laws and enforcement mechanisms to guarantee of political polarization and distrust is women's rights, and a subsequent one with Norwegian a problem many grassroots groups in experts and Polish nurses who teach sex-ed classes. And fel- the former Soviet bloc must tackle. lowships to study outside Poland have also helped both The Federation is one of the few Nowicka and attorney Nowakowska gain the perspective organizations that has succeeded in that let them create change. But it's also important to note getting old and new political groups that the generosity of outraged feminists in the rest of the to work in tandem. Members besides world can be a mixed blessing for groups like the Federa- Neutrum include the Solidarity-based PFA; Pro Femina, a tion. Unsolicited gifts included tens of cartons of condoms grassroots feminist group of women once linked to the or oral contraceptives with no way to distribute them to Communist party; the Polish Women's League (the former users, and roomfuls of comic books on sex for Polish official Communist party association); theYWCA; and the teenagers, which got high marks for candor and humor but existing affiliate of International Planned Parenthood Feder- still were hard to get to teens. ation, called TRR. Nowicka gets much of the credit for brokering this The Future arrangement. Nowicka's "personal skills...and diplomacy" here is a far more sophisticated grass- were assets in the Federation's success in linking Solidarity roots women's movement here than groups "and old groups like the Women's League, which, even a year ago. Some are Polish because of its communist past, was not really 'accepted,' affiliates of international groups, such says lawyer Urszula Nowakowska, who is starting an office as the Association of University to monitor policies affecting women, modeled after the Women and the Association of Busi- two-way linkages she saw in the U.S. Congress on a ness and Professional Women's Clubs 1993—94 fellowship sponsored by the Women's Research (which has 200 women in seven and Educational Institute. clubs). An association of rural women entrepreneurs, direct- Nowicka's apolitical profile also helped, points out Malgo- ed by Elzbieta Dec, is Women's World Banking's first central- rzata Halaba, a former Russian-Polish translator now work- European affiliate. Maria Anna Knothe's Center for the ing on a master's in business administration. "First of all, she Advancement of Women is a major resource for training didn't have any political past. She was not a controversial and women's economic initiatives. Key funders and nurtur- person. She also is not a person who evokes conflict, but ers for the movement are Dagmara Baraniewska, a senior somebody who rather solves conflicts. executive of the Batory Foundation, and Joanna Regulska, "Wanda is a person who can pick up what is most impor- director of Russian, Central and East European Studies at tant to everybody and put it together. She doesn't take sides. Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a Polish She's able to see the global picture," says Halaba, who is emigre who commutes between the United States and Neutrum's person on the board. "What makes her effective Poland and is a key link for grants and programs abroad. is that she's not emotional but she knows what she wants. And conflict has spurred consciousness-raising among She doesn't make a lot of fuss about it, she just does it. She's academics. Three veteran professors are in the second semes- also a brave person. She's not afraid to tell what she thinks: ter of a groundbreaking gender-studies course at Warsaw It's one thing to say something among your friends and University: law professors Eleonora Zielinska and Monika quite another to say this at an international conference like Platek and sociology of law professor Malgorzata Fuszara, in Cairo." who also heads a research unit on women and work issues. Making decisions and making them stick, without one Meantime, Nowicka's visibility has soared. After being group or another having second thoughts a week later, has nominated for the Woman of Europe award, she was inter- been a serious problem. This was rooted partly in the isola- viewed on the radio and in newspapers. Her views became tion from what outsiders might think are routine "Robert's well known, for the first time, to many people. The repro- rules" processes of running a meeting. But not making deci- ductive rights center also was publicized through the focus sions was characteristic of the past system. There was an on Wanda. And the criticism she had levelled at the Vatican intrinsic assumption that "information is power, so hoard it," during the Cairo conference got second-round exposure.

38 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 The limelight has its hazards, however. At a two-day con- he called again and again. Finally, our hotline people talked ference on "women and family life" sponsored by the Par- to him. We recorded the calls. We wanted to call the police liamentary Caucus on Women's Issues, held in Parliament on at that time, but we didn't." Nov. 12-13, the more than 200 delegates were leafletted They probably should have. Later that night or early on with a petition protesting Nowicka's nomination that was Saturday, the reproductive rights office was broken into and signed by 18 women, some of them well-known public fig- totally cleaned out—of two computers and printers, a VCR ures such as sociologist Jadwiga Staniszkis. Nowicka's criti- and television, payroll money due to be paid to hotline cism of the Vatican and of Polish-born Pope John Paul II at workers (about $3,000), and three telephones. "They didn't the Cairo population conference was "shocking and dis- just unplug the phones and take them—they cut the wires, graceful," they said. as if they would disconnect us from the world. An ordinary Nowicka's own inclination was to defend what she had robber would have just unplugged them," says Nowicka. said (which sounded much harsher in translation from Eng- Not the least of the impact was the fact that a newly com- lish to Polish) and to make sure that the context was clear: puterized list containing names of more than 800 activists She was criticizing the Vatican, and the pope, on its stand on was taken, along with hundreds of other files. Some of that population issues such as contraception and abortion. She can be replaced, but for a while "we're really out of busi- was not criticizing the pope in general, especially as a former ness," says Nowicka. Solidarity-era dissident who knew full well that the resis- Given that two Polish women had previously won the tance probably could not have succeeded if it had not been Woman of Europe competition, no one was surprised that for the protection of the church. She never made the clarifi- Nowicka did not win this year. Receiving the national prize cation, having been persuaded by her peers that all it would had done its job of making both her and the cause for do was make her appear on the defensive. which she is fighting better known across Poland. The hate And that's not all that happened. Within a week of Now- mail and threatening phone calls—and the burglary—are icka's being honored as Poland's Woman of Europe, the testimony to that. "What we wanted to do was to be reproductive rights office began getting threatening tele- known," she said. "And these are partly the costs of that. I phone calls. On Friday, November 25—Nowicka's 38th hope the last ones." • birthday—they escalated into more serious trouble. "A man calling himself Mr. Markowski said he had a telephone Peggy Simpson has been in Poland covering the economic psycholo- appointment with me. I didn't remember that, but when I gy of the political changes for the past three years. She teaches about came to the phone he started yelling at me, 'You bitch, you U.S. news media at Warsaw University, and has reported on nation- Jew,' " she recalls. "Of course I put the receiver down, but al economics and political news for the Associated Press for 30 years.

\ HOW POLISH WOMEN ARE LOSING THEIR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS |

OPINION POLLS show 70 1991 incest. "Societal hardship" is concordat with the Vatican. If percent or more of Poles want • State subsidies for contracep- out. • Private-clinic abortions passed by Parliament, it would abortion kept legal and clerics to tives end. • Medical Society are also banned. Penalty: two give priests responsibility for stay out of politics. The opposite code of ethics expands to bar years in prison. (In summer registering church marriages has happened. Restrictions physicians from doing abor- 1994, these laws bear tragic with civil courts, threatening began almost as soon as power tions except when pregnancy fruit: A gynecologist from Czs- an implicit ban on legal changed hands in 1989. resulted from a criminal act or tochowa commits suicide divorce for Catholics. Debate threatens the life or health of before her probable arrest for over concordat helps (with SUMMER 1990 the woman. Violators can lose an illegal abortion at her pri- abortion) to beat Solidarity • New health ministry rules their license, though official vate clinic. Something went parties in September elections. require signoff from three 1956 law still permits abortion wrong and she rushed her physicians and mandatory for other reasons, such as patient to a hospital—saving SPRING 1994 counseling before getting an "societal hardship." the patient, but sealing her • New Parliament votes for abortion. • With minimal own fate.) • Women's rights abortion-law changes, to add notice, a law strips all local JANUARY 1993 forces do defeat a move to {ail back in "societal" reasons. Vote courts of jurisdiction over • Parliament enacts law restrict- women who self-induce abor- misses a two-thirds veto-proof divorce, relegating it to the ing abortions to those where tion, and win mandates for margin. President Lech Walesa equivalent of appeals courts. the life or health of the mother government to distribute con- vetoes changes, saying he'll • The newly formed Polish is proved in danger; where traceptives, have sex-ed classes. resign if overridden. • Bishops Medical Society enacts an tests show the has seri- threaten 1995 presidential- ethical code obligating ous deformities; or where a SUMMER 1993 race opposition to parties that physicians to defend all life, prosecutor agrees pregnancy • Prime Minister Hanna override Walesa. The strict '93 beginning at conception. resulted from criminal rape or Suchocka signs a then-secret law is still in effect in 1995.

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 39 TALKING FEMINIST To Shave or Not to Shave? "IN MY DAY, IT ALL STARTED when you were four- and silky. Teen magazine tells its adolescent readers what teen. . .at Easter time," she says, pulling her long cotton skirt guys like. "Girls should always shave their legs and under up to her thighs and scratching her upper leg above where their arms," one teen-age boy wrote in last August; "I'm not it's socially acceptable to scratch. "You got high heels, panty- into the au naturel look." hose. . .it was a custom. I don't know how it was handed Yet women have never let men's tastes determine their down." Dr. Ann Dreher leans back in her office chair and hairstyles, writes Wendy Cooper in Hair: Sex, Society, Symbol- tosses her bare legs up on the desk. She's a theater professor ism. For centuries, men have pleaded for long and loose hair, at the University of South Carolina (USC) in Columbia. yet for centuries women have lifted it, curled it, tied it back. When she wears ankle socks with pumps and exposes her Body hair "seems to be the one case in which women are hairy legs, is she just being dramatic? prepared to please men, yielding to masculine whims and Maybe. But she's not the only one on campus. Sure, the demands, even when, in the past, this has meant depilation majority of college women, of all American women, shave by quite painful methods," writes Cooper. their legs and underarms. And most American men shave King Solomon is reputed to have demanded that the their faces and keep their hair short. But what about those queen of Sheba remove "nature's veil" before he would who don't? Hairy-legged women and bearded, hairy men. sleep with her. The Crusaders brought the Arabic idea of Why would anyone want to step that far out of the status depilation to European women, which lasted until Cather- quo? And why do so many of us want to stay in? ine de Medici ended the fashion. During the Italian Renais- Dreher's students offered her up to me as an interesting sance, it was only practiced -when doctors shaved hysterical subject for this piece. "She doesn't shave...she's crazy," one women, to make the "suffocating humors of the brain" flow 21-year-old male told me, "But don't tell her I sent you." out more easily. A report from a Frenchman in 1525 states Some students find her hairiness disgusting. White men are that it was considered elegant for women to be completely usually "'grossed out" by it, says Dreher, who is white. "Stu- shaven. But by 1545, Cooper writes, French women applied dents have told me, 'When I saw you didn't shave, I knew a special pomade to their private parts to make the hair you were a heavy feminist.' " grow abnormally long, so that it could be curled up like a Well, Dreher does have a bumper sticker on her office mustache and decorated with colored bows. door that says "War is Menstruation Envy," but she's not the Decorative pubic bows? Shaving to cure hysteria? Hold only one who's not shaving. Sociology junior Amy Potthast, on to your hairdos, that's just the women. Men have been at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, quit shaving hairier from the beginning. And while codes for women's her freshman year. Other students have questioned her deci- hair have remained largely unwritten, men's beards and the sion, but she won't go changing. "Why is it a preference hair on their heads have been subject to legislation. thing for men to shave their faces, yet unheard of for men to shave under their arms or on their legs and just as unheard ALEXANDER THE GREAT ordered his whole army to of for women not to shave in those places?" she asks. "I be shaven, so that the enemy didn't grab their hair prior to don't understand these arbitrary social patterns, and once I cutting off their heads, wrote Charles MacKay in Memoires of started trying to make sense of them, I stopped shaving." Extraordinary Popular Delusions in 1841. At the end of the Dr. Soyini Madison, communication studies professor, 1 lth century, the pope decreed that people with "long hair University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, quit shav- should be excommunicated while living and not prayed for ing when she started thinking about double standards. "I when dead." When the bishop ofWorcester passed men with don't see any purpose in shaving other than to comply with long hair in the street, he would reach out with his knife false standards of what women should do," she says. "Men and slice off a bit of the hair. Then, holding it in their faces, don't shave. And it's certainly not a matter of hygiene." he would tell them to cut off the rest or go to hell. In 1705 The cultural norm is no secret. It's proclaimed in every Peter the Great of Russia decided that his kingdom would magazine, on every model. Liz Claiborne tells us in the ads be free of beards. Those who wouldn't shave were forced to that "legs have a language of their own." Hers are smooth pay a tax of 100 rubles or be thrown into prison. BY OLIVIA JAMES

