"If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." said Todd Akin, a republican congressman from Missouri.
This is an affront on so many levels, I don't know where to begin.
If a woman gets pregnant as a result of rape, it's not legitimate? She must have wanted it? Are we really still having that argument?
Don't get me wrong: I am not pro-abortion nor would I even go so far as pro-choice. I believe as women, we've lost our way with this fight, that we should be at the forefront of protecting life. That the most powerful thing we can do is say that people, no matter how old or young, big or small, matter.
But when ignorant people who truly believe what they are saying come up with ludicrous statements like if the rape is "legitimate" the woman won't get pregnant, it's easy to see that the fight is not over. That we haven't come far enough. That the people in power who make the rules want to keep their power by keeping others down.
It shakes me out of whatever complacency may have been left and makes me want to stand up and shout. I hate that so much of the feminist movement has been tied up in abortion rights, but I understand where the fight comes from. It comes from men saying, if you had really been raped, you wouldn't have gotten pregnant.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Wall of Men
I started reading The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd yesterday and have hardly been able to put it down. Thoughts are swirling in my head. I feel like this book has given me permission to verbalize what I have been viewing as a crisis of faith since losing Phoebe and Ronan but what I am now starting to view as a violent awakening, one in which I can no longer ignore the uncomfortable things I had been wont to do.
Two things keep popping up in my head, a vision and a thought. The vision is this: The first church I attended where I felt like a grown up, when M and I had moved to Alaska. We attended the church because WE picked it, not because it was where our parents went. Having attended Pentecostal style, non-denominational churches for years, I was familiar with the "call to the altar" at the end of each service. A time set aside for people to come forward and request prayer. However, this was the first time in my experience that the pray-ers were all men. The words that came to my mind were "you have to go through a wall of men to get to God." I expressed my concern to one of the ministers, who I had come to know somewhat well through attending his small group. "It doesn't bother me," I said (although obviously it did or I would not have brought it up), "but what if a woman is in an abusive relationship or has been a victim of sexual abuse or had a dysfunctional relationship with her father? She might not be comfortable seeking help from a man, and we should be sensitive to that." I even used the analogy that had formed in my mind, of the wall of men between you and God. The answer was as one might expect, that those are the elders and that's how we do it, and if someone asked to have a woman present of course there were some available and they had a prayer room where they could go for privacy. I liked and respected this man and accepted his answer even while I knew in my heart that this system was not okay. I should not have let him so easily dismiss half of the congregation's population.
The thought is this: that my most important role is Self. Too much of my life, my identity, has been defined by my relationship to other people: sister, wife, daughter, friend, stepmom, grieving mom. But I think it is only as I bring my Self to those relationships that they can have value. I wonder if that is why I am only ever truly at peace when I am by myself. I don't feel the need to accomodate someone else, subvert my desires, opinions and needs and give more value to theirs.
As I read The Dance, I was distracted by a commercial on TV. A woman is using a new kind of mop that cleans so quickly, she actually has time to indulge herself by drinking a cup of coffe on the deck. I know it's the image that women's work is never done and that alone might not have struck me. What did strike me was the next image, where she takes her coffee out to the deck where a man, her husband presumably, is already blissfully relaxing, unconcerned with any housecleaning that might need to be done. clearly, it's not his job. As I thought about this, I aksed my Self if one somehwat tongue-in-cheek commercial could really be that harmful and found my Self answering "How can it not?" It is the Dick and Jane books and Leave It to Beaver all over again. The institutional reinforcement of the idea that women are responsible for housework and men should not be disturbed. Is this what we want our daughters and sons to think it the norm, how we want the next generation to continue in this unequal, unjust pattern of patriarchy? No.
I don't feel like I have even yet started on this journey. It's more like someone has held a beautiful Easter egg up to my eye, one in which you peer through the tiny hole only to discover a whole beautiful new world inside.
I think the most important image in all this is that of a journey. There is not a spiritual destination. I fully expect flat tires and quicksand and all manner of distractions, roadblocks and detours along the way. I may be more in the "packing" phase, gathering information and roadmaps and truths I will need to navigate this journey. I don't know what this journey will bring but I do know that I cannot remain forever where I am. And I am grateful to have been shown the world beyond the tiny hole in the Easter egg.
Two things keep popping up in my head, a vision and a thought. The vision is this: The first church I attended where I felt like a grown up, when M and I had moved to Alaska. We attended the church because WE picked it, not because it was where our parents went. Having attended Pentecostal style, non-denominational churches for years, I was familiar with the "call to the altar" at the end of each service. A time set aside for people to come forward and request prayer. However, this was the first time in my experience that the pray-ers were all men. The words that came to my mind were "you have to go through a wall of men to get to God." I expressed my concern to one of the ministers, who I had come to know somewhat well through attending his small group. "It doesn't bother me," I said (although obviously it did or I would not have brought it up), "but what if a woman is in an abusive relationship or has been a victim of sexual abuse or had a dysfunctional relationship with her father? She might not be comfortable seeking help from a man, and we should be sensitive to that." I even used the analogy that had formed in my mind, of the wall of men between you and God. The answer was as one might expect, that those are the elders and that's how we do it, and if someone asked to have a woman present of course there were some available and they had a prayer room where they could go for privacy. I liked and respected this man and accepted his answer even while I knew in my heart that this system was not okay. I should not have let him so easily dismiss half of the congregation's population.
The thought is this: that my most important role is Self. Too much of my life, my identity, has been defined by my relationship to other people: sister, wife, daughter, friend, stepmom, grieving mom. But I think it is only as I bring my Self to those relationships that they can have value. I wonder if that is why I am only ever truly at peace when I am by myself. I don't feel the need to accomodate someone else, subvert my desires, opinions and needs and give more value to theirs.
As I read The Dance, I was distracted by a commercial on TV. A woman is using a new kind of mop that cleans so quickly, she actually has time to indulge herself by drinking a cup of coffe on the deck. I know it's the image that women's work is never done and that alone might not have struck me. What did strike me was the next image, where she takes her coffee out to the deck where a man, her husband presumably, is already blissfully relaxing, unconcerned with any housecleaning that might need to be done. clearly, it's not his job. As I thought about this, I aksed my Self if one somehwat tongue-in-cheek commercial could really be that harmful and found my Self answering "How can it not?" It is the Dick and Jane books and Leave It to Beaver all over again. The institutional reinforcement of the idea that women are responsible for housework and men should not be disturbed. Is this what we want our daughters and sons to think it the norm, how we want the next generation to continue in this unequal, unjust pattern of patriarchy? No.
I don't feel like I have even yet started on this journey. It's more like someone has held a beautiful Easter egg up to my eye, one in which you peer through the tiny hole only to discover a whole beautiful new world inside.
I think the most important image in all this is that of a journey. There is not a spiritual destination. I fully expect flat tires and quicksand and all manner of distractions, roadblocks and detours along the way. I may be more in the "packing" phase, gathering information and roadmaps and truths I will need to navigate this journey. I don't know what this journey will bring but I do know that I cannot remain forever where I am. And I am grateful to have been shown the world beyond the tiny hole in the Easter egg.
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