women < fetus

I am a Catholic woman who is squeamish about abortion; but I am also a pro-choice feminist.  So that’s where I am starting.

I am so sickened by the multiple forced miscarriages, violent abortions that the pig of Cleveland perpetrated on the woman he held captive.  It is abhorrent.  But I am conflicted about the potential of charging him for murder.  These are the moments when I am most challenged by my faith and by my political philosophy of life.

The charge of murder is, I believe, what prosecutors want so that they can charge him with a capital crime.  I completely understand the urge of the State to murder that man.  But it somehow feels that the lives of the fetuses are somehow more valuable than the lives of the women.  The life of Ariel Castro in exchange for the lives of the fetuses; but not the life of Ariel Castro for imprisoning three women, holding them in chains, locked in a basement and repeatedly raping them for a decade.  The lives and well being of the women are less valued  (prison) than the potential lives of fetuses (death penalty). 

The State, like Arial Castro, sees women as receptacles of future children.  The women were held captive and in at least one case, one of the women was raped and forced to carry the fetus to term.  Like the State and our broader culture, Castro sees women as sources of sexual pleasure that should be dominated and controlled.  In his view, women have no humanity, no agency.  In the eyes of the State, we also lack humanity and agency.  We are sexualized and objectified, but if we become pregnant then we are forced to carry that child to term because our only value is as receptacles of future children.  The lives of future children are of greater value than our own.

So I am angered that the lives of fetuses are more important than the grave wrong that was done to the women.  I am hurt and sad that as a woman, I am less than the seed of a man.  I am enraged at a State that so clearly tells me that my only value as a human is to be sexually available and make babies.

Fuck you, State.

An Open Letter to My Brother

Dearest One,

I have been mulling over your recent Facebook posts commenting on the reelection of the President – by turns angry and sad.  For example, the post that had a graphic that stated:  Election Day Prediction: Obama will take an early lead…  Until all the Republicans get off work.  It was indicative of the parallel narrative that has emerged on social networks - Obama voters were voting based on their dependency on government handouts and the changing demographics of the electorate.  

For the last four years, Tea Partiers and other disgruntled Americans who, like you, tend to be white have been ranting about the need to take back our country.  I have always wondered just whom they thought they were taking it back from and why did they think it only belonged to them.  To my ears, it sounded pretty racist – given that the President was black and the insinuation that his only supporters were black folks who were illegally registered to vote by ACORN.  Following the President’s reelection, where the active suppression of poor and minority people was part of the Republic strategy  (http://www.politicspa.com/turzai-voter-id-law-means-romney-can-win-pa/37153/) and the Democratic machine was focused on identifying and registering new voters, the reactions of those Americans who felt they were losing “their” America became even more crystalized.  The traditional electorate – not black, not Latino – but those who have enjoyed unearned privilege for centuries felt cheated and scared. 

Bill O’Reilly provided the most lucid and shameless explanation of those dual strains of thought – the belief that the blacks and browns are taking over and they’re taking your stuff:

“It's a changing country. The demographics are changing. It's not a traditional America any more. And there are 50% of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it and he ran on it. And, whereby twenty years ago, President Obama would have been roundly defeated by an establishment candidate like Mitt Romney. The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You are going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama, overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama’s way. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?”

And of course, Rush Limbaugh’s explanation for women breaking for Obama was that we want free birth control – again, stuff.  I’d just like to note – since it is rarely pointed out – that contraception is typically considered by medical professionals as basic preventative health care, the cost of which is far less than the typical outcome: pregnancy.  But that’s a whole other post….

You clearly don’t have a problem with government assistance for yourself.  While you are the most outspoken person I know on issues of government dependency, you are also the person I know who has most availed himself of government assistant.  Beginning with your own public education, then the US military training which was wasted on you because you couldn’t stop using drugs, your dependence on welfare and Medicaid when your son was born, your repeated trips to rehab that were subsidized by taxpayers, your use of the Family Medical Leave Act to keep your job during your trips to rehab and finally, retraining for a new career when you were fired from your job.    Now your dependency on government has been passed on to the next generation of your family with your son’s addiction and trips to jail and his son born while on public assistance.  Your family’s story is not unusual – in spite of the racially coded language employed by the conservatives that are pushing this fantasy of black and brown Obama voters, most of those on government assistance are indeed white. 