40 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 These men were shaved and AH, IMAGE...object of shorn at the command of our obsession. We waste life- church and state. Today, the times wondering how things enforcement is more subtle. will look. For American Not only do we fail to under- women, the mantra of hair- stand the reasons for the styles lessness includes shaving we follow, we sometimes fail pubic regions. Most bathing to see that we are following suits are cut so that pubic hair anything. The average teen- must be removed or exposed. ager will never ask "Why And if it is exposed, it seems shave?", only "When?" unhygienic. Black women may not feel Theater professor Dreher as much pressure from men to preaches to her students a shave as white women do. "It's sermon against this trend of not an aesthetic either way depilating the body entire. that we as black men are "You own your own body," attracted to," says Dr. Jon she warns. "Why are you Michael Spencer, Afro-Ameri- putting depilatory on the can studies professor at UNC. most tender part of the But women of all colors body?" For her, a bathing who do have second suit that exposes her body thoughts about shaving often The material id hair is a message that the conclude it is easier to stick rock-hard, the surfaced manufacturer wants to see with the social norm. "If I the hair, and she wears the were to grow my hair out, dprouting, in suit accordingly. people would talk," says NC Rachel Rodent bald How does one respond to State senior Laura Pottmyer. clay dculpture, such hairiness? "They'd label me a feminazi Gerrha, 1973. Potthast, who goes or a lesbian. I'm just not that unshaven in Pittsburgh, is a secure about my woman- friend. I didn't know how to hood." talk to her about her hairi- Her friend Rhonda Mann, After a dwindle that ness. "Your leg," I mention coordinator of the Women's dheared her of her eventually (after she brings Center at NC State, says shav- up the subject), "it looks just davingd, Rachel ing is right for her. But she like a man's leg." Is the dif- admires her women friends Rodenthal underwent a ference between the sexes who don't shave. "It must be ritual haircut in her only who shaves? I am 22 liberating to do something performance art piece, and I don't know my own that isn't 'appropriate' like this. Leave Her in leg—as a real leg. I know it It's a way of saying you can't Naxos, 1981. well, chiseled and moistur- define me as a woman. I'm ized, with the muscle defining myself." defined, defined. Perhaps hair is such a volatile issue for us because the hair But without the use of razors, depilatories, and moisturiz- that sprouts on our bodies at puberty brings new evidence ers... I have never seen my adult leg. I am a stranger in my that the differences between boys and girls are not just own body. And a stranger to my own sex, unable to recog- rumors. We do like to mark our differences: Men have short nize the leg of a natural woman. head hair and full body hair; women have the opposite. Though we all have varying amounts of hair in varying MOST WOMEN, young and old, who subscribe to this places, we've deemed these particular traits "normal." And culture's definition of "woman," feel bad about having body we desperately want to be normal. We do what we can with hair. They secretly fear exposure; they glance at themselves our head and body hair, try to wear it as others do, and in private and whisper as they pluck, "surely I'm the only when we spot growth in a strange place—like me and my one with unsightly hair." big toe (women don't have hair there, do they God?)—we It's hair-pressure on a national scale. Yet, when we pray to the god of hair, please let me look normal. encounter the hairy ones, we stand silently wondering. Per- Dr. Glenn Chappell, of Meredith Women's College in haps Salvador Dali had the answer. He didn't try to be nor- Raleigh, North Carolina, instructs women in the reputable mal. Just free. He was known for his "unsightly" hair. Dali side of normalcy: professionalism. As advisor for two business had a mustache which, •when curled, could rise upward to organizations, his rule of thumb is: not too far out. The idea the level of his eyebrows. He said he used it to receive mes- of women not shaving throws him offbalance. "A lot of sages from outer space. • people running around unshaven would be quite startling," he says. "A female accountant who didn't shave would create Writer Olivia James is struggling with the big issues in Carrboro, quite a stir. If you're selling granola bars, I don't know...." North Carolina. £ quite

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 U These artists understand i by Arlene Raven J

Two New York exhibitions take up highly contentious themes about women and work. "The Office: History, Fantasy, and Irregular Protocols" focuses on clerical, administrative, and executive jobs. "Division of Labor:'Women's Work' in Contemporary Art," at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, explores the more familiar theme of domestic toil.

1 he Office," housed at covered that they had all this room reflect Nielson's 2Uth-century founder of "sci- the Riverbank and worked in offices and decided two-year corporate rise from entific management": charting Principal Mutual Life to seek a business space as the a low-level clerical worker to the motion of repetitive tasks Insurance Company in most appropriate exhibit area director of finance during the through time-lapse photogra- New York City's finan- for their subject. They found late 1980s. The glare, stream- phy. This tedious process was cial district, employs a a vacant floor in a high rise in ing in between billowy cur- designed to eliminate wasted commercial building as the Wall Street district. tains that suggest a breeze, falls gestures at work and find the a structure in which The marble and brass lobby harshly onto the unoccupied single best way to do any job. artists can explore the belies the fact that the Deco- desk. There, an open maga- Skipitares' stenos are auto- pink-collar work environ- era building, fully occupied a zine, a half-eaten raisin Dan- mated examples of post- ment. This remaking of an decade ago, is now all but ish, and a spilled cup of coffee industrial philosophies that existing form has a feminist deserted. Its 28th floor is dim are frozen stiff with a preserv- liken people to machines. precedent in the 1971 and dingy. The reception area ative yellow-brown plastic "Scientific" housework, aided "Womanhouse,'' which was is empty save for a stained coating. The Managerial by more and more home created in an abandoned carpet and a few random Woman and Winning at Work appliances, became a profes- house in downtown Los chairs around a small televi- still line the walls. But in sion at the turn of the 20th Angeles to exemplify and par- sion monitor. Along three 1991, Nielson left. century and is still identified ody just such a home. Some surrounding walls, ten cubi- Theodora Skipitares' space exclusively with women. pieces of the original Woman- cles still separate the ghosts of is darkened to black. Three Meanwhile, professional office house are recreated in the workers from the visitors. small animated figures are workers served as wives— Bronx Museum exhibit. "The Corner Office" illuminated by the light bulbs playing mother, child, and "The Office" is the effort boasts window power. The attached to their busy hands mistress—away from home. of twelve artists—writers, per- installation by Brenda Nielson moving above typewriters. "Girl Fridays," however, can formers, filmmakers, and visu- is in an actual corner cubi- The three demonstrate a be left at the end of the day al artists—who began to meet cle—one of twelve site works favorite technique ofTay- and fired at the end of the more than two years ago to that take up the entire floor. lorists, followers of Frederick week. discuss their work. They dis- The placement and light of Winslow Taylor, the early What of today's "average"

42 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 1. Theodora Skipitares, Why Is She All Lit Up? 2. Judite dos Santos, Accessibility /Inaccessibility 3. Mira Schor, Personal Writing Software 4. Freya Hansell, A Proper Burial 5. Nancy Barton, The Power of a Singular Vision 6. Gwenn Thomas, Night Workers in the Global City: The Invisible Partners of the Corporate Economy

Photographs courtesy of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

woman with home, family, and a job? The dream of the 1980s—"having it all"—may have lost its luster. Yet many women are still "doing it all." And the result is over- whelming. The centerpiece of Freya Hansell's "A Proper Burial" is a stack of paper that rises from her desk to the ceiling. Six trash cans and a dozen file boxes overflow with bills and receipts. These personal docu- ments are the unfiled, out-of- control residue of 20 years. Women's work is, indeed, never done.

On the Home Front n the "Division of Labor" exhibit, "division" is not a neutral boundary. "Divi- sion" denotes the wound that splits work according to gender and trivializes female effort. A retrospective of home industry, the exhibit includes a variety of hallmark works from the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. Ann Hamilton's "Still Life" (1988) consists of a table, chair, and 800 white men's •«* shirts that are folded, starched, and gilded. There is no figure in Hamilton's installation. Yet the ghostly smile of the "happy housewife" presides. The material nature of women's work in this home is reflected in the means and 1. Leora Barish, Receptionist Wanted subject matter of Woman- resources chosen for artworks house means housework. But that portray the craft and the 2. Brenda Nielson, The Cower Office the preparation of the envi- drudgery of carrying out 3. Kay Hines, The Museum of Office Culture ronment challenged gender- defined stereotypes and these labor-intensive tasks. Photographs courtesy of Lowei Manhattan Cultural Council. Tile and wallpaper are definitions of labor. From employed by Joyce Kozloff in plumbing to painting, repair- her public installations. Emma ing and restoring the house as Amos borders her paintings an independent exhibition with batik and weaving. Cur- space as well as a work of art tain rods and fringe are cam- was a vital component in a ouflage materials in Marisa course of study designed to Hernandez' displays. Gay build students' skills. Outlaw's tall sculptural pillar We can better sense the is made of skillets. The feet by irony of "Menstruation Bath- Joyce Scott, that bravely walk room" when we know its difficult paths, are beaded. means of construction, as a Faith Ringgold paints, dyes, three-dimensional collage of and pieces fabrics that tell a sanitary products in a pristine story about African-Ameri- white surround, as well as its cans in 1973 that couldn't, deconstruction of its subject. then, be read in most books. The phantom underside of the happy-face homemaker is the unstated, yet startling, sub- ject of Mimi Smith's 1968 "Knit Baby Kit." You can make a baby according to your worst nightmares. Encephalitic swollen head. No eyes, nose, mouth, or ears. A cross-stitched message on the infant's garment: "The Baby Is Dead." Four pieces from Woman- house are reconstructed here—Judy Chicago's "Men- struation Bathroom," Beth Bachenheimer's "Shoe Clos- et," Miriam Schapiro and Sherry Brody's "The Doll- house," and Faith Wilding's "Womb Room." These works occupied rooms in an original site that transformed an aban- The "unknowable mystery" doned residence at 553 Mari- of woman—she who bleeds posa Street in downtown Los but does not die—is seen as Angeles into a vision of the the unseeable, behind filmy, world of a hypothetical sterile gauze. housewife. Created in only A lasting legacy of the col- six weeks, Womanhouse was laboration that created Wom- open to the public between anhouse is the model of com- January 30 and February 28, munity it inspired. Miriam 1972. Audiences were possi- Schapiro continues her dialog bly the largest ever drawn to a with other artists of the pre- mostly student project outside sent and past by including of a gallery or museum. The their images within her own first self-defined collaborative oeuvre. Her invention of .Womanhouse was "femmage" (a feminine to have far-reaching visibility inflection of collage) as a and national impact. working method and struc- "Women's work" as the ture evokes (continue/) on page 55)

