TOP of My Mind

2011-11-12T22:33:00.001-05:00

—Cheryl Suchors

GENDER DELUSIONS

2011-11-11T11:38:00.007-05:00

—by ELIZABETH DODSON GRAY, November 10, 2011
Theological Opportunities Program / WomenExplore Lecture and Discussion Forum

Every morning when you and I, as women, walk out our front door, we walk out into a culture that is permeated with assumptions—Dare I say "gender delusions"?—assumptions that men are superior to women. That men are smarter—more competent, more "suited" than women for public office.

If we as a culture do not believe this, then explain to me why we regard as "normal" all the male heads of corporate business? Why do we regard as "normal" the great preponderance of males in the Congress and in the state legislatures, and all the male governors, and, yes, foreign heads of state.

The Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was first written by Alice Paul in 1923. Explain to me why the Equal Rights Amendment was not passed by the Congress until 1972— and then failed to be passed by enough State Legislatures by the 1982 deadline for it to become a Constitutional amendment.

The Gender Delusion of Male Superiority

I remember seeing a cartoon of a little boy and a little girl standing nude around a toilet. The little girl looks over at the little boy’s body and says, "Oh, is that why you make more than I do?"

In a similar vein I remember a three-year-old girl who was being raised by her divorced mother. The mother’s college friend was spending the night, and the little girl and the friend’s young son had a bath together. Going to bed that night the little girl whispered in her mother’s ear, "Isn’t it a blessing it didn’t grow on his face!"

The gender delusion is silently invisible in our culture— and it only occasionally "rises up" to full consciousness. Several decades ago I was showing to a group of couples who were my good friends a slide show based on an academic paper I had done recently.

In the middle of the slide show, one of the husbands suddenly glimpsed the fact that I don’t think that men are superior to women. He burst out with the comment, "But I am superior to you, Liz!" I made a withering response: "And just how did you figure that out, Ken?"

His reply was astounding to all present—"Because I can run a jack hammer and you can’t!"

The room exploded! The men said, "If you think you’re better than me, Ken, just because you can run a jack hammer, you’re crazy!" The women pointed out the obvious—That I could have a baby, and he couldn’t!

What astounded and sobered me was the chilling realization that this man had secretly chosen a jack hammer to indicate his superiority! Ken was a vice president of a major New England utility and was in a rather "liberated" marriage. But in his head and heart all these years he felt he was superior because he could run a jack hammer!

Only Being Powerful and Dominant

Sometimes in this culture we confront a sense of masculinity that seems to depend for its validity and strength upon men being superior to women! Men want to be super-rational, "cool," always in control, never uncertain, can’t ask for directions, can’t admit mistakes—and are only comfortable with being powerful and dominant— because women are not allowed to be that!

Where did all that come from? You might think that, from prehistoric times to now, men worldwide would be deeply grateful for the childbearing which women do, to bring into the world the next generation of the human race!

But worldwide there is no gratitude. No appreciation! Instead we find widespread oppression of women, expressed in honor-killings, cliterodectomies, and laws to control female reproduction.

Do you remember the woman taxi-driver who commented to Gloria Steinem, "If men gave birth, abortion would be a sacrament!"

Nowhere in worldwide patriarchy is women giving birth named as sacred. Instead from earliest times in human history women seem to be feared, and found to be needing "control." Retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong has an explanation for this: I quote
An examination of the taboos of almost every primitive human community reveals the male need to put down or control the female. A universal need to put down or control another is a sure sign of both fear and hostility. One cannot help but wonder why the male—who was generally larger, stronger and faster— could be so threatened by the female.

Spong continues: One has to look beneath the obvious and explore psychological dimensions for answers. The ancient taboos of our primitive ancestors focus the male fear of women on the mystery of the female reproductive process. Early societies did not understand the male connection with reproduction. The women seemed to be capable of producing life alone. The woman was also the one who experienced the menstrual cycle, and only the development of a new human life in the woman’s womb could interrupt the regular mystery of female bleeding.

The menstrual cycle was a source of enormous male anxiety, the taboos reveal. The menstrual blood was felt to be capable of great evil, so the woman would be banished during her menstrual flow, and liturgical cleansing rituals were necessary before she could be readmitted to the tribe.

Spong continues: In every primitive society, blood and life were intimately connected, and the regular female experience of bleeding without dying gave rise to many superstitions.

The female menstrual cycle was even thought to control the moon, which turned more or less on the same span of time. Through the moon, the tides seemed to be responsive to women’s mysterious power. The woman who possessed these cosmic powers was greatly feared and needed to be controlled by the physically stronger males. That was the ancient conclusion.¹

A Culture to Reassure

I think what men did everywhere was to set about creating for themselves a "culture to reassure"—which is patriarchy!

Margaret Mead reports that "In every known human society, the male’s need for achievement can be recognized. Men may cook, or weave or dress dolls or hunt hummingbirds, but if such activities are appropriate occupations of men, then the whole society, men and women alike, views them as important. When the same occupations are performed by women, they are regarded as less important. In a great number of human societies men’s sureness of their sex role is tied up with their right, or ability, to practice some activity that women are not allowed to practice. Their maleness, in fact, has to be underwritten by preventing women from entering some field or performing some feat. . . . There seems no evidence that it is necessary for men to surpass women in any specific way, but rather that men do need to find reassurance in achievement, and because of this connection, cultures frequently phrase achievement as something that women do not or cannot do,rather than directly as something which men do well."²

This leaves us today confronting a culture which in a thousand small ways reassures men that they are superior—and are "intended" to be superior. Male entitlement wafts its quiet but persuasive refrains through every lived moment. Biologically "entitled" to have sex without getting pregnant, the male is further biologically entitled to have children without experiencing either pregnancy or childbirth.

A Family without Anteing Up

Our daughter Lisa was throwing up into her toilet during the nausea of the first three months of her pregnancy, and our daughter interrupted to say to her husband, "You owe me big-time for this!"

The male then feels further entitled to have a family without "anteing up" his share of housework and childcare. I remember David saying when Lisa was a toddler and sick one night, "I have to get my sleep. I have to work tomorrow!" (My unpaid work of caring for a sick child the next day was unseen.)

Lest you think these examples extreme, let me tell you this story. A colleague came up to me and said, "Liz, I have to tell you this story. I just retired, and my wife is not yet retired. So I volunteered to do some of the housework while she’s still working." (Clearly, he had not done any before!) So, he continued, "I got out the vacuum cleaner and I am vacuuming away, when inside me this little voice says, ‘YOU should not be doing this!’ Liz, can you believe that?" And I say, "Yes, I can believe that!"

Growing up in this culture, male entitlement is quietly and perniciously and deeply embedded in each young man. It is "socialized" into the emerging young male consciousness—and it is what makes even the most egalitarian or feminist heterosexual relationship a challenging life journey!

Before I leave the gender delusion of male superiority, let me show you exactly why it is false and therefore a delusion.

VISUAL of Generations of Ancestors (and their DNA)

Each of us is a random combination of DNA from both a mother and a father, and each of them is likewise a chance combination of their parents and ancestors’ DNA. If there were to be genius in the DNA of our forebears—the generations of our parents and grandparents and great-grands and so on, it is a process involving random chance which produces here or there another Einstein or Beethoven or Fanny Mendelsohn or Georgia O'Keefe. There is no physiological way for that genius not to go into a female body. It is impossible. Half of the genius available to the human species is in women’s minds, bodies, hearts. And for thousands of years we have missed it because it has been suppressed. In Afganistan the insurgents target for destruction the schools for girls, as a way of suppressing girls’ potential.

So there is no genetic bias toward male superiority.

VISUAL of genetic ancestors.

Adam’s World

But there is another big gender delusion which is even more insidious and less understood in our culture. Do you remember those beautiful snow-globes which you shake to make the snow fall? Has it ever occurred to you that you could be living inside someone’s snow-globe?

We really are inside someone’s snow-globe, because we are inside a culture of assumptions about life and reality.

The point is that reality does not just exist "out there." Rather, we perceive reality through the mental eyeglasses of our social formulations. These are like the green eyeglasses in The Wizard of Oz. Sociologists call this "a social construction of reality." I call it living in Adam’s world.

Remember in the Bible when Adam names all the animals? We live inside a social construction of reality (a virtual snow-globe) in which Adam, the male of the human species, has named everything and thought everything from the point of view of his male body and male life-experience.

Of their socially-dominant gender, the generic male can say—like Adam—"Everything is named, everything is thought, from my point of view." And all of us, having been born "into and socialized within this "Adam’s world," feel what patriarchal history for centuries said: "This is the way the world really is," for we have never experienced life another way.

Our language itself reflects Adam’s world. So-called "generic" language has perpetuated the illusion that all of the human species is made visible in the words man and mankind. Our language is like a Rorschach test, imaging back to us reflections of even uniquely male genital experience in statements such as "the thrust of his thinking," "a penetrating comment," "a seminal book," even "seminars." Yet male consciousness, like the Washington Monument to "the father of our country," has left us blissfully unaware of the frequently phallic nature of the sculpting of its monuments as well as its words.

In the long history of thought, Adam’s world has given us male-constructed philosophy, male-constructed psychology, and, yes, male-constructed theology. It has been men who have "erected" these great conceptual systems. Thus traditional Christian theology has imaged the generic human in the form of the male, and also imaged the divine in the form of the male. Michelangelo’s portrayal of a bearded God reaching the finger of creation-energy to fill Adam with life has been accepted in Western culture as an icon, a visual summary, of the theological statement at "God created man in His own image."

VISUAL—Michelangelo’s "Creation"

But when we take account of the sociology of knowledge, and notice who is doing the knowing, we realize that the flow of creation really happened as the reverse of what we earlier perceived. It is actually the human male who has created God in his own image. Yes, like Narcissus of old, the male sees only himself in the cosmos reflecting-pool of ultimate mystery.

The feminist theologian Mary Daly said that "When God is male, then the male is God."³

Within Adam’s World, Naming Is Power

VISUAL of Naming Is Power.

If you doubt this perspective, ask yourself about the new meaning in our current vocabulary of the word "hot." The word embodies the truth that now in this cultureall female bodies are subjected to the all-seeing male lecherous "EYE"—ranking them for their sexual vibrations.

We used to say that it wasn’t good to treat women like sex objects. Today "HOT’ says it all, and nobody (not even feminists) seem to object!

Naming is power. Consider the hostile and denigrating names given to men and women in this English-speaking culture. Did you know that there are 227 words in English which denigrate women. (Think of doll, broad, tomato, chick, fox, cat, dog, bitch, cunt, whore, "ho".) How many English words are denigrating to men? A grand total of 12, of which some are denigrating because they are denigrating to women—like mother-fucker, son of a bitch, and bastard!⁴

Consider also the presently running TV commercial for a hard-working truck. The truck says "I take a tank of gas as far as she will go!" Can you imagine naming as male a tank of gasoline? No.

Naming Is Power—and the power to name is potent in Adam’s world. What a struggle it was for feminism to name the realities of "date rape," "spousal rape," "sexual harassment" (Think of Herman Cain and today’s news!). "Domestic violence" is a reality with a terribly misleading name. "Domestic violence" hides the truly violent partner (almost always male!). And "domestic violence" sounds like the walls are beating up the intimate partner. Do you notice that for all the violence to women, we never add the word male? The male connection to violence to women goes unnamed.

YES, Naming is power

We were once buying a rug. The salesman threw down a rug for us to consider buying, saying "There she is!" My quick feminist husband said, "Why do you call the rug ‘She’?" The young salesman looked confused and I filled in "Because you throw it on the floor and walk on it!"

Then there are words like "slut" which express moral contempt for femalepromiscuous sexual behavior. But there are no corresponding words for expressing similar moral contempt for promiscuous male sexual behavior. What is comparable? "Womanizing"? No! Little moral contempt there. "Don Juan"?—this is almost a title of admiration. TV commentators, lacking any proper word despite all the real-life examples from Arnold Schwarzenegger to John Edwards, fall back on "affairs" or "bad behavior." Bad behavior! Do you notice that the word adultery is practically never used?

Living as Women in Adam’s World

Question—What does the existence of Adam’s world mean to feminists? If you truly understand that we as women must live in a cultural world which is based almost totally on male life-experience, what does that mean for how we as women live our lives?

I think it means that we must have an attitude of "suspicion" toward every cultural attitude and assumption, not just "HOT"! We need continually to ask ourselves "Do we as women feel that way on this issue and this area of life? Is the male view of sex truly my woman’s view? Is the male view of family, or success, or foreign policy, my woman’s view?

But it is hard to do that as one woman alone. And that is where TOP comes in. TOP is a woman’s standing point. TOP is where we find our voice to dialogue together in safety about our women’s views of everything from globalization to immigration to family—yes, even to sex. TOP is where we gather our life stories, our experience of violence toward women, and our experience of the cherishing of women, our experiences of both love and of betrayal.

As women we will always walk in two worlds—one the patriarchal world of male naming, Adam’s world, and the other the fragile yet blossoming world of women’s experience and women’s naming.

With the help of TOP, we will walk more surely and more confidently in that awakening women’s world.

—Elizabeth Dodson Gray

REGION’S PREMIER WOMEN’S LECTURE SERIES GEARS UP FOR FALL SERIES

2011-09-20T23:49:00.001-04:00

—by Muna Killingback

The T.O.P. Women’s Forum, the region’s only lecture series devoted to the concerns of women, from the personal to the global, launched its 10 week fall program on Thursday September 15th on the theme “Lifting the Mask: The Courage to Live My Truth,” designed to guide women to live more authentically according to their own values and aspirations.

The series opening was entitled, “Curtain Up: Women’s Stories, the Power of Sharing Our Experiences” with a two-hour performance by True Story Theatre. The troupe played back stories from audience members’ lives with compassion and insight.

“Whenever True Story Theater performs, we laugh and cry and there is a palpable electricity in the room that runs through us all,” explains Charlene Brotman, longstanding member of TOP’s advisory committee, “We feel our common humanity.”

On Sept. 22nd, Abby Seixas psychotherapist and author of Finding the Deep River Within explores, “The Continuing Dilemma of Taking Care of Ourselves: Why is it Still So Hard?” She will delve into the reasons women find it hard to prioritize their own needs and explain why nonetheless it is important to put ourselves first at times.

“What Does Feminism Mean to Me?” will be the topic of a panel discussion on Sept. 29th moderated by Harvard Divinity School professor Leila Ahmed. Panelists include Prof. Elora Chowdhury of UMass Boston, Prof. Sally Haslinger of M.I.T., and Gina Helfrich, Director of the Harvard Women’s Center. The panelists will also respond to questions and engage the audience in a participatory dialogue.

On Oct. 6th, Brown University’s chaplain Rev. Janet Cooper Nelson will speak on, “Discerning and Validating my Inner Truth,” offering spiritual insights into rediscovering what is most meaningful and rewarding to each individual in their lives.

Other lectures in the series focus on fostering personal relationships in a technological age, strategies for women dealing with conflict, challenging the verbal abuse dynamic, and the impact of patriarchal language on security issues.

For the final lecture on Thursday November 17th renowned international fashion designer, artist, and retreat leader Sigrid Olsen will address the topic, “Composing Our Lives, Being True to Ourselves.”

The 10-lecture series meets weekly on Thursday mornings from 10 am to 12.30 pm at the University Lutheran Church at 66 Winthrop Street, just off of Harvard Square in Cambridge, a short walk from the Harvard Square T station. The cost of an individual lecture is $15 ($5 for students); a series subscription is $120. Group discounts are available. For more information, see www.theologicalopportunitiesprogram.org or call 617-285-7408.

* * *

The Theological Opportunities Program of lectures and conversations on issues of concern to women began as a program of the Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA in 1973. It evolved to address any and all issues of concern to women from the personal to the global and became an independent non-profit organization in 2003. It has no religious or other affiliations.

For more information: Muna Killingback, Executive Director, 617 285 7408

The Commission on the Status of Women:A Whirlwind Exchange of Ideas and Meeting of the Minds

2011-02-24T10:34:00.001-05:00

—Muna Killingback

At each annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), hundreds of women representing tens of organizations and networks converge at the United Nations in New York bringing with them their issues, their reports, their ideas, their passions. They have their differences for sure, but what we all agree on, the goal we all share is creating a world where women and men can live freely and equally and in peace.

Representing the World YWCA, I attended two meetings this week that reflected this passion. One, called “Bridging the Israel-Palestine Divide”, brought together a young Palestinian woman and a young Israeli woman who belong to an organization called One Voice (http://www.onevoicemovement.org/) that unites mostly young Palestinians and Israelis in promoting their common vision of and wish for the two-state peace solution. Rosa Helou of Palestine and Dana Sender of Israel both agreed that their organization “amplifies the voice of the moderate majority.” Their role in One Voice, Rosa said, was to tell their governments to work for an end to the conflict. She added that, “We are inspired by what has happened in Tunisia and Egypt.”

Both focus on their own populations using vehicles such as town hall meetings, extensive social media, and sometimes publicity stunts to raise awareness about the need for a just and sustainable peace solution.

What I found particularly interesting was the fact that women comprised sixty percent of members in the Palestinian section of One Voice and seventy percent of members in the Israeli section. This is not a coincidence, I believe. Feminist psychologists such as Jean Baker Miller, particularly in her groundbreaking book Toward a New Psychology of Women, have noted that women value and invest in relationships more than men do and perhaps this extends beyond the personal into the public and global sphere as well.

During the discussion, a very interesting question came from a member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, one of the organizers, along with UN Women and the Permanent Mission of Ireland, which hosted the event. She asked Dana about how she felt about the obligatory military service Israelis have to undertake and said that her own niece in Israel had been a conscientious objector and had faced a trial for her beliefs. Dana, who had earlier said that she had already done her Israeli military service, responded that she was a patriot and would serve in the army again. I think in this case, a more feminist approach would serve to accelerate the goal of peace because all militarism is an extreme manifestation of patriarchy, the seeking of power over through force.