So please – enough of the race baiting.  I don’t want to hear any more of your squawking and complaining about shifty, lazy people (code words for Blacks and Latinos) who don’t work electing the President, or the corollary, slutty, lazy women too cheap to purchase birth control having babies on your dime who voted for abortion.   What you are really angry about is that you are afraid that you will no longer get to ride on your unearned privilege.  Don’t worry – you are still white and only those who have known you for a long time look at you and see government dependence.  I, for one, am glad that there were programs in place to support you in your struggle for sobriety and provided an opportunity for your children to go to school and receive a free public education.  I’m pleased that government healthcare programs could provide a safe birth for my nephew and that public assistance kept a roof over his head in his early years.  And I am relieved that his son has the same benefits. 

I supported the President because his vision of America is aligned with mine.  I don’t want stuff.  I don’t even need birth control anymore.  I am a high-income earner and my children attend private schools – but I want to live in a fair and just society.  I want to live in a society that doesn’t rest on unearned privilege but on equal opportunity.  I want a chance to compete in the marketplace and not be handicapped because I am a mother and I want even those who have made mistakes and perhaps fallen down a few times – as you have – to have a shot at redemption.  There is a lot of space between absolute dependency and absolute self-reliance.  I think that the government has a role to play in regulating the markets, protecting and preserving our rights, including labor rights and providing a safety net to the most vulnerable.  It makes us all stronger when we stand together.

I love you more than you know.

Sincerely,

Your Sister

Wisconsin = Ludlow. Lest We Forget

On June 6, 2012 it was confirmed that Scott Walker had prevailed in Wisconsin and all the headlines asked if Unions were dead.  I went to my garage to pull this letter out and was so saddened that I couldn't find it.  Today, while looking for something else I found it with other significant papers.  This letter was written by my dear, deceased friend who was my inspiration and moral compass.

November 20, 1993

Dear Andy:

(Late September, Southern Colorado)

I had been driving under stormy skies.  Fat raindrops splotted like eggs on the windshield, but only occasionally.

Heading south on Highway 25, I passed a small green sign that said ‘Ludlow Site’ and pointed off to the west toward dark, pine-covered hills.  Turning onto the dirt road, I remembered the name from the song Ludlow Massacre, only I’d never heard Woody Guthrie do it.  The first time I’d heard it was on the Prosperous album.

When I arrived, I was alone.  An old windmill was screaming on its hinges in the wind, and a ceiling of steel grey clouds was moving down across the hills from the west.  More fat raindrops fell.

I walked around outside the iron gate looking in at the monument and at the door to the cellar where the women and children had been.

Ludlow was where one of the most significant events in US history occurred; what happened there became the catalyst for labor union sympathy in this country and we don’t even learn about it in school. (They rarely teach Vietnam here either).  The reason I was there at all was because of the singing of an Irishman.  Perhaps all nations deny their terrible pasts and leave it to foreigners (or the victims) to tell the stories.

Looking through the register at names and comments from all over, the rain started falling (it really did….)  I turned a page and saw:

Andy Irvine

Dublin, Ireland

-lest we forget-

I’ve lived and travelled around the Southwest for years and have found that that country is full of surprises.  It felt like irony and coincidence had come together at that moment, and I’ll never forget it.

I just had to tell you that.....

Forgiving the 9/11 Hijackers?

Like most other Americans, I spent much of the day yesterday somberly considering the attacks on the United States that occured 10 years ago and contemplating the ensuing decade. As I made my way to Mass early Sunday morning, I was grieving for the lives lost and the families shattered, but also for the ugly way we have conducted ourselves as a people and as a nation following the initial outpouring of solidarity.

What we've seen in the last 10 years is a cynical misuse of grief and fear, used as a vehicle to garner support for unrelated - or at best tangentially related - foreign policy goals that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each of the three readings at Mass dwelled upon debt and forgiveness and we were instructed very clearly to extend forgiveness to others, just as our God extends grace and forgiveness to us. If we fail to extend forgiveness, then the sin is our own. What is so terribly frustrating and sad is the way in which we as a nation have so pridefully ignored our own state of sin and sought only retribution - not understanding and forgiveness. While it is true that those who attacked us on that achingly beautiful September morning have not asked our forgiveness and most certainly suffer from pridefulness of their own, so too have we as a people neglected to seek forgiveness for the unspeakable violence that we have directed at the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Our leaders have not sought forgiveness. They have aggressively pursued acts of violence, such as "enhanced interrogation techniques" or bombing of villages by predator drones. One of the primary architects recently made the talk show rounds to reinforce his support of said techniques and brag about his certainty of purpose. There is no interest in forgiving or in forgiveness - only for exploiting fear and fanning hatred to further the interests of our war machine. We, in turn, as a people have not demanded that our leaders be humble. Instead, many of us have become even more fearful of the "other" who looks different, speaks a different language and worships God in a different way. Instead of loving our brothers and sisters as ourselves, we do not recognize these "others" as part of our human family.