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 an asset that enabled communities to increase their population and augment the labor force. As a result, competing tribes often "stole" women from each other. Ahmed then advances to the rise Choice of Islam in the seventh century. Many and non-Muslims credit early Islam with improving the status of women, singling out the Prophet 's abolition of female infan- Books ticide. Yet women in some - ern cultures, Ahmed asserts, had been considerably better off before Islam. BY MARTHA SHELLEY Unlike their sisters in adjacent empires, Arab women could occupy a variety of e're lucky we were born roles. Muhammad's first wife was a here!" is the smug re- wealthy merchant who spent her money "W!sponse I get when I say to support his contemplative life; I'm reading about women in the Is- women participated in battle; priestesses lamic world. Yet during most of the last served the pagan deities of Arabia; free century, an American woman's wages women married and divorced at will, belonged to her husband, while a Mus- sometimes polyandrously. lim wife had the right to control her Muhammad outlawed polyandry and own earnings. In general, American prescribed a patriarchal marriage form WOMEN & GENDER IN ISLAM: women had fewer guaranteed rights that allowed men up to four wives and HISTORICAL ROOTS OF A MODERN than their Muslim counterparts. What as many concubines as they could ac- DEBATE happened to change the balance? quire. Men were granted the right to by (Yale University Press, New Moreover, in the global village, there beat their wives for rebelliousness. Chil- Haven, $15.00 paperback) is rapidly becoming here. Islam is the dren belonged to their father's clan. fastest growing religion in the world This arrangement gave men practical and in the United States, the latter due control of women's sexuality—an im- to both conversions and the fertility portant shift, since a man's honor was patterns of immigrants from Islamic increasingly seen as dependent on the countries. Last August, the Vatican chastity of his womenfolk; women's un- joined Muslim fundamentalists in op- restrained sexuality, meanwhile, was posing women's reproductive rights at seen as leading to fitna, or social chaos. the U.N. Population and Development Muhammad further prescribed religious Conference in Cairo. U.S. soldiers, warfare as a duty for men, and obedi- male and female, are back in the Persian ence to husbands as the main religious Gulf defending a Kuwaiti regime that duty for women. Less than 200 years still denies women the right to vote. after his death, in 632 C.E., Islamic wars PRICE OF HONOR: Anyone concerned about the future of conquest had flooded the slave mar- MUSLIM WOMEN LIFT THE VEIL OF of feminism needs to understand the kets with so many female captives that a young man receiving his inheritance SILENCE ON THE ISLAMIC WORLD Islamic religious revival. Fortunately, went out to buy "a house, furniture, by jan Goodwin (Little, Brown & Co., some excellent books are available. The concubines, and other objects." Boston, $22.95 hardcover) best starting point is Leila Ahmed's Women and Gender in Islam. Extensively Ahmed devotes considerable space to researched, brilliantly and elegantly the veil—a garment which has now as- written, it offers a brief history of sumed the significance of a national women in the Middle East from Ne- banner. Nineteenth-century colonizers olithic times to the present, and pro- seized on it as the visible embodiment vides indispensible background for of women's oppression and a sign of other works on the subject. the backwardness of Middle Eastern Ahmed begins with evidence that an- societies. Infected with the same ideol- cient Middle Eastern women held fa- ogy, Western feminists assumed that vored, even privileged positions in soci- Muslim women could liberate them- ety and that the dominant pre-Islamic selves only by abandoning their own involved worship of a mother culture and clothing, and adopting ours. The indigenous battle for NINE PARTS OF DESIRE: THE HIDDEN goddess. The long, slow decline in women's status paralleled the rise of women's rights was thus tainted by its WORLD OF ISLAMIC WOMEN urban states and warrior cultures. early association with colonialism. Yet by Geraldine Brooks (Doubleday & Co., Women's reproductive capacity became the veil, as Ahmed observes, also en- New York, $22.95 hardcover)

ONTHE ISSUES SPRING 1995 45 abled women to hold jobs and con- esty... Allah hath prepared for them for- essentials of male domination intact. verse with men outside their families giveness and a vast reward." This egali- What Muhammad did in the seventh without compromising their reputa- tarian voice is heard by people who century was transform a pluralistic and tions. In short, rather than declaring look to their religious tradition for so- nomadic society—dubbed "The Age of women's place to be at home, it legit- cial justice. But there's another voice— Ignorance" by his followers—into a pa- imized their presence in the public a patriarchal, legalistic one: "Men are in triarchal empire. Though he exhorted sphere. (The veil, it should be noted, charge of women, because Allah hath men to treat their women with kind- was primarily an issue for middle-class made the one of them to excel the ness, he established a code of wifely and upper-middle-class women since other, and because they spend of their obedience, paternal right to child cus- peasants and others who had to help property (for the support of tody, one-sided divorce and inheritance support their families financially never women) As for those from whom laws, etc. He left it to individual men had the luxury of modesty.) ye fear rebellion, admonish them and to protect their women rather than for Ahmed acknowledges the misogynist banish them to beds apart, and scourge society to protect the rights of its brutality of modern fundamentalist them. Then if they obey you, seek not women. Since Islam may not be able to regimes (e.g., , Afghanistan), but in- a way against them." Ahmed calls for a shed its sexist nature without a com- stead of scrapping Islam, she demands grassroots, native that plete overhaul, I wish Ahmed could that it be reinterpreted. She points out acknowledges and accepts the influ- have dared reclaim some of the tradi- that the patriarchal fundamentalist po- ence of Western ideas—in particular, tions from the goddess-worshipping sition is not the only legitimate one, the genies of democracy and human cultures of the "Age of Ignorance." But any more than it is for Christianity, and rights that can't, at any rate, be easily then again, we have to remember that discerns two voices in Islam's religious squeezed back into the bottle. Muhammad also prescribed the death texts. Islam's popular appeal, she ar- Yet despite her formidable scholar- penalty for apostasy. gues, lies in the ethical and spiritual ship, Ahmed never attempts to answer Jan Goodwin's Price of Honor begins message expressed in many Koranic the question she brings up at regular where Ahmed leaves off. Her main task verses: "Lo! Men who surrender unto intervals: Why has Islam consistently is to depict Islamic fundamentalism and Allah, and women who surrender, and embraced misogynist customs in every explore the economic and political soil men who believe and women who be- society it encountered? The answer in which it flourishes. A woman of lieve...and men who guard their mod- may be that even the most progressive considerable courage, she served as a esty and women who guard their mod- interpretation of the Koran leaves the front-line war correspondent in Afghanistan in the 1980s and subse- quently traveled throughout the Mid- dle East to research this book. Goodwin considers the postwar Is- noT« of fl UJHIT€ BLUCK momfln lamic revival a response to both the failure of corrupt governments to Race, Color, Community bring prosperity and political freedom to their people and, with the fall of the JUDY SCALES-TRENT Soviet Union, the loss of faith in a so- 'Judy Scales-Trent, fair-skinned and deter- cialist-inspired international move- minedly black, lives her life in the 'no-mans' ment. Fundamentalists counter despair land of America's continuing racial conflict. with the catchall slogan, "Islam is the Through her candidly conveyed communiques, solution." They rally people around we learn of the challenges that could have strictly defined native traditions and brought her down, but instead have given her an lambast the desecration of their culture insight and strength that she dispenses to her by what is seen as a godless Western readers with the easy grace of a seasoned consumerism. Borrowing from the veteran." —Derrick Bell, NYU Law School missionary rule book, they begin with charity, helping the homeless after an "It is popular in many circles today to treat 'race' Egyptian earthquake, providing medi- as a determinant of intelligence; it is popular in cine and education during the post- other circles to treat 'race' as an invented trait war Jordanian economic crisis. Like that can easily be reinvented. Judy Scales-Trent other successful missionary move- explodes both views as she explores the experi- ments, they're backed by a massive ences of people who are black but look white. Available in bookstores or from propaganda machine, arms, and mili- ... At turns gentle and angry, awed and critical, tary training. But since none of this this is must reading for anyone interested in PENN STATE PRESS comes cheap, Goodwin traces the oil- identity, race relations, civil rights, and the 820 N. University Drive money-arms connection: Royal fami- avenues for personal fulfillment." University Park, PA 16802 lies in the gulf states bankroll the fun- —Martha Minow, Harvard Law School MasterCard/VISA orders, damentalist movement to protect 1-800-326-9180 themselves against assassination and, in 168 pages $19.50 some cases, because of ideological sympathy. The United States supports