A UN Women representative also asked about if their work was affected by the fact that the peace process had not had any traction, noting that it not succeeded in getting Israel to stop building settlements in the Palestinian territories it occupied [a violation of the Geneva Convention]. Dana noted that the Israeli section felt it had strongly contributed to the recent creation of a two-state solution caucus in the Knesset and she said that they were working for the implementation of international law. Rosa commented that the shape of the two state solution was already basically known and that both sections of One Voice were working for an end to the occupation of Palestinian lands.

At another meeting later that afternoon, a very stimulating panel entitled, “Created in God’s Image: Promoting Positive Masculinity from Hegemony to Partnership” discussed the specific idea of challenging patriarchy and its restricting gender roles. The panelists represented the World Student Christian Federation, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), and the International Council for Reconciliation.

LWF feminist theologian Elaine Neuenfeldt observed that religion reproduces and maintains patriarchy and its structures, and worse, “gives the impression that it is sacred.” She said that since both women and men are created in God’s image they are equal. Because this “equality is shaped by divine wisdom, breaking down this relationship is sin.” She talked about seeking the Biblical and theological notion of justice and noted a paradox in the men aspiring for gender equity: “How can our partners live out this idea of justice while benefitting from this hierarchical [patriarchal] structure?” Partnership can only be achieved in a context of justice she affirmed. Noting that gay activists had pointed out that negative masculinities cannot be ascribed to the entire male population and asked, “How do we deal with non-positive masculinity? Men who are violent, perpetrators of violence?”

Patricia Ackerman of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Women Peacemakers Program (http://www.ifor.org/WPP/) talked about the success of gender trainings for men that promoted and enabled men to think about new ways of defining and thinking of themselves as men.

The second part of the program was devoted to small group brainstorming to define which concepts of masculinity need to be challenged and what approaches in the gender discussion initiated by women need to change. Finally, they asked how we can motivate women and men to engage in change?

In the spirit of the CSW, I, like every other participant, came away with new ideas, inspiration, and program designs and am looking forward to my next whirlwind day at the CSW.

What is the Difficulty Women Have with Women in Power?

2010-11-17T11:33:00.006-05:00

—Kathy Jellison's focussing talk, November 11, 2010

Thanks to all of you for the kind invitation to try and focus the conversation today. When I was asked to speak to this particular issue of “What is the Difficulty Women Have with Women in Power?”—my first inclination is always to rush to the defense of the sisterhood—None or very few women have this kind of difficulty! Or how dare we make such sweeping statements about women! I hate when that happens that anything about us is framed in the negative. We get such bad press anyway—couldn’t we have framed the question better or in a more positive way? Of course we are all comfortable with other women in power—we exalt in their success; we cheer at their experiences of getting ahead in this challenging and often patriarchal world!

But then I decided to actually think about the topic; to go back in my mind. What was my discomfort about—aside my general discomfort about painting all or some women with a particular brush—was my reluctance in using the word power—could I get at this subject by using another word that doesn’t feel so nakedly masculine, would that make it easier to speak to the issue?

So then I began to explore the contrast between authority and power. The word ‘power’ has to my ear overtones, suggesting coercion, the use of force in some physical or psychological form. Authority on the other hand, with its overtones of ‘legitimacy’, reflects a quality worthy of admiration. According to the late Reverend William Sloane Coffin, a former pastor and friend of mine at Riverside Church in New York City, “a person earns authority by showing understanding, wisdom, and compassion. Generally authority and power are both present to some degree in powerful individuals and institutions, but surely the ideal for people and institutions of power is to embody the attributes of authority. He goes on to say, “I know how authority and power vie in your souls, for they continually compete in mine. They vie in our role as parents, in the way we conduct ourselves on the job, in the way we perceive our beloved nation. And it is in the divorce of power from authority that we can trace the darkness in or personal lives and in the life of our nation.”

So as the existential framer—I will share my own experience as a person who wrestles with power and authority. I have long ago claimed for myself that I am indeed a person of power, a person with authority—and have been so for most of my life. I now comfortably claim this descriptor—as I try to only use my powers for good! Ever since I was a child—the second child of a family of 5 children, I have been called upon and risen to take a leadership role. “What shall we play today?” would ask my friends. Or “what have you done today to make a difference” would ask my Mother at dinnertime.

There was as long ago as I can remember an expectation that I would have thought a thing through, that I would have an answer, or I would provide some fun activity in which my friends could participate. I was very comfortable being the decider—as George W. Bush once named himself (I am thinking I probably won’t quote him again). If someone else had an idea or a thought, they would bounce if off me as if I had the final say or had the best input.

Okay—fast forward 20 years or so to Kathy Career Girl. I came into young adulthood in the sixties and seventies and did quite well professionally, being in the right place at the right time several times. A willingness to say ‘Yes’ to opportunities, and no generation ahead of me so show me where the lines were of how far I could go. I identify with columnist and writer Anna Quinlan as she claims certain realities in her early success—a product of affirmative action for one.

I had relocated several times for my firm, August Max, a wholly owned subsidiary based in New York City of Specialty Retailing Incorporated out of Hartford, Connecticut which was a division of a Fortune 500 company, US Shoe Corporation out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Such was the landscape in the 60’s and 70’s of my industry. It was a heady time in retailing; there was an enormously potentially explosive market of Wait For It—TA DA—working women with a whole new set of wardrobe needs—their lives required working clothes, weekend clothes and leisure clothes—all with matching whatever.

After eight years in the nineteen-seventies of working for this emerging nationally-expanding organization, I became President, Chief Executive Officer (that is what it said on my business cards!) and the company grew to over $50 million dollars doing business in 12 states and looking to add more.

Now I will get to the part where I experienced some women who had difficulty with some women in power. August Max had over 800 people in our employ around the country—the vast preponderance of which were women—and women who were often my senior in age and life experience. I found that not many of us—either myself as a person in a power position, not they-- as persons who worked for a woman in power had much experience with how to go about all this. For much of our collective lives, theirs as employees and mine as employer—our role models had been men. And we learned how power was wielded in hierarchal and patriarchal systems—although many of the guys we worked for and with were terrific role models and good bosses—such was not always the case.

And so I found often that some women’s expectations of me were that I would behave like a daughter—deferential, or like a mother, forgiving and/or looking the other way. Or if I was too gentle or easy-going, some were likely to read it as a sign of weakness and try all sorts of shenanigans. With several employees, I thought I had to assume a tough stance in order to move the work forward. There were even occasions when we had to part company and I hope I handled it well. There were often times when employees, some men and some women, questioned by what authority I was making decisions. But the occasions were few and far between—I was learning to be a leader of people, and they were learning how to work with a woman leader. We practiced on each other.

After I left the corporate world I began work in the world of non-profits. Right after I moved from New York City to Providence, a friend called to ask if I would help him with the search for a new Executive Director of the YMCA in Woonsocket, my home town. He was the board president and asked that I meet with the board to map out a strategy for the search. After that meeting the board asked if I would serve as interim director. “Me, run a Y? I was from 7^thAvenue in New York’s garment district—I didn’t know a hockey puck from a basketball—but sure, why not? I’ll give it a try!” From the Y, I went as interim director to Leadership Rhode Island for 14 months, then Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design for 4 years, then a few other stops including AIDS Project Rhode Island, RI Coalition for the Homeless, Worcester Center for Crafts, and others.

After the fourth stop, I figured out that interim directorships are what I did for a living now. The boards of directors who entrusted me with the leadership of their organizations during crises and transitions gave me a window view on many societal issues—great learning experiences on things that mattered or had consequence for the world we live in.

I learned to work to serve a mission—transferable skills; comfortable with decision making, trust the experts around me; hear the truth of the matter; and know the value of mission centered, outcomes focused, client based organizations. I learned that non-profits when they work well are delivery systems to deliver something that matters.

When I was asked to be interim director of the Women’s Center of RI, I was thrilled. Ever intrigued about what it might be like to manage in a purportedly feminist environment, I jumped at the chance to take the job permanently.

Arguably one of the best outcomes of the women’s movement was addressing domestic violence—I learned that every woman’s story is every woman’s story—just a matter of degrees and life circumstances. All of us have scars at the hands of power mongers and bullies, all have shed tears at tyranny. We worked hard at not knowing what was right for each woman who came into shelter, at not asking women to trade one form of tyranny for another. I have come to see that issues of power and control are not gender issues, but bullying coercion—issues of choice and self-determination . We understood all this at the staff level. But the Board of Trustees (which was comprised of 80% women) was a different tale—their refusal and discomfort in seeing our common lot with the women we served and therefore our common charge of dealing with systemic change came as a big surprise to me and a challenge; I watched the fear of many of the trustee woman if I tried too hard to make the association. We had taken 15 months to do strategic thinking and planning, had written a comprehensive approach to systems change; had lined up the strategic alliances that would make it possible, and ran head on into the board’s reluctance to act on the plan. I felt the fear and denial of many of the woman in volunteer leadership positions—I heard their fear in words that felt like “if I admit to having too much in common with the women here in shelter, I might have to face my own life and see that someone else makes my decisions for me, has me on an allowance, runs my life. The valuable lesson I learned from that experience is to accept that different woman are at different places on the journey toward their own personhood—I learned not to judge that which I didn’t understand—that women’s amazing ability to survive their own circumstances needs to be accepted as to what they can take in and what they are ready to change.

Organizationally I learned that culture has strategy for breakfast every morning. It doesn’t matter how good the strategic plan and thinking was—unless the leadership was ready to embrace change, nothing much was going to happen. I needed to get out and move on to where social change was possible.

So all of this is old news—60’s, 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s. Has anything changed? To a large degree, I am still in positions of authority and yes—power. People work for me, I am chair of boards of directors, I am a trustee who chairs committees. I am on the leadership team at Mount St. Rita Health Centre in Cumberland, Rhode Island, where I am the director of development; I have been a consultant to non-profit organizations for over 20 years doing interim directorships and executive coaching.

Many of the folks I work for and with are women. Here is what I have learned. If I remember that 'it ain’t personal—it’s business'; if I remember that there is more at stake than being right or wrong, in charge or nay. If I remember that in the world I inhabit, in the words of Margaret Wheatley, author of "Leadership and the New Science," there is what she describes as a force field that holds us together in a particular mission—often made up of a society’s dreams and aspirations that call us to our highest selves. My authority now comes from what I am called to do—finding that which unites a team of people, that which excites and engages us and yes, often it is I being maybe the one who names it and invites others to participate. I find the more in tune I am with the rightness of the work, and less concerned about being in charge—the more the work gets accomplished. Today, 35 years later, I am a better leader because it isn’t about me—it is about the work.

If ultimately what I care about is sharing my voice so that others can find theirs—I like to think I manage like a woman—but more likely I manage like a person who is good to have around, to get the work done. I like being a person with authority—I claim that for myself willingly.

Do I think some women still have problems with women with power? Sure, but I am not sure it is because they are women; maybe they have had bad experience with people in authority. I want to be in the company of people who give women the benefit of the doubt or at least try to understand their fear and their problems with other women.

In Rhode Island the Episcopal bishop Geralyn Wolfe is not without her detractors—some genuinely dislike her, many disagree with her priorities and leadership style. But it pains me to hear from old line Episcopalians that after Bishop Wolfe it will be a long time until there is another woman bishop in Rhode Island. I am thinking that there have been really not good male bishops in our history, and no one says no more men can aspire to the bishopric. Some things are slow to change.

In the few weeks that I have been thinking about this talk with you all, I have asked several women to share their experiences of women who have had problems with other women in power. I heard time and time again that the behaviors with which they took issue, upon reflection, had less to do with gender than a set of undesirable characteristics that can be found in difficult people—those folks who feel the necessity to wield power, the power brokers, who use positions of authority to intimidate and belittle.

For my money, give me someone with the moral authority to tell their own truth; give me someone who may be afraid to don the mantle of leadership but does it anyway for the good of all, because it needs doing and they know others will follow with their own honesty.

At this stage of my life and career I have the luxury of surrounding myself with bright, caring women—sisters of Mercy—their founder and role model was Catherine McAuley who to this day has not quite achieved sainthood but whose values of compassion, hospitality, respect for all, and stewardship make her a very powerful woman. The feminization of the Christian church through the Mercys is a conversation for another time but such fun to be part of. I learn from them everyday what good leadership is all about.

So I have come to believe that women who may have problems with women in power need our understanding, our compassion, our hospitality. I am thinking that their journey has been not as easy; and that their point of view is shaped by challenging experience. I try to forgive them all—and more importantly I learn how to not be the nightmare of their past experience—I want to invite them to accompany other women on a quest to find the brave new world. We have too much to do.

I have become an expert on giving the blank stare. When someone, either gender, comes at me, wanting to wrestle for control and power, I have learned to ask the question, “And how does that serve the mission?” “How does that idea move the ball down the field (my only sports analogy)?” And then I go silent with the inquiring blank face waiting for an answer that hardly ever comes. I find that the potential detractor cannot get traction at my expense and often moves on. Reframing the conversation, refocusing the issue—does my heart good to stop some variations of passive-aggression in its tracks. I don’t like bullies in any gender and have finally learned not to rise to the bait. It isn’t important and not my fight. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a good heated debate or even a good scrap on occasion, but only about things that truly matter to me. So there it is, my approach to power and my response to those who have problems with it.

I want to close with one of my favorite prayers:

For making me a woman in what still so often seems a man’s world, I thank you.

Because you taught me by example that power is your gift and not my possession.

For giving me a body though it sometimes fails me and is not all I wish it was, or rather, a good deal more that I wish it was, I thank you.

Because you taught me that I am so much more than my body and yet my body is your holy temple.

For calling me to be more than I believe I can be, and less than I sometimes pretend I am, I thank you.

Because you taught me that being is more than doing, what who I am and whose I am are more important than what I do or what I have.

For all that you are, I bless you as you have so greatly blessed me.

Ms. Mary Conner, from the Women Uncommon Prayer Book

Kathy Jellison

November 11, 2010

Yang and Yin of the Wired World

2010-10-06T22:00:00.008-04:00

—Cynthia Wickens Gilles

I am forever seeking balance in the increasingly complex system of life. Some of you may recall my first TOP talk in November 1996, when I was anticipating potentially fatal surgery. My topic then was “Asking the Question: What Do I Want To Do With The Rest Of My Life?" Today, in an era of extremely rapid change catalyzed in part by our wired world’s amazing evolution, I am addressing that same question from the following perspectives.
● Time limits: How long will we live? How can we best make a positive difference in our worlds, remembering to relish being alive, fulfilling our responsibilities, and caring for ourselves and others?

● Priorities: What are our priorities in life? Do we consciously choose to allocate our time according to these priorities?

● Decision making and mindfulness: How do we decide and to what extent are we usually mindful of these decisions?

● Our lives are complex systems: Our life choices are influenced by their context and purpose as well as our priorities and time limits. What things are most important for our decisions?

__________________________________________
All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

James Thurber

__________________________________________

Balancing potential benefits versus potential costs is increasingly challenging in our complex Wired World. My choices in this world have been influenced by the context of my personal life as well as by knowledge gleaned from diverse sources. My Wired World choices are unique but my questions may pose challenges for others as much as they have for me.

I have more time available now and try to exercise my well earned right to spend more time on myself, despite my long lists of things to do. But I have been a single parent of an adult son with special needs for over 30 years. He continues to become more independent and is a big help in many ways but still needs considerable support and attention. I am responsible for managing our four bedroom home, finances, etc., and other family relationships. I will be 79 in December and need to devote much more time to multiple health needs. I have nearly died six times in the last 50 years and have had two reminders of approaching mortality this year: successful surgery for a breast cancer that was only a 2 on a scale of 1-10, and a one day hospitalization this month for something that may or may not be a serious heart concern. Although my pace of life has slowed, I tend to be distracted more easily and must work harder on being mindful in order to combat creeping CPA, otherwise known as continuous partial attention.

In the department of technological innovations, I am a relatively slow adopter. For example, during the first ten years after I returned to paid work in 1970, I always found a willing secretary to do my typing. My baptism of fire came when my Federal grant proposal for an AIDS Discrimination project was funded. My interagency Board of Directors could not believe how ignorant I was about choosing computer hardware and software, so they chose for me. The attorney I hired for the project and the IT coordinator at our host agency instructed me and I discovered the blessings of computer cutting and pasting. They taught me so well that I was able to type our successful second year continuation proposal unaided!

Considerations that Influence My Wired World Choices

The Wired World has many branches. I prefer to use a limited number of them selectively, as tools to achieve purposes I care about. These include communication, maintaining connections and relationships; collecting, storing and sharing information; researching diverse topics; advocacy and networking; planning and coordinating; writing and other creative arts; continuing education; and recreation. Unfortunately, these beneficial uses can be accompanied by potentially harmful side effects that I prefer to avoid. And my decisions are influenced by emotions as well as reason.

1. Relationships: Intimacy and Trust versus Distance

Relationships can satisfy a basic human need for connection, but their quality is of critical importance. How do you define friendship? I believe that most real friendships take time and effort and face to face conversation to develop trust and intimacy. On Facebook, the number of friends appears to greatly outweigh the quality of relationships in members’ weighting scales. Social networks seem to help people become more interconnected but actually tend to decrease intimacy and community. Friendship needs face time as well as Facebook. Face -to-face contact has far greater impact than any online networking for friendship, politics, advocacy, organizational development, and other purposes. I often see friends and families dining together, or people walking together, with each person separately engrossed in an electronic device. Virtual relationships can keep us from developing real relationships with people who are physically present.