The domestic policies pursued reflect that fearfulness. We no longer share a commitment to care for one another. We love our brothers and sisters - but only literally, not figuratively. The candidates for elected office that call themselves "Christian" should revisit this basic lesson that God became human just to tell us to our faces: forgive seventy times seven times and love our enemies. Easy to remember, but hard to do. People of faith must set the example for our leaders, living out the Gospel and insist that they follow our lead.

Gladdened by the quickening of the revolutionary heart

I am hostage to the 24 hour news cycle and the tweet deck configured to #Egypt on my iPhone. Tunisia is free, Egypt is demanding democracy, and now Yemen – I can’t turn away…

I am back in San Salvador: December 31, 1991. I hear the crackling of firecrackers out in the streets. I start, momentarily confusing the firecrackers for the report of soldiers’ guns, then remember that it’s New Year’s Eve and it must be midnight. I am alone in the house; my comrades are ringing in the New Year in the villages that they serve on behalf of the Jesuit Refugee Services. Inside the house it is quiet and still; a little bit scary. I find my watch, wanting to stand witness to the New Year in my solitary way and find that it’s only 11:50pm. The firecrackers are premature. The wild celebration I hear in the streets must be hope for the year ahead. I go back to the basin to hand wash my dusty clothing in the dim light.

Bent over the concrete stone, washing out my faded dress there is pounding at the door and I hear my name called urgently, with excitement and obvious joy, “Lezzleee!! Lezzleee!! Yo se que estas alli!! Abre, abre! Lezzlleee!” Even though I was adamant that I wanted to be alone on New Year’s Eve, I am happy to hear my friends. Typically I find it very depressing and prefer to be depressed alone rather than spoil other’s enjoyment, but I was feeling particularly lonely and sad that night and therefore relieved that they didn’t take me at my word. I went to the door, dressed in ragged sweat pants, flip flops and a loose t-shirt, and opened the door to a new and different El Salvador.

Apparently, an agreement to end the decade long civil war had been struck. In New York City, just minutes before the stroke of midnight when Secretary Perez de Cuellar would relinquish his role as Secretary General of the United Nations, the opposing sides agreed upon a compromise and a transition to a truly democratic government. The war, ostensibly, was over.

Astonished, I left my house dressed in my cleaning clothes (very un-Salvadoran) and jammed myself into the tiny Honda Civic with my friends. We bounced down to the “Salvador Del Mundo” monument and joined the rest of the celebrants. Watching the news coverage of Egyptian people in Tahrir Square, I can feel the jubilance and sense of wonder that I felt standing in front of the Salvador del Mundo Monument. I recognize from this distance the gradual awakening in the people as they sloughed off fear of the regime.

Two and a half weeks after that New Year’s Eve, the entire country celebrated the official signing of the “Accerdos de Chapultapec” by gathering in the center of the City. This time I was prepared and wearing my clean and ironed dress and closed toed shoes as I stood in front of the National Cathedral. The five leaders of the revolutionary groups that made up the FMLN stood on the stage, the sense of joy and hope palpable, and as was customary before any gathering, we all paused for a “moment” of silence to remember the fallen. For a full minute, the thousands of people gathered stood in silence and as the plaintive yet authoritative cry of the voice of Radio Venceremos called out the familiar call and response…

“COMPANEROS CAIDOS EN LA LUCHA………HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!”…

A gigantic banner unfurled, covering the left side of the Metropolitan Cathedral, a bold red with white letters:

F
M
L
N

A giddiness ensued… then the explosion of emotions – excitement, joy, disbelief, regret (for friends and comrades lost), delight (for having survived) – and for me, immense humility (shame?) that I was allowed to share in this moment that belonged to El Salvador and El Salvador alone. The people of El Salvador had fought bravely and stood up to the brutal regime and their patrons in the United States. My country.