46 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 gulf royalty since, despite halfhearted turies after the Prophet's death by self- teaching at Duke University. conservation measures, we are increas- serving rulers who wanted to bestow Unfortunately, Brooks' desire to ingly dependent on their oil. (In 1973, sacredness on themselves under cover chronicle women's successes occasion- we imported 36 percent of our petro- of religion." Yet one problem with ally leads her to journalistic misjudg- leum; we now import half, and by the Goodwin's passion to document injus- ments. Her somewhat rosy view of year 2000 will import 60 percent.) To tice is that it could lead readers to think Iran is strongly biased by interviews pay for the oil, we have become the most Muslim women's lives are un- with the daughters of Ayatollah world's largest arms producer, with remitting horror stories. In fact, their Khomeini and President Rafsanjani. three-quarters of our weapons sales daily struggles are quite ordinary, their These women have in fact supported going to the Middle East. marriages predominantly monogamous. women's sports and the creation of Ultimately, Goodwin argues, billions The major issue for most women in the some segregated positions in the work- of petrodollars are channeled into an Middle East is still poverty. Teherani force. However, the average Iranian girl international movement that has as its women, for instance, are concerned that will become neither an athlete nor a moral agenda the complete enslave- fundamentalists will force them out of camerawoman covering the all-female ment of women. She paid employment and Islamic games. Her life is much more documents the results, Women's into the kitchen and likely to be circumscribed simply by both in countries chador (a veil covering the ideas and expectations of the man where the extremists unrestrained the body and most of she marries. are in power, and the face). Brooks is most effective in her focus where their presence is sexuality was Geraldine Brooks, on human rights violations such as strong enough to ex- another journalist who "honor'' killings and clitoridectomy tract concessions from seen as lived in the Muslim (one in five Muslim women has re- existing regimes. In world, offers us a less portedly suffered genital mutilation). Pakistan, for instance, a leading to fUna, tidy, sometimes opti- She points out that progressive Mus- man can't be convicted mistic view in Nine lims dismiss Western criticism by saying of rape without the tes- or social chaos. Parts of Desire. She lacks that these practices are not religiously timony of four adult the historical depth of sanctioned, but then fail to speak out males who witnessed Ahmed and the eco- against the abuses themselves. She then penetration. Lacking nomic overview of goes on to insist that Islam be judged such corroboration, a woman •who files Goodwin, but presents a series of like any other religion or political sys- charges is considered to be confessing memorable individual portraits. She tem—not for the reforms it offered to zina, or sexual immorality. (In 1994, shares with us the joys of Iranian girl women in the seventh century or for 75 percent of the women in Pakistani athletes and of lined its promise of an ideal state, but "for jails had been convicted of zina.) In up to vote for the first time. We meet a the kind of life it offers the people in Afghanistan, a recent jatwa (religious happy bride whose husband takes seri- the lands where it predominates." decree) prohibited women from, ously the Koranic injunction to give Finally, Brooks exhorts Western na- among other things, "going out with- his wife pleasure, as well as a woman tions to make it illegal for immigrants out their husband's permission...walk- forced to choose between abandoning to mutilate their daughters' genitals or ing with pride, or walking in the mid- her children and sharing her husband to take them out of the country for dle of the sidewalk." In Iran, a man may with a younger co-wife. She intro- such surgery. We can also refuse to rec- legally kill his wife for infidelity. An duces us to Eritrean women soldiers ognize the marriages of underage girls, Iraqi can kill a female relative suspected who obtained new legal rights as a re- just as we refuse to recognize of "misbehaving." And Egyptian law re- sult of their valor in battle; later, she re- polygamy. And we can offer asylum to minds us of the Algerian and Afghani quires a wife to be obedient, and requires women fleeing gender persecution. women who risked torture and death the police to return a fugitive wife to Taken together, these books help us in their national struggles, and who an abusive husband. understand some of the problems Mus- were subsequently stripped of their Muslims who criticize the funda- lim women face. But they also, uninten- rights by the governments they helped tionally, remind us that the advantages mentalist version of Islam are often tar- establish. geted for assassination or forced into Western women enjoy today have only exile. Taslima Nasrin, a Bangladeshi Since Nine Parts of Desire was pub- recently been won, and that they came feminist writer who criticized Islam lished a year after Price of Honor, we can about as a result of large-scale industrial- and marriage and argued that "women follow up some of the stories Goodwin ization and the struggles of a rising mid- dle class to establish its political rights. must live outside the religion and Is- had to leave unfinished: Toujan Faisal, a We now need to reach out to Muslim lamic law," escaped to Sweden the same Jordanian journalist who dared run for women—without delusions about our week the Vatican reportedly cut a deal parliament, had been hounded by fun- own freedom but with the urgent with Islamic fundamentalists. Even damentalists screaming for her blood. awareness that fundamentalists on both 's chief justice, Sa'id al-Ashmawy, She lost the first election in 1989, but subsequently became the first woman sides are looking to forge alliances is not immune. He has lived as a virtual which will become our chains. • recluse, surrounded by armed guards, elected to the Jordanian parliament. Dr. Nawal el-Saadawi, the Egyptian since zealots called for his death for feminist and author who received stating that the sharia (religious law) is Martha Shelley is a writer and radio jour- death threats, fled into exile and is now man-made and "was added in the cen- nalist. She lives in Oakland, California.

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 47 bell hooks idea of boredom from its earliest use as Read her twice a means of internal "ethical interroga- tion" to its present one as an "all-pur- pose index of alienation." We no longer hold ourselves responsible, either as OUTLAW moral or social creatures, for being in- terested or interesting. Instead, we ex- CULTURE pect to be entertained, a hope encour- RESISTING REPRESENTATIONS aged by the prevalence of never-ending television soap operas and nighttime dramas. They keep us on our toes, al- ways desiring more. TEACHING BOREDOM: THE LITERARY HISTORY OF Boredom is in large part about the A STATE OF MIND need for a narrative continuity to give TO by Patricia Meyer Spacks (The University of our lives interest and meaning, as if we Chicago Press, Chicago, $24.95 hardcover) were ourselves characters in novels or TRANSGRESS soap operas. By articulating several pos- EDUCATION AS THE PRACTICE OF BY AMY ZALMAN sible histories for a condition that is FREEDOM s Boredom: The Literary History of a "deeply assumed in our culture," Spacks State of Mind a necessarily tiresome provides the opportunity to construct bell hooks on Iread? Does it make sense to discuss our own narrative for our own particu- lar form of boredom. Yet she does point >• date rape the book outside its own terms? Just for the record, Patricia Meyer Spacks' out some trends. Those who see bore- >- Ice Cube and gangsta rap extended argument about how bore- dom as a universal, existential condi- *• the rise of black intellectuals dom structures the way we interpret tion, for instance, have historically been >• teachers who don't want to teach experience—both as we live and when male: It is a luxury in which those who >• the seduction of violence we read—is far from a chore. may escape it can indulge. But bore- dom can also be created by external >• racism and sexism in our schools Indeed, "the inability to desire or to have desire fulfilled," as Spacks defines forces. Spacks argues that an important her subject, has rarely been made as in- element in whether we see our lives as n Out/aw Culture, hooks checks teresting as it is in this analysis of the interesting is the degree to •which we writings of men and women from the have the autonomy to choose what will the heartbeat of the cultural revo- I eighteenth century to the present. The interest us and what will bore us. lution of the '90s. In Teaching to history of English literature can be read The chapters devoted to women's Transgress, she shows how class- as a virtual compendium of overt and writings are the most assertive in estab- rooms can be covert assertions of boredom, of defini- lishing a connection between the free- tions and interpretations, and of noble dom to choose occupations we find places where attempts to allay and deny the afflic- appealing and our perception of bore- freedom is tion. Though boredom might seem an dom. Whereas all but an aristocratic taught. inherently solipsistic condition, this class of women in pre-industrial Eng- book accounts for its social history; the land played decisive roles in their own $15.95 chapters on women's writings, in par- and their families' survival, by the mid- each. ticular, explain how boredom can be 1700s, the burgeoning wealth of the not simply an existential predicament nation left many with nothing deemed but the result of social forces and con- At better important to do. A new female leisure ventions as well. class turned to social calls, piano play- bookstores. Spacks, whose previous book offered ing, and incessant needlework to fill its a cultural history of gossip, presents her time. Contemporary conduct books new book in a historical and intellectual such as the popular Sermons to Young framework. For millenia, people had Women instructed women to be con- days when they just didn't know what tent with domestic activities, or else to do with themselves; for just as long, risk their virtuous reputations. they used reading and writing to coun- Women in particular, then, had a teract the dreariness of daily routine. special relationship to both reading and But boredom has often had different writing as ways to fill and transform meanings. To the medieval monk, for the time on their hands. But the liter- instance, occasional feelings of dullness ary life was considered dangerous, for it were tests of his spiritual state since it could incite in women "a contempt for was his responsibility to be engaged in a ordinary realities." Women who wrote world that was the work of a Divine— knew this well, since they faced the and thus eternally interesting—Author. challenge of creating something of last- Spacks charts the transformation of the ing interest from the monotony of their

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 daily experience. In many eighteenth- century novels by and about women, Spacks suggests, "the represented lives of young women oscillate between New from Oxford boredom and far more dramatic forms of anguish." The tacit recognition of the dullness of women's lives forms the Beyond the Double Bind . foundation of such plots; there was no middle road between boredom and Women and Leadership tragedy. Female boredom reflected KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON obedience to social norms: If marriage "If you are a woman alive today, you will recognize yourself on was the only happy solution to either every page of Kathleen Hall Jamieson's brilliant new book anguished romance or listless adoles- about the progress of women as leaders. There are catch-22s for women—or double binds, as she calls them—where what- cence, it also guaranteed a life of ever we do, we lose. But Jamieson shows how we have sur- needlework and piano playing. mounted these binds in the past and in the process moved for- In her vivid analysis of nineteenth- ward. What I most like about her book is that it's free of ideolo- century novels by women, Spacks de- gy. Jamieson is clear-eyed, unemotional, keenly analytical, and above all...she's hopeful!"—Lesley Stahl, CBS News. "Provides picts boredom as both a denial of fe- a fresh framework for understanding the repeated frustrations male desire and an indication of female that have slowed women's social progress. Her liberating con- desire, erotic and intellectual. In and clusion: women can break every 'bind' if they just avoid treating out of fiction, women became bored themselves as victims"—Harriett Woods, President, National Women's Political Caucus. because of limited options for fulfilling $25.00, 272 pp. their desires. Eventually, men saw them as boring, and thus trivial. Jane Austen's Emma, famous for her The Notorious Life Of Gyp. neighborly meddling and certain that "a mind lively and at ease, can do with Right-Wing Anarchist in seeing nothing," creates fictions about Fin-de-Siecle France the people around her that engage her interest more than the people them- WILLAZ. SILVERMAN "An insightful biography of a compelling and paradoxical pro- selves. By the mid-twentieth century, tagonist of modern French culture... A fascinating examination Gertrude Stein could self-consciously of fin-de-siecle France and one of its most provocative fig- employ the idea of boredom as a source ures"—Kirkus Reviews." A thoroughly researched and interest- of fiction-making. Steins flat and repet- ingly told story of a remarkable life, full of lively details about aristocratic passions and hatreds, and their place in creating itive prose—"sometimes something did the heady mix that was fin-de-siecle French culture"—Jerrold happen, she knew to whom she had Seigel. "Not only an effective analysis of the boldest and most been married but that was not anything successful woman writer of the era, but offers unique insights into the great cultural and political battles of modern French happening, she knew about clothes and history"—Robert A. Nye. resting but that was not anything hap- $27.50, 352 pp. pening"—did imitate the repetitious nature of life, but Stein turned that rep- etition into narrative and insisted on its possibilities as fiction. In her singular Madame Jazz use of language, as Spacks makes clear, Contemporary Women Stein "implicitly reproaches those who find eventless lives (in particular the Instrumentalists eventless lives of •women) devoid of in- LESLIE GOURSE terest." She also foreshadowed the pre- "A jazz enthusiast, Gourse...brings lots of energy and knowl- sent moment, in which boredom is a edge to this up-beat survey of contemporary women jazz musi- condition not inherent in us or our in- cians"—Booklist." A major contribution to jazz historiography dividual situations, but is all around us. ...calls attention to a circumstance rife with irony, to wit, that while jazz was a leader, six decades ago, vis-a-vis integrating Given the inevitability of boredom, the races, it has been shamefully dilatory in demolishing the Spacks' book is an ingenious reply. Her barriers long ago erected to keep women instrumentalists out own chutzpah in postulating a theory of the music"—W. Royal Stokes. "It's great to have Madame of writing and boredom and then pen- Jazz. Although I am aware of the discrimination, it is enlighten- ning a vigorous, lively book about it ing to read the perceptions of the women discussed"—Rufus Reid. $27.50, 336 pp. invites us to examine our own experi- ences of boredom in an engaging and decidedly novel way. • At better bookstores. To charge, 1-800-451-7556 (M-F, 9-5 EST) OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS A my Zalman is a lecturer in the Depart- ment of English at Cornell University.