What fuels this need for constant “hyperconnectedness?” It can be a way to escape feeling alone. As Tufts senior Charlotte Steinway recently noted, “The tragic, isolating thing is that we reach for our devices because we don’t want to seem lonely – which is causing us to avoid our peers and actually be lonely.” Texting and talking on an electronic device sends a message to the world that I am not alone. Some people become so involved in their private virtual worlds that they seem unaware of the real world around them and exhibit very rude behavior. And I suspect that some people use these devices to help them feel important as they walk down the street or sit in meetings and ignore the speakers. Of course, some of them may just be addicted!

2. Information Access and Overload

Do you have enough information, just enough, or too much? How many of you think we can’t have too much information? How do you decide who or what to trust? Being able to locate needed information is a great benefit but we are constantly in danger of overload with too much information, often of questionable accuracy and value. To limit information pollution, we all need the Snopes fact-checking website to sort out truths from untruths. Unfortunately, the site has limited scope and its’s managers think that the truth doesn’t stand a chance versus gossip. People can say anything they like without any level of accountability or authentication. Of particular concern are the myriad viral cultures spawned by the Wired World, with their ability to rapidly circulate vast amounts of misinformation.

In contrast, the increasing ability to access and exchange vast amounts of information is contributing to great strides in science, the arts and other realms of knowledge and creativity. And social networks can offer both advantages and harms, depending on their use. With so many information sources available , it is easier to stay with some relatively familiar ones that we consider trustworthy and otherwise desirable. Although I am grateful for the many educational resources available electronically, and enjoy collecting and sharing information, I am mindful that some uses of my time are far more valuable to me than others.

I am minimally signed in on Facebook but decided for personal privacy reasons that I did not want to include a large amount of personal information.– My arthritis fortunately prohibits using Twitter but limited exposure to a small sample of tweets by newspapers, radio and TV suggest I haven’t missed much. – It would be hard to avoid having a Blackberry or similar device if I were still gainfully employed or job hunting, but I am not. Blogs have created a modern Tower of Babel, the whole world talking to itself with many anonymous voices of uncertain quality and value. Even without using these networks, I have access to more information than I need, often the same information from multiple sources - too much already!

My favorite media choices include newspapers, radio, TV, the Internet, magazines, newsletters, and limited TV. I love the look, feel, and smell of newspapers, the ease in scanning pages to find articles of interest. Newspapers are often the best sources of quality journalism, though this is under attack. Reading newsprint is easier for me than reading a computer screen. I delight in scanning the paper while enjoying a cup of coffee at my kitchen table. And I also enjoy trying to stay informed about current information on health and other policy issues using all of the above media. – Electronic media have enabled me conduct some valuable personal research, most recently on several related health problems and medication side effects. Ease of online communication with my physicians also is convenient but I feel rather guilty about being on the benefit side of economic and literacy inequalities that cause disparities limiting access to the Wired World for many people.

3. Mindfulness versus Multitasking

I agree with Mary Oliver that you need to live a good part of your life fully engaged with the real world and people around you to feel alive and happy. Time is life. But being fully present requires a level of mindfulness that can be hard to maintain in the face of distraction overload and resulting continuous partial attention. We really can pay full attention to only one thing at a time, and it takes time to shift from one focus to another.

Recent Stanford studies found that multi-tasking is inefficient and overrated. People who do more multitasking are more easily distracted and less able to ignore irrelevant information than people who do one thing at a time. They also understand less and are less creative and productive. Constantly shifting attention impairs both in-depth learning and retention in memory, and also can impair higher cognitive functions such as effective decision making. Neuroscientisit Eric Kandel observes that only when we pay deep attention to a new piece of information are we able to associate it “meaningfully and systematically with knowledge already well established in memory.” And for me, this becomes harder with increasing age.

Hand held devices offer many benefits, such as coordinating with others, being able to call for help, and being able to work in many different places. But using them while walking as well as while driving can be dangerous. And some new research suggests that cell phone use impairs drivers’ ability to recall information in cell phone messages, and also challenges the idea that conducting important business conversations while driving boosts productivity.

Tony Kamaroff perfectly captures my feelings about distraction overload. He says,”I refuse to use a smart phone. In a world that’s already pulling me in 10 directions at once, I don’t need to be pulled in an 11^th direction. I don’t want to be interrupted every few minutes by a signal that says there is a new message for me, because my personality is such that I’ll stop what I’m doing and look at every message. And forget what I was doing just before I got the message. And go crazy trying to remember. And going crazy is not good for your health.”

4. Wired World Devices as Tools versus Traps

Electronic devices and other technology can cause distraction, interruption and addiction, change the way we think, and devour our time, but this all depends on how we decide to use them. I try to remain mindful of the differences between using and being used by electronic media, between independent access and addictive compulsion. I am curious about many things and try to keep well informed and continue to explore and learn, but I have to discipline myself to avoid spending too much time on media.

Electronic devices build invisible walls between us and the people and natural world around us, and it is not just because of work-obsessed lives that demand we be on call 24/7. These devices are fearfully addicting and this is an international problem. South Korea recently classified 2 million of its 49 million citizens as “Internet addicts.” Even

feeling obligated to check all of one’s e-mail and respond promptly to every new message can be a problem. The Internet is loaded with addictive opportunities. Commercial websites are designed to make shopping easy. Even e-Bay has its addicts. I am pleased to have cultivated my ability to ignore intrusive ads which saves not only time but money!

5. Security and Privacy versus Vulnerability

Cyberspace presents personal dangers as well as opportunities. Social networks all carry security risks. Sam Allis has wisely observed that “Once you buy into text messaging and/or e-mail on a cellphone, you’re doomed. You’re always available. You can’t hide. You’ve lost any semblance of a private life. Call it the revenge of technology.” Some dangers are local, national, or international in that cyberspace lends itself both to planning and to trying to foil terrorist and other attacks. We are constantly subjected to a frightening amount of unseen surveillance, not only by governments, but also by many commercial entities, and undoubtedly others as well. And once they have found us, they have few reasons to let us escape their scrutiny. Because I believe that surveillance of our personal information is much broader than most of us can imagine, I will continue to minimize my involvement with social networking sites.

Erving Goffman observed that, “Among all the things of this world, information is the hardest to guard, since it can be stolen without removing it.” Theft of personal and commercial or proprietary information can pose major problems. And I do not entirely trust digital records. They can be accidentally erased or be contaminated by viruses. Hard drives die and Internet providers can vanish, temporarily or permanently. Also, the galloping electronic evolution is hastening hardware and software obsolescence. I have two hard copies of my 1982 doctoral dissertation but am still seeking someone who can transfer it from old 5¼” floppy discs to newer accessible media.

6. Impacts on our Brains and Health

I also am uneasy about some other potential effects of the Wired World on my health and cognition. Several sources, including Nicholas Carr’s recent book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, raise some serious concerns, that the internet may be reshaping our society and our brains in ways that make it more difficult for us to concentrate, to remember, and to think deeply and critically. And some cognitive neuroscientisits believe that the reading brain is slowly becoming endangered.

James Carroll argues that soundbites reduce experience to fragmented episodes without the context essential to understanding. He also believes that PowerPoint presentations, with their shorthand organization, can create the illusions of understanding and of control while inhibiting actual thinking. Brigadier General H.R. McMaster says that “Some problems are not bullet-able.” So consider discarding the laser pointer and just talking to people!

Bill Wasik, an analyst of the rising impact of technology on everyday living, observes that “the challenge is to try to find ways to partially unplug ourselves, to carve out spaces in our lives away from information, away from the constant buzzing of the hive mind...a lot of creative people want to be working on their craft, they want to be thinking big about what they should be doing...but the culture is encouraging them to think small.”

I take great pleasure in the ability to choose being out of reach. I treasure the natural world, solitude and silence. Some physicians write nature prescriptions these days so I’ve been working on one of my own. This summer, I’ve enjoyed sitting in late afternoon sun in our backyard and reading or just observing birds, flowers, and the sky - or sitting in our small plant room in late evening meditating on the soothing cricket songs that vary in intensity with the temperature. Georgia O’Keefe observed that it takes a long time to see a flower. I want to take time to appreciate the natural world around me.

There are no absolutes in our wired world; ultimately it comes down to balancing benefits and harms to individuals, society, and the world, all infinitely complex systems. I have touched on some of the considerations that influence my personal choices of how to spend my time.

When she was dying of cancer, Erma Bombeck wrote, if I had my life to live over I would have cried and laughed less while watching television, and more while watching life. Mary Oliver asks,”Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I’ll close with the same poem by Naomi Shihab Nye that I used at the end of my first TOP talk.

THE ART OF DISAPPEARING

When they say Don't I know you?

say no.

When they invite you to the party

remember what parties are like

before answering.

Someone telling you in a loud voice

they once wrote a poem.

Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.

Then reply.

If they say We should get together

say why?

Its not that you don't love them anymore.

You're trying to remember something too important to forget.

Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.

Tell them you have a new project.

It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store

nod briefly and become a cabbage.

When someone you haven't seen in ten years

appears at the door,

don't start singing him all your new songs.

You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.

Know you could tumble any second.

Then decide what to do with your time.

Naomi Shihab Nye

Originally published in:

Moyers, Bill, editor. The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets.

New York: Doubleday, 1995.

—Cynthia Wickens Gilles

Sanity and Solace

2010-10-02T23:08:00.018-04:00

—by ELIZABETH DODSON GRAY
The politics intensify and the clamor of campaigning grows louder as we head toward November 2nd. Where do we turn for sanity?

And as the news of home invasion murders and the Rutgers suicide from cyber-bullying fill our newspapers and television news, where do we go for a glimpse of goodness and normalcy?

It reminds me of the Kingston Trio song of yesteryear, "They’re rioting in Africa,/ They’re starving in Spain,/ There’s hurricanes in Florida,/ And Texas needs rain./ The whole world is festering. . . ."

Jon Stewart got it right on Comedy Central. "Where do we go for sanity?"

As summer turns to autumn, you could think that the only thing happening is politics and campaigning.

But look around you. What is really, REALLY happening is that the natural seasons are TURNING on their deeply habitual but daily spontaneous way from warm to cold temperatures, from green leaves to gloriously multicolor splendor spread out on the trees we scarcely notice when they are green.

In a world becoming more uncertain each year with earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and other EXTREME weather (which used to be unusual but has now become commonplace), there is still SOMETHING regular and steady and "normal" and "good" in our lives. It is our human context WITHIN the natural world of our planet’s biospheral cycles.

We are ENCIRCLED by the steadiness and the goodness of nature, made vivid even to our "unseeing" eyes, by the turning of the seasons.

No matter who gets elected, no matter who- kills-who in international wars and drive-by shootings, the sun will still rise. And the day will begin. And the season will turn from summer to autumn. And we will be blessed by the abundance of the earth UNTIL in our infinite human hubris and our blind technologies, we figure out a way to kill the planet!

But until then, open your eyes and open up your soul, to rejoice in the wonder and the blessing of the turning of the seasons. The natural seasons may possess the sanity and the solace we all need.

—Elizabeth Dodson Gray

Sing and Weep

2010-09-25T17:14:00.003-04:00

On Thursday 23^rd September 2010 in Lindsa Vallee's talk focussing the issue of “HOW CAN A CULTURE HAVE RESILIENCE? HOW CAN WE DEVELOP IT?” she quoted Martin Prechtel:

In Mayan the word for song and weep is the same. “.. everything must weep/sing ….. grief and praise sleep in the same bed …. to praise is loving what is alive and to grieve is for what has been lost ..”

25 Years of TOP

2010-09-05T15:12:00.009-04:00

Here is a republication of the press release issued on the occasion of TOP's 25th Anniversary in 1998. Read this to see how TOP has evolved and continues to evolve to meet the needs of the women it serves.

Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of TOP

— by Elizabeth Dodson Gray

One of the Divinity School’s unique programs, known as the Theological Opportunities Program (TOP), is celebrating its 25th anniversary this fall of 1998.

To celebrate their 25th anniversary the Advisory Committee has planned an exciting fall lecture series entitled "This Is The Time For Women," with major lectures by Federal Judge Nancy Gertner, Jill Ker Conway, Clare Dalton, Jean Baker Miller, Christiane Northrup, Elizabeth Dodson Gray and Carolyn McDade.

The anniversary series this fall begins Thursday morning, September 24th at 10 AM in the Braun Room at the Divinity School.

TOP WAS BEGUN IN 1973 by Brita Stendahl and a committee of interested women. At that time it was a reformulation of the earlier "Ladies Lectures" (lectures on Tuesdays in April), which began in the late 1950s during the deanship of Douglas Horton.

In 1973 the lectures were redesigned as a spring and fall Thursday morning lecture series, intended to appeal to all those who were seeking and searching for just what the title says, "theological opportunities" in their lives and in their thinking. To the lectures were added mini-courses, taught by HDS faculty and only available to TOP participants, to provide for deeper and more intense theological reflection and inquiry.

It was a gateway for laywomen into the Divinity School, and numbers of women in the years since 1973 have gone through this gateway into regular enrollment as students at HDS.

Through the years, the mini-courses faded away, but the lecture series every fall and spring have grown in the fall from 4 sessions to 8 and in the spring to 10 or 11 sessions. The Advisory (planning) Committee, led since 1978 by its coordinator, feminist theologian and author Elizabeth Dodson Gray, has grown from a small committee of 10–12 to its present strength and diversity of 45–50 women. It is open to all who choose to join in the planning Thursday on afternoons after the fall or spring lectures.

THE LECTURE TOPICS HAVE SHIFTED from more conventional and traditional religious inquiries to questions that arise out of women’s life experience, for example, from "The Dynamic God and the Transformation of Biblical Symbols" to "What Does Love-As-Self-Denial and Love-As-Sacrifice Do to Women?"

During the deanship of George Rupp the Theological Opportunities Program was encouraged to find its speakers (there are no honoraria) from the wider Harvard community as well as the Greater Boston Area, looking for speakers to lawyers, legislators, authors, environmentalists, psychologists and psychotherapists as well as to academic professors and theologians.

Attendance ranges from 90 to 160 people for each lecture. There have been visitors from Iceland, Japan, Pakistan, Jamaica, England, Holland. Registration data shows that more that 1700 different women and a few men have attended in the last 10 years, and it is estimated that between 3500 and 4000 attended in TOP’s first twenty-five years.

In connection with the 10th anniversary series in 1983, the position of "existential focuser" was developed. This is a short (15 minute) speech which precedes the major lecture, and its purpose is to root or ground the topic of the morning in the life of one woman from the planning committee, who can speak about how that morning’s topic has been crucial, for good or ill, in her life.

After the major lecture, there is a question period, a short break at noon, and then a participatory discussion so that all who attend can have an opportunity to share their life-experience on this topic. Occasionally the subject of the morning is illuminated through a panel of 3 or 4 speakers who can witness to the diversity of perspectives on this question.

Because the morning experience, which begins at 10:00 AM and lasts through 1:00 PM, has a variety of speakers, questions and discussion, the morning is now best described as a half-day conference, and the 1998 fee is $10 per session, with a 20% discount for series subscribers.

The planning of the lecture series is at the heart of the TOP program, but through the years the creativity of TOP has generated other manifestations of its life. First came the support group which meets every Thursday morning when there is not a lecture, both summer and winter. This small, more intimate group has a "go-around" ritual, which encourages each woman to focus on the question, "What am I feeling about my life today, or this week?" The support group has itself initiated a process of telling Spiritual Journeys to one another.

But the generativity of the group has also birthed a monthly Sunday afternoon discussion group, Conversations Over 50 (only over-50 can attend), which focuses on the unique questions which women in their 50s through 80s have about their lives. Out of this Conversations group came for a time another smaller discussion group about "End-of-Life Decisions."

IN 1988 THE TOP GROUP WROTE ITS OWN BOOK, Sacred Dimensions of Women’s Experience, based upon the fall 1985 lecture series of the same name. Co-written with articles by 29 TOP women and friends, edited by coordinator Elizabeth Dodson Gray, and published by Roundtable Press, the book has been hailed as a significant milestone in feminist theology.

The Very Rev. Dr. Lois Wilson, then one of the presidents of the World Council of Churches, wrote: "Sacred Dimensions of Women’s Experience is an important book. It is one of the few theological books I know that addresses the meaning of the sacred out of the experiences of women. I could hardly believe it when I went through the index and found ‘myself’ there, having experienced (along with other women) housework, falling in love, giving birth, caretaking, raising children, creating a home. Naming the sacred in our own experience is an absolutely essential theological task for women." On the book cover, as lushly vivid colors swirl around, the words of Rosemary Radford Ruether are quoted: ". . . we are engaged in a new revelational encounter with the divine in and through women’s experience. . . . "

One participant, Priscilla Hinckley, has written: "Two important things happen at TOP: (1) lay women bring their issues of spiritual concern arising out of daily life to the Divinity School and explore them with students and professionals in the religion field; and (2) the program offers a supportive setting for an ongoing search into the meaning of female experience through the instrument of telling our spiritual stories to one another in small groups which meet at other times during the year.

"The presence of such a lay group within a theological school—bringing to the seminary the existential concerns of people in the pews, in order to think together with students and teachers—is, we think, unique in the United States."

Dieter Georgi, former HDS professor of Biblical Studies and long-time faculty advisor to TOP (now at the University of Frankfurt in Germany) has his own perspective as a professional theologian:

"The Early Church was first and most of all a lay movement, and women played a founding and stabilizing role in it and in its theological reflections. The same has remained true with all the major revitalizations of church and theology, not the least in the Reformation. . . . All good professional theologians to this day depend on intensive dialogues with the laity, sensors for the inspirational powers of the praxis of life, its social structures and its tendencies. Theology is supposed to condense and point these messages and test such pointed condensation in further exchange with the laity.

