Archive: Mar 2009

Nicole Mason: “I was the first person in my family to go to high school, and definitely to go to college. About a year and a half later, one hot summer day, I was bored, and decided to volunteer at a local women’s center. That experience changed my life. It was there that I began to have language to help describe my growing up. I decided from that point, with that community, that I was going to be a social justice activist….Today, I’m a social justice researcher with radical roots. I tell this story because there’s something to be said about how we come to the work. It’s our perspective, our standpoint, our point of view.

Artists often create out of nothing. They take a blank canvas, raw materials, and even scraps. They interpret the world, and their interpretation is framed in their lived experiences, values, and beliefs. They draw on their experiences to create something new.

Like the artist, I want the social justice activist to draw on our experiences to create something new. The old is no more, and the new is not yet. We have an opportunity in this historical moment — the times are urgent — to create something new. The economic crisis has had a devastating effect on women and children….The socioeconomic cleavages between groups continue to deepen.

The problems are not new. But figuring out how we work across our differences is key. It’s about making my issues your issues.  And the time is now.

In college, I had a zine called Give a Sister a Lift (some name I got from Berkeley, lol), and in every issue I included this quote: ‘Whether one chooses to label oneself a nationalist, a democrat, etc, the real test is whether one is dedicated to the liberation of all peoples, on all levels.'”

(Applause applause)

Ok, here we go. Elizabeth Sackler takes the podium and speaks to the significance of this 2nd anniversary of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art: “What better way to celebrate the terrible two’s than to bring in an uncontrolled…speakout?”

The idea behind it all:  Not so long ago, a core group of of women who share “grit, tenacity, goals, and chutzpah” came together to form an intergenerational thinktank called Unfinished Business.  They are a “bevy of birthers”, in Elizabeth’s terms.  And for short, they are “UB” — as in you be. The group has hammered out a mission statement:  “UB is a thinktank mobilizing external networks to raise public awareness of issues of intergenerational communications, issues of race/class/gender, and the effects of current events on women and children.”  Amen to that, I say.

Today marks the thinktank’s public launch, and the hope is that UB spawns other “pod” UB groups — because there’s SO much unfinished business to be addressed….

Elizabeth next introduces Nicole Mason, our keynote speaker….hang on.  That’s another post.

I’m thrilled to be LIVEBLOGGING from the Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, in celebration of the Center’s second anniversary! I’ll be tweeting too 🙂

Stay tuned…

Here we are, at 92Y Tribeca.  From left to right: Courtney Martin, Elizabeth Hines, Gloria Feldt, and me.  Logo on screen done by Marco.  Thanks to everyone for coming out, props to the great staff at the Y, and endless gratitude to my fellow WGLs — of all the different things I do, doing this panel with them is hands down one of my FAVES.

For some recaps, check out:

Courtney’s reflections on our shared blog, WomenGirlsLadies, in which she summarizes a lot of what I’ve been thinking about of late: “There is an opportunity, this economic downturn, for all sorts of gender shake-up. When we’re forced to recognize that old styles of leadership and assumptions about gender roles are no longer valid, we can get even the most reluctant folks to try a more enlightened, equal approach. The media coverage of this phenomenon has been totally unsatisfying (dads who cook! women who work! what a revelation!), but in truth, there is something interesting going on.”

A meaty comment over at WomenGirlsLadies from audience member Sara: “I think the most exciting thing anyone said was that this is a moment the feminist movement can take advantage of the social chaos to effect broad change, but if we’re not looking beyond the division of work at home and our ability to balance family and work life, even just in the context of work we’re limiting ourselves.”

Elisabeth Garber-Paul’s review over at RH Reality Check, Feminism and the New Great Depression: What’s Next?, in which she writes: “However, the depression [sic] makes it a more volatile time for the discussion of gender roles—especially because 4 out of 5 laid-off workers are men, and that translates into a seeming crisis of masculinity. The image of the female breadwinner and the stay-at-home dad is increasingly common, and now that men don’t necessarily identify primarily through their title at work, how we define masculinity will need to change—just as the image of femininity has been changing over the past 40 years.”

BTW, I’m starting to develop a TALK on these themes of men, women, gender, and recession — I’ll be trying it out next week at Framingham State College and in April at Catalyst here in NYC.  More on all that soon….and potentially one day coming to a venue near you….stay tuned!

My latest, “Of Uncertain Times,” now up over at Recessionwire.com!

Ah, uncertainty…sigh.

Everyone should take a look at this fascinating article at the New York Times on the phenomenon of teenage girls sticking by Chris Brown after his beating of Rihanna. According to the article:

In a recent survey of 200 teenagers by the Boston Public Health Commission, 46 percent said Rihanna was responsible for what happened; 52 percent said both bore responsibility, despite knowing that Rihanna’s injuries required hospital treatment. On a Facebook discussion, one girl wrote, “she probly ran into a door and was too embarrassed so blamed it on chris.”