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 Yes! Send my FREE hardcover copy of Moving Beyond Words (retail value $23) and enter my Discover the introductory subscription to the ad-free Ms. I'll get 6 big bimonthly issues with 100 pages in each for only $35. That's a total value uf $68 for ad-free Ms. & get only $35. 's newest book FREE! (please print) et a hardcover copy of Gloria's power- 1.in SI.IU- /i|) G ful new book, Moving Beyond Words, LJ Payment enclosed. • Bill me. FREE. It's our gift to you for discovering Charge my Q Visa Q MasterCard the power of the revolutionary new Ms. With no advertising and 100 pages of Exp Dale fresh, frank editorial in every issue, it's a Signature Ms. of substance, sustenance, and spirit. 5AFU9 Canada: J I ir, $4S It's a. Ms. of breakthrough investigative Foreign: LJ 1 jr. surface mail $42 reporting, crucial political insights and Q I yr. airmail $7H actions, fiction, poetry, the great feminist Payment must be in U.S. funds. Afe. voices of the world. The no advertising, editorially free magabook. It's Ms. as it was meant to be: a clear, true Mail to Ms., P.O. Box 57132, Boulder, CO 80322 voice linking feminists worldwide. Take Book will be shipped upon receipt of payment. Allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. advantage of this special introductory offer! Regular Ms subscription price is $45 for 1 year (6 bimonthly issues). Book available at Waldenbooks and wheievei fine books are sold. PROMISE KEEPERS (from page 29) nor in the milling corridors. Rarely "microwaves," he quips, and women does a presenter even use the word are "crockpots." The crowd is amused. Phillips: "What happens here that woman, much less pronounce a loopy Men generally—whether dressing couldn't happen if women were pre- opinion about women's ostensible left or right—may indeed be incapable sent?" Evidently tired from the respon- nature. There is no tit-for-tat accusing of making common cause without at sibilities of this day, Phillips nevertheless of women; nor is there any pop-psych least subtly deriding females. Men's gives me a lengthy and courteous defense of the double standard, as in sense of public gender definition can- answer. He mentions "issues concern- the secular mega-seller Men Are from not feel real unless some third party to a ing a man's sexuality" and how dealing Mars, Women Are from Venus. The li male bond is treated inferiorly (a with issues concerning the act of sex Promise Keepers message is simpler: dynamic I've elaborated on in my and such, it would make you very Men are from God. This obviates the book The End of Manhood). Conve- uncomfortable to have other women sorts of gender-defender dramas that niently, religious fundamentalism around [italics mine]." I am perplexed would-be real men are prone to—con- reminds each would-be-godly man of by his odd locution—why other women, tests and put-downs to prove who's got a common gender enemy outside the not simply women?—until someone "manhood" and whose is "greater." tribe, so that a brotherhood of male who has been overhearing accosts me. God's manhood is greater—'nuff said. supremacists can thrive in contradis- She is extremely enthusiastic and ani- That tenet—combined with the physi- tinction to it. And the bete noire that mated as she extemporizes on Phillips's cal exclusion of women from the bonds Promise Keepers is code-named point that Promise Keepers should be premises—seems to put these men on Canaanites: abortion- and homosexual- viewed not as "a threat to women" but equal footing (all benched sinners, all rights activists especially, but the lot of as "a great benefit to women." Then accountable to the same Coach). This atheists and non-Christians as well. she introduces herself. She is Holly in turn reduces peer-pressured urgency When Tony Evans (chaplain to the Phillips. His wife. And she makes a for- for put-downs of women in order to Dallas Mavericks basketball team) midable spin nurse—especially when mark off "who are the real men here declares Saturday evening, "It's been she asks me forthrightly, "Do I look and am I among them?" too long that three percent of homo- like a doormat kind of woman?" But the button is always there to be sexuals control our moral majority," No, I allow, she does not. pushed. Once, for instance, Gary Smal- the crowd breaks into loud approval. Throughout the day and a half, I ley (president, Today's Family) cracks an "Gentlemen, we are going into bat- detect no overtly misogynist slurs— earthy joke about purported differen- tle," says Dr. Charles Swindoll (presi- neither from the Promise Keepers stage tials in sexual arousal: Men are dent, Dallas Theological Seminary)

As population control again becomes a national and international obsession, this completely revised second edition of the feminist classic REPRO repudiates, with clear analysis and thorough documentation, the at- tempts of population policymakers to appropriate the language of DUCTIVE progressive feminist and environmental movements. RIGHTS "If I had time to read just one book to gain an understanding of the population and development link, this one would be it." -DianneJ. Forte, National Black Women's Health Project

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by Betsy "This is a book of conscience. Shocking, eloquent, carefully researched, it should be read-and acted Hartmann upon -Gena Corea, author, The Hidden Malpractice and The Mother Machine To order by mail, send a check for $18.00* to: South End Press, 116 St. Botolph St., Boston, MA 02115. To order by credit card, call 1-800-533-8478 'Please include $3 (plus $.75 per additional book) for shipping and handling. later that night; "there is a war on." n't give her a character that masculinity, and man- "Men, you've been in a war, but you that she can be compati- hood, is not defined by have not been at war," shouts football ble with or pleased with how many people you've coach and founder McCartney on a or desire to identify with, H slept with. And men are take-home motivational audiotape. then she no longer wants finally saying, 'Oh, thank "We do fight, we do have weapons, but to bear the name. In our ven on God!'" vice president Wag- they're not the world's weapons. We world today, many times ner tells me after his closed have divine power!" divorce occurs simply the religious leadership meeting adjourns because the man promis- in the Tejas Room. "We're Revelations es, promises, promises, Right, women's not opposed to sex; we're All day long I hear reverberations of promises, but unlike God all for it. God basically says the seismic shocks of feminists' critique —who watches over His resentment of that any man and woman of men's interpersonal behavior—as if Word to perform It— married can have all the sex even on the religious Right, women's never performs it. Never male behavior they can physically stand, resentment about men's epic feckless- performing his word and that's holy in His ness has reached critical mass. Within teaches his wife not to has reached sight.... And we want earshot of his wife Holly, for instance, trust him." everyone to be able to Randy Phillips notes ellipticaOy that "a Promise Keepers' in- critical mass. experience the love and lot of pain that exists in this country spired solution is not to forgiveness of Christ that [is] by men who've misused their let men off the hook we believe enhances an power, whether it's physically, sexually, (that's too big a job for anyone but the understanding of masculinity rather emotionally—there's been a misuse." Redeemer) but rather—within what is than detracting fromit. " Ed Cole, a "spiritual forebear" of essentially an ethical-rehab movement The political genius of Promise Promise Keepers, issues an eloquently for conservative Christians—to model Keepers is that it communicates at a coded warning that unless patriarchs only the most respectful and trustwor- gut level to men who—feeling adrift clean up their act, their wives will thy standards of interpersonal behavior: on a sea of gender relativism now roil- dump them: "When a man marries a not cockfighting among men, not sex- ing from a radical feminist tidal wave— woman and she takes his name in mar- ual exploitation of women. There is need to find firm pilings and dissuade riage, she takes the character that goes not a drop of alcohol for sale here their wives from setting sail. Without a along with that name. [But if] he does- either. In the parking lot I ask an Irv- patriarch in every home port, after all, ing cop whether he has seen anyone there can't be much of a religious The Newsletter Inspired by the "Yearoflhe Woman"... sneaking any in. "No," he tells me. Right. And these days there can't be "People don't bring beer to church." much of a patriarch without a wife POLITICAL W)MAN Through its emphasis on worship who devoutly docks him. CHARTING OUR PROGRESS TOWARDS EQUALITY and forgiveness, Promise Keepers has Yet these are men who acknowledge •Women in Congress • Upcoming Races created a shimmering, airy sanctuary that they do have promises to keep. To •Women in the Cabinet • Legislation where a man, as if hovering in free-fall, a man, they seem more polite, pleasant, •Women's PACs 'Media Watch can expose his human soul without a and personable than I have ever And more, from a pro-choice, progressive perspective! care or conniption—because he knows encountered among large numbers of Charter Subscriptions (11 Monthly Issues) $35 [ ] Check Enclosed [ ] Bill Me that he is always working with a net of other men in public space. Their shared social gender. The possibility of being sense of common decency in everyday Name perceived as a real man and at the same ethics is not to be sneered at (I know Address time not feeling so damned ashamed of no secular equivalent any better, no for what he has done to become one— movement of "men of conscience" City St_Zip. that's the real high in this inner sanc- anywhere leftward politically.) They 276 Chatterton Parkway, White Plains NY 10606 Antonia Slolper

52 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 OVERWORKED? (continuedfrom page -M) infuses many of these examples from three decades of "Women's Work in the ties that she wishes to call up in her Contemporary Art." The feminist WOMEN'S WILDERNESS CANOE TRIPS painted fabric "Connection" of 1976, movement in art was inspired by high- exhibited at the Bronx Museum ly theoretical texts. Thinkers like Mary among many works of kin. The origins Daly, , and Kate River Journeys of much of the art generated by femi- Millett (to name only a few) critically Writing Retreats nists of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, as seen grounded ethical and political theses in "Division of Labor," rest neither in with aesthetic concerns. Feminist work Wilderness Seminars female biology nor in the social con- in the 1990s is in general more self- structions of femininity alone, but in aware of its theoretical bases and fur- the common-blood community ther underscores the activist nature of evoked through its labor. feminist thought. Hiram Rodriguez- HAWK, I'M YOUR SISTER Beginning as "Division," this exhi- Mora's "Book of Ecology (The P.O. Box 9109, Santa Fe, NM 87504 bition actually achieves a thematic Earth)," 1994, represents earth as the 505-984-2268 synthesis based on connection and most basic of elements and equally as cooperation that can inspire a re-see- our endangered world. The practition- ing of its contents and of the genre of ers here who make ordinary yet emo- gender-driven art in 1995. Mierle tionally infused objects are fugitives of Elizabeth Stone House Laderman Ukeles washing the floor, the secret menstruation room and need Xenobia Bailey making a ritual doll, a red-blooded restoration of direct, Our residents] programs lor women and Iheir children includr **A Moiilnl Hflitllh Altmn-illva-n sell-help, poor luppoit program Soo-Ja Kim piecing an arch as a por- generative entry to imaging and an "A Ilallorod Woman's Program-nn emorgoncy Elwllor trait, or Oliver Herring beading a coat embrace of authentic action. • "A Transllional Housing Program-a btldgo lo Independent living on a mattress, are all independent acts Resources available include. •r/ie Road I Took lo You: Stories ot Woman ana Crvinoss. Video available once intrinsically attached to house- lor rent or purchase. Art historian Arlene Raven, Ph.D., has '13 Myths and Roatilies. PampNet available on request. work. But together, transformed into 'Woman and Cra/imss. Oral herslories available lor $5.95 plus pot lag*. published six books on contemporary art. *7/m Cli/ulMU StOiiv Houso tt.wdlxjok Slialiomiu i>oo)>lo ill CmolioiuU Distrass Available lor $29.95 plus postage. self- and social criticism, these actions She writes criticism for the Village Voice and artifacts become public, cultural and a variety of art magazines and academ- For information and referral please call (617] 522-3417. The Elizabeth Stone House. P.O. Box 59, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 symbols. ic journals. Raven was a founder of the Los The activist imperative of the Angeles Woman's Building, the Feminist women's art movement of the 1970s Studio Workshop, and Chrysalis magazine.