"Women have always played an important role in that ecclesial, social and theological evolution, even during the high times of patriarchy. . . . TOP has made the area circumscribed by Interstate 495 (more or less the range of its participants) into a home-base for lay theology, competing with the Wittenbergs and Genevas of yesteryear."

TOP PUBLISHED FOR ITS 25TH ANNIVERSARY a 120-page booklet, Weaving Communion Deep Within Life’s Grace. Eighty individuals wrote of their experiences with TOP over the years, and it is illustrated with their art and music. The booklet begins with these words:

"We thought we were doing a lecture series. But we became a women’s faith community, a place of learning but also of transformation, a safe place that validated our feelings and encouraged our unfolding, a place for tears of pain and tears of gladness.

"We created this place for one another. Over the years all of us together created it, and it has given us gifts beyond measure. But perhaps the most precious of all gifts, it has given us the experience of ourselves—empowered, authentic, full-voiced—the selves we are becoming."

DESCRIBING THIS WOMEN’S FAITH COMMUNITY, the coordinator says: "We are women who are Jewish, Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, Unitarian Universalist, Quaker, Greek Orthodox, Buddhist, post-Christian and Goddess. We are single, married, divorced, remarried: we are heterosexual, bisexual, and lesbian. We are daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, and grandmothers. Most but not all of us are white. Most but not all of us are middle-class. We are teachers, clergy, housewives, psychotherapists, businesswomen, authors, composers, singers, gardeners, caregivers. A few of us have been senior corporate executives."

GEORGE RUPP, THE FORMER DEAN OF HDS and currently president of Columbia University, writes in the booklet:

"I have always been struck with how deeply TOP has affected the lives of participants. I am sure the three paragraph ‘verbal snapshots’ that are being collected will bear moving testimony to this impact. But along with its role in shaping the lives of individual participants, TOP has also served as a significant stimulus in the Divinity School as an institution.

"Preparing a talk for TOP has not infrequently provoked a process that in turn led to a new course or an article or even the germ of a book. . . . I am confident that the twenty-five year challenge to relate scholarly preoccupations to concrete experience has been salutary for the Divinity School community, and I hope and expect that this challenge will continue in the years ahead."

— by Elizabeth Dodson Gray

WWII B-18 Bomber Crash Site Hike

2010-08-13T18:11:00.000-04:00

—Cheryl Suchors

This was a hike with history. On January 14, 1942 at 7:40 in the cold, dark night, a US B-18 Bomber crashed into the shoulder of Mt. Waternomee in North Lincoln, NH. The shock made tableware dance and windows rattle; even in Plymouth, 22 miles away, people wondered what on earth had happened.

Only weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the citizens of North Lincoln and nearby Woodstock initially thought they were being attacked by the Japanese. The first rescue crew to reach the crash site wasn’t sure whether they were aiding enemies or allies.

I won’t give away more of the story, but I will tell you that the heroism of the soldiers who survived the crash—and astoundingly five out of seven did—and the heroism of the townsfolk who worked so hard during a bitter blizzard to keep them alive, moved me deeply.

While the rest of our group settled down for lunch, I spent some time alone at the memorial site, thinking about these utterly amazing, utterly ordinary people, and lit a candle in their honor.

Everything I know about these people comes from a booklet written by Floyd W. Ramsey, The Night the Bomber Crashed. If you can, read it before you do the hike; it will make a difference, I assure you.

From Meadow to Woods

Despite a forecast of rain, we started off our 4.6 miles in sunshine and fine fettle, marching along an old logging road overgrown with grass and wildflowers.

In about half a mile, we came to a surprisingly perfect circle of meadow that signaled our turn onto the trail, and a perfect spot for a group picture. The trail was marked by a tiny cairn, nearly hidden in the grass, that someone had recently built to mark the way.

Entering the forest, the landscape changed dramatically. We charged along, sweating in the heat and humidity, grateful for the dense shade. Drinking, a lot of drinking, became de rigueur.

The trail steepened considerably, with much of the 1350’ elevation gain coming in the last mile. Sweat soaked our clothes.

At least the footing was nice and soft, almost mushy on this un-maintained and rather unknown trail compared to the usual rocky tramp in the White Mountains. On the other hand, it was slippery. Going up wasn’t so bad, but later on, when we descended, people slipped and slid and the occasional ankle was turned, though none seriously.

The Crash Site

I was merrily chatting away to folks from the “sweep” position, when I noticed that the line of hikers ahead of me had not only stopped but dispersed. What was up? It took me a moment to realize the lump of something to my left was not another rock, but an airplane engine.

The B-18 crashed high and then skidded at an angle through the trees going downhill, tearing off its wings, splitting open the fusilage, and losing its landing gear in the process. But that’s not how you come upon the wreckage. You climb up to the last bits to fall off or explode away.

First you see an engine, then other chunks and hunks or metal and gradually you piece together a doorway, a hydraulic part, and then, at the highest part of the mountain, the wings. Looking down from there you can see the line the bomber made tearing through the forest to its final rest and the explosion of the plane itself and one of the 300 pound bombs it carried.

The remaining bomb lay there, near the burning wreckage, the entire time of the rescue. It was eventually detonated by military personnel the next day.

Some of the wreckage takes fantastical shapes. Some of it looks like litter.

Parts of the plane flew far and wide from the various blasts, so the field of discovery is broad here in little traveled Mt. Waternomee.

Though the burn marks and scars on the mountainside have healed completely, it’s astonishing how fresh the metal parts still look despite the nearly seventy years the forest has had to work on them.

We Find the Falls

We ate lunch on the flattest spot we could find, surrounded by chunks of wreckage. It felt like sitting in some ancient ruins.

On our way down Mt. Waternomee, Robert was able to locate the falls he’d seen when he scoped out this hike a few months before. There’s no trail per se, one has to simply wait until the sound of water comes at you from both sides, the climb up the embankment on the left as you face downhill and voila! A beautiful, rugged stretch of rocks and falling water.

Some of us hiked down the steep embankment to the water’s edge while others rested on the trail above. Three adventurers, Andrew, Randy and Frank climbed up the mossy rocks to wet themselves with the cold water and enjoy the refreshing breezes. Not me. I was content to meander along the water’s edge and take pictures.

As we came near to the end of our journey through the forest, I noticed an arrangement of Nature that looked like wooden brushstrokes representing a Japanese or Chinese character. What did it symbolize? The word “peace” came to my mind.

What does it say to you?

by Cheryl Suchors

Summer Reading

2010-07-10T17:59:00.000-04:00

by Cheryl Suchors
Light is the word here. I enjoy light reading. Not as a steady diet, but it’s refreshing in between heavier stuff. So here are some of my hitherto-secret vices. Enjoy, and let us all know what you think of any you read. Also add your own suggestions to the list!
Mysteries
I confess that poorly drawn or insignificant female characters infuriate me. You may guess from this that I like strong female leads and you may also have discovered, as have I, that it’s not so easy to find them. It’s a lot easier than 20 years ago, but still. Here are some authors and characters I’ve taken to.
Denise Mina. I really like this Scottish author who writes about Paddy Meehan, a smart, wise-mouthed reporter from a large Catholic family in Glasgow who struggles with her weight and with making it in a male-dominated field. The style is realistic, gritty and the books are filled with believable characters. I’ve read Garnet Hill, Field of Blood and Slip of the Knife and am forcing myself to slow down so the few remaining I can savor.
Janet Evanovich. There should be a separate category of “ultra-light” for these books in the numbered series that starts with One for the Money. A new one comes out each summer and, yes, my daughter and I have read them all. The first half-dozen or so are laugh-aloud funny, featuring Stephanie Plum, bail bondswoman from Jersey who has a former prostitute for a side kick, a gun-toting granny and a hilarious assortment of characters including cross-dressers, stoners and gangsters who mess up her life.
Batya Gur. Unfortunately, this wonderful Israeli author died too young so there won’t be any more of her thick books that always teach you a lot about something: the world of star cellists, life on a kibbutz, a psychiatric institute in Israel. The protagonist here is male, an intellectual head cop, with sexist other male cops, but even so the writing is so good I’ve read all her six books.
Laurie King. This author writes two series, one set in San Francisco, which I’ve read one or two of and don’t find strong or captivating, but I’m a big fan of the series about Mary Russell, the brilliant young religious scholar who eventually becomes Sherlock Holmes’ partner in all senses of the word. If you can, read them in order; the series starts with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all but one of these, The Game, which “jumped the shark.” (If you’re not familiar with this term, it’s a film expression that means a film/show has leapt from the bounds of the credible and gone over the top.)
Jacqueline Winspear. Her series about Maisie Dobbs, a working class young woman who receives the gifts of education and apprenticeship that help her set up her own investigative agency to apply psychological insight to the task of solving insolvable cases. It takes place just after World War I in England, a tough time indeed. It’s hard to put my finger on why I like these books. They don’t have much action and the pace is always slow. The atmosphere is very British and there’s something ultimately calming about them and also rewarding because Maisie works hard, never forgets her roots or her obligations, fights her own internal demons and wins. It’s good to read these in order, too. The first is Maisie Dobbs.
Science Fiction
I’ve been reading science fiction on and off for decades. I like all kinds and varieties but particularly futuristic ones where someone has imagined a different world and different ways for women, or female beings not necessarily human, to be in that world.
Having read hundreds of authors in the field, allow me to share with you my favorite science fiction author of all time: C. J. Cherryh. She’s written over 60 novels (yes, 60!) and won three Hugo awards. By all rights, she should have won at least a dozen more Hugos and numerous other awards, but she began writing in the 1970s when publishers (mostly male) believed sci-fi readers (mostly male) wouldn’t read a woman author (hence her use of initials) and didn’t give enough credit to her genius. Even now she doesn’t get her just due.
The woman is brilliant. She’s written in every genre of science fiction there is and creates entire universes with different series in different sectors of them. I mean, really. No other author has been so bold, so imaginative with so large a vision.
If you like advanced technological worlds, read her Cyteen series that deals with cloning and regeneration and all the complications of economics and government and morals. If you like space-faring wild cat-type people where all the ship captains and crew are female and the men stay home with the children, read the Chanur novels.
Should you prefer long ago worlds where people rode horses and there were brave, lonely mercenaries try The Morgaine Cycle books where such a mercenary (male) follows the mysterious and tormented Morgaine through gates to different worlds on a quest to save everyone.
For different species, check out The Faded Sun novels for a desert planet and people who have become homeless. They must figure out how to deal with a human male who shows up in their midst and he must learn their ways.
Carolyn Cherryh can write anything, and indeed has done fantasy as well, with the saga of Jones, a smart, tough river-boating woman who saves an upper class guy from drowning and creates an uneasy alliance with him, filled with intrigue. This series is called Merovingen Nights. I want to adopt Jones. Or have her adopt me.
Anyway, this list doesn’t cover all the worlds and species and economies and governing structures C.J. Cherryh has created, but there are more on her website.
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When you leave a post here, I’ll email you back with my very favorite science fiction novel, one of the few books of any kind I’ve ever read more than twice, because this book has it all. If you’re only going to read one piece of science fiction in your life, this is the one!
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—Cheryl Suchors

My First AMC Hike

2010-06-30T15:29:00.000-04:00

by Cheryl Suchors

My first official Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) hike after being certified to co-lead was, ironically, called “My First AMC Hike.”

Bob, the experienced hike leader who had created the concept years before, agreed to resurrect it when I said it appealed to me. Designed to attract new people to hiking and to the benefits of AMC membership, “My First AMC Hike” was a two-part hike in the Blue Hills of Milton, MA.

Part I was basically flat, three miles around Houghton’s Pond and a bit of incline up to Tucker Hill to catch a view. No special gear required, just decent foot wear, a rain jacket, snacks and water.

Lots of water. When I started the trail talk at 9:15am on Saturday morning, it was already 75° and humid. The sun beat down hot enough for me to remember to slather my arms and face with sunscreen.

Bob had put in the information sheet we sent out to all participants ahead of time the little-known and unlikely fact that not only copperheads but rattlesnakes inhabit the Blue Hills. I’d encountered a rattler once in my life, out hiking in Sedona, AZ, off trail in popcorn rock, exactly where a hiker should never be. I was climbing up hand-over-hand and had just pulled myself onto a nice ledge when I heard that unmistakable sound.

If you’ve ever wondered if you’d recognize a rattlesnake’s rattle, trust me. It’s hard wired into the human brain. The guidebook to all the critters that could kill you in Sedona, AZ was emphatic about what to do when one encountered a rattler. Freeze. Locate the snake with your eyes. Back away slowly.

I did not locate the snake with my eyes. I did not back away slowly. I leapt off that ledge faster than a jack rabbit. My husband, who was coming up the mountain behind me was startled to see me scuttling back down. “You sure it was a rattlesnake?” he asked.

I gave him a look. “If you don’t believe me, go on up and find out for yourself.” I paused. “Just remember you’re too big for me to carry, so be sure it’s the last sight you want to see.”

The Trail Talk

AMC hikes always begin with a trail talk in which one of the leaders reminds everyone of the plan for the hike and sets out a few rules, like start together, stay together, end together.

I also gave the when-you-encounter-a-snake-that-could-kill-you instructions. Copperheads, I cautioned, were more aggressive than rattlers and often took a warning swipe at people who got too close. They cut the warning so fine that sometimes they broke the skin on someone’s leg and even that could be dangerous. “Don’t go closer to a snake to get a better view,” I said. “Don’t sneak up on it to see if it’s the dangerous kind. Don’t try to snap a picture. Just back away slowly.”

“Bob’s been hiking in the Blue Hills for 12 years and not only hasn’t he been bitten, he hasn’t even seen one of these snakes.” I wanted to put the risk in perspective.

I thought my first trail talk went reasonably well, but what do I know? The participants were all nice polite people.

Tracking 15 People

When one of the hikers acknowledged he liked maps, I asked him to go first with a copy of the map in hand and he graciously agreed. I hiked one or two people behind him, close enough to the front so I could keep an eye on the trail as well. Bob hiked toward the back of the pack so we could cover the whole long line of folks between us, and off we went.

The initial footing was easy, a path wide enough for four people abreast. As we left the perimeter of the pond, the trail narrowed some and roots showed from thousands of shoes and boots hiking the soil right off of them.

I’d expected to see a lot of other folks out walking on a weekend, but we encountered few other hikers. That was a good thing, in my book. It

was hard enough to make sure all the members of our group were still together. Eighteen people had signed up for the hike and 15 of them showed up.

There’s a lot to focus on as a hike leader besides not losing anybody and staying on the right trail. Some of our participants were beginning hikers. I tried to remember to remind everyone to drink. Were any of them getting hot spots on their feet, indicative of blisters-in-the-making? Did anyone need a bio-break? How was the pace—too fast, too slow, just right?

A hike is also a social event. I wanted to get to know each of the hikers at least a little bit so they felt welcomed and freer to say their feet hurt or they needed a break, and, besides, they were interesting to talk to. Sometimes it was hard to stop conversing to count heads.

Tucker Hill

Soon we arrived at the rocky trail, about two-tenths of a mile long, up to the top of Tucker Hill. Bob gave an encouraging speech about how everyone could hike up a steep hill, it just took time. He cautioned newer hikers not to expect to go as fast for the same output of energy up a hill. I added that many smaller steps were better for the joints and less tiring than fewer large steps. Up we went. Everyone did fine.

At the top was a lovely, if limited, view. We all admired it while we caught our breath. Bob pointed out the radio tower for Boston’s public radio station, WGBH, a mile-and-a-half west of us. One of the hikers, Steve, told us what the call letters stood for: Great Blue Hill. The tower perched atop the largest of the hills in the Reservation, Great Blue. I never knew that!

Heading Back

After Tucker Hill, the group naturally broke into two clusters, one faster and one slower, for part of the hike. Bob roamed from one to the other little group and, when he appeared, I’d head off to the other. That way we got to talk with and check on everyone.

At one point, Bob remembered that we’d forgotten to tell people to turn their cell phones off, always a good idea when you’re out enjoying nature. I had left mine on initially in case any of the participants who hadn’t shown up called me and then I’d forgotten it was on, so the reminder was a timely one.

We returned to our starting point on Houghton Pond and hunkered down in the shady grass for lunch. Bob dumped his pack out on the lawn and explained why he carried the various things he packed.

He shared with us a cool fact he’d learned from a scientist dedicated to improving gear for soldiers: turn your hiking socks inside out, so the fluffy part faces out. As the scientist said, “Have you ever seen a sheep, or any animal, wear their fur on the inside? Much better to disperse the heat and moisture if it’s facing out.”

Cynthia put on fresh socks turned inside out and said they felt like “an oasis of pleasure” between her feet and her boots. I can’t wait to try that myself. We said goodbye to those who were leaving and got ready for Part II of the hike.

Afternoon Hike

For anyone who had managed Tucker Hill well enough and wanted more, we’d spend the next few hours going up and down three or four more hills, taking in Great Blue, the biggest hill and namesake of the Reservation, covering another four miles. Four hardy souls stayed on. We crossed the road and hiked up Houghton Hill, which seemed a fitting way to begin since our morning jaunt had begun with Houghton’s Pond.

When one member’s bootlaces kept coming untied, Bob offered up another golden nugget: Cheryl’s Magic Knot. (Not me Cheryl, another Cheryl from AMC’s Southeastern Mass Chapter who’s a longtime member and hike leader.) Check it out.

It was hot, really hot. And very sunny. It was humid. Really humid. And sticky. You could hardly drink enough water to make up for all that sweated out of you. Our shirts and shorts were soaked. Salt caked on my face. Not one of our staunch little group complained.

We got on to the South Skyline Trail, tramping up and down hills, till we reached the Tower atop Great Blue, a lovely stonework formation which housed steps up to the top and windows looking out over the whole Reservation.

Far to the East lay Boston, a shadowy city in misty grey.