I think I see on TV the same collection of emotions in the Tahrir Square protesters: the disbelieving joy and the tentative hope that the people might prevail. The delight at openly embracing dissent, regret and longing for brothers and sisters – comrades all – who suffered and died at the hands of Mubarak and his henchmen. As the nights become violent, I think I see the stiffening of resolve, the commitment to dying on one’s feet as opposed to living on one’s knees. There will be no turning back.

What I think I see is the quickening of the revolutionary heart. May it prevail.

Eight Cow Woman

Mrs. Else taught a course at Nevada Union High School called World Cultures. It was a required course at the time and probably should have been one of my favorites. Sadly, I don’t remember much about the class, only an exercise where we learned about a tribe in North America called the ASU who revered a beast called the Rac and a film about a guy who paid eight cows for his wife. I guess that class must have taught me something because both lessons have stayed with me, for better or worse.

The story of the eight cow woman depicts a couple of conflicting ideas – about the edifying power of the truest love and also about the commercialization of women. If you did not grow up in a fairly conservative or fundamentalist community, you may have missed the story… Johnny Lingo travels to a nearby village and offers the unheard of bride price of eight cows for the homely Sarita. The villagers laugh at him, because as homely as she is, he surely could have made her his wife for one cow and her elderly father would have been grateful. Less than a year after their wedding, Sarita has become a poised and beautiful woman because she is finally aware of her worth and her value as a woman.

I had incredibly ambivalent feelings about Johnny Lingo and his eight cow wife. I recognized that with self-confidence even homely women can become beautiful, which was hugely encouraging to my 13-year-old braces-wearing self. But I also had the vague feeling that the only reason she felt confident was because a man chose her. Johnny’s wife became an eight cow woman because he made her one. And he made her one because he wanted an eight cow wife – her beauty was a reflection of his virility – or something like that.

Thirty years later I am contemplating marriage and the ambivalence is back. I am middle aged, I have children, I have an established career – the only reason I would get married again could only be for the truest love. When I was a young woman, before I was ever married, I used to claim that when I married what I wanted was a simple gold band. I wanted the world to see that I married for love, not for money (one cow). But I always hoped that someone would ultimately spring for the big rock (eight cows). I knew that spending money on a diamond was silly and I wasn’t worth it. I got the plain, gold band and quickie courthouse wedding, exactly what I asked for.

Over the ensuing ten years, I tried to convince myself that what was important was the marriage, not the wedding. But every wedding I attended left me a hot mess, surreptitiously wiping away the tears and the snot, feeling somewhat bewildered by the intensity of my reaction. I look forward to weddings because along with funerals, they tend to be when families and friends come together to celebrate life. We raise glasses, we dance, we talk - weaving the basket that holds our lives and makes us a tribe. I came to realize that part of my sadness came from never truly joining my tribe to my husband’s tribe and for that reason we were always a little bit apart.

When our marriage began to unravel, we didn’t have our unified tribe to help keep us together. And above all, from the very beginning he chose to please his parents and not me. The reason we couldn’t have a wedding was because his parents didn’t approve and wouldn’t attend. But it would be hurtful to them if we celebrated our wedding without them – so out of respect we never celebrated. In the process I learned that if a couple can’t figure out how to bring their families together for a wedding, then the families certainly won’t come together to support a marriage. What you compromise in your wedding is indicative of what you’ll compromise in your marriage, and compromise is essential in a marriage so you’d better figure it out.

When our marriage was over, I looked back on that beginning. Was it really that important that I had no white gown, no veil, no diamond engagement ring and above all, no laughing children running through the legs of dancing couples slightly tipsy from wedding champagne? YES! It was really that important because from the very first he displayed to me that in his eyes I wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t worth the expense of the ring and I wasn’t worth the hassle of the guests and I really wasn’t worth standing up for to his parents. And from the very first I displayed that I didn’t think I was worth it, either. I accepted the wedding band bought on the spur of the moment at the mall, I accepted that my parents wouldn’t be celebrating with us; I accepted that his parents could be excused from being part of our tribe.

Contemplating marriage, for the last and best time, it is important to me that we bring our families together and join them as one family. I trust the ritual to contribute to our foundation. At the same time I have the nagging fear that I want this only because I’ve been trained to fetishize weddings and somehow I believe that like Sarita, only being picked by a man makes me a valuable woman. I’ve started to feel weirdly guilty and ashamed when coveting other women’s beautiful diamond engagement rings and looking up destination weddings online.