J 'ACCUSE! (continuedfrom page 17) tect their kids. Geraldine told her story, angry but confident that change was RESPONSIBLE INVESTING dozens of small children in blue-bib on its way. The woman in the kerchief uniforms. As they walked into the told hers: she hadn't been political, she SINCE 1982 we have been meeting our clients said, but everyone knew she supported financial goals while screening their invest- whitewashed building, Nancy Kelly ments for social issues. Wed like to put our said she was expecting to see a handful Aristide, "because I talked about him consistent performance record and note- of women, perhaps five or six, inside. all the time." The last testimony came worthy client service to work for you. from a fifteen-year-old with the family But behind the classroom door, on tiny If your portfolio totals S 10.000 or more plea:e kiddie-chairs, their knees bent almost name of "Darling"—a tiny, stick-boned contact Trudy Campbell 802-254-2913 to their ears, 23 women sat waiting. child clutching a piece of chalk in her right hand. Her mother, big eyes PRENTISS SMITH & CO., INC. Kelly reminded the Haitians, again, PORTFOLIO MArsJAGEMEfMT there was no insurance that adding welling in a smooth, walnut-colored 103 Main Street, Bratclchoro, Vermont D5301 their testimonies to the OAS com- face, leaned towards her, hands reach- plaint would have any direct result. ing out for her daughter's. By the end, "It's especially unlikely that any dam- both mother and daughter, and also translator, reporter, and all the women 1/Oomtn ages or compensation would ever TOoniw come your way.... But the Haitian from MADRE were in tears. The tragedy of the tale was one thing; more For a change in your life, we invite you to women have a lot to teach. Women try: THE WISHING WELL. Features cur- have played a key role here and could moving even than the stories was the rent members' self-descriptions (listed by women's courage to talk. • code), letters, photos, resources, reviews, play a key role internationally if your and more. Introductory copy $5.00 ppd. (discreet first class). A beautiful, tender, cases convince the OAS to recognize loving alternative to "The Well of Loneli- the severity of rape." Laura Flanders is the coordinator of the ness Confidential, sensitive, supportive, Women's Desk at FAIR (Fairness & dignified. Very personal. Reliable reputa- Despite the risks, the women testi- tion, established 1974. Free, prompt infor- fied in detail, describing their attackers, Accuracy in Reporting) and executive pro- mation. Women are writing and meeting streets, dates, times of day. Some had ducer and host of CounterSpin, FAIR's Neach other EVERYWHERE through: been raped in front of their children, nationally syndicated radio program of Qkt TObkina H)e£L some alone; some in their own homes, media analysis. Readers can contact P.O. Box 713090 MADRE at 121 W. 27th St., NYC Santee, CA 92072-3090 some in abandoned shacks. Some had (619)443-4818 been forced to submit in order to pro- 10001; 212-627-0444.

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 53 CAROL ADAMS (continued from page 21) not justify the means. This is not theo- ry, it's practice. That means how I live, c cc of animals, because for pornographers how I interact with people, has impor- C •J" LUNA PRESS r to picture women with animals, the tance in itself. I don't raise my kids by J POBOXSll.Kenmore Station* 3 Boston. MA 0221S USA < animals have to be coerced into those doing X and think they are going to t% (617)427-9846 < situations. It also creates what I call a become Y. I don't liberate animals over

• •••* "bestializing discourse" which always the bodies of women. saw African-Americans as closer to THE LUNAR CALENDAR: beasts than animals. In the nineteenth MH: If tomorrow, fifteen thousand women Dedicated to the Goddess in Her Many Guises century, black women were objectified standing up in Grand Central station pos- $ 17.70 postpaid We ship gifts everywhere by the white on black ing naked could stop all animal oppression, women's bodies. Patricia Hill Collins wouldn't you support that? has argued in Black Feminist Thought CA: If I were going to have fifteen that this led to the pornographing of thousand dressed, clothed people who white women. Ostensibly, black could stop anything, I would stop meat- women could not be violated because eating because that is the most serious they were seen as sexually voracious. form of oppression of animals in the Therefore, picturing black women United States. To focus on fur is to play with animals is a representation that into a misogynist view about women. excuses as well as invites the sexual The antifur campaign gives lots of ani- exploitation of black women. mal rights activists another way to harass women. I question why the fur cam- MH: Which is a point missed by all the paign gets all the energy it does. Why? media, and probably by many of the people Because it is one of the few areas of ani- who were watching. mal oppression where women are seen CA: I'm not sure the feminist move- as culprits, the takers of life. I think this ment has looked closely at how often feeds right into the antiabortion view- the presence of animals is a vehicle for point, and also gives some credence to announcing our own oppression. Bat- antiabortion in-your-face activities. tered women are often terrorized, trau- matized, and kept hostage by their bat- MH: You mean their strategies are like terers by the mistreatment of their those of Operation Rescue? it animals and children. Children who CA: That's right, so that's my first are sexually abused are kept hostage by objection. My second objection is that threats to animals. There is a continual the "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" ratification of male control through campaign really just accepts the cultural acts of violence against animals. construction of women's bodies as w commodities. And thirdly, I think that >SES MH: Let's talk about PETA, People for subliminally what this campaign says is QODDES f the shifting Explore 25,000 years 0ealed in our the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA you can still have objects in your life, images of woman as rev from around has been described in a recent piece in New they just can't be animals. You can still recreation of the Goddess rtstone, each York magazine as a sort of "Act-Up for have women objects. It's a very big set- the world. Handmade of aresemble the one is carefully finished tog $1 from: Animals." They have outrageous media back to conversations between femi- museum originals. Catalo ture campaigns and "in your face" tactics, very nists and animal rights activists because Qrand Advenrg, PA 18360 much like WAC, and a bevy of celebrity it is so clearly a form of participation in RD6 Box 6198A, Stroudsbu spokespeople. fust a month ago, Ricki Lake the dominant patriarchal construction was arrested for doing an antifur protest at of the male gaze on women's bodies. I Karl Lagerfeld's office, but was caught eating a bologna sandwich when she was sent to SURVIVED MH: And it is easier just not to wear a fur jail overnight. PETA also has an "I'd coat to certain events anyway than to 5,000 rather go naked than wear fur" campaign in change your entire structure of eating. YEARS which models pose nude with animals. Is CA: Right. Then I think the further this just another example of the prime direc- insult was the celebration of PETA's OF tive of capitalism, where women's bodies are alliance with Playboy by having a joint- PATRIARCHAL used to sell everything from toothpaste to ly sponsored event last summer, at HIERARCHIES cars? Or are women being coopted as porno-which Patti Davis was featured. I'm graphic signifiers for a radical cause? One glad she gave some of her money to BLACK TYPE & YELLOW SPIRAL ON WHITE "absent referent" posing for another? If, by COTTON T-SHIRT. SIZES S,M,L.XL,XXL. TO PETA. But like Catharine MacKinnon, ORDER SEND $17 CHECK PLUS $3 S&H TO: posing nude, models can make a dent in the I'm not sure reparations money is the DECLARATIONS OF EMANCIPATION fur industry which causes so much suffering way we go about changing the status of 22 PRINCE ST. #205 NEW YORK, N.Y. 10012 and death for animals, isn't it worth it? women. I abhor the alliance of any ani- (212) 691 -0999 PLEASE ALLOW 2 WEEKS CA: No, definitely not. The end does mal advocacy with pornography.

54 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 tactic that invokes the "voice for the voiceless" argument and the kind of dangerous sentimentality that says "I've got to protect you." Rather than talk about privilege, we've got to examine the language about privilege—because ultimately there is a lot that the abor- tion rights and reproductive freedom movement have in common with ani- mal advocacy.

MH: Why don't you expand on that. CA: I think both animal advocacy and being proabortion are about being against forced motherhood. I'm against forced motherhood for women and cows and rabbits and pigs, etc. I've looked very closely at some of the lan- guage that's used to justify both meat- eating and the antiabortion stance, and one of the things I found was how they both argued from the state of nonbeing. Isn't it better for the cow to have been brought into life and then killed humanely than never to have existed? Lots of people say the same thing about abortion: "What if I had been aborted?" But the fact is, if you'd been aborted, you wouldn't be stand-

MH: It's interesting because this was a CA: Having access to other bodies is debate in the prochoice community a few exactly what we're challenging in Instltute for years back. The Playboy Foundation was terms of over women, giving money to prochoice causes. I was per- and that kind of privilege is suddenly Social Ecology constructed as "choice"—whether it's sonally involved with a couple of national 1995 Summer Semester prochoice organizations when the question dietary choice or fashion choice. of whether or not to accept funds came up. I was very opposed to it for the same reasons. MH: What specific tactics or strategies do Social Perspectives on CA: I think that what it shows is the you think the animal rights movement kind of "add women and stir" attitude shares with Operation Rescue? Can we Women and Ecology that's going to survive as long as the look forward to a vivisectionist being gunned A Colloquium down in the back like an abortion doctor? animal rights movement is controlled July 28-August 1 by men or has a patriarchal theory gov- CA: No, I don't think so. We have to erning it. I've talked to a lot of look at the extreme right wing's reli- antipornography workers around the gious language. They invoke God and Speakers Include: country, and they're one group of femi- suddenly see themselves as having a Chaia Heller nists who I can predict have read The divine right to kill to save life. The Catriona Sandilands Sexual Politics of Meat. Many liberal kind of Paul Hill "justifiable homicide" Ynestra King feminists have decided that this is a defense. I'm concerned with any ani- mal rights activity that gives credence form of feminist theory they don't have Other ISE Programs Include: to the activities of Operation Rescue. to deal with, probably because they Ecology and Community don't want to change their diet. But the For instance, I've always opposed pick- eting at vivisectionists' homes. Last year Colloquia in Social Ecology antipornography activists always under- our home was picketed by Operation M.A. Program in Social Ecology stood what's going on with the objecti- Rescue and I thought, what's the effect fication of animals. Advanced Studies in Social Ecology on the kids in the home? What kids of vivisectionists are ever going to be able for more Information contact: MH: It's very interesting how the themes to come to animal rights without Institute for Social Ecology of the prochoice movement are coopted. The drawing on the traumatic experience P.O. Box 89, Depl. I, profur campaign focused on women having a of being picketed? We need a genera- Plain field, Vermont 05667 choice, even an "informed" choice. It's subtly tional commitment to not inflict pain 802-4544493 saying you can do what you want with on children. Secondly, I object to any other creatures' bodies.