A cool breeze blew through the windows at the top of the tower, as refreshing to the body as the sight of distant Houghton’s Pond, our starting point, was to the eye.

After enjoying vista and breezes, we saddled up and hiked off on the North Skyline Trail. Fine views were to be had atop Wolcott Hill and some of the Hemenways before we turned back to our friend Houghton and sloped on down to the parking lot.

A young mother with a friendly girl agreed to take our picture, proving that not only was the Blue Hill Reservation an amazing gift of nature within eyesight of Boston but it brought out the best in people. I certainly plan to return now that I’ve had such an enjoyable hiking venture there.

—Cheryl Suchors

MA Democratic State Convention

2010-06-20T19:46:00.002-04:00

by Cheryl Suchors

— an inside view of the workings of US democracy from a first-time delegate

I had a moment of panic when the four of us who’d carpooled together entered the Worcester convention center. Dean sped off to get in line for credentials; Alice left to find the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) reception; I don’t know what happened to Robin. People streamed around me as I stood in the huge hallway, wondering what to do.

I’d never intended to be a delegate to the Democratic State Convention, the annual gathering of a mere 4,000 party faithful. But at our ward caucus way back in February, when somebody else didn’t show up and my hard-working, good-on-all-the-issues state representative, Alice Wolf, nominated me, I just couldn’t say no. Besides, June 5 was a long way off.

Now that it was June, of course I was busier than I’d been in a couple of years and it was a drizzly Saturday morning perfect for sleeping in but I had to get up at 6:00 and suddenly, here I was.

When in doubt, hit the women’s room. On the way to the line for that (!), a man handed me a flyer saying Suzanne Bump had been endorsed the night before by Joe DeNucci, the guy who was stepping down after being State Auditor for dog years and for whose office Suzanne was running. Great news! She’s my choice for the job, so I took a couple of flyers and asked if he had more stickers so I could hand those out, too. They went like hotcakes in the line for the bathroom.

My husband had left for Worcester the day before because, as staff on the Deval Patrick Re-election Campaign, he had important things to do at the convention. The actual things remained mysterious to me, but I knew better than to expect to spend any time with him as he whizzed around doing whatever he had to do. I just figured I’d spot him occasionally in his neon-green T-shirt that said on the front, Got 50? and on the back, Deval Patrick Organizer.

In fact, under my own shirt I wore a tank top so that I could whip off the shirt and replace it with a similar neon-green T-shirt once it was handed out to me at the convention. I had signed up as an organizer days before, which means I have to get 50 people to agree to support the Governor when it comes time to vote in November.

Anybody out there willing to be one of my 50? Please? I kind of need a lot more people. Pretty close to 50, actually. (Email me at info@cherylsuchors.com or leave a comment below.)

The Exhibit Hall

Before you enter the actual convention floor (and, yes, it does look a lot like the national conventions you see on TV) you are decanted into the Exhibit Hall where there are many tables lined up and covered with white tablecloths.

It’s a nominating year, you see. The Party needs to endorse a candidate each for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, auditor and treasurer. It’s kind of a big deal. Especially when a few months ago a Republican made off with Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate.

To add to those concerns, the races for auditor and treasurer had more than one Democratic running and each candidate had to get at least 15% of the delegate vote in order to be on the primary ballot in the fall. Every one of them also hoped to snag the cherished party endorsement. The endorsement translates into more party support—financial and otherwise—in the primary and more media attention, making it an all-round nifty thing to have.

The Governor’s “booth” handed out the coolest buttons. They had a red LED light on them that, later on, looked amazing in the arena when the lights dimmed and all these red dots appeared everywhere. Whoever thought those up deserves a raise.

Every candidate had a booth. I came away with bumper stickers, buttons all over my shirt, four hard candies, two breath mints, a new pen and the tote bag. Not bad for a fifteen-minute stroll through a bunch of tables.

Best of all, I got to meet Suzanne Bump, my newest heroine, and chat with her and her mother for a few minutes. Suzanne’s been a great champion for government reform. As a legislator she led the charge back in 1991 to rejuvenate worker’s compensation policies so successfully that Massachusetts went from being one of the worst states in the country in this regard to being considered the best. Now, as Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development, she’s gotten twelve different state agencies to actually work together to make employers who avoid paying unemployment taxes, workers’ comp insurance, minimum wages, and so on do the right thing. Again, we’re now a model for other states.

I like that kind of record in a candidate. I took more Bump stickers to hand out and a few placards with her name on them to wave at the appropriate time on the convention floor.

I didn’t notice it yet, but I was having fun!

The Arena

We weren’t allowed to carry in a back pack, so inside my largest purse I had also packed: a metal water bottle, a pen for voting, the cross-word puzzles my experienced friend Mary Ann suggested I bring for the boring parts, of which I expected there would be many, and a map of the convention floor that told me where I should sit, something called MS&E for Middlesex and Essex counties, or at least the parts of them that belonged to state senator Sal DiDomenico’s district.

That’s not all I had. My friend Kim, a delegate from Brookline, sent me a marvelous email from the Democrat of all Democrats, Kate Donaghue. In it Kate explained in regular English the proposed amendments to the Democratic platform and how they would change the current language. (It turned out I didn’t need know all this because the changes were voted in Friday night but hey, I’m a savvier Dem. now.)

The item Kate recommended bringing that I was most curious about was “a small flashlight.” Whatever for? Trusting Kate, I packed it anyway.

Waiting for Roll Call

Larry, my husband, had prepped me that roll call would be taken at 11:00 and everyone had to be in their senate districts seats to shout out “Here!” when their names were called. Otherwise you were marked absent and couldn’t vote later on. I found a seat, dropped my stuff on it, and looked around.

Everybody was gabbing, or wandering through the bleachers or around the floor, or wandering and gabbing both. I figured I could do that, too. I was too excited to sit still. I was about to start my peregrination when Larry yelled my name. I looked up to see him about 15 rows above me pointing to a man I hadn’t seen since the Hillary Clinton for President campaign, a wonderful person named Sidi. I excused myself past the seated people in my row, squeezed between standing bodies on the stairs and went up to give him a hug.

After catching up with Sidi on life, politics and our daughters, I thought I’d wander over to C&I, Cape & Islands, where my friend Thelma had emailed she’d be seated.I first met Thelma when she called me up early in the Hillary campaign. She’s an activist down to her toes and she wanted to get things moving down on the Cape. Larry and I were interested in doing the same in Cambridge. Thelma and I talked strategy. We talked tactics. We talked about Hillary. We hung up feeling we had each met a kindred soul.

I looked and looked. No Thelma. Maybe she had slept in after partying the night before. I knew she’d driven up Friday with friends from Falmouth. I wandered back to MS&E and gabbed with a few other people I knew. This whole visiting-with-people thing was pretty enjoyable. I hadn’t expected that.

Since 10:00 when the proceedings began, somebody up on the stage far away had been speaking, either announcing things or welcoming us to
Worcester. But everybody in the stands was talking, ignoring the speaker more or less completely. Somehow you sensed when some speech had come to an end and it was time to applaud even when you had only subconsciously registered what they were saying.

It’s rude. And it’s hard to talk with your neighbors when someone with a microphone is talking too, not only from the podium but from three huge screens on the stage and four smaller screens hanging down from the center of the ceiling where, during athletic events, the scores were kept. It’s a weird split in concentration; I found it hard to focus completely on the person I chatted with and equally hard to ignore the talk around me to listen to the official speaker addressing me from seven screens.

Eventually, somewhat past 11:00, roll call began. A guy in a striped shirt with a clipboard and papers started yelling out names amidst the din. The main stage went quiet, thank goodness, but with all the delegates still talking and the hundred people calling roll and the thousands answering, I worried I wouldn’t hear my name and they’d mark me absent.

I was surprised that several names I knew were called and no one answered. I didn’t know you could do that: get elected a delegate and then not show up.

Roll call for my ward over, knowing I was now marked present, I got up again. The rows were clotted with bodies and, in order to search for Thelma, I had to hurdle a couple of rows of chairs rather than fight my way through the crowds. One man said he’d been there since Friday afternoon and not seen her anywhere.

That worried me. She is, after all, 92.

Then a woman told me Falmouth wasn’t part of C&I; it was somewhere else altogether. I combed through several districts but no Falmouth, and no Thelma. Back at my home base, MS&E, Robin, the carpool buddy who had magically appeared in the seat next to me, and I decided to go find lunch.

Voting in the Gov

We took our cheddar-cheese-and-broccoli soups to seats high up, directly opposite the stage with an awesome view of the large screens. By now roll call had officially ended and we watched various speakers explain in 3-5 minute vignettes, why they were nominating Tim Murray for Lt. Governor. Then Tim came on and gave an energetic acceptance speech. He looked happy. I was impressed; his speech-making skills have improved in the last four years.

Before The Big Speech from the Governor, others repeated the brief-testimonials- as-nominations process, this time for Deval Patrick. When he strode out onto the stage, the speakers pulsed with that classic foot stomper from Bachman-Turner Overdrive “You ain’t seen nothing yet B-b-baby, you just ain’t seen n-n-nothing yet.” Bomp! Bomp!

I remembered that song. I liked that song. I stood up and danced. The energy level in the arena hit the ceiling.

A ton of neon-green shirted staff and volunteers snaked through the aisles like a sinewy green python. They surrounded the stage so the podium looked afloat in waves of bright green and blue that rose as people applauded and the staff raised their colored placards. This kind of spectacle gets to you through your senses, I realized. It’s energizing and entertaining and it works.

When Deval talks, I can’t help but listen. He’s a moving, compelling speaker and I almost always like what he has to say. In this speech, he sounded like a governor should sound. He was a person with a plan, undaunted by the decisions and daily crises that I would find crushing, willing to work on tough problems, still interested in and determined to sort things out. I believed in him all over again, yelling and applauding as loudly as everybody else. Listen to his speech yourself.

He and Tim were elected by resounding voice acclamation, an efficient, expeditious process gaveled by party chairperson John Walsh.

I left Robin and continued my search for Thelma. After ten minutes, to my delight, I found her. We walked off to find a few seats together where we could sit and schmooze.

Hearing Other Candidates

After leaving Thelma, I sat for a while in some empty seats on the floor just for kicks, and listened to the speeches for state treasurer. The Treasurer’s Office, as you might expect, manages the state’s money. Steve Grossman sounded just like the capable, ethical, good guy he actually is and did a good job despite being in the difficult position of following the Governor. I’ve watched him fundraise for other candidates over the years and know how much time and energy he commits to strengthen the Party. Since he would be managing my tax money, I also cotton to the fact that he’s been running a successful company through good times and bad.

His competitor was less impressive. Murphy did a lot of verbal wandering, was hard to follow and exceeded his time limit, which we all knew because each speech was timed on the thingie hanging down from the center of the ceiling that normally ticks off the seconds of each quarter in a game.

I made my way back to MS&E for the speeches for state auditor. I didn’t want there to be any chance I’d miss out on the voting that would follow, when we voted for both secretary and auditor at the same time. Now that was a smart, time-saving idea on somebody’s part.

Suzanne Bump spoke first. She showed a video that I didn’t think was as effective as it should have been, but her speech hit the mark. She sounded experienced and smart, which she is, and excited to be an auditor, which, to my way of thinking, is saying something.

What does the state auditor do? A lot more than I ever realized. The Auditor’s Office is supposed to audit all the state’s agencies to eliminate waste and prevent fraud. As if that’s not important enough, the auditor will play a big role in overseeing the spending of the nearly $9 billion of federal stimulus money coming to Massachusetts.

Which is why I’m for Suzanne. She’s already done this kind of stuff in her work in the Governor’s Executive Office and I believe people who go into a job with relevant experience under their belts do a better job. Call me crazy. You can read her speech yourself on her website.

Mike Lake was up next and he seems like a decent guy, but lacks experience. I knew some people who were voting for him and I didn’t get it. In a state where only 26% of elected officials are women—ranking us 19^th in the nation— where we have only one woman in statewide office, Martha Coakley, where only one of our 12 federal offices is filled by a woman (Nikki Tsongas) and where we’ve never< had a female governor, how could anyone who believes in fairness not vote for a perfectly qualified, effective, honest candidate who’s a woman?

When Guy Glodis, the third contender for auditor, spoke, I confess I didn’t pay much attention. This from a recent article about Glodis sums him up as far as I’m concerned: “…Glodis is on the wrong side of nearly every liberal issue — gay rights, the death penalty, gun control, taxes, diversity — and, more than that, has left a trail of crude comments that gives him a reputation as a piggish, misogynistic boor who would be an embarrassment to represent the party on the statewide ballot. Enough said.

His speech is when I learned the value of the small flashlight. I could peaceably do my crossword puzzle while the lights were down.

Voting the Old Fashioned Way

I now have a better sense of what it must be like to participate in a presidential caucus instead of the primary we have here in MA. The roll-caller shouted out your name and you shouted back the two candidates you’d chosen for treasurer and auditor. A young woman behind me was aghast. It was weirdly public when we’ve become so accustomed to private ballots. But I guess this way there’s no chance of anyone’s voting more than once.

My district seemed to split pretty evenly for auditor. Several folks around me and I started to fist bump every time someone shouted out a vote for Suzanne, well, Bump.

As you might imagine, the process took a while. First off, the caller had to walk to a central location and get the books with delegates names in them so he could record our votes. Why couldn’t he have gotten them earlier? For that matter, why wasn’t it all done digitally?

There was a certain romanticism to the process: calling things out, pressing into the crowd to try to hear. It was a little like being on the floor of The Stock Exchange. If anyone wasn’t present to vote, their names got called again at the end to give them a second chance. If they hadn’t shown up by then, too bad.

At least that’s how it went in MS&E. Other districts, apparently, went off searching for missing delegates, because they didn’t close the voting until what seemed like 30 minutes after my district had finished.
Being Democrats apparently means we hate to have anyone miss out.

A Second Vote?

Drama surrounded the auditor’s race. With three candidates, it wasn’t clear who would win the party’s endorsement. Glodis came into the convention way ahead, and rumors flew that he would encourage some of his delegates to vote for Lake and get him on the primary ballot in September to take votes away from Bump. A candidate has to get at least 15% of the delegate vote at the convention to be on the primary ballot, but can afford to give up more than that if s/he wants. My district seemed to split fairly evenly among the three candidates, so I wondered how it would all play out.

If no candidate got 50% of the vote, there would be a second ballot for party endorsement in which the candidate with the fewest votes would drop out and we would all vote again between the top two.

By this point, it was after 4 p.m. and my carpool mates and I were ready to go home. I’d guess about a third of the delegates had left. Much debate ensued among us about whether to go or stay in case there was a second vote; three of us were Bump fans. We finally agreed to leave.

As we walked out of the arena, a young man wearing a Bump T-shirt and headphones, noting our Bump stickers and buttons, intercepted us. He said he’d just been told to ask supporters to stay because they’d just learned no one had received the required 50% to win the endorsement and a second vote would be called.

We went back to our seats.

On the up side, we got to hear the tribute to Teddy Kennedy. As votes were counted, we heard speeches from folks who knew and loved him. Senator John Kerry gave the most moving talk I’ve ever heard him make; it was wonderful. By the time Vicki Kennedy came to the podium, I had forgotten all about the balloting. She was marvelous. In the car ride home, we agreed we wished she’d run for office. Then we watched a video with lots of black-and-white clips of the young Kennedys interspersed with the older Ted. Many, like myself, had to wipe our eyes.

We still waited for the second vote. Finally, we got word that Bump and Glodis had each gotten 37% of the vote and agreed to forgo the second vote because it was so late. As we left, people speculated that the two candidates weren’t sure that enough of their supporters remained to vote.

I was sorry Suzanne Bump didn’t get the Party endorsement but delighted that she had, unexpectedly, gotten even a few more votes than the forerunner Glodis. The upset should create some additional momentum for her campaign.

As we drove home, I was quiet as the others talked housing issues and legislation. I’d just put in eight hours at my first state Convention and I hadn’t spent any time at all being bored. In fact, I had enjoyed myself! If asked, I’d be happy to come again . . . at least in a nominating year.

—Cheryl Suchors

I Married a Cowboy—Did You?

2010-05-30T17:38:00.000-04:00

by Cheryl Suchors

Even though we met riding a train, not a horse, and he was born in New York City, apparently my husband is a cowboy.
He must have inherited a stray gene from Wyoming. Republican state Senator Jim Anderson has introduced a bill to the Wyoming legislature to recall the “cowboy ethics” of the old West. According to The Boston Globe, the cowboy code stresses “the importance of living with courage, keeping promises, finishing what you start and saying more by talking less.”
Whoa. My husband is just like that. He’s the most responsible, ethical, productive person I know. And he really likes horses. Maybe I should check his birth certificate.
I confess to squirming a bit at discovering I like everything about the code of the West—which no doubt cowgirls also lived by—except for the silence part. While I’d like a number of men in meetings and at parties and other public gatherings to take up less air time, (perhaps they could ask more questions of women instead of talking about themselves?) in private, I find, too many men say too little.
I have accused my cowboy husband, for example, of talking as if somebody were charging him by the word. Especially on subjects like relatives, relationships, feelings, or Christmas presents.
Deborah Tannen, professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, described this phenomenon in her book exploring communications between women and men, You Just Don’t Understand. Men, she said, were raised to believe they owned the public arena and therefore felt quite comfortable holding forth in group or public situations, whereas women were raised to believe they were responsible for private discourse and found themselves far less comfortable speaking up in more public settings.
Tannen also said men tended to state their opinions as facts. Period. Women often stated their opinions as questions. (See my example of the parenthetical question in paragraph 4 above.) The result? Men thought women in public sounded uncertain and lacked self confidence; women thought men in public dominated and pontificated while in private behaved like the proverbial sphinx expecting women to do all the heavy verbal lifting at home.
Was it like that in the West? Maybe the cowboy code of ethics only worked when there were no women around, like on cattle drives or before women showed up in mining towns and such.
Over the years, my husband’s loquacity has waxed and waned. Now we face each other in an empty nest, which means robust communication between us has become even more important. Actually, I do find him talking to our daughter’s so-called “daughter,” our grand-dog. That’s a good sign, I think.
So long as he’s not simply treating her like a very small horse.
—Cheryl Suchors

To Worry Or Not To Worry—That Is the Question

2010-05-19T23:44:00.006-04:00

by Cheryl Suchors

My liver counts have been high, randomly, ever since I had breast cancer, chemotherapy and Tamoxifen. The first couple of times this happened, I worried like crazy that I also had liver cancer.
Now I’m able to manage that fear, unless something unusual occurs —like my primary care physician calls during Thanksgiving vacation to tell me I should see the gastroenterologist because, now that I’m a normal, healthy person she needs to treat me differently. Then the cancer terror runs through me like a jolt of lightning.