I caught a clip of Oprah where Oprah opined that women who return to abusive relationships do so because low self-esteem makes them think that they can’t do better, or that they “deserved” the beating. She was speaking to a teenage girl in her audience who had argued that if Rihanna had gotten back together with Chris, she must have done something to deserve the beating and knew it. As Oprah tried to explain a more complex psychology behind the relationship, the girl adamantly shook her head “No.” I was pretty shocked by this response at the time. The Times article seeks to shed some light on this, but raised from childhood with the mantra that “guys never hit girls no matter what,” I’d be interested in further ideas as to why why teenage girls are being so supportive of Chris Brown.

Allison McCarthy is back with this month’s author interview featuring Kyria Abrahams, who recently published I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing. Allison is a freelance writer based in Maryland and a recent graduate of Goucher College. Her work has been published in The Baltimore Review, ColorsNW, Girlistic, JMWW, Scribble, Dark Sky, and The Write-Side Up. –Kristen

Kyria Abrahams is a New York-based poet and performer who recently published her first memoir, I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing. Her work has previously been featured in the books Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure (Harper Perennial, 2007) and The Book Of Zines: Reading From the Fringe (Owl Books, 1997). I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed recounts her childhood and adolescence raised in a religion where she experienced tri-weekly meetings, door-to-door humiliation, and was told to avoid any “worldly” materials that might have had contact with demons.

She is one of the first writers to break a long silence by publishing on this secluded, cult-like group, and her depictions of life in the religion are uncannily accurate. I ought to know: I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness until the age of 13. It’s a unique life experience, and one that I’m now inspired to write about in more detail.

Abrahams recently took time out from her busy promotions tour and blogging to talk about Jehovah’s Witnesses with a fellow ex-Jehovah’s Witness. Over email, she shared her thoughts on outlining life as a Jehovah’s Witness, intersecting oppressions within the religion, and life after leaving this fundamentalist organization:

1.) Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t generally a subject for mainstream literature. Why did you decide to broach this topic for your first book?

I think it started by talking to jaded hipsters in bars. At some point, I stopped being embarrassed about my childhood and became more open and honest about it. I would tell otherwise disenchanted New Yorkers that I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, and they would immediately become interested in my story. When I mentioned I might be writing a book about it, people would say, “I can’t wait to read that!” and they genuinely meant it. So I realized there was a gap in the available information about what it’s like to be a Jehovah’s Witnesses versus general interest in the religion, and I wanted to fill it. At the same time, I also recognized that people weren’t interested in a scholarly, academic tome; they just wanted a general outline and an engaging story.

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This just in from the New York Observer:

Now, I’m psyched as all get go that The Observer is offering up some free PR for our Women, Girls, & Ladies panel tomorrow at the 92Y Tribeca!  But could someone please tell me, what the [bleep] is a “man-bat”? Is that like a wombat?  Or is it, like, dyslexic batman?  Regardless of what it is, I’ll sure have to go dig deep in the feminist closet to find mine…

(Thanks to fellow WGL Miss Courtney for the humorous heads up.)

Another incredibly resource-rich guest post by domestic violence expert and friend of GWP Madeline Wheeler.  You can read Madeline’s previous posts here and here.  -Deborah

As we all know, by the end of National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Week, Rihanna and Chris Brown made national attention with their violent altercation that had media moguls drooling, dropping the ethical bar, and sensationalizing a human health crisis. Is she pregnant?  Are they married? Whoopi tried to quell the hype on The View stating she doesn’t even know if it’s real—a girl may have hit Rihanna.  Oprah warned on Friday that “He will hit you again!” No intro could keep up with this media carousel.

My go round? Chris Brown is still a teenager! You may recall Deborah’s call for research on Teen Dating Violence (TDV) in Quick Stats: Teen Dating Abuse at the year’s start.   People may be getting the message that 1 out of 3 women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused, but what is not as widely known is that 1 in 5 teens in a relationship report being hit, slapped, or pushed by a partner.

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This review comes to GWP courtesy of Jenny Block, author of Open: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage.  You can read more about Jenny’s work at www.jennyonthepage.com

My Little Red Book
Edited by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff
Twelve (Feb. 2009)

I wanted to like this book. I really did. I love the idea of it, women sharing stories about something that we’re not “supposed to” share stories about. The problem is that without stories from every corner of the globe, every generation, every rung of the socioeconomic ladder, and so on, what you end up with is redundancy.

And that is precisely the problem with Rachel Kauder Nalebuff’s My Little Red Book, I’m afraid. The material would certainly be terrific for an article, preferably written by a remarkable writer gifted with profound insight. And there certainly are a few pieces that were wonderful, like Patty Marx’s curt “Can I Just Skip This Period?” and Ellen Devine’s raw and humorous “Hot Dog on a String.” But for the most part, the pieces were generally the same.

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