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 55 ing there arguing "What if I had MH: Well, yes, but the argument can be objective. No science can be objective. been." Feminists need to recognize that made that we construct the fetus to be If animals are close enough to us to be what we're doing in terms of oppress- "blood and tissue" when we don't want the legitimate sources for knowledge, ing animals is morally and politically pregnancy, and talk of it as a "baby" when they're too close for us to experiment heinous. That it is deeply anthropocen- we do. on them. And if they're not close tric. The antiabortion movement is CA: I think this shows the social enough, why are we doing it? really just pro-fetal life for only the nature of growing into a community, human species. into a relationship. Certainly when I MH: Some people seem to feel that they was pregnant and did not want to be, I have limited resources for compassion. MH: In my position, I've always heard the had a different relationship to what was CA: Well, I'm not sure they think that question, "If you believe so much in animal happening to my body than I did there are limited resources, though we rights and you don't eat meat or wear fur, when I was pregnant and wanted to always hear of compassion fatigue. The how can you oversee the killing of thou- be. But that just shows that all of life is fact is that there is no feminist justifi- sands of babies?" a process—and that we have a right to cation for the slaughter of animals. We CA: I think women can be morally take part in deciding what potential life are benefitting from the object status responsible to know when a child will come into life. There is no reason of other creatures in our world. Once should be born and when a child to think that carrying every human we recognize that, it doesn't take any should not be. I trust women. I don't fetus to term is natural. more energy to grab a veggieburger think the antiabortion movement on your way to a prochoice rally. To trusts women. For the antiabortionist, MH: One of the questions we haven't buy nonleather shoes rather than the absent referent is the woman. It's touched on is the use of animals in medical leather shoes. Once one makes this an clear when you look at the pictures of research. It has been said that if chimps inherent part of one's life there is —they're floating in the air as if hadn't been used in AIDS research, we nothing that stops one from continu- they are coming down from the wouldn't be anywhere near finding a cure. Is ing to be the kind of feminist/activist clouds. the answer no cages, or better cages? and antiracist activist that she's always CA: I don't think we should experi- been. In fact, because vegetarianism is ment on animals. But I want to enter actually healthier for you, a feminist ON THE ISSUES the debate by saying let's look at what vegetarian hopefully adds years to her feminist philosophy has already said life and can accomplish more with her Subscriber about male science. Male science is not activism. • Service P.O. Box 3000 Denville, NJ 07834-9838 ANCESTORS (continuedfrom page 24) beyond their own class." Without I I Change of Address: Please allow empathy, privilege generates emotional — three weeks. Attach label with your old exposed and restricted as it may be, address and write your new address isolation. Anti-suffragists were more below. remains. interested in protecting their comfort I I New Subscriber: Fill in your name Marilyn Quayle, a lawyer herself, than in helping the less fortunate. — and address in the new address space. evoked The Cult of True Womanhood They considered women who were Check term price of your subscription in a speech at the 1992 Republican poor, foreign-born, or black ignorant below.' Convention when she stated, "Most savages unworthy of the attention of I I Renewal: Attach label if available. women do not wish to be liberated ladies. — Check term price of your subscription from their essential natures as women." Marilyn Quayle exposed her own below.* Phyllis Schlafly, the "Sweetheart of isolation in a 1992 interview for • One year $14.95 • Two years $24.95 the Silent Majority" whose determina- Woman's Day when she assured readers n Three years $34.95 tion helped defeat the Equal Rights that she was merely a "homemaker" G Payment Enclosed Q Bill Me Amendment in 1982, is a throwback to who, though she never cooks, "plans her anti-suffrage predecessors. Schlafly, menus and works with the house staff OLD ADDRESS: who now heads the Eagle Forum, to ferret out bargains...." Schlafly's iso- which promotes school prayer and NAME (PRINT) lation comes packaged in anti-feminist anti-abortion and anti-homosexual guilt since, in her words, sexual harass- ADDRESS legislation, insists that "women would ment is no problem for the "virtuous CITY/STATE/ZIP rather be loved than liberated." Since woman except in the rarest of cases." the early 1970s she has headed up an Paraphrasing the anti-suffragists, NEW ADDRESS: organized attempt to deny other Schlafly believes: good women won't NAME (PRINT) women the right to the type of fulfill- be harassed; bad women will. • ment she herself has enjoyed as a lob- CITY/STATE/ZIP byist, radio commentator, fund-raiser, Patricia Riley Dunlap is a Virginia histori- ADDRESS and syndicated columnist. an who teaches American and women's his- ' Canadian subscriptions add $4 per year; other foreign What makes these women tick? add $4 (surface mail) or $20 per year Airmail Institutional tory at Northern Virginia Community Col- rate: Add $10 first year; $5 each additional Payable in Sociologist Jean Howard recognized lege and Germanna Community College. U.S. funds only. Mail to our Subscriber Service address above anti-suffragists as privileged wives She has written a book on American fron- 452SS unable to "identify with women tier women.

56 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 Patient CHESLER. (continuedfrom paqe 12) of the historical record. No More Sadly, these same well-known white The Politics posed a feminist court, a Bet Din (a feminists finally "got it" (at least they religious court), a war crimes tribunal. publicly said they did) when Anita Hill of Breast It was not hard to line up some lead- accused and exposed Clarence Cancer ing feminists to participate in this femi- Thomas—but that took place eleven nist Bet Din, but once we got together years after Nicol raped me. Sharon Batt no one wanted to Take Sides, i.e. to B. and I never spoke again and from take a stand on the issues. Most wanted time to time I miss her still. I have no "A hard-hitting to keep their political friendships with idea what B. ever told our many mutu- expose ... one of both B. and me intact—without get- al friends after our Bet Din, or what the most comprehensive — and politi- ting into the "messy stuff." she now thinks. I only know that for cal — books ever written about breast At the meeting, B. was sullen, silent, fifteen years I waited for feminists— cancer." Maclean's Magazine and made no eye contact with me; whom I still cherish—to make good from time to time, she said things like, on their promise to confront my rapist Patient No More is feminist investigative "I don't remember a lot about that with me. journalism at its best. It examines cancer year"; "You're the one who stopped "This can't have happened to you!" treatments and analyzes the role talking to me"; "I wrote the foreword is the response I often get, when I medicine and the media play in shap- because Nicol told me you'd refused to share any of this information. My ing our views. Batt also advocates on do it." point: Being a feminist doesn't change behalf of women with breast cancer, "But why didn't you just call me and or "protect" a woman from the female proposing a courageous vision for ask if this was true?" I asked, to which condition. If it's something that hap- change. B. said, "Well, I thought you weren't pens to women, it happens to feminists $19.95/$16.95US ISBN 0-921881-30-4 talking to me." too. If it happens to any woman, any- where, then it can happen to any C, one of the women I'd invited, Available in quality bookstores. said that B. had been systematically woman anywhere. Distributed by Inland Book "disappearing" her and every other For example, my friend D., who's Company. North American feminist's contribu- also a feminist, turned out to be a P.O. Box 2023, Charlottetown, tion to , shutting them severely battered wife. For years, her PEI, Canada, C1A 7N7 out of the information loop. C. won- second husband had been breaking her dered whether B. "had also been com- bones, and her spirit. She didn't try to peting with Phyllis' plans for an inter- escape. She didn't "tell." One day, 100 Acres • Pool 20 Charming Rooms national anthology, but isn't there room unexpectedly, she asked me to testify Hot Tub • Trails Peace & Privacy for more than one such anthology any- for her in court as her expert witness, way?" and she told me everything, more than A Lesbian Paradise I wanted feminist justice, not public I could bear to hear, all the grisly, sick- scandal or lawsuits. Behind closed ening details. How it haunted me, shamed me, that our ideology could doors, I wanted B. to not "protect" her—and us—from acknowledge that patriarchal violence. Perhaps the white feminists who she'd behaved the way either collaborated with or failed to P.O.Box 118-OT confront my rapist with me, as I'd Bethlehem, NH 03574 women in incestuous asked them to do, as they finally (603) 869-3978 families do; I wanted to know promised to do, were as horrified, as why. We'd been friendly, loving, disheartened, as frightened, by our col- towards each other. What went wrong? lective vulnerability, as I later was by What didn't I understand? Mainly, I D.'s Tales of a Battered Wife. How HER WILD SONG wanted B. and our closest feminist could this happen to one of us! (Ah, comrades to confront Nicol with me. did we think our ideology functioned Wilderness like Wonder Woman's magic bracelets?) Journeys "That rapist should not go to his grave for thinking he could divide the likes of But, as I always say, "If the Patriarchs Women us," I said. don't get you, will." • My sisters—and ideologically, they Over the years I, and everyone else, Treacling were and still are my sisters—finally have observed some feminists "trash" Gently agreed to do this, but they never did, any feminist who does something— Upon and now Nicol is dead. He died late in and, at the same time, refuse to con- The 1994, 15 years after he raped me, and I front those heterosexual and lesbian Earth feminists who verbally abuse, bad- can publish his name, but we can never Anne Dellenbough • PO Box 515 confront him, alive, together. This fail- mouth, even physically batter other women, or who exploit and have sex Brunswick, Maine 04011 ure of nerve, this craven feminist col- 207-721-9005 laboration with a rapist, stands; it's part with their patients, students, employ-

57 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 ees, junior colleagues, groupies. Ansel- everyone else. Sisterhood is an ideal, it's opponents do. If you say you're a femi- ma dell'Olio wrote about "trashing" not yet a reality. nist, try to practice what you preach; in 1971 and I quoted her in Women Once, long ago, another well- but since that's hard to do, when you and Madness in 1972; Jo known white feminist demanded that fail, why not say so, name it, acknowl- Freeman/Joreen also started writing I not write my book on Woman's edge it, apologize profoundly, try again. about this early on. However, naming Inhumanity to Woman, because "some B.'s crime was not merely the collabo- it didn't stop it from happening. of her best friends were women." ration, or her opportunism; it was her I have seen feminists shamelessly "Are you going to name names?" she refusal to make amends politically, her submit themselves to, even create cults asked. "Name names? I might as well refusal to name what she did, her around, feminists who have money or publish the phone book, annually," I "amnesia," her 15-year silence. This is access to the media, or who are men- said. Not naming names didn't get us what women do to women in patri- tally ill. Yes, mentally ill. Codependent anywhere, did it? Maybe naming archy all the time. madness, slave habits, who knows, but names, as a way of demanding some Feminists should learn how not to you can't fashion movement, only stars, accountability, is as good a way to lie: to themselves, to each other. Some out of such craven behavior. begin as any other. say there are many conflicting "truths." I have observed feminists ostracize I struggled over whether to "name But what happened to me and to every the woman who dares cry "foul," as names" here and decided to name my other woman who's ever been sexually they themselves do double-entry moral rapist, but not his collaborators, the harassed and raped was not Rashomon; bookkeeping, and refuse to expose, kapos, those who couldn't deny them- there are no alternative, competing even privately, those feminists who selves the slightest career or friendship realities here. have seething behind-the-scenes con- opportunities—not even for the sake of How we, as a movement, relate to the tempt for other women, who prefer their own principles. Their names are truth of male sexual violence toward men, deeply. legion, they're feminists and they're women matters. As a movement, we Well, I'm biased, I'm a feminist who anti-feminists too. Every woman's got always does something; and I cry her own list. must reckon with the "foul" a lot too. Over the years, as you It's a real mind-fuck, though, when a ways in which women, can imagine, this has gotten me into a woman publicly preaches one thing, great deal of trouble. and then, hypocritically, unconsciously, feminists included, Feminists are as misogynistic as behaves the same way her so-called collude with patriarchy. But girls: the bullshit and the cover-ups Celebrate Your Sexuality. have got to go. The conclusion I draw from these Proudly. Joyously. facts is not that "doing feminism" is too hard, or hopeless. My conclusion is At Eve's Garden, an Elegant Sexuality that no feminist should think that Boutique Created by Women for Women what's happened to her is unique, that and Their Partners. if only she'd done something different- Send S3.00 for our 32-page illustrated mail-order catalog ly she'd have been spared, that Some- (deduct from 1st order) recommended by sex educators, where, Over the Rainbow, there are therapists and counselors. Visit with this ad for a free copy. cannier, cleverer, luckier feminists who can do no wrong and can cope with eve's#garden anything. We grow pleasurable things forwome n I don't know what kind of life I 119W. 57th St., Ste. 420OI, New York, NY 10019 • 212-757-8651 Open Mon. to Sat. - Noon 'till 7:00 PM • "Confidentiality Guaranteed" would have lived had there been no modern . A lesser life, a more miserable one, I'm sure. I'll So- Su&tle never forget how life gained its fourth mane dimension, in 1967, when suddenly, the Dep't. I, P.O.B. 410, Lincolndale, NY., 10540 world was bursting with brave, bold, 718/998-2305 Fax # 718/292-5643 beautiful, adventurous creatures, most of them women. And feminists. How interesting! PONTJHtf THE HAW THAf ftt« YOU. Sure, we second-wave feminists had A more "fun" in the late 1960s and early NOT ANOTHER tATTERE? WOMAN 1970s. We were young and felt invinci- DB-White on purple ble. We had no idea that this struggle T. G. I. F. would take all we had; it's a lifetime 100% cotton tees - S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL $13. Add (Thank Goddess I'm Female) struggle, and it's much harder than any- $3ea. forP&H. NY residents add sales tax . We have one thought. Holding one's own TGIF-Purple on grey sweatshirts, buttons, magnets and bumperstickers. against patriarchy, just holding one's Please send for catalog. Thank you. own, is not easy. Resisting it—building