My mother died of pancreatic cancer, 16 years after her mastectomy. I never thought there was a connection. But somewhere along the line, one of the many oncologists, radiologists and surgeons I saw while trying to decide what steps to take myself after my diagnosis, said, “Hmm. Pancreatic. Could have metastasized from the breast cancer.”

“After 16 years?” I asked her.
“Yes,” was the uncomfortable answer she gave.

This bit of history explains some of my anxiety around high liver counts. But for me, like many cancer survivors, any new development triggers the fear: Is it cancer? Though I don’t like it, the fear, I know, is natural. The body remembers even when the mind prefers to forget.

Putting the Worry Away

But I have become better at compartmentalization—a gift from cancer I never expected. I used to be champion worrier. Days after the initial jolt, the fear still gnawed my innards. And when people tried to make me think positively about the potential outcome of a growth or a test I had to wait for results on, I growled at them like a dog guarding a bone.

Let me feel what I feel, I said, perhaps because as a child I wasn’t allowed to, perhaps because it gave me something to do while I waited, perhaps because I believed that pre-worrying would reduce the post-worrying, even though it actually never did.

I’m different now. Now I let myself feel afraid for a little while, just to allow the feelings some room to play themselves out. I express them, then remind myself that if the test results come back bad, illness is going to take over my life. These days or weeks before the results come in could be the best time I’ll have for a while, maybe a long while. Maybe forever. I’ll be damned if I’ll use them up worrying.

I tell myself it’s probably fine. Even when I think I might be lying. Why not? What’s for sure is that there’s next-to-nothing I can do about it, except pray to the Goddess, or exercise, or write in my journal, and those things I do.

The rest of the time, I try to live my life, up, down and sideways—however it comes—till the verdict arrives.

—Cheryl Suchors

Watch Like a Hawk

2010-05-12T23:57:00.003-04:00

By Cheryl Suchors

Right now hawks are raising their young.

I’ve been aware of hawks, especially red-tailed hawks, since my tenth wedding anniversary when we celebrated with a trip to Sedona, Arizona. We signed up for a day trip to a “vortex” where the meridians of the earth come together and one feels a special energy conducive to meditation and the like. This is the sort of thing, besides hiking in gorgeous red rock country, that one does in Sedona, and I didn’t want to miss it. On the way to the place, the guide leaned out of the Jeep window and pointed out to us a hawk circling above us. “Red-tail,” he said. “See the flash of red?”

I didn’t see a flash of red no matter how hard I tried, but I’ve been alert to red-tailed hawks ever since. At my daughter’s grade school, a group from a bird sanctuary came to give a special presentation, bringing in birds of prey of all kinds. There I learned that red-tailed hawks are often called “highway hawks” because of their propensity to circle above highways looking for road kill.

So they’re smart, I figure. Perhaps a bit lazy? Or maybe that’s just easy for an animal who finds food at a grocery store to say.

What is true is that you will find red-tails in desert, grasslands, cities and parks, even, says the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in the rainforests of Mexico. Being able to adapt to such varied terrain sounds pretty smart to me.

The Meaning of Hawk

In Native American and Wiccan traditions, Hawk is known as a messenger from Spirit. The message Hawk brings to those whom she visits is: be aware. “Watch,” she tells us. Perceive with that wonderful vision that lets Hawk see both the big picture and the minutest mouse in the grass. There is a signal intended for the person who sees hawk, a signal only s/he can intuit. Unraveling the message, as is true for all portents, tends to be an idiosyncratic task.

The general message of Hawk is live your life with a keen eye and be ready to dive upon an opportunity in an instant. I also understand it to suggest soaring—to get a different, wider perspective on events in one’s life. And maybe this is just my own interpretation, but Hawk instructs me in the twin arts of joy and rest. What could be more jubilant than flying? What could be more clever than using air currents to keep one airborne, gliding and resting while waiting for the moment of action to come?

For me, red-tailed hawks also symbolize friendship and partnering. I often, at least when they’re hunting, see a pair of hawks circling. Four eyes are better than two, apparently. The father of a brood also helps build the nest, find food and even sit on the eggs or the nestlings when necessary. Mated pairs typically stay together until death does them part.

Red-tailed hawks are also remarkably lightweight. Despite a wingspan of between three-and-a-half feet and nearly five feet, even the biggest females rarely weigh more than three pounds. Perhaps there’s a message here, too. If we want to fly, to soar, to move with the wind, we need to lighten up. Perhaps we are meant to reduce the burden of what we carry with us, be it physical, mental or emotional.

Watch a Red-Tailed Family Grow

One of the things I like best about these amazing birds is that they frequent the city. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, I’ve seen them perched high up in a tree in my neighbor’s yard or at Fresh Pond Reservoir. Or on top of a flagpole or the roof of a tall building.

Right now you can watch, close up and personal, an amazing daily miracle: two red-tailed parents raising a brood. Their nest is in a building (185 Alewife Brook Parkway) opposite a shopping center. You can see pictures of them from eggs to nestlings to fledglings, at Cambridge Community Television. Ernie Sarro who produces “The Expert Series” for CCTV, has a contest going to name the baby birds. He’s already christened the parents Ruby and Buzz. Check out his amazing videos of the red-tailed family!

—Cheryl Suchors

Remember International Women's Day?

2010-03-09T18:16:00.013-05:00

A person could easily forget. It wasn’t mentioned anywhere in my daily paper, The Boston Globe. Not March 8, the day of the event, and not the next day either. The results of the Academy Awards, of course, were mentioned everywhere. (At least, with Kathyrn Bigelow’s record-breaking Best Director win, there was something special for women to cheer.)

What IWD Is

Guess what event triggered IWD? You may be surprised, as was I, to learn that a strike by Women Textile Workers in NYC on March 8, 1857, initiated this event. So says The Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women. The strike was eventually commemorated around the world to highlight the struggles of working women and the need for women’s suffrage and equality of rights.

Naturally, it took a woman to declare March 8, International Women’s Day. The year was 1911. The woman was Clara Zetkin, a German labor leader and editor. Because of its foundation in labor rights, the IWD’s symbol is “bread and roses,” adopted from the labor movement of the early 1900s, to signify women’s rights to basic needs as well as to an enjoyable quality of life.

Big Day in Many Countries, But Not U.S.

A friend from Bosnia told me IWD was her favorite work holiday. The women in her company were paid for the day but instead of working, went to a party and received a gift from the company. How’s that for a concept? Another friend, from the States, said he had fond memories of celebrating the day in the former Soviet Union where women were given the day off and their bosses (mostly men) did their jobs. Whoa! At least in the white collar world, imagine how much bosses would learn by doing the work of their assistants and direct reports?

When I checked the IWD website to post an event in Boston, I was surprised to see that tiny (compared to U.S.) England had many more events going on that we did in this country. Then I noticed the website was a British one and consoled myself that it was because of that we came in second. After searching in vain for publicity and events in Boston, I have to say now: I don’t think so.

Change This Picture

Here are a few photos from the event I participated in yesterday. The idea was for women to celebrate and honor women around the world by standing on a bridge—I love the physical metaphor—to show that we unite in bridging our differences, bridging the gaps in equality, and connecting with one another. The idea of meeting on bridges sprang from Women for Women International, a great group that supports women victims of war around the world. Women gathered on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Millenium Bridge in London, and on bridges as far away from these urban cultures as Uganda. In Boston, we chose the Mass Ave bridge that connects Boston and Cambridge.

Note how few people are in my pictures. The banner you see held by two women came from the World Conference on women in Beijing in 1995. The poster with the many colored female symbols was created to support Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, when she ran for President in 1972. Chisholm had famously declared, "Women in this country must become revolutionaries. We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and stereotypes." You may be sure we commented on how sad it was that the signs came from times we just knew were turning points that would significantly improve the world for women abroad and here in the U.S.

While we did make up in enthusiasm and originality in signage what we lacked in number, I hope next year shows an entirely different image: that women all over America are joining with women around the world to celebrate all that women are, do, and can be. I hope we come together in solidarity to recognize how much further we need to go to have equality in terms of pay, political representation, child care, health care, reproductive rights and safety from violence at home and on the streets.

I don’t know whether we in the U.S. have more of a problem with the concept of “international” or with celebrating women. They both seem to stick in the craw of too many Americans.

Whatever the reasons, let’s change this picture next year. Please. Put it on your calendar now: March 8, 2011, a day of recognition that a lot of change still needs to happen and a day of celebration for all that women do to better the societies in which we live.

As Hillary Says

"Women are still the majority of the world's poor, unhealthy, underfed, and uneducated," Secretary of State Clinton said. (Check it out in her State Department video message.) "They rarely cause violent conflicts but too often bear their consequences. Women are absent from negotiations about peace and security to end those conflicts. Their voices simply are not being heard."

She repeated her words from a speech she made at the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing: "Human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights."

Right on, sister!

—Cheryl Suchors

Sovereignty and Inebriation

2010-02-05T11:33:00.004-05:00

Mead

Perhaps when you were growing up, you too read Ivanhoe, Beowolf or other novels about the days of yore in which they drank something called “mead.” Ever wonder what that was?

I assumed it was beer or ale. Nay, ‘tis not. It’s actually a delightfully delicious and somewhat potent wine—honey wine— that is still drunk in Ireland. I had some recently, the real deal carried home from the Emerald Isle, and it was mighty tasty.

Mead is ancient. Many believe it to be the first fermented beverage ever made, the first alcoholic drink, one that pre-dates the cultivation of soil for heaven’s sake. Long before grapes andwine, therefore. Celts, Vikings, Greeks and Romans drank it—as did their gods and goddesses.

The Goddess Medb —Maeve

Initially known in prehistoric times as the Goddess Medb, her very name meant “she who is the nature of mead.” Medb was associated with sacred inebriation, i.e. drinking mead, to help one merge with the oneness of all things. To feel, in a ritual context, the connection between all beings—plants, animals and otherwise—on the earth. Medb’s very body was viewed as the body of the earth. These rituals weren’t just about getting drunk. They were a sacred religious communion with all life, with Earth itself.

After patriarchy arrived, in the form of Celts, Vikings and, later, Christians, Medb was turned into Q ueen Maeve, a wild, sexual woman who ruled the Connaught region in Ireland , still connected in the ancient way to the land, but now also a warrior. (What a surprise!)

Thanks to Heather Ensworth, author and scholar, I have learned these things about Maeve and come to love not only her wildness, but her sense that she, and she alone, is the boss of herself! Don’t we women need to remind ourselves of this frequently in the days when our rights to choose what happens to our bodies is continually being undermined?

Heather shared this poem about the Goddess/Queen Maeve that she modified from The Goddess Oracle by Amy Sophia Marachinsky. It’s become my new mantra:

I am a Warrioress

A warrioress of the Heart

I am Queen

Of the domain of myself

I am able to respond

in all situations

from the knowledge of who I am

My actions are who I am

My beliefs are who I am

All I do is who I am

That which is outside of me

Stays outside of me

That which I choose to let in

I own and acknowledge

How can I be responsible

If I do not own all aspects of myself?

How can I be accountable

Without being Queen over my own domain?

How can I serve my consort, my children, my community,

If I am unwilling to acknowledge and answer for myself?

Honeymoons

If you or anyone you know is getting married soon, wouldn’t this poem be a fabulous credo for both parties as they look to joining their lives? Speaking from my own experience, one of the trickiest aspects of marriage is knowing what’s mine, what I should take in and be responsible for, and what’s not mine and therefore isn’t mine to carry.

Back to mead for a moment. Real authentic mead would make a unique and historical wedding gift. In simpler times, the wedded couple would drink mead for the first month of their marriage. Perhaps this loosened any inhibitions and improved marital relations? Some believed it helped to produce a first son. From this practice, we still use the term, “honeymoon,” i.e., drinking honey wine for a moon after the wedding day.

And whether you’re married or not, Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Isn’t a little Maeve-ness in order?

—Cheryl Suchors

WHAT WORLD ARE WE LIVING IN?

2010-01-21T16:25:00.003-05:00

As I’m sure you've heard, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts just voted against Ted Kennedy’s health care reform and all of his lifelong values to elect a white Republican male nobody knows to sit in his seat for the next two years, longer if he’s re-elected.

Okay, I volunteered for Martha Coakley. I gave her money. She’s a great person and a strong, experienced public servant. To the extent that Massachusetts seems unable to elect a woman to our highest state and federal offices, this is about the Attorney General. She and her campaign made mistakes, as did Brown and every other candidate who’s ever run for office. We just don’t forgive any mistakes from a woman candidate in Massachusetts.

Mostly, though, this election is about the voters of the Commonwealth. With whom, frankly, I am disgusted.

Some voters swallowed the right-wing fiction that Martha Coakely, a renowned prosecutor, an Attorney General for heaven’s sake, would be weak on terrorists. Perhaps these people don’t believe anymore in the rule of law.

Some voters bought the picture of Scott Brown as just your average guy. He’s about as average a guy—in terms of family income, education, social class and celebrity –status daughter and wife—as George W. Bush was when he won the Presidency by successfully spinning himself as another “average” guy.

Hard to believe that Massachusetts voters could still fall for that kind of absurdity after all we’ve seen in the 8 years of the Bush presidency. Maybe they thought, well, shucks it wasn’t true about W. but it must be true about good old Scott. He wears a corduroy jacket and drives a pick-up truck, after all. (Ever wonder why men who don’t work in construction drive pick-up trucks?)

Other voters chose Brown because they were angry with President Obama who hasn’t fixed the country yet. Yes, Bush had 8 years to get us mired in this mess, but Obama has had a whole year already and he’s made some mistakes and he hasn’t solved our problems. After a whole year!

What’s that? You send a message in a democracy by writing your congressional reps and senators and the President himself, by making phone calls or sending emails or visiting their offices? No, no. Too much work. Much better to use your most precious asset as a citizen—your vote—to elect someone to national office for years who doesn’t agree with you on most of your own key issues. That’ll show Obama.

And all those other people in the country? The ones who may not have health care because you just doomed real reform? Or the people in countries around the world watching this election and wondering what on earth Americans are thinking and might do next, the countries that were so relieved when we voted in a Democratic President, the ones we have to work with on issues that affect us all, like the environment and stability in the Middle East and poverty, disease and justice?

Ah, screw ‘em, you say? You’re angry and impatient and you don’t want to remember how badly angry voting to send a message always turns out? I see; you want to vote for the entitled white guy who says he’s just like you and pretends to care.

So here’s my advice to anybody who wants to win an election in Massachusetts—unless you’re a woman, of course. All you have to do is get millions of dollars from Tea Partiers and Swift Boaters and the Republican National Party to show everybody how average a guy you are.

You don’t have to worry about voters looking past the spin, deeper into character and experience. We won’t be sensible about complex problems and how long they take to solve. Behaving responsibly toward our country and sister and fellow citizens? Recalling that we are one nation amongst many in an ever-shrinking world?

Nah, here in Massachusetters we voters are so done with that.

—Cheryl Suchors

CLUB FEMINISM

2009-12-29T01:09:00.013-05:00

Please enjoy the "becoming a feminist" stories below as well as prior blogs that sprang from the fall TOP lectures while I enjoy the sea and sand of Jamaica. My next new blog post will be Tuesday, January 19. If you live in MA, remember to vote that day for Martha Coakley for Senator, a wonderful person to take us where Ted Kennedy left off. And Happiest of New Years to all!

—Cheryl Suchors

Joining the Club

My feminist journey began with a cliché.

When I was a freshman at Boston College, I took Intro to Feminism, learned about the myriad injustices facing women today (We only make 80 cents to the male dollar!? Are you serious, professor?) and was forever changed. I declared sociology as my major, became involved in feminist activities on campus, and began volunteering for progressive political campaigns. Since that first college course, my life has more or less revolved around fighting for feminist change.

The political climate at the time was extremely discouraging for women's rights activists. I began college two years after the attacks of September 11, a period in which George W. Bush held a lot of political capital.

Bush had taken many anti-woman actions, including instituting the Global Gag Rule, appointing fringe, anti-choice judges to federal courts, and declaring January 18 "Sanctity of Human Life Day." But perhaps worst for me was his administration's hawkish foreign policy doctrine, which, while less traditionally "anti-feminist," I still viewed as hyper-masculinized and a direct affront to my values as a woman.

It was a difficult time in my life—coming to grips with what it meant to be an adult woman in this culture while living under such an oppressive and hostile government. In college, you're encouraged to become an advocate for the causes you believe in, yet often I felt overwhelmed or even paralyzed by the challenges feminists faced.

A trademark of the Bush administration was its "we-could-care-less-what-you-think" attitude toward those who disagreed with its policies—whether college activists or diplomats at the United Nations—and I wondered if any of my activist efforts would make a dime's worth of difference.