I am reliving my 13-year-old proto-post-feminist dialectic: I am a creature of my culture where I long to have my worth validated by the love of a man, but angered by a tradition that commercializes me. I resent the bride price that a beautiful diamond ring implies, but I want the diamond resting on my left hand to signal my worth to the world. I want a public declaration of love - a wedding where we stand at the altar and make our promises, and our friends and family make promises, too. I want to be an eight cow wife.

I was going for a run in my suburban neighborhood a couple of days ago, with the iPod set on shuffle and a forgotten country song from a couple of years ago came on right after 2 Live Crew’s “Hoochie Mama”. That song, “Where I’m From”, extols the virtues of small town America where “the quarterback dates the homecoming queen” but it’s the line about the wooden white church and where children are given their grandmothers’ maiden names that I think got to me. I’m running along the street suddenly choking back tears longing for a place that I couldn’t wait to get out of when I was seventeen.

There are a handful of songs that do that to me and they are almost always country songs – although John Cougar Mellencamp can get to me sometimes. I actually did grow up in a town where the quarterback dated the homecoming queen, attended a small white (albeit Catholic) church and, I’m not making this up – my oldest son’s name is my grandmother’s maiden name. Listening to the songs, small town America sounds like a really great place. But let’s be honest, if it were so wonderful why would so many of us try to leave? And that includes the country stars that are singing these songs. I can tell you why I left – because if you’re not the homecoming queen or quarterback or at least trying your hardest to live up to that standard, then there’s really no use for you in those towns. I wasn’t even gay or not white, just uninterested in those things and that by itself is unforgivable. I can only imagine what it was like for folks who weren’t white and heterosexual …

What is it that makes those songs resonate so much? I can understand why a faded homecoming queen in her mid-40’s might start bawling during her morning run listening to that song – but why does it have such a grip on me? And what about other people who never even lived in one of those towns? The image of the yeoman farmer is so ingrained in our national psyche that we are trained to long for it and whether we’ve lived it or not, embrace it as our own history.

Country music is past tense with deep nostalgia for that imagined history. Country music norms that experience so we, as a nation, connect to our idealized shared history. Urban music norms a different experience. Rap and hip/hop, like jazz and blues before it, tells the story of poverty and “making it”. Many of these artists grew up in poverty or at least want to appear that they did so they have “cred” (Not unlike Country artists who’ve never ridden a horse) and now have access to things they didn’t before. They are excluded figuratively and often literally from the idealized American Dream that Country music portrays. Where Country music is nostalgic and past tense, Urban music is aspirational and future tense – portraying a time and place where the singer is not excluded, but in control, where he has a great car, drinks the best champagne – even the best looking woman. Rap and Hip Hop tell the story of a man who has made it and has access to the good life, as Nelly says, “runnin’credit checks with no shame…”

Consider, please, these two differing versions of the United States and the American Dream. There are many who long for the idealized version where just like in the country songs, everyone is either a Homecoming Queen or a Quarterback and all of their needs are met. Then there are those that were never part of that vision, either because they are poor, immigrant, black, brown or gay – maybe even all of those things. Their American Dream is the narrative woven through the urban tracks of rap and hip hop: making it, being a full respected member of our American Society. The tension arises when the Quarterbacks and Homecoming Queens begin to feel like the reason that their lives aren’t the way they think they should be is because of the poor, immigrants of color or gay people. Meanwhile, the poor immigrants of color and gay people are pretty sure the Quarterbacks and Homecoming Queens are running things and shutting them out. The Tea Partiers are country music’s Quarterbacks and Homecoming Queens and the anger in their actions and words is the response to the urban beat of Barack Obama and his supporters who are demanding to speak and be heard.

Tea Partiers want to live in a country song where everyone in the United States plays by their rules and aspires to be a football hero or a pretty girl. Tea Partiers would like to take our country back from those who don’t fit in to their image of what is a “real American”. Fake Americans, such as Barack Obama, Lt. Daniel Choi, and Lilly Ledbetter are trying to break down those barriers that are useful in keeping people cemented into their assigned roles. The Tea Partying “Real Americans” are worried that their government no longer only functions to maintain their status in American life. Health Care reform, the stimulus package, the Dream Act, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Fair Pay Act are seen as an open invitation to the American Dream, and according to the Tea Partiers, the American Dream belongs only to the people in country songs.