58 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 a resistance movement—takes all we have. And more. What keeps me going? Feminist honor in action inspires me, mothers me, into doing my best. I get real maternal, I'm at my best, when I can WOMEN'S VOICES join, support, encourage, witness, fem- inist thoughts and deeds that are courageous, radical, talented, risky, CRITICS'CHOICES generous. No, we haven't "lost"; feminism is MORE THAN ALLIES not "on the run." The party's over, the Sandra Scofield velvet gloves are off, on both sides; From the American Book we're in the trenches now, fighting for Award-winning author the soul of the world, for its ruling of Beyond Deserving, a novel of friendship that consciousness. I think we're putting up FREE ENTERPRISE a hell of a struggle. May we endure, "stays in the heart." — Oregon/on Michelle Cliff may we live to battle another day, may we acquit ourselves with honor. • The lyrical, untold story of 1 9th-century civil rights activist Editor-at-largc Phyllis Chester, Ph.D. is the Mary Ellen Pleasant author of seven books, includitig Women and her passionate and Madness, Mothers on Trial, and the struggle to create a MATRICIDE recently published Patriarchy: Notes of an separate African Carla Tomaso Expert Witness. American state. The author of "Resonant... .Powerful." The House of Real Love . The Voice Literary Supplement has written "A roller- coaster ride...hilarious RAPPING (continuedfrom page 10) and heartbreaking." — Lisa Alther Author of Kinflicks and framed and edited to fit the ideo- logical and economic interests of spon- sors and managers. In its choice of cases, of commentators, of guests, of rules and rituals and conventions of its THE WISE WOMAN own, Court TV works to control and 2441 Cordova Street frame and regulate what we know and Oakland, CA see of the court system in its own 94602 ways. Most glaringly, it allows no actual (510)536-3174 political discussions. No representatives of strictly political movements or agen- das are invited to appear, unless they are attorneys who •will stick to a nar- rowly legalistic framework. THE WISE WOMAN, a national journal, focuses on feminist Nor, it goes without saying, can one issues, Goddess lore, feminist spirituality, and Feminist Witchcraft. ever raise questions about the legitima- Published quarterly since 1980 by Ann Forfreedom. cy of the system itself. The network's Includes: women's history, news, analysis, reviews, art, photos, official line, subtle but apparent poetry, cartoons by Bulbiil, exclusive interviews, and original nonetheless, is that the system works research about witch-hunts, women's heritage, and women today. and Court TV proves it. For those who Subscription: $15 yr./$27 for 2 yrs./ $38 for 3 yrs. (U.S. funds). Sample copy or back Issue: $4 (U.S. funds). don't quite believe that, Court TV can be as frustratingly rigid as any other Microfilm: available in the Alternative Press Collection of University A Microfilms International. Contact: UMI, University Microfilms, Inc., •*—' ^—y American institution. But for feminists 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346. 7 S trying to figure out how the system The Wise Woman - Timely, Yet Timeless. K^A works to thwart us, and what we will THE WISE WOMAN, 2441 Cordova St., Oakland, CA 94602. need to do to change that, it is as useful or/ a tool as we're likely to find in these dark days of rightward drift. • (Subscribe now to The Wise Woman, and send In a copy of this ad, Elayne Rapping's latest book is Media- and you will be sent a free gift of matriarchal significance! tions: Forays Into the Culture and Gender Wars.

ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 59 reserve gender-related put-downs for women. CUTTING SOME SLACK To call someone a bitch as a put-down is to pretend and ELLEN SNORTLAND presume that there are bitches in the world and there are "non-bitches;" that the proper way to be a female human being is to be a non-bitch. What is a non-bitch? She is like the Unicorn, a myth, a Bitch, Bitch, dream that men have dreamed, the ultimate in compliant beauty, who never gives a fella any trouble. She is always nice and understanding, never angry, doesn't argue, doesn't protect herself, her property or her children. She is always compli- Bitch mentary, remembers every detail about everything, never hurts feelings intentionally or unintentionally, always serves others first, always smiles and does what everyone asks of her, all the time, with no complaint. I'm sure I've left something out but since I'm a bitch, I'm allowed to make mistakes. 've spent way too much of my life attempting to The old-fashioned usage of bitch is like a girdle; it holds prove that I'm not a bitch. I have been nice when a women back and in—in a most uncomfortable and saint would have lost it. I have been unduly proud unhealthy way. No one really wants to be stuffed or when people said that I'm not a bitch but another squeezed into anything, whether it's an undergarment or an woman was. I have called other women bitches in a archaic form of so-called feminine behavior. Everyone Idisempowering way. I'm truly sorry for the way I've abused despised girdles, but it wasn't until a few courageous women the word. started refusing to wear them that the rest of us could wig- I would like to see the word "bitch" elevated to its prop- gle out of them forever. (It's amazing to me that bra-burn- er place in the English language, transformed from sexist ing would become the tired symbol of women's liberation; epithet to word of adoration and awe. it should have been girdle-burning.) Bitch is actually a wonderful word and state of being. Just I hereby declare my bitchiness and invite others to do the as a stud is a fertile and valuable male, bitch is the ripe same. Join me. Everyone in the world has bitchiness in female equivalent in the dog kingdom, er, queendom. As we them, women and men, girls and boys. Why •would we col- all know, its human use is usually derogatory because it's a lude in the absurd idea of aspiring to not be something that word exclusively used in reference to strong women. we all are? There are things to complain about, there are Now strength is a relative term. A man called me a bitch things to be angry about, there are problems to take action once when I very politely declined to let him cut in front on that require the bitch in all of us. of me in a grocery line. I suddenly understood the absurdity The more who proclaim, nay, celebrate their bitchiness, of trying to maintain a non-bitch stance in the world. No the less bitchy we'll all seem and the bitchier we can all matter what, someone will think I am one, so, what the hell, become. If you don't like that idea, take a hike because I I might as well enjoy the perks of being an actual bitch. don't care, I have better things to worry about. Ahh, that "Bitch" is used as a verbal weapon, a way to keep "uppi- felt good., just like taking off a girdle after a long day. Try it. ty" women in line or to keep Old habits die hard. I admit women who are thinking about that I still flinch if someone calls being uppity from opening me a bitch. But I must remember their mouths. "You wouldn't to be proud that I am no longer want anyone to think that invisible and, therefore, pleasing you're a bitch, now would you? to everyone and anyone. And I Better not say anything...", is think of my favorite real-life how some of the logic goes. bitch, my dog and companion. OOOOOOOHHHH, how Now there's a role model. scary to be called a bitch. Isn't She's faithful, loving, valuable, it amazing that so many of us warm, nurturing, intelligent, have given the word so much affectionate, and capable of rip- power? ping someone who attacks me or I'll never forget the my loved ones to ribbons. She's a "Rhymes with Rich" headline bitch and, except for the way she about Leona Helmsley. That's drools and sheds, I want to be just acceptable journalism? Of like her. • course, the word they were asking us to supply was Southern California columnist Ellen "bitch." I dare say, it would Snortland has a regular column in not occur to publishers and the Pasadena Weekly. Her book, editors to have Charles Keat- Beauty Bites Beast, about the ing on a cover with a head- socio-political aspects of full-contact line that says, "Rhymes with self-defense for women, will be pub- Sick." The mass media seem to lished by Trilogy Books in 1996.

(.0 ON THE ISSUES SPRING 1995 NEW WOMEN'S VOICES FROM INDEPENDENT FEMINIST PUBLISHERS I The Feminist Press 1 ;il The Cit> Iniversils of New >ork auntlute for Women Songs My Mother The Cancer Journals Our Feet Walk Travel and Culture Taught Me the Sky Essays, personal accounts, andfiction b y Stories, Plays, and Memoir "The Cancer Joumolsbas helped me more Women of the South Asian Diaspora women—born and living in China, emi- WAKAKO YAMAUCHI than I can say. It has taken away some of EDITED BY THE WOMEN OF THE SOUTH grants, and inveterate travelers—give my fear of cancer, my fear of incomplete- you inside information not available in "Wakako Yomauchi is resplendent heroine ASIAN DESCENT COLLECTIVE to generations of Asian-Americans whose ness, my fear of difference. This book Weaving together images of family, sexuali- standard guide books and paint a rich por- teaches me that with one breast or none, trait of the women who "hold up half the heart she knows. She sustains our lives as ty, economic exploitation and homelands, readers and theatergoers.... That her work I am still me.... Should be read by every these writings by women of South Asian sky." This latest volume in the Feminist woman."—Alice Walker Press Travel Series makes visible women's has been collected at lost befits her stature descent explore a rich and colorful tapestry as a classic."—Maxine Hong Kingston "Lorde is the Amazon warrior who also of traditional and post-colonial identities. "A political, social, and cultural history while knows how to tell the tale of battle.... offering views into the lives of ordinary "Yamauchi's stories of love, desperation, rich anthology, the first of its kind.... Angry, fear and determination show us unforget- More than this, her book offers women a funny, scatological and passionate writ- Chinese women today, and the experi- new and deeply feminist challenge." ences of women travelers. table faces and the myriad colors of emo- ing."—Ms. tion."—Ihe Women's Review of Books — Trade Paperback, $14.95 Trade Paperback, $17.95 Trade Paperback, $14.95 Trade Paperback, $7.00 [ISBN:l-55861-112-6] [ISBN: 1-879960-32-X; Also in Hardcover] [ISBN:155861086-3; Also in Hardcover] [ISBN: 1-879960-26-5]

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