What I've realized since is that feminism isn't just a call to action; it's an invitation to a community. Identifying yourself as a feminist is like learning the handshake to a secret club, only it’s a club

that everybody is allowed to join.

And once you're a part of the feminist club, the world somehow feels easier to manage. You gravitate toward other feminists, and with each connection you make, you feel the chokehold of patriarchy weaken.

In the years since taking that first college course, my feminism has expanded from an outlet for my political frustration to my main source of inspiration.

—Katherine from the West

THE YEAR I BECAME A FEMINIST

2009-12-22T21:30:00.008-05:00

Another woman shares the story of her becoming with us below. Happy Solstice to one and all. May the diminishing of the dark throw increasing light into all the areas of our lives where sexism lingers and, like our sister in this week's story, may we renew our commitment to see and eradicate this perilous disease of patriarchy.

—Cheryl Suchors

It Happened in '69

You were alive in the fifties? My son can’t merge this information with his view of me. I think he’s considering how long I’ve lived and how little time I must have left. To my kids, my birth date sounds impossibly distant. I am ancient. Yes, I say, I used to sing Whistle while you work, Stevenson’s a jerk in the “way back,” the cargo section of the station wagon, during the Adlai Stevenson/Eisenhower presidential campaign. My son is horrified. You were a Republican? My parents, I explain.

I was born in 1954, an astonishing year, a year of firsts. The first color TV. Transistor radio. TV dinner. Burger King. Broadcast of the Miss America pageant. The USSR tested a nuclear weapon.It was a year of changes, too. The Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools are unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. The words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance. Edward R Murrow produced A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ended in French defeat. President Eisenhower gave his “domino theory” speech. Vietnam was split into North and South. Eisenhower warned against US intervention in Vietnam while Vice President Nixon warned that “our boys” might end up fighting in Indochina. Events were sent spinning that year, like shards of glass on a highway after an accident, with effects that have yet to come to a full rest.

Marilyn Monroe, about whom it has been said—by whom?—all women want to be her—married Joe DiMaggio that year.

Here's another image of a "typical" woman in 1954.

I became a feminist in 1969. Although there was plenty in my family background to prepare me--a mother who was discouraged from studying math in college and who gave up her job charting bombing raids during WWII with the Army Map Service to get married to someone she hardly knew, because he was shipping off to war; a family dynamic that buried uncomfortable subjects; my own feelings of seeing things differently from the people around me, and wondering if I was a little crazy--these were just the stage. The undeclared war in Vietnam, the “Conflict” it was called by the government, was the event that changed the lens through which I saw the world.

The government lying, the cynicism of the military-industrial complex, somehow made me look at everything differently. I couldn’t help but see the imperialism, genocide, racism, homophobia, destruction of the environment, and sexism we were steeped in. Something had to change. Everything had to change. I didn’t sing Republican jingles anymore.

In high school, my dearest women friends and I called each other “sister,” we wrote pamphlets, we demonstrated. I created a slide show on women’s liberation, and my friends and I performed the script, featuring songs, poems, and stories at the nearby state college and for other community organizations.

What did they make of us? I can remember the women in the audience—the middle aged ones—responding with surprise, and I think, some delight. For the first time, I knew people—women—who saw what I saw, who understood the world the way I did, who felt that the accepted scheme of things was out of whack. And these women happened to be lively and intelligent and funny. They didn’t seem crazy to me. Maybe I wasn’t crazy either.

The other day I walked by an Ivy League college in another state, as I have many, many times. Although I had known the school didn’t accept women until 1968, for some reason that fact particularly struck me at that moment as bizarre and inexcusable. And this school didn’t begin accepting women because the administration had been affected by the justness of civil rights. This school had accepted women because its applications were declining, because men were applying to the schools that had started to accept women.

I became re-feminized, reminded of how much I still accept without thinking. I was reminded that good causes and work don’t always get results. Women can’t wait to be asked to apply to an Ivy, or to run for Senate, or to be treated with respect. Women have to insist.

What would media images of women in 2009 include? Women of color. All ages. Women in the act of working, and not necessarily in the kitchen. Although they could be. Anything you can think of, and some we can’t. And if in the fifties it was said we wanted to be Marilyn Monroe, who would it be said we want to be now?

That’s easy. We have our own authority. We want to be ourselves.

—Meg from the East

HOW DID I GET TO BE A FEMINIST?

2009-12-15T15:17:00.047-05:00

For the next few weeks, while the TOP lecture series takes a vacation, I'll be running a series of stories from people of various parts of the country and of various ages telling us how and when they became feminists. Read our two new stories below!

—Cheryl Suchors

A Gradual Turning to Feminism I

I read Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex in college and started to realize the emptiness of women's lives, but I think my conversion to feminism has been gradual, reinforced by each brick wall I encounter in the male-dominated world.

First I was relegated to second class status in Oxford, England, identified as "wife of a member of the College" and had to receive special dispensation to play the college pianos. Later, after I had my babies and wanted to go back to job-sharing with my husband, as I had done before, I was told, “Stay home and take care of your children.” Didn’t anyone think they were his children, too?

A real turning point came when my five-year-old daughter announced, "I want to be President when I grow up!" I loved her ambition and naiveté, but I heard myself saying, "That would be great, sweetie. There's never been a woman President before, but it would be great if you became President."

She wondered why no women had been President—and I didn't know what to say. I told her women didn’t get the right to vote until late, that there were very few women in Congress, but the "Why?" really wasn't answered satisfactorily for either of us.

And finally, my good friend Cheryl made me much more aware of the patriarchy infused into our culture at every turning. She introduced me to a women's circle of spirituality that harkened back to the goddess worship of ancient peoples, before religion became so male-centered (God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost). I delighted in the ceremonies celebrating the earth and the Sacred Feminine; the circle of supportive women and elemental chanting and sharing really resonated with me.

As a conductor, I work in a very male-dominated profession, and I strive to change people's biases every day. I am trying hard to become the best conductor I can be, so that I can prove that women can be equally effective conductors as men.

Maybe someday we'll have a woman President and more women conductors, too. I definitely hope so!

—Nancy from the West

A Gradual Turning to Feminism II

I was born in 1950, so my whole teenage experience—which included feminism—took place during the 1960s. I was 13 when the Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan show. Martin Luther King was shot the day before my 18th birthday. I was a sophomore at Oberlin College in Ohio when the student protestors were shot at Kent State. Kent State students whose friends had died cried into microphones at the mass meeting on the Oberlin campus as we voted to strike.

I was still a teenager when women’s liberation hit my world. Feminism was engulfing the entire school. Oberlin had a program called the Experimental College where students could teach mini-courses. I signed up to take a course in women’s lib. I remember that the teacher was an articulate, persuasive petite strawberry blonde named Katie.

When I first arrived at Oberlin, female students were ironing their hair to look like Mary Travers.

Hear and watch Mary singing - on stage with Mama Cass & Joni Mitchell - performing in Mama Cass television program -1969.

By the time I left college it was okay that I and others had naturally curly hair. I remain grateful for that and the many other ways it has become okay for women to be—a list that, thankfully, keeps getting longer.

—KathyD from Massachusetts

What Made Me a Feminist

2009-12-07T10:43:00.079-05:00

—Cheryl Suchors

The Moment I Became A Feminist

For nineteen years I was obedient to my parents’ values and strictures, which were legion, and pretty well-behaved, except for a tendency to whisper in class.

My first career goal was to become a nun. Ideally, I would be posted to Africa and massacred when I reached a ripe old age, say of thirty, like the nun in A Nun’s Story, whereupon the process of canonization would begin. My mother, who had strong views about everything, thought this was a fine idea. My father, who had even stronger views about everything and whose views trumped everyone else’s, thought this was an awful idea, although he was uncharacteristically reticent about his reasoning. He hinted darkly that worse fates awaited nuns in Africa than being hacked to death with machetes, things so dreadful they couldn’t be depicted in the movie or discussed with a six-year-old.

At fourteen, when most of my friends embarked upon their rebellions, I lost my mother to cancer. My father was so sad that for a few years I was extra obedient and well-behaved. My career goal was to get married and have children. And not die on them.

Then, at nineteen, a sophomore in college, I let it rip. I started relatively small, refusing to make my debut and declining my grandmother’s offer of a mink coat; but I built steadily toward complete rejection of all my family’s values. I stopped washing my clothes. I attended family dinners stoned and laughed inappropriately. I dated a gay guy. I protested against the Viet Nam war, in which two of my brothers-in-law fought. When my father, who was the only member of the family still interested in speaking to me, called, I told him I hated him. Usually, I hung up on him immediately afterwards, because he was a brilliant trial lawyer with an infuriating ability to make my best arguments sound foolish, and because if I didn’t hang up, I might cry, which was much worse than sounding foolish.

But sometimes I’d dredge up irrefutable proof of the emotional bankruptcy of my childhood. Like the story of Irma, my black nanny. One day long ago, I related to my father for the first time, I told my mother that I loved Irma. She explained patiently that love was what I felt for Mommy, Daddy, and my sisters and brother; I was fond of Irma, she said, like I was fond of the dog. No, I told her, I loved Irma. The next day, Irma was gone.

How old was I when this allegedly happened, my father wanted to know. How sure was I of the sequence of events? Did anyone tell me Irma’s departure was related to my disclosure? I reminded my father of his membership in the John Birch Society. I reminded him that my mother had savaged my catechism books, cutting out all the pictures of black children holding hands with white children. He said he didn’t believe she had done that. I hung up.

At twenty, in my last semester of college, I flunked out. I was majoring in English and had no career goals. I took “Dimensions in the Absurd,’ one of two graduate-level courses which were requirements for graduation. The professor, Dr. Husband, wore his silver hair in a ponytail and was even cooler than Andy Antippas, who, for his last class in the romantic poets every year, simply read “Ode to a Nightingale,” burst into tears, and ran out of the room (and who was later fired for razoring illustrations out of rare books in the Yale library). (Dr. Husband would later marry one of my classmates, forty years his junior).

In “Dimensions of the Absurd,” we had a real syllabus, real assignments, and real lectures. But we didn’t have to take an exam unless we wanted to. Instead, we could devise a project, anything we chose, and present it to the class. Immediately, my twelve classmates revealed themselves to be the most awesomely talented individuals I had ever encountered. Every week, someone presented a project.

Several students collaborated on a play which they performed to a packed house at the lyric theater. There were epic poems, paintings, short stories, and something thirty minutes long, delivered in speech so rapid I could hardly understand a word, but uttered without notes or pause for breath and phenomenally impressive. I was going to have to take the final exam alone, revealing myself to all the world as the complete no-talent I was. Scoring an A on the test would be no consolation.

And then it came to me. I told Dr. Husband that I would present my project on the last day of class. On the appointed day, I stood at the lectern and explained to the class that we had been talking about the absurd, reading about the absurd, and writing about the absurd. In all of which we had failed to apprehend the true and ineffable essence of the absurd. For my project, I was electing to take an “F” in the course. I would thereby relinquish departmental honors and, indeed, my degree. I felt I was thereby fully embracing the heart of the absurd.

They loved it. I rode on the shoulders of their approbation until my grades came and I had to share the news with my father. I explained my decision to him the same way I’d explained it to my class. “If Dr. Husband loved it so much,” he asked, “why didn’t he give you an ‘A’”?

“You never understand anything I say,” I said, although I confess the possibility had occurred to me. “I think,” my father said, without missing a beat, “that you and your classmates have missed the distinction between the absurd and the preposterous. Also, I think that if this is the education you’re getting at Tulane, I don’t want to pay for any more of it.”

“Fine,” I said, although my fallback position, if I didn’t get the A, had been one more semester of a single graduate-level course, say, the nineteenth century novel, reputed to be a sinecure. All summer, I supported myself by working as a cashier at the Civic Theater, a dive in the Central Business District. I gave every indication of being content to continue on this path for the rest of my life. When I sensed that I’d brought my father to his knees, I revealed Plan B.

Tulane would admit qualifying students to its law school without an undergraduate degree. Even with my F, I told him, I had a pretty good average. I’d taken the LSAT and gotten a pretty good score. I qualified; I’d been accepted. I could begin law school in two weeks. There was only the matter of my tuition.

I thought he’d be delighted at this show of mainstream ambition, my first in several years. He wasn’t. “You can’t be a lawyer,” my father, sometime president of the state bar association, said. “Women don’t have the temperament for it.”

That was the moment when I became a feminist.

And because I was now a feminist, I didn’t cry or hang up. I delivered Plan C. I would join the Peace Corps, then, I told him.

“I forbid it,” he said. “They could send you to Africa.”

I would request an assignment to Africa, I told him, and he couldn’t forbid it, because the next month I would turn twenty-one, and wouldn’t need his permission. I’d checked.

So I became a lawyer, with my father’s blessing, and ultimately, to his delight.

— Margaret from the South

copyrighted material

Misconstrued Once Again

2009-12-01T19:09:00.011-05:00

Since my blog post of November 10, 2009, I’ve been pondering feminism. Even today some young women, when they hear the term “feminist” think: hairy, bra-burning, man-hating, fat, radical, and lesbian.

I know this because these words came up in a recent workshop held at Lesley University right here in liberal Cambridge, MA. The young women involved weren’t even born when such terms were first applied to the Second Wave of feminists, yet these misperceptions live on.

Personally, I’d like to be a bra-burner. I enjoyed the freedom of going to school and work without a bra in the 70s, a freedom that doesn’t seem to exist today.

Two Myths

But there actually were no bra-burners back in the day. You may have read the article by Ariel Levy in the November 16, New Yorker and learned to your surprise, as I did, that no bras were ever burned at the famous protest against the Miss America pageant in the summer of 1968. Not a single one.

Corsets and girdles, along with copies of Playboy and high-heeled shoes, says Levy, were tossed into a trash can. A reporter at the time likened the act to burning draft cards and voila, the two actions were conflated to become, in the media and then the public mind, “bra-burning”, a scary attack on . . . well, something.

Gail Collins, in her book When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, writes that, despite popular belief, “by 1960 there were as many women working as there had been at the peak of WWII, and the vast majority of them were married.”

Huh? Wait a minute. What happened to the Doris Day mother who dressed herself up impeccably as she stayed home tending to the kiddies and the hubby whilst singing in the kitchen? If feminists didn’t burn bra’s and many married women, not just feminists, worked outside the home for the last 50 years, what else have we been led astray on?

The Definition of Feminism

You guessed it: the meaning of feminism. The media can’t seem to think past myth and menace, but the American Heritage Dictionary, that radical tome, has managed to get it right: Feminism: Belief in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes. A “feminist,” according to the Dictionary, is one who believes in feminism.

How could any fair-minded person not subscribe to feminism? How could any fair-minded person, therefore, not, be a feminist?

If you still don’t believe me, here’s another dictionary for you. Cheris Kramerae, author of A Feminist Dictionary, writes: “Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.”

Enough said. Now, will someone please alert the media?

—Cheryl Suchors

FORGET REMAINING CENTERED

2009-11-24T07:12:00.006-05:00

What was my favorite line of Anne Yeoman’s lecture? In response to our topic, “What Kind of Spiritual Core Do We Need to Remain Centered in This Time of Anxiety,” she blew away the notion that anyone could remain centered.

“Forget remaining centered,” she said. “It’s about centering—finding our core, losing it, and coming back.” She likened it to learning to walk. One takes a step or two, loses balance, perhaps falls down; then gets up and takes another step. With centering, the emphasis is on the process, the continuing effort, rather than on the goal of some static state of centeredness.

That was good to hear.

And as to what kind of spiritual core we needed? The one we’ve got, right now, right here. It’s all there for us to lean on, tap into, reach for, deep inside each and every one of us, she said. We didn’t need to go create a core or improve our core. We just needed to connect with it. That was also good to hear.

Connecting to the Core

Esther Scanlan started us off by explaining her daily practice of reaching for the core. Each morning she reads something that inspires her, counts her blessings and, later in the day, to bring her back to center, meditates.

By show of hands, a number of people in the room meditated. A similar large group wrote out their thoughts or feelings into a journal to bring themselves closer to their inner wisdom. Others did yoga. Quite a few wrote down their dreams to see what they could learn from these messages from the unconscious.

For Yeomans, it’s important to take contemplative time first thing after she wakes up. She called this practice “finding myself before the world finds me.” Many in the audience shared her view that they needed to check inside to gain that initial sense of balance before girding themselves for whatever the day might bring.

Spirituality Has a Body

Yeomans believes that our spirituality, that illusive/fragile connection to the core, is not something “otherworldly” that happens out there in the ether. Nor is it something that happens only through the auspices of a specially anointed cleric or prophet. Because we are human, our spiritual connection happens through our bodies and, therefore, we need to recognize it must include our bodies.

She pioneered in the notion that our spirit is embodied by being one of the founders of The Women’s Well, a center offering courses in women’s spirituality. Because our spirit resides within our body, we can access it through those common pathways of bodily understanding—our senses.

Ever wonder why candle light induces a different mood than electric lights? For the same reason that being out in nature—our feet tramping amongst the leaves and stones, our noses growing cold and smelling the piney freshness of hemlock or the chill damp of snow—brings us to a peaceful place within. For the same reason that so many forms of meditation involve following our breath. For the same reason many people rely on music to lead them inward. Once we connect to our bodies we’ve gone a huge way toward connecting with our inner spiritual core.

As we are human, our spirit is necessarily embodied.

Hundreds of Ways to Kiss the Ground

The great news, both speakers noted, is that there’s no right way to get connected to our inner knowing. Besides those practices already mentioned, reading poetry came up. So did self-awareness, the effort to learn our own hot buttons and crazy places, our own hurts and wounds, our typical tendencies, so that we can at least know what we’re feeling or thinking when we’re feeling or thinking it. Self-awareness helps us own our own stuff, a big piece of the atlas within.

Finding like-minded folks—“kindred souls,” Yeomans called them, who give attention to the inner life in ways that are compatible with our own—helps us connect to spirit. One of the first things Yeomans had us do when she came to the podium was a short group meditation noticing our breath. And here’s something lovely: when as a group we meditate we conspire, from the Latin meaning “to breathe together.”

She mentioned the women’s spirituality movement that grounded spirituality in the miracle of the earth and in our bodies, instead of in some great figure in the sky known as “Lord,” “Master,” or even “Father.” In so many organized religions, concepts and words like these exclude or even disparage women and women’s knowing such that women have come together in various places to celebrate what has been left out, the sacred feminine.

Books Yeomans turns to frequently these days to connect with her inner core include: Missing Mary, by Charlene Spretnak; The Language of The Goddess and The Civilization of The Goddess, by Marija Gimbutas; The Great Turning, From Empire to Earth Community, by David Korten; The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan; Any Thing We Love Can Be Saved, by Alice Walker; and Coming Back to Life, Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown.

Lastly, we learned about a contemporary vision quest Yeomans and another woman in the audience had undertaken which, literally, changed their lives. She said if anyone were interested, she knew the women who could lead us on this amazing journey of several days alone in the woods, and they could be reached by contacting The Women’s Well.

She concluded her comments by reminding us of that wonderful line from the poet Rumi that teaches us there are so many ways to arrive at spiritual connection: “There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

—Cheryl Suchors

Gradualism Isn’t Working

2009-11-17T09:19:00.008-05:00

Former Governor Madeleine Kunin shared powerful words on the topic of “Reclaiming the Spirit of Citizenship,” especially when it came to getting more women in public office. Last year she published a book on the subject, Pearls, Politics and Power, to encourage more women to run.

Kunin served not only as the first woman governor of Vermont—elected three times—but also as Deputy Secretary of Education under President Clinton and then US Ambassador

to Switzerland (where she was born, moving here as a little girl to escape the Nazis.) Her experience shows. Not once did she refer to a note during her hour-long talk, yet she remained in command of her subject, on point and riveting.

Had she been native born, she’d have made a great President. I’m sure I’m not the first to say so.

Paltry Gains in Public Office

She’s no longer a fan of “gradualism,” the notion that the percentage of women in the public arena would rise naturally once women broke into the field. It hasn’t happened, despite the Second Wave of Feminism in the 1970s. Kunin noted that the day before the elections last November, women held 16% of elected offices. The day after the “great gains for women,” females accounted for a whopping 17%. Even if we gained a percentage point every year, it would take until 2042 for women office holders to equal our share of the population and until 2044 to hit our percentage of voters.

What About Here in Massachusetts?

So how does the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, that bastion of liberal values, stack up? Our US Senators are men and always have been. Of our 10 current US Congresspeople, one is a woman. That’s 10%, folks.

MA must be better at the state level, you’re thinking?

We’ve never had a woman governor. Currently, only one of the statewide elected executive offices is held by a woman, Attorney General Martha Coakley, and she’s the first woman to hold that office in the 221 years of our history.

We do better in the State House, but we have a ways to go to parity. Of our State Senators, 30% are female and women hold 25% of the State Representative offices. Liberal Massachusetts ranks 18^th among the country’s state legislatures in terms of women elected.

Tied with Montana.

As Kunin pointed out, the neighboring states of New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and Connecticut all do better by women than MA. (Check out the Center for American Women and Politics for other facts.)

How Can Each of Us Improve this Picture?

Hillary Clinton’s campaign brought forward many volunteers who told me, “I’ve never done this before.” Campaign work isn’t hard and the camaraderie amongst volunteers is amazing. I’m still friends with people I got to know during the Presidential primary and expect them to be in my life for a long time to come. (Kim Romano, the videographer doing the documentary of TOP, is one of them.)

If you can’t contribute the time or aren’t physically able to volunteer, give money, however much you’re able. In these days of Internet donations, no contribution is too small because they all add up. Join Emily’s List to help out great women candidates all over the country.

Just as important as these kinds of activism is the kind we can all do: talk to friends, relatives, and acquaintances about our candidates. Wear a button that shows your support. I’ve had wonderful conversations with strangers who come up to me as I’m out walking the dog to ask why I’m for the woman whose button I wear.

Face-to-face discussions change minds and influence votes. Trust me on this one. Governor Kunin’s talk persuaded three women I know to get off the fence and vote for Attorney General Martha Coakley in the race for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat.

Run for Office

If you have the slightest inclination to run for office, read Gov. Kunin’s book, Pearls, Politics and Power. Go to the Barbara Lee Family Foundation website, sign up to be on their email list and get all of the studies they’ve published about how women get the keys to the city, the state and, someday soon I hope, the country. Meet Ms. Lee, an amazing dynamo who raises funds for women candidates. Get in touch with Emily’s List, a national fundraising organization that supports pro-choice Democratic women running for Congress or governor all over the country.

However you choose to do it, feed the flame of citizenship inside you. For your own sake, for other women, and for the country you love.

—Cheryl Suchors

Who's A Feminist Today?

2009-11-10T15:59:00.011-05:00

In her response to the topic “What Is The Evolving Meaning of Feminism?” Jaclyn Friedman told us that she—at 38—bridges the gap between older feminists who say, “Where are the young women? Why aren’t they feminists?” and younger feminists who say, “Why don’t the older women support us?”

There are young feminists out there I’m not supporting? Please tell me where. Many other Second Wavers and I are eager to join forces with them. Friedman said because younger women don’t do feminism the way we of the Second Wave do, we tend not to find them. They’re on the Internet.

So I went to the Internet. I checked out Feministing.com, a place Friedman recommended and that must get a lot of traffic. First thing I looked at was their mission:

Young women are rarely given the opportunity to speak on their own behalf on issues that affect their lives and futures. Feministing provides a platform for us to comment, analyze, influence and connect.

I’m down with that. Sounds a lot like TOP. Except we meet face-to-face on Thursdays rather than connecting mostly on line. Is that the only difference between young feminists and me?

Approach and Images Differ

The first thing I noticed on the website was the logo: black cutouts of women with simplified outlines accentuating breasts, hips and hair that made me think of the trailers for the Charlie’s Angels movie popular with middle-schoolers at the turn of the millennium. The logo also looked like some of the figures cavorting through the title sequence of old James Bond movies. (That’s the second time I’ve referred to Bond in two blogs; is it me or something in the air when the subject of feminism comes up?)

Feministing creators call their logo “the mud-flap girl” and it’s meant to be ironic because she’s raising her middle finger (oops— I interpreted that as an adamant index finger) and they’re taking the image back. I’m more open to this kind of tactic than I once was (see earlier November blog Virgin or What?)

Language Differs

The Feministing site uses contemporary terms—“you guys” and “girls”— referring to women that feel like a poke in the eye to this Second Waver. Along with others, I spent years training colleagues in the business world, friends, relatives and lovers to say and write the radical word “woman” when referring to a female human older than your average high school graduate.

But I also learned a term—cis-gendered—that refers to a group I didn’t know I was in! Cis-gendered people are comfortable in the sexual identity they were born with, unlike trans-gendered folks. (Cis is a Latin prefix used in chemistry for “on the same side” vs. trans which means “on the other side.”)

I applaud this term, despite its initial awkwardness on the tongue. It follows the principle of naming the majority (instead of leaving it as the unspoken norm) as well as the minority, much like “straight” and “gay.”

Evolution Includes Differences and Similarities

Maybe these differences are what my 20 year-old daughter means when, if asked if she's a feminist, she responds, “Yeah, but not like she is,” pointing at her mother. There seem to be looser parameters around language and imagery for younger feminists than the ones we set up for ourselves in the 1960s and 1970s.

It will take more exploring online and more conversations with younger women for me to come to a deeper understanding than this brief reaction to Jaclyn Friedman’s comment about bridging a divide on my behalf. I have some homework to do, and I’m looking forward to it.

I feel great hope for Second Wavers’ ability to work with today’s generation of feminists when I see things like Sarah Jayne’s blog on Feministing. She quotes her friend’s perfect description of feminism:

“…feminism is about waking up and finding yourself in a community, its about having wicked empowered sex, feeling like you can take on any challenge, build real love, and stop feeling like you are the only person who ever thought.... damn, this world needs to change...”

What feminist in her right mind wouldn’t be delighted to subscribe to that world view?

—Cheryl Suchors

Virgin or What?

2009-11-03T08:21:00.011-05:00

When you have a lecture program entitled “Throughout History, Stereotyping Women as Virgin, Witch or Whore” and the TOP Coordinator introduces it by saying today’s version of witch is actually bitch, and whore has become ’ho, you know it’s going to be a no-holds-barred kind of day.

Therese Greenfield, our first speaker, chanted in chilling tones the litany she learned as a child to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, the primary female role model in the Catholic Church: “Mother most pure, Mother most chaste, Mother inviolate, Mother undefiled.”

Virginity is made paramount here, a standard that pits women against their own normal, natural sexuality. Yet no one, at least in the parochial schools I attended, ever asked why virginity was so all-fired important. Of all the characteristics that make for a wonderful friend, daughter, mother, sister, partner, leader, colleague, airplane pilot it certainly wouldn’t appear in my top 1000.

And what about men’s virginity? There’s no chant that encourages boys to be chaste and undefiled. In fact, the very term virgin refers to a female unless somebody’s making a joke, as in the recent movie “Forty Year Old Virgin.” Our culture suggests that male virginity actually has negative value; it’s something boys need to lose to be considered manly. Just the opposite of girls. When girls are no longer virgins, do we appreciate them as more womanly?

“Virgin or what?” Young Therese, like many girls raised in traditional religions, wondered what the alternative was. A girl was presented with an all-or-nothing proposition, as if she were a coin with two opposing sides and no choices in between.

Whores and ’Ho’s

The other side of the coin being something very bad, the Bible’s other Mary, the Magdalene instead of the Virgin Mother.

“It’s the oldest profession,” people say with a smile. Personally, I’ve never understood this. Wouldn’t hunting or fishing have come earlier? I mean, really. How about farmer or fruit picker? Maybe when people talk about the oldest profession, they only mean for women.

Okay, I can go with that. I repeat, shepherd, farmer, fruit picker.

Or how about mother? Wouldn’t that have to be the absolutely oldest profession? Or doesn’t child rearing count as a job?

But back to whores. Or ’ho’s, as so many girls and women are called in rap music and high schools and, probably by now, middle schools too. A girl seems to be a ‘ho if she talks too much to your boyfriend, or even a boy who isn’t your boyfriend but you have your eye on. So if she’s a whore with your guy but no money has changed hands, does that mean any girl with a boy is a ’ho —even, perhaps, you?

No, that can’t be right. Let’s try that again.

She’s a ‘ho because she’s stealing something, a boy, that belongs to you. You don’t call her a thief because sex is involved somehow and besides, you really want to disparage her because she’s got or might get your guy. (Apparently, this boy is stupid and powerless enough he can be taken. Otherwise we’d blame him. Wouldn’t we?)

’Ho is, admittedly, much more insulting than thief. A thief, after all, could be a boy, or even a man.

From the male perspective, a female is a ’ho if she rejects his advances, prefers another guy, or whenever she leaves him or does anything else he doesn’t like. Almost as if someone must have paid her not to want him or to obey his wishes. Is that where the prostitute part comes in?

W.I.T.C.H.E.S.

Kate Clifford Larsen, our second speaker and author of Bound For The Promised Land, made it clear that throughout history, women who rebelled or couldn’t be suppressed—or who inspired jealousy for whatever reason—were labeled witches. They were brought to trial and, often, murdered.

When I got home after the lectures, I went straight to one of the most rebellious texts I know, Mary Daly’s Wickedary, a send-up of Webster’s written with Jane Caputi. The book defines words from a female-centered perspective, reclaiming labels meant to dishonor and put down. Witch reverts to it’s original meaning of a strong, knowledgeable woman, to which the authors add: “an Elemental Soothsayer; one who is in harmony with the rhythms of the universe: Wise Woman, Healer,” and more.

In the 1970s and 1980s some feminists even adopted the acronym “W.I.T.C.H” for their organizations. One group called themselves Wild Independent Thinking Crones and Hags. Now there’s a group I’d like to be part of!

Hold up.

I already am part of a group like that.

According to Wickedary, a hag is a woman who sees through the oppressions of patriarchy, exposes fools and calls women into the wild, bountiful land outside patriarchal thinking. Crones are those who have survived the “perpetual witchcraze of patriarchy”, women who’ve discovered their own depths of courage, strength and wisdom, the highest order of hags.

If that isn’t TOP all over.

From Rogue to Bond

When Kate announced we women collude in stereotyping other women, I felt the tension rise in the room. What woman here, she asked, had never called another female a bitch, for example?

Men don’t seem to do this to each other. She took us back to colonial times when men who had sex outside of marriage were labeled rogues, a term of scorn and dishonor. But the label didn’t stick.

My guess is men didn’t use the term on each other enough. As early as 1750, it was no longer such a bad thing for men to enjoy sex outside of marriage, though of course it remained so for women. Today, though a whore is still a whore, a rogue may be kind of an interesting guy, even a sexy-looking, all-powerful James Bond.

How does this happen throughout history, with words and values and stereotypes? I think derisive labels and attitudes stick to women more than men because:

· People in power do the naming

· Naming adds to power

· People who feel powerful refuse to be shamed

· People without power get named, blamed and shamed

Will Women Choose to Name Themselves?

How can women grasp the power to name themselves? Wickedary offers us one way to take back old, venerable terms that have been co-opted. The authors create empowering new meanings for modern-day insults.

Is that the way to go?

My friend Lyn claims the label bitch proudly. “It stands for Beautiful, Intelligent, Talented, Creative Human,” she says. Maybe she is right. Maybe that’s how demeaning terms slide off men like so many raindrops; they refuse to be made to feel less-than. Fine, they say, call me a rogue. I’ll go you one better: I’ll be a rogue.

Hmm. Maybe the next time I’m called a bitch, I’ll thank the person and tell him/her why. Dare I pass the compliment on to other women after so many years of refusing to say the b-word? But imagine if we women called ourselves—laughingly, lovingly, proudly—bitches and witches, whores and ’ho’s and whatever other derogatory terms have been invented for us. Wouldn’t we defuse any attempts to demean, shame and control us?

Or, if that approach doesn’t appeal, what if we created positive terms for strong women and sexy women, smart women and courageous women—and never used those names for men, but just flooded the language with wonderful words for everyday women?

Whatever women choose to do to slough off denigrating labels and the attitudes behind them that hurt real women, whether we laugh at insulting terms or invent words that affirm women or use both approaches at once—let’s do it together.

—Cheryl Suchors

Hostility Holds Up Women & Progress

2009-10-27T18:21:00.016-04:00

Concrete Ceiling

Susan Eisenberg, master electrician, author of We’ll Call You If We Need You, talked Thursday about the hazards she and other women faced in the construction trades from men who wanted them off the job: explicit sexual graffiti, stolen tools, not being assigned to jobs, being thrown down staircases, shoved or even raped. Eisenberg was taken off a job for her own safety after she protested against a party that would bring a stripper to the site.

She eventually quit because she couldn’t keep paying the price to do the job she’d trained so hard to do. The trauma continues; she’s blocked out some of the abuses she endured because they’re so painful to remember.
No wonder that, despite the fact that women comprise nearly half the U.S. workforce, only 3% of construction workers are female. They can’t break through the concrete ceiling to make it out of the basement.
Glass Ceiling

These figures from the blue collar world sounded eerily familiar. In the white collar world of large accounting and consulting firms where I worked in the first half of the 1990s, roughly 3% of the partners, the people at the top, were women. And yes, you guessed it. Close to 50% of entry level hires were women and had been for over a decade. Women had made it up from the basement to equal employment at the lowest levels, but the higher echelons remained hidden behind cigar smoke.

I joined a team of facilitators who trained partners and managers of one of these large firms to look at what created the glass ceiling. I’ll never forget one man, a partner in charge of an office, who’d been through our workshop twice. He said he finally understood that women rarely succeeded in the firm because “the environment was corrosive to them.”

Whether the form of corrosion hurts a woman’s body, her psyche or her chances to manage the big accounts, it still eats away at her. Eventually, she leaves.

What It Takes To Drill Through

In the 15 years since that accounting firm with thousands of accountants, lawyers and consultants began their Women’s Initiative, they’ve increased their percentage of women partners to nearly 20%. Top management committed to concrete, consistent actions to change the culture that held women back.

They hired outside experts to train management from the top down. They changed performance reviews and created specific mentoring systems to make sure women were, unlike most of Eisenberg’s electricians, apprenticed to experts. They made sure the men who took colleagues and clients to strip joints were stopped.

It took years, money and hard calls when the backlash against all the attention paid to women turned some men more obviously hostile. The other big firms, to stay competitive, have tagged along and the industry’s clients, as well as women, have benefited.

What will it take for one trade, perhaps electricians, to realize they’re hurting themselves by shutting the door in women’s faces? How can they do the best job or progress toward the future when half the population is excluded from the talent pool? What union will be farseeing, ethical and strong enough to level the playing field for women?

These are important questions for the construction industry now scheduled to receive major infusions of stimulus money. I wonder—why not tie the funds to cleaning up the toxic environment for women in the trades?

—Cheryl Suchors

Introduction

2009-10-25T23:55:00.008-04:00

Welcome to TOP's brand new blog!

Cheryl Suchors is now taking on the task of writing a blog on the topic of the week, starting with how we might respond to bullying. This will be followed by postings on the stereotyping of women and the evolving meaning of feminism. We look forward to hearing what she has to say. We are hoping to stimulate a lively discussion around these issues and that the blog will provide a forum for the women of TOP and the wider community. So if you want to add your two bits to what Cheryl has said please post your comments and add your voices to the dialogue.

Susan Nulsen